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Elon Musk Begins Purging Twitter of Up to 3500 Employees

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X Elon Musk Begins Purging Twitter of Up to 3500 Employees

Billionaire Elon Musk began purging Twitter of its abundance of managers and woke employees on Friday. 

Elon Musk’s overhaul of Twitter has sparked condemnation from leftist progressives and Democrats who say they are worried over the platform’s ability to combat disinformation just days before the US midterm elections.

Musk’s purge of Twitter has led to legal action from the left. At least one lawsuit was filed in San Francisco on Thursday, saying that Twitter violated federal law by failing to provide needed notice to sacked employees.

Musk informed employees through email that they would find out if they had been laid off on Friday. 

His email did not specify how many approximately 7,500 employees would be let go.

Musk did neither confirm nor correct investor Ron Baron, who asked how much money he would save if he “fired half of Twitter” at a conference in New York on Friday.

Musk responded by discussing Twitter’s cost and income issues, blaming activists within Twitter who persuaded large corporations to stop advertising on the platform. 

Twitter, elon musk

Musk hasn’t said anything about the Twitter layoffs.

Activist groups, including employees, have been successful in causing a decline in Twitter advertising revenue. We’ve done everything we can to please them, but nothing has worked,” Musk said. 

He went on to say that the decline in advertising was expected as many of the advertisers were aligned with EGS, Environmental, social, and corporate governance.

When activist employees lost access to their work accounts hours earlier, they realized they would soon be fired. 

These employees and others took to the platform using the hashtag #OneTeam to send messages of solidarity. 

The memo to employees stated that job cuts were “essential to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

No other social media network comes close to Twitter in terms of keeping people informed by public agencies and other key service providers – electoral boards, police departments, utilities, schools, and news sources. 

Before Musk’s takeover of Twitter, conservatives accused the social media site of being biased against conservative viewpoints.  They were excited by the idea of fair moderation under Musk, who has previously criticized Twitter’s leftist moderation.

Republican, Senator Marsha Blackburn, stated on Friday, “I am hopeful that Elon Musk will assist in reining in Big Tech’s history of silencing users who have a different viewpoint than the left.”

Twitter, elon musk

The purge of Spam Bots

Musk has stated that Twitter’s mechanism for ranking tweets should be made public, and he has highlighted user-friendly changes to the service, such as the addition of an edit button and the defeat of “spam bots” that send massive numbers of undesired tweets.

“Free expression is the foundation of a functional democracy,” he stated Monday. “I hope that even my harshest detractors remain on Twitter since that is what free expression entails,” he added.

However, many on the left fear Musk’s layoffs will devastate the social media platform and worry about the possible rise of abuse on the platform. Despite Musk’s saying Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” under his leadership.

Several employees who tweeted about their job losses claimed that Twitter also eliminated their entire teams, including one devoted to human rights and global conflicts. 

Another group for testing Twitter’s algorithms for bias in how tweets are amplified and an engineering team dedicated to making the social platform more accessible to people with disabilities.

Eddie Perez, a former Twitter civic integrity team manager who resigned in September, expressed concern that the layoffs close to the midterm elections could allow disinformation to “spread like wildfire” during the post-election vote-counting phase in particular.

“I have a hard time believing that doesn’t have a meaningful influence on their capacity to handle the quantity of disinformation out there,” he said, adding that there may not be enough personnel to combat it.

Elon Musk, Twitter

Progressive Attack Musk and Twitter

According to Perez, a board member of the nonpartisan election integrity NGO OSET Institute, the post-election period is especially dangerous because “some candidates may refuse to concede and some may cite election anomalies, which is likely to start a fresh cycle of falsehoods.”

However, a Twitter insider says Perez’s concerns are somewhat overinflated, and his comments are stereotypical of the progressive activism that permeated the social media platform.

Since Musk took over as CEO, Twitter staff have been anticipating layoffs. On his first day as owner, he sacked key executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and removed the company’s board of directors.

As the emails went out, many Twitter employees rushed to the site to voice their support for one another, typically just tweeting blue heart emojis to represent the company’s blue bird logo and salute emojis in answer to one another.

Meanwhile, a coalition of progressive civil rights organizations say the broad layoffs will threaten content moderation standards, and they have increased their requests for corporations to suspend advertising purchases on the site. 

This claim has, however, been disputed by Musk supporters saying the progressive left is more worried about their voices being moderated as the platform is being purged of cancel culture activists.

Cancel Culture Activism Surges

The cancel culture activists have said Musk’s layoffs are especially perilous in the run-up to the elections, as well as for transgender people and other groups facing violence spurred by hate speech that circulates online.

Free Press and Color of Change leaders claimed they spoke with Musk on Tuesday, and he committed to keeping and implementing existing election integrity procedures.  According to Jessica González, co-CEO of Free Press, the enormous layoffs suggest otherwise.

González disputed Musk’s claim that content moderation procedures had not changed since his takeover, claiming that the organization was already “dangerously under-resourced.”

“When you purportedly lay off 50% of your workforce — including teams in charge of tracking, monitoring, and enforcing content moderation and guidelines — it essentially suggests that content moderation has changed,” González explained.

Media Bias Fact Check rates Free Press.Org as Far-Left biased based on editorial positions that align with the progressive left. 

They also rate them mostly factual in reporting due to one-sided reporting that does not always offer a counter perspective.

twitter, elon musk

Employee Lawsuits and Income Losses

Meanwhile, a California’s Employment Development Department representative stated that Twitter had provided no public notice of the impending layoffs as of Friday. 

On Thursday, a complaint was filed in US federal court in San Francisco by one laid-off employee and 3 other employees who were locked out of their work accounts. 

The cutbacks come at a difficult time for social media businesses, as advertisers cut back and newcomers — primarily TikTok — threaten established platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Musk blamed cancel culture activists in a Friday post for a “huge loss in income” since taking over Twitter late last week.  He did not specify how much revenue had been lost.

Large corporations that have bought into ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), such as General Motors, REI, General Mills, and Audi, have all paused advertising on Twitter owing to concerns about how it would run under Musk. 

Volkswagen Group has advised its brands, Audi, Lamborghini, and Porsche, to halt sponsored operations until Twitter updates its brand safety standards.

Musk did tell advertisers last week that Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape,” but many are anxious about whether content monitoring will remain strict and whether sticking to Twitter will degrade their brands.

Musk stated Friday that “nothing has changed with content control.”

Degrading their brand means corporations fear reprisals from woke social media activists who will target their shareholders like they have targeted Musk and Twitter.

 

Geoff Thomas is a seasoned staff writer at VORNews, a reputable online publication. With his sharp writing skills and deep understanding of SEO, he consistently delivers high-quality, engaging content that resonates with readers. Thomas' articles are well-researched, informative, and written in a clear, concise style that keeps audiences hooked. His ability to craft compelling narratives while seamlessly incorporating relevant keywords has made him a valuable asset to the VORNews team.

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iPhone 16 Design Details and New Features Revealed in Leak

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iPhone 16 Design Details and New Features Revealed in Leak

(CTN News) – The design of the next iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro has been revealed through mock leaks, prompting case makers to adjust accordingly.

Leaker Sonny Dickson shared an image on X that shows the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro Max in matching cases. Aside from the standard cutout in the cases’ bodies for the cameras, there is another weirdly placed cutout on their right flanks.

The Capture button, a supposed new feature of the iPhone 16s, allows users to focus and take images and videos without using on-screen controls in the Camera app.

The button is pressure-sensitive and requires a finger contract to function. As a result, cases cannot cover these buttons without rendering them unusable, thus the cutout.

The Capture button is expected to be located in the same location as the mmWave 5G antenna on existing devices. It’s likely that this cutout is solely for connectivity purposes, and that the reports concerning the Capture button are false.

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Stay Updated on iPhone 16 Rumors

Furthermore, as commentators on Dickson’s article point out, the iPhone 16 lacks a visible flash, indicating that these cases are unlikely to be final products, even if they are otherwise accurate.

Another notable iPhone 16 difference evident in this dummy/case combo is the vertically placed cameras on the standard iPhone 16. This is likely to enable the phone to capture spatial video, similar to the Pro models, which can then be seen with an AR/VR headset like the Vision Pro.

Apple’s September launch window for iPhones is still a while off, but you can find all the rumors so far in our iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max hubs. And we will keep you updated until their expected announcement this fall.

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GPT-5 Release Date: Everything you need to know about OpenAI’s Next Chatbot

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GPT-5 Release Date Everything you need to know about OpenAI’s Next Chatbot

There’s a rumor that OpenAI’s ChatGPT is getting more powerful.

Two experts who spoke to Business Insider say GPT-5, the new AI model, is expected to launch this summer. Some businesses have already tried out a demo of the tool and are pleased with its capabilities.

Using this technology, OpenAI aims to create artificial general intelligence (AGI), or systems that are more intelligent than humans.

According to this lofty, sci-fi premise, an AI can think for itself without human supervision, which can produce more AI models of its ilk without human intervention. A breakthrough of this magnitude may either destroy or enhance the world.

As the race to build the best artificial intelligence heats up, here is everything you need to know about GPT-5.

What is GPT-5?

GPT-5 is the successor to GPT-4, OpenAI’s fourth-generation chatbot for which a monthly fee is required.

As the name implies, GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer, an AI engine developed and improved by OpenAI to power ChatGPT. Like the processor in a computer, each new release of the chatbot is based on a brand new GPT with enhanced capabilities.

This AI chatbot can offer human-like responses and can even recognize and generate images and speech. Its successor, GPT-5, is reportedly expected to offer better personalization, make fewer mistakes and handle more types of content, such as video.

It is also worth noting that other companies, such as Google and Meta, have released their GPTs under their names, collectively known as large language models.

These artificial intelligence systems are based on the human brain and can generate text responses to conversations.

Is GPT-5 being trained?

In the latest report, OpenAI claims to have begun training GPT-5 in preparation for its release in mid-this year. Once its training is complete, the system will undergo various safety tests.

This process will include a “red team” test in which internal and external testers will test the bot and provide feedback on its strengths and weaknesses.

Based on a recent tweet from an OpenAI representative, it has been speculated that GPT-5’s learning process has begun.

In January, a leading researcher at OpenAI hinted that the company was training on a much larger GPU than usual. The revelation followed a separate tweet detailing how OpenAI had expanded its computing capacity.

The GPU, or graphics processing unit, is like a calculator that helps an AI model connect various types of data, such as associating an image with a text-based description.

According to Mr Altman, his company worked on GPT-5 on at least two occasions last autumn.

According to two people who attended his former venture capital firm Y Combinator’s alumni reunion last September, Mr Altman spoke of GPT-5 and its successor, GPT-6, as superior to their predecessors.

The CTN News reported in November that OpenAI was working on GPT-5, although no release date was announced.

Reports have also claimed that OpenAI’s boss has devised an audacious plan to procure the large quantities of GPUs required to train larger AI models.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Altman wants to raise as much as $7 trillion with the help of a global network of investors, governments, and energy providers to overcome supply shortages hindering technological progress.

What can GPT-5 do?

OpenAI’s chief spoke at the World Governments Summit in Dubai in February, saying that ChatGPT-5 will be more intelligent than its predecessors.

Mr Altman explained that this is more important than it may appear since these models are generally applicable. “So if it is a little bit smarter, it will be a little bit better at everything.”

According to Mr Altman, GPT-5 will require more data to train on, hinting at its brain power. He indicated that the plan is to use publicly available data sets from the internet and large-scale proprietary data sets provided by organizations. The last would include long-form writings or conversations, whichever format they take.

As Altman stated on Bill Gates’ Unconfuse Me podcast in mid-January, the multimodality concept will be important in the future: “Speech in, speech out. Images, eventually video. People clearly want that. We can push that further, but maybe the most significant progress will be in the area of reasoning ability..”

As a result, GPT-4 is currently capable of reasoning in very limited ways. Also, it is not reliable. If you ask GPT-4 most questions 10,000 times, one is likely to be pretty good, but it does not always know which one, and you want to get the best answer of 10,000 each time, so an improvement in reliability is necessary..”

GPT-5 versus GPT-4

To beat GPT-4, it must surpass GPT-4 Turbo, the next-generation model OpenAI released to subscribers in November.

The company’s most advanced artificial intelligence chatbot has knowledge of world events up to April 2023, as opposed to 2021 for GPT-4; it can analyze even longer prompts of up to 128,000 tokens or roughly the length of a 300-page book; it is better at following instructions; and it is capable of switching between tools based on user request, such as the Dall-E 3 image generator and Bing search engine.

GPT-4 has been tested by OpenAI and several researchers on real-life exams and has been shown to have a decent chance of passing the difficult chartered financial analyst (CFA) exam.

On the 2020 USA Biology Olympiad semifinal exam, it scored in the 99th to 100th percentile, aced the SAT reading and writing section, and excelled in the bar exam.

When will GPT-5 be available?

OpenAI has not yet announced GPT-5.

Also, it is unclear whether this project was affected by the turmoil at OpenAI in late November. On November 17, Mr Altman was ousted by the company’s board of directors.

Mr. Altman returned to the helm along with a new board following a period of tumult reminiscent of the dueling viewpoints on the future of artificial intelligence after five days of tumult.

Some ChatGPT users previously claimed the bot was running on a new AI model called GPT-4.5 Turbo, but that was false.

Looking at OpenAI’s GPT release timeline, we can see that the gap between updates is shrinking. In June 2018, GPT-1 was released, followed by GPT-2 in February 2019 and GPT-3 in June 2020.

The current free version of ChatGPT (GPT 3.5) was released in December 2022, followed by GPT-4 three months later in March 2023. Several recent updates have also been released, including a “turbo” version.

Will OpenAI announce GPT-5 at its developer day conference in November, or will June be the magic month again?

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AI Model Aitana Lopez “Racks Up” Over 300K Instagram Followers

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AI model Aitana Lopez
AI :odel Aitana: The Clueless Agency

Artificial intelligence (AI) is nearly ubiquitous, occupying video and audio environments. In recent years, the K-pop music industry has used deep-fake technology to create groups that resemble actual individuals. Now meet Aitana, Spain’s first AI model.

Eternity and Mave, virtual female groups developed using artificial intelligence, have blurred the barriers between entertainment and technology. Whether we like it or not, these accelerating and frightening shifts are here to stay.

AI has recently made influencers one of its goals. Aitana Lopez, a 25-year-old AI-powered influencer from Spain, is a pioneer in the field. Switching lanes to her Instagram, @fit_aitana will strike you with eerie realism, as her “virtual soul” has deliberately developed a personality that is exceptionally lifelike and resembles the presence of a real-life model.

Her Instagram account already has over 300,000 followers.

Aitana, created by Ruben Cruz, the creator of AI modeling business The Clueless, is a an AI model.

According to Euronews, Cruz’s breakthrough idea was fueled by the agency’s struggle to form genuine business relationships with real-life influencers. “Many projects were put on hold due to problems beyond our control,” the Clueless creator stated.

The Clueless describes Aitana, who is 25 years old, as a “strong and determined woman, independent in her actions and generous in her willingness to help others”. The AI model is also described as a Scorpio with a passion for video games and a commitment to fitness. Her vibrantly crafted design highlights Aitana as a standout with a multifaceted personality.

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Designers working on Aitana’s images at the agency.The Clueless Agency

The Clueless Agency describes the AI influencer with eye-catching pink hair as an outgoing persona with “complicated humour and self-centeredness.”

The AI-powered “gamer at heart and fitness lover” was born on December 11, 1998. Her Instagram photos depict a digitally produced universe that reinforces the notion that she is engaging in real-world activities.

Following her trendsetting debut, the AI agency unveiled her other virtual companion, The Clueless’ second AI model, Maia Lima.

Similar to the controversy and criticism surrounding K-pop’s experimental experimentation, the rise of AI influencers has pushed unrealistic beauty standards.

While it is possible to focus on current technological advancements, this side of the virtual story is not without concerns for the future.

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