Tag: Social media

China’s Free A.I. Models Are Thrown Into Uncertainty

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When the Chinese start-up Moonshot AI in July released Kimi K3, an artificial intelligence model that rivaled some of the best systems made by American companies, it was free for anyone to download. By making advanced A.I. models easily available, Chinese companies have turned open access into one of China’s most powerful advantages in its rivalry with the United States to shape the future of the technology. Now Beijing is moving to tighten its grip on the global spread of the country’s top-tier A.I., proposing rules that could give the…

‘Super app’ aimed at UK students uses servers owned by Chinese firm on US blacklist

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A new messaging and payment “super app” marketed at British students uses servers owned by a Chinese company that has been put on a US military blacklist for its alleged affiliation to the People’s Liberation Army. ZyMix, which is being pushed on university campuses as the UK’s first super app designed “for gen Z”, combining chat, payments and community features, has a contract with a German-based subsidiary of Tencent Holdings, a Chinese conglomerate in Shenzhen. Tencent Holdings was added in January 2026 to the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) list…

Economic Strain Is Pitting China’s People Against One Another

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For years, the mood in China has been darkening. A weakening economy has left many disillusioned, a state of mind expressed privately and across the heavily controlled internet in lowered expectations and quiet anxiety. Some of that may now be surfacing in more troubling ways. In March, a man drove a heavy construction vehicle through an outdoor market in a Beijing suburb, reportedly killing several people. In June, a small aircraft crashed into a prominent office building in the capital, killing the pilot and injuring 13 others in what may…

What Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Argued in His Call for AI Slowdown

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Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, published a 3,800-word open letter on Saturday calling for a slowdown in the development of A.I. The essay prompted other A.I. leaders, including Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI; Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive; and Demis Hassabis, the chair of Google DeepMind, to speak out in agreement. Here are the key arguments that Mr. Amodei made in his essay: Why A.I. Needs to Slow Down Mr. Amodei said two recent developments convinced him that simply investing in A.I.…

The Fake Influencers Selling Wellness on Your Feed

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“This is what we look like on Day 1 of taking beetroot every day. This is Day 50.” They look like the kind of wellness influencers you see every day on social media. “This is Day 77, girl.” But none of them are real. They are A.I.- generated and designed to sell health supplements on social media. The Times reviewed hundreds of these ads to understand how A.I. video tools are helping a loosely regulated industry target American consumers and profit off of disinformation about their health. “They’re targeting us…

The Guardian view on perceptions of superpowers: the world isn’t Chinamaxxing, it’s America-avoidant | Editorial

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Startling new research shows that in many countries – including old US allies – the public prefers Beijing to Washington Earlier this year, a spate of western TikTok and Instagram creators announced that they were at “a very Chinese time in my life” – drinking hot water and wearing slippers around their homes. The Chinamaxxing phenomenon primarily reflected the constant need of influencers for novel content. But social media trends also reflect a growing fascination with China, as the economic historian Adam Tooze has noted. While it broods over China’s…

China, Russia and Others Seek to Inflame Debate Over A.I. Data Centers

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A state-owned newspaper in China recently published a satellite image of a data center in Gainesville, Va., writing in English that the development of artificial intelligence posed a threat to Americans’ physical and financial well-being. A comic strip made to look as if it had been published by a Maryland news outlet — created with OpenAI’s ChatGPT by people in China, the tech company said — circulated on X this year, blaming data centers for soaring electricity bills. It showed a tycoon smoking a cigar and clutching bags of cash.…

Why the U.S. Could Beat China

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And there’s been a new phenomenon in the U.S. called Chinamaxxing. Have you heard of this, Natasha? No, what is Chinamaxxing? Chinamaxxing is mostly a social media phantasm, but a lot of people have been looking at these videos of the skyline of Shanghai or the skyline of Chongqing, which is really amazing. There’s these drone shows out there, and people are feeling like, “Oh, you’re meeting me at a very Chinese time of my life.” You’re drinking tea more. You’re wearing slippers inside the house. People are playing mahjong…

Videos Show Chinese Businesses Hawking North Korean Labor

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Quick deliveries of large orders for stuffed toys, fake eyelashes and crocheted bags that are made with cheap labor, including some workers who are on the job for 16 hours straight. This is the pitch some Chinese businesses are making on social media to potential customers. But the products they are selling are made in North Korea, like in this video of a wig factory. In the posts, which have proliferated in recent years, some Chinese entrepreneurs say that they own factories in North Korea and openly share contact information,…