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Trump’s video game war: AI, memes and a simplistic narrative have flattened the conflict | Nesrine Malik in Iran

What was supposed to be a quick win has become a quagmire, so it now must be reduced to a dopamine hitThe war on Iran, even as it spreads and destabilises the Middle East and the global economy, is not real. This is how it is being portrayed by the Trump administration. The war is […]

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Why an up-and-coming indie developer is returning Microsoft’s money

In this week’s newsletter: the creator of All Will Rise standing up to the tech giant –and joining the No Games for Genocide movement• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereVideo games are in a funding crisis. Investor money flowed freely during the pandemic gaming boom, but now the well has

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Iranians embrace anthem by AI singer created by UK-based, Iran-born artist

‘I did it for the people,’ says Farbod Mehr, of song drawing lyrics from the work of revolutionary 20th-century poet Aref QazviniA stirring song – sung, apparently, by a young woman, with lyrics expressing the hope that sacrifice will lead to a better future – has become a soundtrack for Iranians in the first part

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These aren’t AI firms, they’re defense contractors. We can’t let them hide behind their models

From Gaza to Iran, the pattern is the same: precision weapons, chosen blindness, and dead children. The cost of failing to regulate AI warfare is already too highThere is an Israeli military strategy called the “fog procedure”. First used during the second intifada, it’s an unofficial rule that requires soldiers guarding military posts in conditions

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AI-generated Iran images are widespread. How do we know what to believe? | Margaret Sullivan

Fake pictures look authentic – and authentic ones get mistaken for fake. Here are three rules for navigating the war coverageThe videos look authentic – and they are spreading like wildfire on social media. One, for example, shows Iranian missiles exploding upon the airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. Another shows US soldiers being held at

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X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts

Social media company tells MPs of continual fight against state-backed efforts, with Russia being most prolificElon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800m accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform.The social media company told MPs it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to hijack the agenda

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Trump news at a glance: president issues an ultimatum to Congress to get voter ID bill passed

Trump is also pushing for the Save America Act to includes provisions to limit transgender youth’s access to care and banning trans women athletes in womens sports – key US politics stories from Monday 9 March at a glanceDonald Trump renewed his push on Monday for the Save America Act, a curtailment of voting access,

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‘It means missile defence on data centres’: drone strikes raises doubts over Gulf as AI superpower

Iran’s targeting of commercial datacentres in the UAE and Bahrain signals a new frontier in asymmetric warfareIt is believed to be a first: the deliberate targeting of a commercial datacentre by the armed forces of a country at war.At 4.30am on Sunday morning, an Iranian Shahed 136 drone struck an Amazon Web Services datacentre in

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The Guardian view on AI in war: the Iran conflict shows that the paradigm shift has already begun

The intensified use of artificial intelligence, and rows over its control, demonstrate the need for democratic oversight and multilateral controls“Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed of

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Trump is using AI to fight his wars – this is a dangerous turning point | Chris Stokel-Walker

The technology most people use only as a chatty tool for daily tasks is reportedly aiding US military aggression. And there is not much we can do about itThere are a lot of things that AI can do. It can sort out your shopping list, and it can keep your kids entertained when they’re mutinous

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