All posts tagged: bots

Wendy’s customers bitter over ‘garbage’ decision to employ AI bots — but some are relieved

Wendy’s customers bitter over ‘garbage’ decision to employ AI bots — but some are relieved

Published by skeptic

Sign up to IndyEat’s free newsletter for weekly recipes, foodie features and cookbook releases Get our food and drink newsletter for free Get our food and drink newsletter for free Wendy’s is employing AI bots at its drive-thrus — and customers have mixed feelings about it. The CEO of Wendy’s, Kirk Tanner, discussed the company’s move to use AI to take drive-thru orders during an earnings call last Thursday. According to Tanner, there are 100 U.S. Wendy’s restaurants, including the flagship one in Columbus, Ohio, that are using AI at the drive-thrus, and he’s “really liking the results.” Tanner explained that the AI order taker — dubbed FreshAI — will continue to expand, with 500 to 600 restaurants expected to have the system by the end of 2025. Nationwide, Wendy’s has more than 6,700 restaurants. During the call, Tanner said he’s tested the AI system himself nearly four times a week, and the experience is “exceptional.” He said the one thing he could share about the drive-thru add-on is that it is enhancing sales. “It …

AI-generated optical illusions can sort humans from bots

AI-generated optical illusions can sort humans from bots

Published by skeptic

An AI-generated image of a city skyline and a man’s face – but AIs are unable to see both Ziqi Ding et al. (2025) Artificial intelligence programs can create optical illusions that other AIs are unable to recognise, creating a useful CAPTCHA test to differentiate humans from bots. A cat-and-mouse game has played out for almost two decades between website developers who want to keep bots out of their sites and the hackers who want to bypass those protections. Websites have long deployed tests that are designed to be easy for humans to pass, but that trip up software. Source link

A Book App Used AI to ‘Roast’ Its Users. It Went Anti-Woke Instead

A Book App Used AI to ‘Roast’ Its Users. It Went Anti-Woke Instead

Published by skeptic

Fable, a popular social media app that describes itself as a haven for “bookworms and bingewatchers,” created an AI-powered end-of-year summary feature recapping what books users read in 2024. It was meant to be playful and fun, but some of the recaps took on an oddly combative tone. Writer Danny Groves’ summary for example, asked if he’s “ever in the mood for a straight, cis white man’s perspective” after labeling him a “diversity devotee.” Books influencer Tiana Trammell’s summary, meanwhile, ended with the following advice: “Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?” A reader summary as shown on the 2024 stats page from the Fable app. Courtesy of Tiana Trammell Trammell was flabbergasted, and she soon realized she wasn’t alone after sharing her experience with Fable’s summaries on Threads. “I received multiple messages,” she says, from people whose summaries had inappropriately commented on “disability and sexual orientation.” Ever since the debut of Spotify Wrapped, annual recap features have become ubiquitous across the internet, providing users a rundown of how many books and …

Character.AI Promises Changes After Revelations of Pedophile and Suicide Bots on Its Service

Character.AI Promises Changes After Revelations of Pedophile and Suicide Bots on Its Service

Published by José

The AI chatbot platform Character.AI issued a new “roadmap” yesterday promising a safer user experience — particularly for its younger users — following mounting revelations over troubling holes in the multibillion-dollar AI startup’s safety guardrails and content moderation enforcement. The roadmap marks the second Character.AI safety update to be issued in less than a month. The first one, published in October, was issued in the wake of a lawsuit filed against Character.AI alleging that one of the platform’s bots had played a role in the tragic suicide of a 14-year-old user. The latest update follows multiple Futurism stories showing that Character.AI has allowed users to create a range of disturbing chatbots that violate the company’s own terms of service, including suicide-themed chatbots openly inviting users to discuss suicidal ideation and pedophile characters that engage users in child sexual abuse roleplay. In the latest update, titled “The Next Chapter,” Character.AI — which received a $2.7 billion cash infusion from Google this past August — offers more details on previously vague promises to strengthen guardrails for users under …

Engineer Explains Why AI Bots Always Lean Left

Engineer Explains Why AI Bots Always Lean Left

Published by skeptic

(This article by Karl D. Stephan originally appeared at Engineering Ethics Blog (September 9, 2024) under the title “The politics of ChatGPT,” and is reprinted with permission.) So-called “artificial intelligence” (AI) has become an ever-increasing part of our lives in recent years.  After public-use forms of it such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT were made available, millions of people have used it for everything from writing legal briefs to developing computer programs.  Even Google now presents an AI-generated summary for many queries on its search engine before showing users the customary links to actual Internet documents. Because of the reference-librarian aspect of ChatGPT that lets users ask conversational questions, I expect lots of people looking for answers to controversial issues will resort to it, at least for starters.  Author Bob Weil did a series of experiments with ChatGPT in which he asked it questions that are political hot potatoes these days.  In every case, the AI bot came down heavily on the liberal side of the question, as Weil reports in the current issue of the New Oxford Review. Weasel words on …

From beef noodles to bots: Taiwan’s factcheckers on fighting Chinese disinformation and ‘unstoppable’ AI | Taiwan

From beef noodles to bots: Taiwan’s factcheckers on fighting Chinese disinformation and ‘unstoppable’ AI | Taiwan

Published by skeptic

Charles Yeh’s battle with disinformation in Taiwan began with a bowl of beef noodles. Nine years ago, the Taiwanese engineer was at a restaurant with his family when his mother-in-law started picking the green onions out of her food. Asked what she was doing, she explained that onions can harm your liver. She knew this, she said, because she had received text messages telling her so. Yeh was puzzled by this. His family had always happily eaten green onions. So he decided to set the record straight. He put the truth in a blog post and circulated it among family and friends through the messaging app Line. They shared it more broadly, and soon he received requests from strangers asking to be connected to his personal Line account. “There wasn’t much of a factchecking concept in Taiwan then, but I realised there was a demand. I could also help resolve people’s problems,” Yeh said. So he continued, and in 2015 launched the website MyGoPen, which means, “don’t be fooled again” in Taiwanese. Within two years, …

Skillz CEO says company isn’t done fighting bots in mobile gaming

Skillz CEO says company isn’t done fighting bots in mobile gaming

Published by skeptic

Join gaming leaders live this May 20-21 in Los Angeles to examine the strategies needed to adapt and excel in an ever evolving landscape, featuring insights from leading voices and thought leaders in the industry. Register here. Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise spoke in the company’s earnings call about the company’s recent lawsuit against AviaGames, and the alleged “willful pattern of deceit” on the part of its executives to use bots to defraud players. According to Paradise, Skillz received $50 million from AviaGames as part of a settlement agreement that totals around $80 million. But the company is far from done, adding that AviaGames is not the only company out there using bots to defraud customers. At the conclusion of Skillz’s patent infringement lawsuit against AviaGames, the jury awarded the former almost $43 million. However, Paradise says Skillz and Big Run Studios entered into the settlement agreement with AviaGames afterwards. Starting next year, Skillz receives $7.5 million in licensing royalty payments for four years annually. However, Paradise said that $80 million is a “drop in the …

SportSG to launch new booking platform to combat bots, multiple accounts

SportSG to launch new booking platform to combat bots, multiple accounts

Published by skeptic

My ActiveSG+ The refreshed platform, My ActiveSG+, is part of SportSG’s continued efforts to ensure easy and fair access to the booking of public sport facilities and programmes, the statutory board said in a media release on Friday (May 3). It will also cater to the changing habits and demands of members, SportSG added.  MyActiveSG+ will contain features developed off feedback from users of SportSG’s membership management system as well as the recently piloted ActiveSG Beta.  The latter was introduced in March as a trial version of the upcoming booking system. The trial will end on Jun 14.   MyActiveSG+ will be launched on Jun 15. SINGAPASS AND BALLOTS  Users of MyActiveSG+ will be required to sign up and login with their Singpass to prevent people from holding multiple accounts or using bots for booking facilities and programmes.  A balloting feature for booking peak hour slots will also be available.  This will “allow everyone to have a fair chance of booking their preferred slot, with ample time for consideration, and without having to worry about missing …

how AI-powered bots work and how you can protect yourself from their influence

how AI-powered bots work and how you can protect yourself from their influence

Published by skeptic

Social media platforms have become more than mere tools for communication. They’ve evolved into bustling arenas where truth and falsehood collide. Among these platforms, X stands out as a prominent battleground. It’s a place where disinformation campaigns thrive, perpetuated by armies of AI-powered bots programmed to sway public opinion and manipulate narratives. AI-powered bots are automated accounts that are designed to mimic human behaviour. Bots on social media, chat platforms and conversational AI are integral to modern life. They are needed to make AI applications run effectively, for example. But some bots are crafted with malicious intent. Shockingly, bots constitute a significant portion of X’s user base. In 2017 it was estimated that there were approximately 23 million social bots accounting for 8.5% of total users. More than two-thirds of tweets originated from these automated accounts, amplifying the reach of disinformation and muddying the waters of public discourse. How bots work Social influence is now a commodity that can be acquired by purchasing bots. Companies sell fake followers to artificially boost the popularity of accounts. …

Bots investment drives record growth for UK manufacturer Contracts Engineering | City & Business | Finance

Bots investment drives record growth for UK manufacturer Contracts Engineering | City & Business | Finance

Published by skeptic

Productivity is no puzzle for sheet metal and fabrication specialist Contracts Engineering Ltd (CEL) whose highly skilled workforce backed by robots is firing on all cylinders achieving record outputs. Asset finance for the automation has come from NatWest Group’s Lombard and underpins the high volume and growth capabilities of the manufacturer in Sittingbourne, Kent. Supplying original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and Tier 1 (top level) companies with a factory or assembly plant in the UK is its prime focus. Via those clients CEL’s products are shipped to Europe, the Middle East and north America, servicing a wide range of markets from heavy lifting equipment, defence and aerospace to industrial machines, commercial furniture and refrigeration. “Our team and operations are built around investing in them and modern technologies to make us as productive as possible, providing well managed, efficient production runs, a clear strategy so we are all aligned and seamlessly integrating into clients’ supply chains,” says chief executive Troy Barratt, whose experience covers investment banking and private equity. “Our vision is to bring more manufacturing back …