New research has found that uptake of AI chatbots for writing professional work has been most popular in less-educated parts of the US. CC-licensed photo by Quick Spice on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. Not a user. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
We need to keep a closer eye on saboteurs in our midst • POLITICO
Elisabeth Braw:
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The campaign German authorities uncovered in early February was certainly devious.
First, it was one car, then another, then a few more; eventually the tally came to hundreds. They were sabotaged by four men, supposedly in support of the country’s Green Party. As it turns out, though, these men weren’t green activists at all — the real instigator of the serial sabotage was Russia.
This is far from the only case of geopolitically linked harm we’ve seen in recent months. And it’s time European countries, as well as companies, started keeping a much closer eye on potential saboteurs in our midst.
In total, the perpetrators in Germany sabotaged 270 cars parked on city streets, spraying insulation foam into the cars’ exhaust pipes, rendering them immobile. To complete their anti-car campaign, the perpetrators stuck posters on the cars, with the command: “Be more green!” alongside the image of Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck.
It looked like the work of overzealous climate activists trying to drum up support for Habeck’s Greens ahead of Germany’s national elections on Feb. 23. But alert police officers outside Berlin solved the mysterious case when they spotted a group of men driving suspiciously. And the men — a German, a Romanian, a Serb and a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina — turned out to be guns for hire. One of them even told the police they’d been contracted by a Russian who paid them €100 ($106) per sabotaged car, plus an advance of several thousand euros.
Although German investigators haven’t been able to prove the sabotage was instigated by the Kremlin — and may never find such proof — it’s important to remember that it would be in Russia’s interest to discredit the staunchly pro-Ukraine Greens.
But the car campaign is far from the only case of geopolitically motivated harm we’ve seen recently: incendiary parcels intended for airliners have turned up at DHL’s logistics hub in Leipzig. Unknown perpetrators have tried to break into water plants in Finland and Sweden. There have been suspicious fires at shopping centers and warehouses in various European countries. Unidentified drones have been keeping watch of defence manufacturing plants. Undersea cables have been malfunctioning at galloping rate in the Baltic Sea, Taiwanese waters and elsewhere. There was even a Russia-linked plot to assassinate Armin Papperger, the CEO of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall.
Individuals trying to harm our countries are, in fact, stalking our streets every day.
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These aren’t accidents, and they aren’t random – witness the assassination attempt. This is how the world is going to change over the next four years: this sort of low-level stochastic terrorism is going to become more widespread. Last Friday made it visible that everything has changed. We just hadn’t seen it before. (Thanks Greg B for the link.)
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Researchers surprised to find less-educated areas adopting AI writing tools faster – Ars Technica
Benj Edwards:
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According to new Stanford University-led research examining over 300 million text samples across multiple sectors, AI language models now assist in writing up to a quarter of professional communications. It’s having a large impact, especially in less-educated parts of the United States.
“Our study shows the emergence of a new reality in which firms, consumers and even international organizations substantially rely on generative AI for communications,” wrote the researchers.
The researchers tracked large language model (LLM) adoption across industries from January 2022 to September 2024 using a dataset that included 687,241 consumer complaints submitted to the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), 537,413 corporate press releases, 304.3m job postings, and 15,919 United Nations press releases.
By using a statistical detection system that tracked word usage patterns, the researchers found that roughly 18% of financial consumer complaints (including 30% of all complaints from Arkansas), 24% of corporate press releases, up to 15% of job postings, and 14% of UN press releases showed signs of AI assistance during that period of time.
The study also found that while urban areas showed higher adoption overall (18.2% versus 10.9% in rural areas), regions with lower educational attainment used AI writing tools more frequently (19.9% compared to 17.4% in higher-education areas). The researchers note that this contradicts typical technology adoption patterns where more educated populations adopt new tools fastest.
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But it’s not surprising. When people in comparatively ordinary jobs spout jargon about their work (never more often than when they’re firing people), I assume that they’re hiding a lack of comprehension. Using a chatbot to generate formal-sounding output is rational, in similar situations.
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Goodbye clicks, hello AI: zero-click search redefines marketing • Bain & Company
Natasha Sommerfeld and Doug Harrington:
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For years, marketers have worked to master search algorithms and position their companies well in search results and generate sales. Some invested in rich content and thoughtful optimizations, while others chased quick fixes like keyword stuffing.
Now, the rise of AI search engines and generative summaries has upended traditional search behavior, delivering answers directly on results pages and removing the need for users to click through to another site. Bain’s recent survey finds that about 80% of consumers now rely on “zero-click” results in at least 40% of their searches, reducing organic web traffic by an estimated 15- 25%. The speed of this upheaval leaves marketers with an urgent question: How do we engage consumers when clicks and site visits are disappearing?
…On traditional search engines, the zero-click trend is accelerating across demographics, with our research showing that about 60% of searches now end without the user progressing to another destination site. Even among those who say they are skeptical of generative AI, about half say that most of their queries are answered on the search page without a click.
In parallel, platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are surging in popularity. ChatGPT saw a 44% traffic boost in November 2024, and Perplexity reached 15 million monthly users in late 2024.
Customers indicate that LLMs are encroaching on traditional search engine use cases: roughly 40% to 70% of LLM users use the platforms to conduct research and summarize information (68%), understand the latest news and weather (48%), and ask for shopping recommendations (42%).
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Google certainly jumped just in time – though it has been preparing for this for years. Successfully managing the transition to mobile (its first big risk) and now to AI has been an impressive double act.
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YouTube podcast views: one billion people watch on video platform • Hollywood Reporter
Alex Weprin:
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YouTube is sending a message to the podcast industry: It is the biggest player in town.
The streaming video platform on Wednesday disclosed that it now has one billion monthly active users watching podcast content, an astonishing number that makes it the biggest podcast platform in the world.
That should not be totally surprising given YouTube’s status as the largest streaming video platform, but the new numbers underscore how the Google-owned company has maneuvered itself into becoming a podcast power player, with many hosts reworking their shows to be video-first.
Even other podcast companies are leveraging YouTube to grow their business, like SiriusXM, home to Call Her Daddy, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and SmartLess. The company is betting that by offering subscription podcast offering son other platforms (like YouTube) it can grow both its audience and its bottom line.
YouTube has also leveraged its recommendation algorithm to drive new listeners and subscribers, a key priority for podcasters looking to grow their business.
“Podcasts with video are more than just a trend, they meet audiences where they are: on YouTube,” the company wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “We’ve specifically developed our podcast product experience to make it easier for fans to find podcasts they love, discover new ones, and watch (or listen!) wherever they want. We’ve also added more and more podcasters into our revenue sharing program, the YouTube Partner Program.”
And the company says that users watched more than 400 million hours of podcast content on living room TV devices, suggesting that users are watching long-form podcasts in lieu of traditional TV news, talk show or interview programming.
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This is very much the Captain Phillips meme: podcasts are the media now.
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BBC and ITV slash big-budget TV spend as US streamers pour money into UK • The Guardian
Mark Sweney:
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UK broadcasters slashed their spending on big-budget TV shows to the lowest level in almost a decade last year, even as their US rivals Netflix, Disney and Amazon ploughed hundreds of millions more into British-made premium content.
In a sign of the increasing competitive pressures of the streaming era, the amount spent on high-end TV shows costing more than £1m an hour to make by domestic operators such as the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, plunged by a quarter last year to £598m.
Stripping out the anomaly of 2020, when Covid shut down all film and TV production, this is the lowest level of investment since 2019, according to latest annual figures released by the British Film Institute, the industry body, on Thursday.
While UK broadcasters remained under pressure – last year Channel 4 made its deepest job cuts in more than 15 years while Sky axed 1,000 roles in response to the shift away from satellite TV – investment from primarily US based media firms surged by a quarter.
Spend on British-made shows by the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney increased almost £600m year on year to £2.82bn in 2024. “Inward investment” on shows such as Netflix’s The Immortal Man, a Peaky Blinders continuation, and Rowan Atkinson series Man vs Baby accounted for 82% of the total £3.44bn spent on premium TV production in the UK last year.
Industry figures such as Jane Featherstone, the co-founder of Sister, which co-produced Black Doves and Chernobyl, have warned that UK broadcasters are being “priced out” of the high-end TV production market.
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It’s a hollowing out, and there’s no obvious reason for it to stop. I’m writing this while the TV is on a British FTA (free to air) channel funded by advertising, and one of the ads is for a Netflix series which is brand new, while the program I’m watching is very, very old. (So old it’s nearly dead, Jim. Yes, yes, I know he never said it.)
But why should this spiral ever end?
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Apple launches legal challenge to UK “back door” order • Financial Times
Tim Bradshaw and Lucy Fisher:
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Apple is stepping up its fight with the British government over a demand to create a “back door” in its most secure cloud storage systems, by filing a legal complaint that it hopes will overturn the order.
The iPhone maker has made its appeal to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent judicial body that examines complaints against the UK security services, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Silicon Valley company’s legal challenge is believed to be the first time that provisions in the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act allowing UK authorities to break encryption have been tested before the court. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal will consider whether the UK’s notice to Apple was lawful and, if not, could order it to be quashed.
The case could be heard as soon as this month, although it is unclear whether there will be any public disclosure of the hearing. The government is likely to argue the case should be restricted on national security grounds.
Apple received a “technical capability notice” under the act in January. The order, which the company is prevented from discussing publicly, targeted an optional extra layer of encryption that protects its iCloud system, Advanced Data Protection.
Apple has been working to fend off the UK’s threat of a technical capability notice (TCN) since soon after it introduced iCloud ADP in December 2022.
The iPhone maker launched its legal complaint appealing against the order last month at about the same time as it withdrew its most secure online back-up service from the UK, rather than comply with the TCN.
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Interesting pairing of bylines: Bradshaw has covered technology (very well) for more than a decade, while Fisher is the FT’s Whitehall editor, ie its top political journalist. That covers the tracks of precisely which bit of the story came from where. The point about the TCN being threatened since ADP was introduced is, frankly, unsurprising. I think the government might let this one go, as ADP has been nixed for the UK.
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The best stuff we’ve seen at Mobile World Congress 2025 so far • The Verge
Andrew Liszewski:
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Mobile World Congress 2025 is well under way in Barcelona, Spain, and while there’s still two days left, the mobile-focused show has already delivered lots of new laptops, smartphones, concepts, and innovative accessories.
Some of the biggest announcements were made over the weekend, so we want to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Here are the best gadgets that have debuted at MWC 2025 so far…
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Lenovo is in there twice, first with a laptop that has a colossal screen which folds backwards to make it a (very heavy) tablet; and then with a solar-powered version, which will be a big hit with basement dwellers, no doubt. Plus some phones. The Xiaomi’s Modular Optical System adds a really good camera lens that attaches to a phone with a magnet: it’s a neat idea.
Whether any of these will get to a shop.. well.
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Why bird flu spreading to cows, cats and rats is so worrisome • The Washington Post
Leana Wen:
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If cats could contract H5N1 from humans, could the reverse be true, too? This has been documented in the past, said Kristen K. Coleman, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. She cited a 2004 bird flu outbreak in a Thailand tiger breeding facility in which human workers contracted the virus. A spillover from cats to humans “could spark a human pandemic,” she said.
Finally, the rats. In late January, the Agriculture Department added the black rat to the list of mammals known to have bird flu. Coleman says this species heightens her unease as it is smaller and cats “frequently and readily prey on” it. If cats eat infected rats, they could get H5N1 and spread it to one another and to other species. The black rat’s mobility between farm and urban areas could also speed up the virus’s already high rate of species spillover.
Meghan Frost Davis, a veterinarian and Johns Hopkins professor, has been warning for months that rodents contracting H5N1 would be a major red flag in the evolution of bird flu. “What we really need to understand is to what degree rodents are involved,” she said, so that containment can be more targeted and more precise. She also urges better surveillance and data reporting of companion animal infections and more education of veterinary workers so that they are looking for bird flu across species and aware of their own risk.
Every expert I spoke to this for this column — and indeed for every piece I’ve written on bird flu — emphasized the urgent need for rapid, accessible testing.
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Watching very closely brief. (Thanks Joe S for the link.)
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Plane GPS systems are under sustained attack – is the solution a new atomic clock? • BBC News
Pallab Ghosh:
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As a Ryanair flight from London approached Vilnius, Lithuania, on 17 January, its descent was suddenly aborted. Just minutes from touching down, the aircraft’s essential Global Positioning System (GPS) suffered an unexplained interference, triggering an emergency diversion.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8-200 had already descended to around 850ft (259m) when the disruption occurred. Instead of landing, the plane was forced to climb back into the sky and divert nearly 400km (250 miles) south to Warsaw, Poland. Lithuanian air authorities later confirmed the aircraft had been affected by “GPS signal interference”.
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So (long feature short) British scientists are developing alternative atomic clocks for an alternative ground-based GPS:
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GPS and other satellite navigation systems reset their own clocks by touching base with these more accurate clocks on the ground. For the alternative to GPS, the scientists will need a new type of atomic clock that can eventually be miniaturised and robust enough to work in everyday situations, rather than the carefully controlled conditions inside a lab.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) researchers are perfecting a so-called optical clock to achieve this, which is 100 times more accurate than the most accurate caesium clocks used today. It looks as if it might be part of Dr Who’s Tardis and is stimulated with laser light rather than microwaves.
When optical clocks take over from caesium ones as the timepieces that determine Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), the way the passage of time is defined will also have to change, according to [NPL head scientist for time and frequency Dr Helen] Margolis.
“The international community has drawn up a road map for the redefinition of the second,” she tells BBC News.
The NPL’s immediate hope is to have a national network by 2030, connecting four atomic clocks across the UK that businesses can plug into for secure accurate timekeeping and for developing new innovative applications that harness ultra-fast time.
Eventually, critical systems in the UK in finance, telecommunications, energy, utilities and national security could switch over – though that would take longer. “To convert everything is at least a decade away, and probably significantly longer,” says [the NPL’s] Prof [Douglas] Paul.
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GPS is here! A decade away at least. Russia is already being aggressive about jamming, so might need it sooner. (Thanks Greg B for the link.)
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 