io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Through the Machine” by P.A. Cornell. Enjoy! Through the Machine by P.A. Cornell “Steve, over here! Turn to your right. Can we get a smile?” He falls back on his training easily enough, turns to the cameras, gives them his famous crooked smile, tilts his head just so as the flashes go off so they can capture the smoulder that highlights his cheekbones. The one he’s practiced countless times with his manager, Ethel. The red carpet extends before him, and up ahead he sees the actress he’s been paired with in this film. His co-star and onscreen love interest but in reality, a total stranger. He only knows her name because the photographers keep shouting it, asking her to turn so they can capture her svelte profile. She tilts her head obligingly, long blonde hair falling seductively over one eye, teasing the lenses and through them the millions of fans who’ll one day see these images. She’s a pro, like him. She’s clearly had the same kind of training he’s had. She’s been through the machine. It’s a phrase he heard years ago from a late-night talk show host. It refers to the way Hollywood turns you into a product. You start out this average person, just trying to make it as an actor, then as your success grows, more and more people come into your life to turn you into something else. A movie star. A fairy tale ideal of celebrity perfection. He’d told himself that would never be him. He was in it for the art, not the fame and fortune. But here he is. “Steve! Daphne! Can we get some shots of the two of you together?” The blonde up ahead reaches a hand toward him as if beckoning a good friend, though this is the first time they’ve met. She smiles at him in a way that almost looks genuine. He returns his best leading man grin, flashing the expensive set of pearly white teeth his manager arranged for in the earliest days of their partnership. He puts an arm around Daphne. They both pose, turn, look at each other and smile, over and over. Then both look serious, then smile once more. Then she leans in for a peck on the cheek as instructed by the shouting crowd, just before they’re both ushered off to find their places inside, where the film will be screened. Once they’re away from the cameras, he extends his hand to Daphne. “Hi. Steve Randall.” “Nice to meet you,” she laughs. “Daphne Everheart.” “You seen any of it yet?” “Not even the trailer,” she admits. “Did they send you the screenplay?” He shakes his head. Someone in her entourage grabs her by the arm. She gives him a small wave as they lead her off. He wonders if he’ll even see her again after this premiere. Maybe. If the film does well opening weekend, there could be a sequel. They could find themselves at another premiere for a movie they appear in together, but that neither of them has acted in. Steve lets his own people show him past curtains and cocktails to a theater with plush red seating. He takes his place staring up at the screen, trying to conjure up some of the excitement he once felt as a kid about to watch his favorite actors. But the excitement feels more akin to anxiety as the opening credits appear. He sees his own name—or the one his manager gave him, anyway. That’s when he appears. Seeing himself like this is unsettling, to say the least. He turns to the people seated around him and they’re all looking up at this face that resembles him but isn’t him. Do they not see it? Do they not feel that uncanny valley sickness in the pit of their stomachs that weighs his down as the thing on screen billed as Steve Randall starts to speak? It’s his voice, but he’s never said these words. Never read the script they came from. Who wrote this, anyway? He wonders. Or rather, what wrote this? The film’s runtime is ninety-five minutes. It’s a romantic comedy, but the word “comedy” is generous. Steve doesn’t so much as crack a smile. He watches this AI-generated doppelganger and his equally digitized scene partner as they traverse the uneven landscape of the disjointed plot—flimsy even for this genre. They flash smile after smile, kiss with ever-deepening passion—if you can call it that—and ultimately, after a series of contrived misunderstandings, they get their Hollywood ending. All set to an AI-generated score bereft of any feeling that might conjure atmosphere or elicit an emotional response from the viewer. As the lights come up and people start to clap, Steve glances down the row of seats at his co-star. Daphne, seeming to sense his stare, glances back. She looks as though she’s about to be sick but gives him a brave smile—a trained smile—and starts to clap along with everyone else. He does the same. This is his job now, after all. The scan was taken a couple of years ago, during pre-production on a movie in which he played an astronaut. They had to scan him for proper fit of the spacesuit they were having made, as well as for some of the more intricate effects. The voice they came by even more easily. From all the ADR he’d done, voicework on some animated stuff, and of course countless interviews already accessible online. He hadn’t given the scan much thought, at the time. It had made sense for the work they were doing. He’d never imagined it would lead to this. There’s an afterparty and people keep coming up and congratulating him on the movie. He says what he’s been trained to say, graciously thanking them for their praise, taking pictures with people for magazines and entertainment shows. Evidence that he is in fact still a real person that exists in the world, even though it’s not him on screen. Not in this movie and not in a handful of others, several of which he hasn’t even seen. If Hollywood could turn you into a product before, this is on another level. His career has become, almost exclusively, one of public appearances. His L.A. agent has him booked for a store opening tomorrow, and a series of meet-and-greets at conventions sometime in the spring. The sorts of gigs that used to be thought of as “has-been” work, but Steve, by all accounts, is still a bona fide movie star. He was People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” just last year. Fans still somehow manage to find out what hotel he’s staying at in any given city all over the world, just so they can catch a glimpse of him walking in and out. How has it come to this? At the end of the night someone pushes him into a shiny black town car and the spectacle of this farce fades away in the car’s rear lights. He exhales, trying to get the image of the thing on screen out of his head. It’s not so bad, he tells himself. SAG made sure he’d get paid for the use of his image. It’s not as much as he might’ve liked, maybe, but it’s decent, and they use it often enough that the cheques enable him to maintain his standard of living. The public appearances add to that. He can’t really complain. But the sick feeling in his stomach remains. • • • When he’s back in New York, he calls his manager. “It was fucking weird, Ethel.” He tells her. “Seeing myself in a film I wasn’t actually in. No chemistry between me and my co-star because, well . . . neither of us was actually there to do any acting. This isn’t what I signed up for.” “Sweet boy,” she says, using her years’ old term of endearment for him, though he hasn’t been a boy in quite some time. “I know. But this is how it works with the studio films these days. Be glad your image is still worth something.” Steve sighs deeply. “I know. It’s just . . . I worked so hard to get here. We both did. The work mattered to me. I miss challenging myself, figuring out who my character is and how to best convey that through my performance. I miss being able to disappear into all those people and live their lives for a time.” “Of course, of course,” says Ethel. “That’s one of the reasons I took you on as a client. Even at sixteen, you had such passion. You loved the art of it. But what’s the alternative, Stefan?” She only ever uses his original name when she’s serious. He knows her hands are as tied as his. It’s this or give up the business altogether. • • • Over drinks with a friend the next night, he airs his frustrations, his tongue loosened by more than a few shots with beer chasers. “I’m bored,” he tells Frank, who doubled for him in an action film franchise that now continues without need of either of them. “I miss acting. It’s like all they left me with are the worst parts of fame. The parts where I still can’t walk down the street in peace without some paparazzo shoving a lens in my face, and where I can still get cancelled online for any stupid shit I might say without thinking. But the good parts, they’ve all been taken over by some digital version of me that frankly gives me the creeps.” “I hear ya, Steve,” Frank says, raising his beer. “It’s not just you though, brother. At least you still have a marketable presence. Companies still send you free clothes and shit so you can be spotted using it.” “Sure,” he tells Frank. “But all that amounts to is that I’m now pretty much just this human billboard. I’m not even an actor anymore.” “You’re breaking my heart, man. But think about guys like me. We were getting your crumbs even in the good times. If you think things have gotten rough for you, imagine what’s left for us. I haven’t been called for a stunt gig in months. And that last one ended up cancelled last minute when they decided it was cheaper to use AI. I’ve got a family to support, and all three kids are gonna need braces. Not to mention the first wife who’s on my back if I’m even half a second late with her alimony. What I wouldn’t give for my ugly mug to be in demand.” Steve knows he’s right and feels bad for whining. Things could be so much worse. Whatever jobs he’s lost to AI, there are countless more jobs lost by less famous actors, crew, and other support personnel like PA’s and craft services. He can’t begin to imagine how they’re all making ends meet these days. Many of the ones he’s still close with, like Frank, work multiple jobs, even outside the industry, just to cover what their once stable careers did. “Drinks are on me tonight, by the way,” he tells Frank. “You’ll get no argument here, pal.” • • • Later, in the privacy of his loft, Steve allows himself the luxury of self-pity. He can’t help thinking of the kid he once was. The chubby little dork with the accent. Too shy to talk to girls. Pushed around by the guys he so wanted to be. Acting freed him from all that. It had allowed this kid who didn’t feel comfortable in his own skin to become someone else. In time, it had given him confidence, and as he continued to hone his craft, it had brought him the attention he’d craved and opportunities he’d never imagined. It hasn’t always been easy. There’d been plenty of lean years before his big breakout role turned him into a household name. Years during which covering rent had been a struggle, and meals had often consisted of half-eaten scraps left by patrons of the restaurants in which he’d waited tables. But he’d loved acting enough to stick with it, and he’d thought it worth all the sacrifices. He gave up his very name for this profession. He lost the accent and the baby fat. He’s spent a sizeable portion of his income on fixing his teeth, and on five-hundred-dollar haircuts sometimes paired with a treatment to achieve that perfect shade of chestnut brown or a shave that still left enough stubble to keep him looking “manly” in a marketable way. He’s gotten regular tans to conceal his naturally pale complexion—a condition the L.A. agent refers to as his “vampire” look. He’s hired a stylist, a personal trainer, and a dietitian to help him maintain what the grueling workouts have chiselled him into. He’s had more hours of media training than he’s had acting classes. Hell, at times he’s even dated women he’s been told to date. All of it to create this perfect image of Hollywood glamour intended to seduce audiences into filling theater seats. He’s been put through the machine—and willingly let it happen—just so he can go on doing what he loves. He hadn’t realized this image wasn’t him. It was just a product. Something that could be sold, and then re-sold again and again, with little if any say from him as to how it might be used. Feeling down about his situation, Steve turns to Instagram. He doesn’t follow any fan accounts but now and then, when he’s alone, he looks up the hashtag that bears his name. The fans have a way of making him feel better about himself. Their comments on his pictures—especially the shirtless ones—always make his day. Their support for the charities he’s championed over the years warms his heart. Sure, there are always trolls, but those are in the minority and easy enough to block. He scrolls through his feed and finds the People photo shoot. His feelings about the shoot are a mix of pride and embarrassment. Pride that the chubby kid with the Polish accent showed his high school bullies up, but a little shame at the fact that he still cares so much about what they might think. Still, a few of the pictures from the shoot are really good. He recalls how the photographer’s great sense of humor put him at ease, and how welcoming the magazine staff were. Continuing to scroll, he comes across a picture of himself he never took. This isn’t one of those amazing fan art images he’s seen over the years made by outstandingly talented artists that managed to capture not just his appearance, but his essence. This is some kind of Frankenimage, clearly AI-generated. His hair is a honey blonde he’s never sported, not even on screen. The cheekbones are oddly exaggerated and too narrow, giving him an almost gaunt appearance. In the picture he holds an infant, staring down at it like a proud father. It hurts him to see it. He’s always wanted a family, but this hasn’t happened for him in real life. Steve scrolls some more and comes across another AI image. In this one he’s dressed in a patent leather getup; cut to reveal tattoos he doesn’t have. A red blindfold covers his eyes. His arms are cuffed behind his back. His expression is one of ecstasy. Behind him stands another known actor who holds the handle of a whip against his chest as he leans in to lick the side of Steve’s face. The actor is a good friend. They’ve worked together a few times but never as onscreen lovers. Fans have imagined their characters as a couple for years, which seemed harmless enough, but seeing this is something else. Against his better judgment, he reads the comments. “I ship them.” “Gorgeous art. Love this.” “Yes, please.” And so on. “I wanna see them getting down in a movie together,” someone’s written. There’s a response to this last comment from someone who’s handle indicates they work for a major studio. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to wait much longer for that. And let’s just say this one’s not going to be the family-friendly fare you’re used to seeing these guys in.” Steve isn’t homophobic. He’s played gay characters more than once and has been fine with kissing or even simulating sex with other male actors. But there’s something about being paired with a close friend in this way without so much as a heads up, that seems like a violation. It’s one thing to work with another actor that you’ve built trust with and talk through a scene to make sure you’re both comfortable depicting something intimate that everyone can be proud of in the end. It’s quite another thing when your image is used to quell strangers’ salacious appetites, in a way you didn’t consent to. Steve feels sick. He takes screenshots of both the AI image and the comment about the movie and texts them to his friend. He follows that up with the message: Did you know about this? The reply comes almost immediately. Fuck. Are you kidding me? Wish I was. Damn man. I love you, but not like that. At least not without the kind of money we used to get for our movies. Steve smiles in spite of himself. At least his friends can still have a sense of humor about these things. I feel like we need to push back on this, he tells his friend. Yeah, I get it man, but we signed the contract. I know we didn’t have much choice, but the law doesn’t care. We agreed to this. Pretty sure it’s too late to stop them. The fans don’t even seem to care it’s not really us, Steve types. Why would they? His friend replies. They don’t even really need us anymore. We just get in the way of their fantasies. Steve doesn’t respond to that. He deletes his Instagram account. He shudders to think of what they’re doing with his image on TikTok. Or worse, on the dark web. • • • “This sucks, Ethel.” Steve puts the phone on speaker and sets it down on the kitchen counter to pour a bowl of cereal. “I’m going stir-crazy here. I need something to challenge my creativity again.” “Well, I heard about one thing, but I’m not sure it’s really for you, so I hadn’t mentioned it,” she says. “What? Tell me?” He opens the fridge and reaches for the almond milk then thinks, screw it, and grabs the whole milk he bought yesterday instead. “There’s this Broadway musical. I know one of the producers, but you’d have to audition.” “That’s exactly what I need right now,” he tells her, over mouthfuls of Frosted Flakes. “It’ll be good for me to go back to my theater roots. It’s been too long since I’ve performed in front of an audience.” He pushes the thought that it’s a musical to the back of his mind. He’s never been known for his singing, but he can work with a voice coach or something. At this point, he’ll do anything to perform again. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had to audition, let alone for live theater,” Ethel says. “Just tell me where and when. I’ve got this.” • • • When he gets the lead in the musical, Steve’s thrilled, but also mildly surprised. He’d felt good about the audition, but he’d heard some of the other actors sing and they were clearly better than he is. He figures they must’ve seen something in him—an intangible quality that suits the part. Why overthink it? His illusions come crashing down early on in rehearsals. During a break, he talks with one of the stagehands. An older guy named Bill. Steve vents a bit about how he can’t really act in the film industry anymore. “Thank god for Broadway. The last refuge for actors like me.” “Yeah. For actors like you,” Bill agrees. Steve isn’t sure what he means by that and says so. “Look, you seem like a decent enough guy,” Bill says, “so don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re here because you’re a name. They need something to put on the billboards that’ll draw a crowd, is all. It ain’t about talent no more.” Steve is taken aback, and his expression must show it. “Don’t get me wrong,” Bill continues. “You’re good. Up there on the big screen, you were a real standout. But this is a whole different animal. All I’m saying is there’s actors more cut out for the stage than you that can’t get hired anymore because the guys who used to work the screen are taking their roles.” Steve’s about to respond when Bill points to a group of actors sitting together talking. “See the guy in the collared shirt?” Bill says. “That’s Wayne Garnet.” Steve knows Wayne from rehearsals. Nice guy. He has a small part but gives it his all. “Wayne’s a Tony-winner. Used to be his name on the marquee. Now even he has to settle for bit parts since AI started taking chunks out of the film industry.” Later Steve Googles Wayne Garnet and finds he’s actually won two Tonys. He’s also known for his singing voice, which he loaned to several animated films before they started digitally recreating it. Steve feels sick. He approaches Wayne during the next rehearsal and offers to bow out to make room for him. Wayne is gracious and tells him not to. “There’s no point, Steve. They’d just get another big name movie star to replace you. My days as the lead are done. I’m just happy I still get to be on stage at all. At least for now.” “What do you mean?” Steve asks. “AI’s coming for all of us,” Wayne says. “It’s not just the film industry. This crap is spreading like a virus throughout the arts. There’s already talk of a new play, AI-written, of course, where instead of live actors they’re projecting digital performers onto the stage. It’s strictly off-Broadway for now, but give it time.” Steve is appalled. Doesn’t know what to say. Wayne continues. “I’ll take whatever I can get these days. You know what they say, ‘There are no small parts.’ I just hope that when the roles run out, someone will want to scan me to use in a projection so I can at least cash a cheque now and then.” • • • At home one night, after the play’s run has ended, Steve settles in to watch TV. He scans his options, stumbling upon one of his early roles. A serious drama in which he played a depressed teen, struggling with his parents’ divorce and his older brother’s untimely death. Even all these years later, the dialogue comes back as he watches one of the more emotional scenes. “It’s not like I don’t want to talk about Tommy,” he mouths along with his younger self. “I do. It’s just that . . .” Young Steve can’t finish because he’s started to cry. Present day Steve remembers shooting the scene—his first time crying on cue. He remembers harnessing all those emotions and tapping into all the pain he’d ever felt, and all of it somehow pouring out of him in that moment. He remembers the director taking him aside later and saying, “You nailed it, kid.” He smiles thinking of this now, but then he’s sad again, missing the sense of accomplishment of pulling off a scene like this. The exhilaration of seeing an audience respond to it later. He watches the remainder of the movie while eating peanut butter by the spoonful right out of the jar. Halfway through he crumbles in an entire Kit-kat bar like he used to do when he was a kid. By the time the credits roll, the jar is empty. • • • Steve’s personal trainer leaves frequent voicemail messages asking when he’s coming back to the gym. He knows he should, but it’s tough to get motivated for a workout when he feels like all anyone’s going to see is his AI clone. Still, it’s in his contract to try to resemble the digital version of himself as much as possible. He knows his skin could use a bit more color these days too, and his hair’s starting to show some gray he hadn’t even realized he had. He makes a mental note to focus more on his appearance. All that can wait until after he returns from the convention though. He’s surprised to find he’s actually looking forward to connecting with his fans again and maybe seeing some of the ones that have become familiar faces over time. The energy at the con is intense, and Steve feels electrified, like he did during his stint on Broadway. One by one he greets his fans as warmly as he possibly can. He makes time to speak with them in the few minutes he has while they take pictures with him. He gives them not his practiced smile, but his real one, and makes sure to thank each one for their continued support. Things get a little weird during the signing. Much of it is what he’s used to, with fans handing him old headshots or pictures from his older films to sign, and in some cases art they’ve made themselves. But he’s also handed quite a few more AI-generated images than he’s used to. He feels like a fraud signing them. Like he’s putting his autograph on someone else’s headshot. Still, he tries to be gracious and humble with the fans. They’ve been there for him through his rise to fame. It’s the least he can do. By the time it’s all over and he’s on his way back to the hotel, Steve’s feeling good about the event. So good, in fact, that he revives his Instagram account to see what fans have been posting. He smiles at the pictures they took with him earlier in the day. Many of the fans are dressed like his characters. Some of the props and signs they’ve brought are so creative, they bring a smile to his face. But soon he notices that not all the comments under the pictures are kind. “Is it just me or is Steve rockin’ the dad bod these days?” someone asks. “Yeah. I hate to say it, but I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t look as hot as he does in Burning Brand II,” replies the account holder. “He’s looking older too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was nice and all, I just wish the picture was better.” “Just fix it so he looks hot,” someone else suggests. “Yeah, I probably will.” Steve doesn’t even know what Burning Brand II is. Another of his films he hasn’t seen—or acted in—he assumes. He closes the app and wonders why he even bothers. If the fans don’t care what’s real and what isn’t, why is he even doing this? • • • He goes for a run the next morning. It’s been a while, but he soon finds his rhythm. It’s early in the day and the streets are quiet. He likes this time of day. It’s peaceful. Gives him a chance to clear his head. When he stops for a rest, he notices a small theater. A sign over the door proclaims that the theater shows only movies made by and starring living human beings. The acronym “AI” is painted on one of the windows with a red slash cut diagonally through it. But what really gets Steve’s attention is the man changing the posters. He replaces one with another that features a pensive-looking Daphne Everheart. His former co-star, if you can call her that, looks younger in this poster. He’s never seen her act before and he’s curious. He decides to return later in the day when the theater opens. • • • The film’s called Grace. In it, Daphne plays a young woman trying to convince her wealthy parents to take her seriously as an inventor. The story is moving, as Daphne’s character struggles against societal expectations to achieve her dreams. Steve likes the score too, and decides he’ll stay to read through the credits to see who composed it. He also enjoys the style the director has brought to the project. But what he likes most is Daphne’s performance. She’s good. It kills him to think that someone who was clearly a rising star is now relegated to appearing only as a digital ghost of herself in half-baked movies that would’ve been an embarrassment at another time. How many other talented actors have been forced out of the industry altogether? And what of everyone else whose jobs have been made irrelevant? Steve feels the tears well up, in part because of the movie, but also because of his thoughts. He blinks them away and looks around to see if other people are equally moved. That’s when he notices that nearly every seat in the theater has someone in it. He watches their expressions as they react to Daphne’s performance. He sees the story affect them, and by the end he understands that there are people for whom this art still has meaning. • • • After the movie lets out, he calls Ethel. “I’m thinking of doing something a bit different,” he tells her. “I want to start a production company. Make movies the old way. I have a whole list of people I can call who’d jump at the chance to collaborate on something real again.” “That sounds wonderful, sweet boy. It’s nice to hear some excitement in your voice again.” “I was calling to ask you something,” he tells her. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to get in touch with Daphne Everheart, would you? I don’t have a project yet, but I’d like to gauge her level of interest. I’m sure we’ll find something for her. The world deserves to see how good she actually is at this.” About the Author P.A. Cornell is a Chilean-Canadian speculative fiction writer. A graduate of the Odyssey workshop, her stories have been published or are forthcoming in over fifty magazines and anthologies, including Lightspeed, Apex, and three “Best of” anthologies. In addition to becoming the first Chilean Nebula finalist in 2024, Cornell has been a finalist for the Aurora and World Fantasy Awards, was longlisted for the BSFA Awards, and won Canada’s Short Works Prize. When not writing, she can be found assembling intricate Lego builds or drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. Sometimes both. For more on the author and her work, visit her website pacornell.com. © Adamant Press Please visit Lightspeed Magazine to read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the May 2025 issue, which also features short fiction by R. P. Sand, Gene Doucette, Martin Cahill, Russell Nichols, Meg Elison, Jonathan Olfert, Nancy Kress, and more. You can wait for this month’s contents to be serialized online, or you can buy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just or subscribe to the ebook edition here. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #movie #star #endures #hollywoods #dystopian

On Wednesday evening, the American Jewish Committee held a reception at DC’s Capital Jewish Museum. The gathering, aimed at Jewish foreign policy professionals between the ages of 22 and 45, featured speakers from humanitarian groups. One such groups, IsraAID, said in a statement that the event “focused on bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza through Israeli-Palestinian and regional collaboration.”At around 9 pm, a gunman killed two attendees leaving the event. Their names were Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim: They were young people working at the Israeli Embassy and a couple planning to get married.Their murders were undoubtedly political. In video of the perpetrator’s arrest, he yells “free Palestine” — a slogan that eyewitnesses also heard him repeat after the killing. A manifesto, published on Twitter/X under the shooter’s name, lays out a clear motivation: punishing those he saw as complicit in Israel’s mass killing of the Palestinians.Reflecting on this sequence of events, it’s hard not to spiral into ever-greater depths of anger and despair. This is partly for personal reasons: I grew up Jewish in Washington, DC, and am the kind of young professional this event would be marketed to. But more fundamentally, it’s for political ones: these murders underscore how dangerous the current political moment is, and may materially make it worse.Wednesday was not the first time that a pro-Palestine activist in America attempted political murder. Last month, a man attempted to burn down the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania in retaliation for, in the suspect’s words, “whatwants to do to the Palestinian people.”These events were not only predictable but predicted. Since October 7, 2023, prominent elements of the pro-Palestinian movement have glorified political violence. Though repeatedly warned that this was harmful, including by fellow critics of Israel’s war, this kind of talk became normalized — including in the sort of online left-wing social media spaces where the DC suspect apparently spent time. The vast majority of the pro-Palestine movement is peaceful, but the most radical subfaction created a climate where real-world violence might become more thinkable.“Fears of anti-Israel political violence on the left are real, and last night that threat became deadly,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the leader of the pro-peace J Street activist group, said in an emailed statement. “We urge all those in the pro-Palestine movement to take stock of this moment and recognize the danger of extreme rhetoric as it hits the ears of unhinged individuals.”Moreover, the killing in DC actually endangers the chances for peace in Gaza — changing the domestic politics on Israel-Palestine in a way that decreases the chances of the US government reining in Israel even as it begins a nightmarishly violent offensive.“Every single act & word that can associate the Palestinian cause with terrorism, hatred & antisemitism is an act or word that hurts Palestinians in Washington, DC.act of terrorism did all three,” writes Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East politics at NYU Abu Dhabi.There is no good here, no silver lining. Two young people were murdered in cold blood by an ideologue who convinced himself that murder, not democratic activism, is the right way to advocate for the downtrodden. He is not the first to do so — and the track record of those like him is bloody.How pro-Palestine extremists made violence more likelySince the October 7 attacks, a number of leading American pro-Palestine voices have publicly and loudly embraced violence.Students for Justice in Palestine, the national convening group for campus protests, described Hamas’s killings on October 7 as “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” Within Our Lifetime, a New York-based activist group that embraces violence as a Palestinian tactic, uses similar language. University of Pennsylvania students chanted in support of Hamas’s military wing. Prominent left-wing media figures compared October 7 to John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and valorized anti-Israel terrorist groups. Perhaps the most relevant case for current purposes is Khymani James, a Columbia student who served as a spokesperson for the campus protest group CUAD. James fantasized about going out and murdering “Zionists” — a loose label that could include, say, attendees at a Jewish networking group in DC. While CUAD initially condemned James, the group later reversed its stance and issued a statement calling for more violence.“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group said. “In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”I want to be clear: these extremists do not speak for the vast majority of pro-Palestinian activists and demonstrators. There have only been a handful of incidents of violence at pro-Palestine rallies in the United States since October 7; these examples of extreme rhetoric are not a justification for painting an entire movement with a broad brush. And yet, the fact that there are influential organizations and individuals talking like this matters. It creates a social and political climate where violence targeting American Jews becomes more likely, even if we cannotdraw a straight line between any one instance of extreme rhetoric and the violence on Wednesday.In trying to understand the role of violent ideology in inciting terrorism, scholars Donald Holbrook and John Horgan suggest thinking of ideas as fundamentally “social” things. Most people who come across radical ideologies online, even explicitly pro-violence ones, do not become terrorists. But when there are communities either online or in person that are seen as validating violence, individuals become more likely to escalate to real-world killing.This is part of why we saw a deadly wave of white nationalist violence in 2019. Even though each killer acted independently, the existence of online spaces valorizing their acts of violence creates incentives for more people to turn violent.“The sharing of ideas that convey an understanding of collective grievance, aspiration and a sense of community is relevant to terrorism in a variety of often interweaving ways. Perhaps the most obvious concerns ways in which ideological output legitimizes certain targets or methods employed through terrorist violence,” they write.The DC shooter says something similar in his alleged manifesto. He writes that violence would have been justified as far back as 11 years ago, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. However, he writes, there were not enough Americans who would have agreed with his actions to make it politically effective. In 2014, he wrote, people would think it simply insane; today, he thinks “there are many Americans” who will see the killings as “highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.”His expectations were not wrong. Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan, one of the most prominent pro-Palestine journalists in America, published a post condemning the DC shooting — only to face a wall of replies justifying the violence.The likely political consequences for Palestinians are disastrousMore broadly, there is good reason to believe that the evil in Washington is likely to abet Israel’s ongoing evil in Gaza.Israel has launched a new offensive in Gaza with a horrifying endgame: essentially, the full and complete ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. Yet the offensive is in its early days, and there is still time to prevent the worst-case outcome from coming true.A lot will depend on the political climate in the United States. As Israel’s chief weapons provider and patron, Washington has immense leverage to push Jerusalem to back down. The question is whether Trump cares enough to pick a fight with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Prior to the attack in DC, the two men were seemingly growing apart. Barak Ravid, Axios’s well-sourced Israel-Palestine correspondent, reports that Trump is increasingly “frustrated” with the ongoing Gaza war but still has not applied significant pressure on Netanyahu to back down.Now, however, the spotlight has been turned away from Gaza and back on the domestic American pro-Palestine movement — with much of the MAGA base seeing the Washington shooting as proof that the pro-Palestine left is indeed an internal enemy that deserves to be crushed. Andy McCarthy, a right-wing legal analyst at National Review, predicted a renewed crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech:I believe the consequences of these terrorist murders will include a stepping up of civil rights investigations of antisemitic violence and intimidation by the Justice Department, as well as a reaffirmation of the administration’s commitment to deport from the United States aliens — even legal aliens — who have participated in pro-Hamas agitation on American campuses and elsewhere.The political winds have shifted in a direction that makes the Trump administration less likely, not more likely, to confront Netanyahu.“Less than one full day ago the global news cycle, including Israeli newspapers, were focused on Israel terrorising foreign diplomats. Now a self-proclaimed ally’s act of terrorism shoots diplomats dead, shifts our focus & snatches that moral high ground away,” writes Marks, the NYU professor.It’s hard to say exactly how much the attack damages prospects for stopping Israel’s nightmare plan for Gaza. But we can be certain that it does not help.Much like the October 7 attacks themselves, the attack in DC is thus a double crime. It is an indefensible murder of innocents that also harmed the very people it claimed to be defending.See More: Politics #two #terrible #truths #about #antisemitic

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "; If you’ve ever scrolled through Amazon Prime Video for even a few minutes, you’re likely aware of just how deep their library is. That depth can be exciting, but it can also be anxiety-inducing, especially if all you really want to do is find a great movie to watch. Thankfully, we’ve pulled together a list of three great movies available on Prime Video that are all worth your time. These movies have different vibes and represent different genres, but each of them is a reminder of just how many good movies are available on the streaming service. Recommended Videos We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+. The HurricaneDenzel Washington is one of the best actors of all time for a reason. The Hurricane remains one of his greatest and most unseen performances. The film stars Washington as Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer who dreamed of winning the middleweight title and was then wrongly arrested for murder and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. The film’s depiction of the way Black men, in particular, are demonized and villainized whether they’re guilty or not remains relevant even to this day. You can watch The Hurricane on Amazon Prime Video. Born on the Fourth of JulyTelling the true story of Ron Kovic, an all-American teenager who enlists in the Vietnam War and then eventually becomes one of its more radical opponents, Born on the Fourth of July is a thoroughly American movie. Kovic’s story about a patriotic boy who becomes more and more cynical about his country and the war is a brilliant examination of the way Vietnam destroyed the trust of an entire generation of Americans. Anchored by one of the best performances of Tom Cruise‘s career, Born on the Fourth of July is honest about the realities of war and also features some stunning, horrific footage depicting the conflict itself. You can watch Born on the Fourth of July on Amazon Prime Video. BernieLoosely based on a true story, Bernie follows a beloved assistant funeral director in a small Texas town. When he befriends a prickly widow that nobody else likes, he eventually becomes totally ensconced in her world and her needs. After she’s found dead and Bernie is charged with her murder, the residents of the town spring to his defense, and we come to appreciate how he wound up in this position. Anchored by one of Jack Black‘s best performances, Bernie is darkly funny from start to finish. You can watch Bernie on Amazon Prime Video. #underrated #amazon #prime #video #movies

Choose wisely! The correct answer, the explanation, and an intriguing story await. Correct Answer: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Here's the story behind it The PlayStation 5 is powered by a custom AMD GPU based on the RDNA 2 architecture. In terms of performance, it is roughly equivalent to the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT. This custom GPU features 36 compute units operating at variable frequencies of up to 2.23 GHz, delivering approximately 10.28 teraflops of graphical processing power. While these specs place it in the same general performance tier as the RX 6700 XT, direct comparisons can vary due to the PS5's highly optimized and integrated hardware design, which allows developers to extract more consistent real-world performance than a similarly specced PC GPU might achieve. In the PC realm, the Radeon RX 6700 XT competed against Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and performs slightly below the RTX 4060 Ti in terms of raw rasterization power. However, these comparisons can depend on the specific game and workload, especially when considering features like ray tracing and DLSS, where Nvidia GPUs tend to handle differently than AMD's offerings. Complementing the GPU, the PS5 also includes a custom AMD Zen 2-based CPU. This processor has 8 cores and 16 threads, running at up to 3.5 GHz with variable frequency. The Zen 2 architecturewas a significant leap in performance and efficiency compared to previous generations. The PlayStation 5 is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, shared between the CPU and GPU in a unified memory architecture. This configuration provides high bandwidthand low latency, facilitating rapid data access and efficient resource sharing. This unified approach helps game developers streamline asset streaming and memory management, contributing to smoother performance and faster load times, especially when paired with the console's fast NVMe SSD. #playstation #powered #gpu #roughly #equal

Home Google Launches SynthID Detector – A Revolutionary AI Detection Tool. Is This the Beginning of Responsible AI Development? News Google Launches SynthID Detector – A Revolutionary AI Detection Tool. Is This the Beginning of Responsible AI Development? 7 min read Published: May 22, 2025 Key Takeaways Google has introduced SynthID Detector, a powerful tool that can detect AI-generated content. It works by identifying SynthID-generated watermarks in content served up by Google AI tools, such as Imagen, Gemini, and Lyria. The detector is currently in the testing phase and only available for use by joining a waitlist. SynthID Detector is also open-source, allowing anyone to build on the tech architecture. Google has launched SynthID Detector, a tool that can recognize any content generated through the Google suite of AI tools. SynthID, in case you didn’t know, is a state-of-the-art watermarking tool launched by Google in August 2023. This technology adds a watermark on AI-generated content, which is not visible to the naked eye.  Initially, SynthID was launched only for AI-generated images, but it has now been extended to text, video, and audio content generated using tools like Imagen, Gemini, Lyria, and Veo. The detector uses this SynthID watermarking to identify AI content. When you upload an image, audio, or video to the detector tool, it’ll look for this watermark. If it finds one, it’ll highlight the part of the content that is most likely to be watermarked. It’s worth noting, though, that the SynthID Detector is currently in the testing phase. Google has released a waitlist form for researchers, journalists, and media professionals. Google has also partnered with NVIDIA to watermark videos generated on their NVIDIA Cosmos AI model. More importantly, Google announced a partnership with GetReal Security, which is a leading pioneer in detecting deepfake media and has raised around million in equity funding. We’re likely to see an increasing number of such partnerships from Google’s end, meaning SynthID Detector’s scope will keep broadening. So, you’ll be able to detect not just Google-generated AI content but also content generated with other AI platforms. The Need for SynthID Detector Notwithstanding all of the benefits that artificial intelligence has brought us, it has also become a powerful tool in the hands of criminals. We have seen hundreds of incidents where innocent people were scammed or threatened using AI-generated content. For example, on May 13, Sandra Rogers, a Lackawanna County woman, was found guilty of possessing AI-generated child sex abuse images. In another incident, a 17-year-old kid extorted personal information from 19 victims by creating sexually explicit deepfakes and threatening to leak them. A man in China was scammed out of by a scammer using an AI-generated voice over the phone impersonating the man’s friend. Similar scams have become popular in the US and even in countries like India that aren’t really at the forefront of AI technology. In addition to crimes against civilians, AI is also being used to cause a lot of political unrest. For instance, a consultant was fined M for using fake robocalls during the US presidential elections. He used AI to mimic Joe Biden’s voice and urged voters in New Hampshire not to vote in the state’s Democratic primary. Back in 2022, a fake video of Ukrainian President Zelensky was broadcast on Ukraine 24, a Ukrainian news website, which was allegedly hacked. The fake AI video showed Zelensky apparently surrendering to Russia and ‘laying down arms.’ This is only the tip of the iceberg. The internet is filled with such cases, with newer ones coming out almost every single day. AI is increasingly being weaponized against institutions, government, and the societal order to cause political and social unrest. Image Credit – Statista Therefore, a tool like SynthID Detector can be a beacon of hope to combat such perpetrators. News houses, publications, and regulators can run a suspected image or content through the detector to verify a story before running it for millions to view. More importantly, tools like SynthID will also go a long way in instilling some semblance of fear among criminals, who will know that they can be busted anytime. And What About the Legal Grey Area of AI Usage? Besides the above outright illegal use of AI, there’s also a moral dilemma attached to increasing AI use. Educators are specifically worried about the use of LLMs and text-generating AI models in schools, colleges, and universities. Instead of putting in the hard yards, students now just punch in a couple of prompts to generate detailed, human-like articles and assignments. Research at the University of Pennsylvania formed two groups of students: one with access to ChatGPT and another without any such LLM tools.  The students who had used ChatGPT could solve 48% more mathematical problems correctly. However, when a test was conducted, the students who had used ChatGPT solved 17% fewer problems than those who didn’t.  This shows that the use of LLM models isn’t really contributing to learning and academic development. They’re, instead, tools to simply ‘complete tasks,’ which is slowly robbing us of our ability to think. Another study called ‘AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking’ shows that people in the age group 17-25 have the highest AI usage as well as the lowest critical thinking scores. Coincidence? We don’t think so. Clearly, the use of AI tools isn’t contributing to the development of young minds. Instead, it has become a watchdog for laziness for people who wish to cut corners. We call this a moral dilemma because the use of AI tools for education or any other purpose, for that matter, is not illegal. Instead, it’s more of a conscious decision to let go of our own critical thinking, which, as most would argue, is what makes us human. Contemporary AI Detectors Are Worthless Because AI is replacing critical thinking and being used to outsource work by students, it’s understandable why educational institutions have resorted to AI detectors to check for the presence of AI-generated content in student submissions and assignments.  However, these AI detectors are no more accurate than a blind person telling you the way ahead. Apologies if we stepped on any toes here! We forgot our stick! Christopher Penn, an AI expert, made a post on LinkedIn titled ‘AI Detectors are a joke.’ He fed the US Declaration of Independence to a ‘market-leading’ AI detector, and guess what? Apparently, our forefathers used 97% AI to pen down the Declaration. Time travel? The inaccurate results from these detectors stem from their use of parameters such as perplexity and burstiness to analyze texts. Consequently, if you write an article that sounds somewhat robotic, lacks vocabulary variety, and features similar line lengths, these ‘AI detectors’ may classify your work as that of an AI language model. Bottom line, these tools are not reliable, which is possibly why OpenAI discontinued its AI detection tool in mid-2023, citing accuracy issues. However, the sad part is that a large part of the system, including universities, still relies on these tools to make major decisions such as student expulsions and suspensions. This is exactly why we need a better and more reliable tool to call out AI-generated content. Enter SynthID Detector. SynthID Detector Is Open-Source Possibly the biggest piece of positive news with regard to Google’s SynthID Detector announcement is that the tool has been kept open source. This will allow other companies and creators to build on the existing architecture and incorporate AI watermark detection in their own artificial intelligence models. Remember, SynthID Detector currently only works for Google’s AI tools, which is just a small part of the whole artificial intelligence market. So, if someone generates a text using ChatGPT, there’s still no reliable way to tell if it was AI-generated. Maybe that’s why Google has kept the detector open-source, hoping that other developers would take a cue from it. All in all, it’s really appreciable that Google hasn’t gate-kept this essential development. Other companies that are concerned about the increasing misuse of their AI models should go ahead and contribute to the greater good of making AI safe for society. Krishi is a seasoned tech journalist with over four years of experience writing about PC hardware, consumer technology, and artificial intelligence.  Clarity and accessibility are at the core of Krishi’s writing style. He believes technology writing should empower readers—not confuse them—and he’s committed to ensuring his content is always easy to understand without sacrificing accuracy or depth. Over the years, Krishi has contributed to some of the most reputable names in the industry, including Techopedia, TechRadar, and Tom’s Guide. A man of many talents, Krishi has also proven his mettle as a crypto writer, tackling complex topics with both ease and zeal. His work spans various formats—from in-depth explainers and news coverage to feature pieces and buying guides.  Behind the scenes, Krishi operates from a dual-monitor setupthat’s always buzzing with news feeds, technical documentation, and research notes, as well as the occasional gaming sessions that keep him fresh.  Krishi thrives on staying current, always ready to dive into the latest announcements, industry shifts, and their far-reaching impacts.  When he's not deep into research on the latest PC hardware news, Krishi would love to chat with you about day trading and the financial markets—oh! And cricket, as well. View all articles by Krishi Chowdhary Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors. More from News View all View all #google #launches #synthid #detector #revolutionary

Artur Debat/Getty ImagesGenerative AI is an astonishing technology that's not only here to stay but promises to impact all sectors of work and business. It's already made unprecedented inroads into our daily lives.We all have a lot to learn about it. Spewing out a few prompts to ChatGPT may be easy, but before you can turn all these new capabilities into productive tools, you need to grow your skills. Fortunately, there is a wide range of classes that can help. Also: I let Google's Jules AI agent into my code repo and it did four hours of work in an instantMany companies and schools will try to sell you on their AI education programs. But as I'll show in the following compendium of great resources, you can learn a ton about AI and even get some certifications -- all for free.I have taken at least one class from each of the providers below, and they've all been pretty good. Obviously, some teachers are more compelling than others, but it's been a very helpful process. When working on AI projects for ZDNET, I've also sometimes gone back and taken other classes to shore up my knowledge and understanding.So, I recommend you take a quick spin through my short reviews, possibly dig deeper into the linked articles, and bookmark all of these, because they're valuable resources. Let's get started. Course selection: Huge, more than 1,500AI coursesProgram pricing: Free trial, then /moLinkedIn Learning is one of the oldest online learning platforms, established in 1995 as Lynda.com. The company offers an enormous library of courses on a broad range of topics. There is a monthly fee, but many companies and schools have accounts for all their employees and students. Also: Want a top engineering job in 2025? Here are the skills you need, according to LinkedInLinkedIn Learning is probably the one online education site I've used more than any other -- starting back in the late 1990s. For years, I paid for a membership. Then, I got a membership as an alum of my grad school, which is how I use it now. With so many courses on so many topics, it's a great go-to learning resource.I took two classes on LinkedIn Learning. Here's my testimonial on one of them. I also took the two-hour Machine Learning with Python: Foundations course, which had a great instructor -- Prof. Frederick Nwanganga -- who was previously unknown to me. I have to hand it to LinkedIn. They choose people who know how to teach.I learned a lot in this course, especially about how to collect and prepare data for machine learning. I also was able to stretch my Python programming knowledge, specifically about how a machine learning model can be built in Python. In just two hours, I felt like I got a friendly and comprehensive brain dump.You can read more here: How LinkedIn's free AI course made me a better Python developer.Since there are so many AI courses, you're bound to find a helpful series. To get you started, I've picked three that might open some doors:ChatGPT Tips for the Help Desk: Learn to apply strategic planning, prompt engineering, and agent scripting, as well as other AI techniques, to AI operations.Machine Learning with Python: Foundations: Get step-by-step guidance on how to get started with machine learning via Python.Building Career Agility and Resilience in the Age of AI: Learn how to reimagine your career to adapt and find success in the age of AI. It's worth checking with your employer, agency, or school to see if you qualify for a free membership. Otherwise, you can pay by month or year.A company representative told ZDNET, "LinkedIn Learning has awarded nearly 500K professional certificates over the past 2.5 years. And, generative AI is one of the top topics represented." Show more View now at Linkedin Learning Course selection: 93Program pricing: Free during the Skills Fest, mostly free afterMicrosoft earned itself a Guinness World Record for its online training session called Skills Fest, which ran in April and May of 2025. This was a mixed combination of live and on-demand courses that anyone could take for free. The only cost was giving up your email account and registering with Microsoft.Also: You can get free AI skills training from Microsoft for a few more days, and I recommend you doHere are three courses I took. The Minecraft one was adorable, and I recommend it for a kids' intro to generative AI.AI Adventurers: A Minecraft Education presentation about the basics of generative AIBuilding applications with GitHub Copilot agent mode:AI for Organizational Leaders:Not all the courses are available on demand. After Skills Fest ends, you should be able to get to the course catalog by visiting this link. There's a Filters block on the left. Click On-Demand and then Apply Filters. You should see a bunch of courses still available for you to enjoy. Show more View now at Microsoft Skills Fest Course selection: Quite a lotProgram pricing: Many free, some on a paid subscriptionAmazon puts the demand in infrastructure on demand. Rather than building out their own infrastructure, many companies now rely on Amazon to provide scalable cloud infrastructure on demand. Nearly every aspect of IT technology is available for rent from Amazon's wide range of web services. This also includes a fairly large spectrum of individual AI services from computer vision to human-sounding speech to Bedrock, which "makes LLMs from Amazon and leading AI startups available through an API."Also: I spent a weekend with Amazon's free AI courses, and highly recommend you do tooAmazon also offers a wide range of training courses for all these services. Some of them are available for free, while others are available via a paid subscription. Here are three of the free courses you can try out:Foundations of Prompt Engineering: Learn about the principles, techniques, and best practices for designing effective prompts. Amazon Bedrock -- Getting Started: Learn about Amazon's service for building generative AI applications. Twitch Series: AWS Power Hour Introduction to Machine Learning for Developers: This is a recording of a Twitch-based learning chat series. It helps you learn the foundations of machine learning and get a practical perspective on what developers really need to know to get started with machine learning. In addition to classes located on Amazon's sites, the company also has quite a few classes on YouTube. I spent a fun and interesting weekend gobbling up the Generative AI Foundations series, which is an entire playlist of cool stuff to learn about AI.If you're using or even just considering AWS-based services, these courses are well worth your time. Show more View now Course selection: Fairly broad IT and career buildingProgram pricing: FreeIBM, of course, is IBM. It led the AI pack for years with its Watson offerings. Its generative AI solution is called Watsonx. It focuses on enabling businesses to deploy and manage both traditional machine learning and generative AI, tailored to their unique needs.Also: Have 10 hours? IBM will train you in AI fundamentals - for freeThe company's SkillsBuild Learning classes offer a lot, providing basic training for a few key IT job descriptions -- including cybersecurity specialist, data analyst, user experience designer, and more. Right now, there's only one free AI credential, but it's one that excited a lot of our readers. That's the AI Fundamentals learning credential, which offers six courses. You need to be logged in to follow the link. But registration is easy and free. When you're done, you get an official credential, which you can list on LinkedIn. After I took the course, I did just that -- and, of course, I documented it for you.My favorite was the AI Ethics class, which is an hour and 45 minutes. Through real-world examples you'll learn about AI ethics, how they are implemented, and why AI ethics are so important in building trustworthy AI systems. Show more View now at IBM SkillsBuild Course selection: Nearly 90 AI-focused coursesProgram pricing: FreeDeepLearning is an education-focused company specializing in AI training. The company is constantly adding new courses that provide training, mostly for developers, in many different facets of AI technology. It partnered with OpenAIto create a number of pretty great courses.I took the ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers course below, which was my first detailed introduction to the ChatGPT API. If you're interested in how coders can use LLMs like ChatGPT, this course is worth your time. Interspersing traditional code with detailed prompts that look more like comments than commands can help you understand these two very different styles of coding.: I took this free AI course for developers in one weekend and highly recommend itThree courses I recommend you check out are:ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers: Go beyond the chat box. Use API access to leverage LLMs into your own applications, and learn to build a custom chatbot.Evaluating and Debugging Generative AI Models Using Weights and Biases: Learn MLOps tools for managing, versioning, debugging, and experimenting in your ML workflow.Large Language Models with Semantic Search: Learn to use LLMs to enhance search and summarize results.With AI such a hot growth area, I am always amazed at the vast quantity of high-value courseware available for free. Definitely bookmark DeepLearning and keep checking back as it adds more courses. Show more View now at DeepLearning Google Generative AI Leader course Designed for business leaders Course selection: 5Program pricing: Free to learn, for a certificateGoogle is offering a 7-8 hour program that teaches generative AI concepts to business leaders. This is a pretty comprehensive set of courses, all of which you can watch for free. They include: Gen AI: Beyond the chatbot: Foundational overview of generative AIGen AI: Unlock foundational concepts: Core AI concepts explained Gen AI: Navigate the landscape: AI ecosystem and infrastructureGen AI Apps: Transform your work: Business-focused AI applicationsGen AI Agents: Transform your organization: Strategy and adoption of AIThere is a small catch here: If you want the actual certificate, you need to pony up and take a 90-minute exam. But if you're calling yourself a business leader and want the recognition, I figure is probably a fair price to pay for anointing yourselfas a generative AI business leader.Also: Google offers AI certification for business leaders now - free trainings includedI took the foundational learning module, which was mostly text-based with interactive quizzes and involvement devices. It provided a good overview for someone just getting into the field, and I'm sure the remainder of the classes are equally interesting. Show more Course selection: Thousands of courses on AI aloneProgram pricing: Free trial, then /mo. Courses are also sold individually.Udemy is a courseware aggregator that publishes courses produced by individual trainers. That makes course style and quality a little inconsistent, but the rating system does help the more outstanding trainers rise to the top. Udemy has a free trial, which is why it's on this list.  I spent some time in Steve Ballinger's Complete ChatGPT Course For Work 2023! and found it quite helpful. Clocking in at a little over two hours, it helps you understand how to balance ChatGPT with your work processes, while keeping in mind the ethics and issues that arise from using AI at work.Udemy offers a /month all-you-can-eat plan, and also sells individual courses. I honestly can't see why anyone would buy the courses individually, since most of them cost more for one course than the entire library does on a subscription.Also: I'm taking AI image courses for free on Udemy with this little trick - and you can tooHere are three courses you might want to check out:ChatGPT Masterclass: ChatGPT Guide for Beginners to Experts!: Gain a professional understanding of ChatGPT, and learn to produce high-quality content seamlessly and grow your earning potential.Discover, Validate & Launch New Business Ideas with ChatGPT: Learn how to generate startup ideas, evaluate their potential, and test them with customers in real life.Midjourney Mastery: Create Visually Stunning AI Art: Learn how to use Midjourney to create art.One of the more interesting aspects of Udemy is that you may find courses on very niche applications of AI, which might not suit vendors offering a more limited selection of mainstream courses. If you have a unique application need, don't hesitate to spend some extra time searching for just the right course. Show more View now at Udemy Course selection: One AI courseProgram pricing: FreeGoogle's Grow With Google program offers a fairly wide range of certificate programs, which are normally run through Coursera. Earning one of those certificates often requires paying a subscription fee. But we're specifically interested in one Grow With Google program, which is aimed at teachers, and does not involve any fees.The Generative AI for Educators class, developed in concert with MIT's Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education, is a 2-hour program designed to help teachers learn about generative AI, and how to use it in the classroom. Also: Google and MIT launch a free generative AI course for teachersGenerative AI is a big challenge in education because it can provide amazing support for students and teachers and, unfortunately, provide an easy way out for students to cheat on their assignments. So a course that can help teachers come up to speed on all the issues can be very powerful.The course provides a professional development certificate on completion, and this one is free. Show more View now at Google Why should you trust me? I've been working with AI for a very long time. I conducted one of the first-ever academic studies of AI ethics as a thesis project way back in the day. I created and launched an expert system development environment before the first link was connected on the World Wide Web. I did some of the first research of AI on RISC-based computing architectureswhen RISC processors were the size of refrigerators. I also wrote and deployed the AI Editor, a generative AI tool that built news and content dynamically. That may not seem like much today, but I did it way back in 2010, when I had to create a generative AI engine from scratch. At that point, to work, it had to be distributed across five individual servers, each running one agent of a team of clustered AI agents.Also: Six skills you need to become an AI prompt engineerI also have a master's degree in education, focusing on learning and technology. My specialty is adult online learning, so this kind of stuff is right up my alley. When it comes to the courses and programs I'm spotlighting here, there's no way I could take all of them. But I have taken at least one course from each vendor, in order to test them out and report back to you. And, given my long background in the world of AI, this is a topic that has fascinated and enthralled me for most of my academic and professional career.With all that, I will say that the absolute high point was when I could get an AI to talk like a pirate. Show more Some companies are promoting micro-degrees. They seem expensive, but fast, but are they any good? Let's be clear: A micro-degree is not a degree. It's a set of courses with a marketing name attached. Degrees are granted by accredited academic institutions, accredited by regional accrediting bodies. I'm not saying you won't learn anything in those programs. But they're not degrees and they may cost more than just-as-good courses that don't have a fancy marketing name attached. Show more So, do certificates have any value? Yes, but how much value they have depends on your prospective employer's perspective. A certificate says you completed a course of study successfully. That might be something of value to you, as well. Also: Want a job in AI? Check out these new AWS AI certificationsYou can set a goal to learn a topic, and if you get a credential, you can be fairly confident you have achieved some learning. Accredited degrees, by contrast, are an assurance that you not only learned the material but did so according to some level of standard and rigor common to other accredited institutions.My advice: If you can get a certificate, and the price for getting it doesn't overly stretch your budget, go ahead and get it. It still is a resume point. But don't fork over bucks on the scale of a college tuition for some promise that you'll get qualified for a job faster and easier than, you know, going to college. Show more Other learning resources you'll probably loveYou can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly update newsletter, and follow me on Twitter/X at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.Want more stories about AI? Sign up for Innovation, our weekly newsletter.Artificial Intelligence #best #free #courses #certificates #i039ve

Hans Noë wore many hats—architect, sculptor, Fanelli Cafe proprietor. He was also a Holocaust survivor, and a protégé of Tony Smith, Barnett Newman, and Mies van der Rohe. Noë died in his sleep on May 11 at his home in Garrison, New York, at age 96. Alva Noë, his son, confirmed his death for The New York Times. Noë had a retrospective in 2023 at New York’s National Museum of Mathematics curated by author Lawrence Weschler, reviewed by AN. This was just one of two solo shows the indelible artist had his entire life—the first was in 2021 at the Fireplace Project in East Hampton, New York. The deceased’s retrospectives were always by invitation of someone else, he never sought them out. That’s partially from trauma he carried with him since fleeing his childhood home in Czernowitz, a city in the Bukovinian region on the edge of the Austro-Hungarian empire in what is now southwestern Ukraine. House 1, East Hampton, New York c.1963Noë was born in 1928. He saw the magisterial central synagogue just down the street from his Jewish family’s home get torched by the fascist Romanian army not long after. He spent his remaining teenage years hiding from the Gestapo. This trauma followed Noë wherever he went; his family immigrated from Europe to New York City on Christmas Day, 1949. In the handful of interviews he later gave, like those with Weschler, Noë said any glimmer of the limelight made him panic. He later admitted he had PTSD. After immigrating, Noë enrolled at Cooper Union, where he studied under Tony Smith, the subject of a new book edited by James Voorhies and Sarah Auld. There, he also met Barnett Newman, and stretched canvasses for Mark Rothko. He was in the same orbit as Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Theodoros Stamos, and others. Noë told Weschler in 2023: “When it came to art, Tony became my father and Barney my uncle.” Noë later enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technologyand studied under Mies van der Rohe. At IIT, he met a ceramics student, Judy Baldwin. They got married in 1960. House 2, East Hampton, New York c.1965House 3, East Hampton, New York c.1971Baldwin and Noë subsequently left Chicago and moved to New York. There, between 1963 and 1971, Noë designed and built 12 houses with his partner Richard Schust. Noë detested the client-facing side of practice, so he’d often build the homes himself, mostly on Long Island, with a team of friends and apprentices, and then sell them off. “I came to realize how a successful architect has to be not one but three things: he has to be a great architect, he has to be a great self-promoter, and he has to be a great businessman. And I was only one of those three,” Noë told Weschler in conversation. It was around this time when Noë started buying up properties in Soho, and renting them to artists. Noë bought Fanelli Cafe in the early-1970s. “When you opened the door” at Fanelli, Sasha Noë said, “the wind would come in, and it would make everyone cold. So he built a little half wall out of glass to keep people warm. But he didn’t make it look like it was built in 1847. He used his Mies van der Rohe knowledge to do it. He didn’t try to fake it.” Fanelli Cafe became a New York City staple, and Noë and Baldwin eventually moved to Garrison, New York, where they raised their family. There, he produced geometric wooden maquettes imbued with subtle poetic meaning—all in relative isolation and without celebration. Study by Hans NoëA model by Hans Noë on display at the National Museum of Mathematics“I used to imagine my general distaste for self-promotion and my indifference toward fame as sort of emblematic of a certain kind of moral or at any rate aesthetic superiority,” Noë said. “With high considered self-regard, I was refusing to enter into that whole delusional rat race.” “But I’m no longer so sure,” Noë continued. “I think rather that my problem may simply have been one of fear, a prolonged PTSD, as it were, with its roots wending back to my experience of the war, when survival enforced an entire regime of perpetual hiding, since any and every calling of attention to oneself could so easily have proven fatal not only to myself but to my entire family. And maybe it’s just that I never got over that way of being in the world.” House 3, East Hampton, New York c.1971Today, Noë’s son, Sasha, still runs Fanelli and Alva is a world-renowned philosophy professor at UC Berkeley. Judy lives in Garrison, and Noë is survived by his children and grandchildren. #hans #noëhiding #master #sculptor #architect

Freefolk has just shared with VFXWorld and AWN a new VFX breakdown reel for the studio’s work on a commercial for car manufacturer Škoda. Created by FCB London, the global campaign for the brand’s new electric model, the Enyaq, showcases the vehicle's aerodynamic features; the 60-second spot was created in collaboration with directors Ian Pons Jewell, Yukihiro Shodaand Freefolk. The short poses the questions, “So, what happens when you drop a car and an umbrella in a vacuum chamber?” Well, without air, everything moves in the same way, and the car falls slowly through the chamber at the same pace as an umbrella before landing on the ground, intact. Safely back on the ground, the car exits the vacuum chamber and drives in the real world, illustrating that, thanks to its design, it moves beautifully even where there is air. In crafting the campaign, the Freefolk team, led by their Creative Director Jason Watts, built a CGI replica of the biggest vacuum chamber in the world – the NASA Space Power Facility in Ohio, United States – and plugged in all its calculations to see how the Enyaq and the umbrella would realistically fall in that environment. The design of the chamber took inspiration from NASA's vacuum chamber. To match the NASA chamber, the VFX team created brushed aluminum panels for the walls to reflect the surrounding light. The goal was to make it modern and sleek to align with both the Skoda brand and the car’s aesthetic. To simulate a space with no air, the team used simulated physics models for both the car and the umbrella release mechanism. The car and umbrellas movements were slowed down to 10% of their actual speed to achieve a dramatic slow-motion effect. The VFX team had to create a smooth and elegant transition from the chamber’s interior to the lush, exterior forest environment.  This was one of the most challenging aspects of the project along with the intricate material properties involved in the car design Watts comments, “We built an entire CG forest inspired by the live-action scenes of the commercial, it was populated with various tree species, shrubs, stumps, twigs, and other assets, along with a CG road to complete the scene.” He adds, “For the CG car, we had to replicate the two-tone base layer and clear topcoat, the goal being  to match the real car’s materials as closely as possible, particularly for one driving shot where we transition from a CG carto a live-action plate. Achieving a seamless transition between the two was key to maintaining visual consistency.” Rob Farren, Creative Director at FCB, said, “The team at Freefolk are some of the best I’ve worked with in the industry, both from a CG and collaboration perspective. Their attention to detail for the creation of the car, vacuum chamber and forest environments was flawless throughout the entire project. It looks even better than we imagined and is testament to their perfect combination of technical skill and creativity.” Source: Freefolk Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network. #freefolk #takes #cgi #new #heights

The US House of Representatives just narrowly passed a budget bill, which has been referred to by President Trump and others as "one big, beautiful bill." Hidden amongst the cuts to health care, debt add-ons and tax breaks for the rich is a ten-year ban of state AI laws. You read that right. States would be banned by the federal government from enforcing laws that regulate AI for the next decade.The vote fell largely along party lines, with nearly every Republican member of the House approving the bill. This marks one of the most significant federal actions on technology policy in decades and it was buried in a budget bill that has nothing to do with AI.This isn't law just yet. The budget bill has to pass through the Senate and it could have a difficult road. It's expected that Democratic lawmakers will challenge the AI regulation ban under what's called the Byrd Rule, which prohibits "extraneous" provisions to the federal budget during the reconciliation process.To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so.Even some Senate Republicans seem wary of the ban. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee expressed concern that it would override state legislation that protects artists from deepfakes in her state. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has also pushed back on the idea on the grounds that it could "tamp down on people's efforts to address" issues posed by AI.ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisementSupporters of the ban argue that it would stop a potentially confusing patchwork of differing state AI laws until Congress can craft its own federal legislation. This is pretty odd coming from the "states' rights" crowd, but whatever.Opponents, like many Democratic lawmakers and advocacy organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, call it a dangerous giveaway to big tech firms, as these companies stand to benefit the most from a completely unregulated market. They also say it poses a serious danger to Americans, as it would leave the citizenry unprotected from any associated risk. Current state laws address issues including deepfakes and discrimination in automated hiring.“Make no mistake, the families who have come to this committee and begged for us to act won't benefit from this proposal,” said Democratic Rep. Lori Trahan during a subcommittee hearing on the matter. “But you know who will? The big tech CEOs who are sitting behind Donald Trump at his inauguration."To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so.The budget bill, as passed by the House, also includes cuts to Medicaid totaling an estimated billion and cuts to SNAP, otherwise called food stamps, totaling billion. It could also force billion in cuts to Medicare, which serves senior citizens, as a byproduct of adding nearly trillion to the national deficit. It also ends the EV tax credit. All of this pays for an extension and expansion of previous tax cuts that disproportionately favor high-income earners.If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission. #house #passes #budget #bill #that

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Marvel Rivals Team-Ups are a crucial part of the 6v6 shooter gameplay as players rely on their teammates to boost their abilities and provide them with new powers to unleash on the enemy team. Over the past two seasons, several Team-Up abilities have changed and been added to the game, allowing players to create unique synergies with different heroes to dominate lobbies. From Namor’s Gamma Overload Monstro Spawns to Scarlet Witch’s newform synergy with Doctor Strange in Season 2, the update also removed some popular team-ups to balance the meta. However, now that the game is nearing its mid-season update, the latest Dev Talk post has revealed six new team-up abilities and the removal of four of the current lot from Season 2.5. Marvel Rivals Season 2.5 new and removed team-up abilities According to Marvel Rival devs in the latest Dev Talk Vol. 06, six new Team-Up abilities will be added to the game, and four from the existing roll will become unavailable. This will include some of the fan-favorite concepts that have been brought to life by the devs, as well as iconic synergies seen in comics. Six new Team-Ups are added and four will be removed. Image by VideoGamer. Jeff gets a Symbiote makeover. Image by VideoGamer. Black Widow gets to use The Punisher’s firepower. Image by VideoGamer. Luna shares chilling arrows with Hawkeye. Image by VideoGamer. Rocket and Peni Parker will combine their tech. Image by VideoGamer. Stark and Ultron will blast enemies together. Image by VideoGamer. Jeff and Storm join hands to unleash a tornado. Image by VideoGamer. Previous Next 1 of 7 Previous Next Here are all the team-up ability changes in Marvel Rivals Season 2.5. New Team-Up abilities Symbiote Shenanigans– Jeff the Land Shark can borrow Venom’s symbiote to extend tendrils and link nearby allies for some quick healing. Operation Microchip– Black Widow gains a new firing mode to her rifle from The Punisher that allows her primary fire to pierce through enemies while aiming down sights. Chilling Assault– Hawkeye uses Luna Snow’s ice to fire a special arrow that penetrates terrain. If enemies are far enough away, this arrow also deals bonus damage and stuns. Rocket Network– Peni Parker uses Rocket Raccoon’s tech to drop a second, smaller Bionic Spider-Nest that also spawns armor packs. Rocket’s beacon is changed into a mini Bionic Spider-Nest that spawns Spider-Drones and even full Arachno-Mines. Stark Protocol– Ultron gains the ability to use Iron Man’s Unibeam for a powerful piercing blast that damages enemies and heals allies. Jeff-Nado– By popular demand, Jeff and Storm combine their ultimate abilities to drag enemies into the raging twister for massive damage before swallowing up any remaining foes. Removed Team-Up abilities Symbiote Bond Ammo Overload Chilling Charisma Allied Agents According to Guangguang, the game’s Creative Director, the Team-Up ability mechanic has undergone a 50% change ever since the Season 0 launch, and more such abilities are on the way. Since starting Season 3, all Marvel Rivals seasons will be only two months long, expect more new team-up abilities to be introduced and present ones removed to balance the meta with new heroes and changes. Also, check out the full list of nerfs and buffs coming to Season 2.5. Marvel Rivals Platform: macOS, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X Genre: Fighting, Shooter Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share #new #marvel #rivals #teamups #changes