September 13, 2024

AI can change belief in conspiracy theories, study finds

“Our findings fundamentally challenge the view that evidence and arguments are of little use once someone has ‘gone down the rabbit hole’ and come to believe a conspiracy theory,” the team wrote. Crucially, the researchers said, the approach relies on an AI system that can draw on a vast array of information to produce conversations that encourage critical thinking and provide bespoke, fact-based counterarguments. ...?“About one in four people who began the experiment believing a conspiracy theory came out the other end without that belief,” said Costello. “In most cases, the AI can only chip away – making people a bit more sceptical and uncertain – but a select few were disabused of their conspiracy entirely.” The researchers added that reducing belief in one conspiracy theory appeared to reduce participants’ belief in other such ideas, at least to a small degree, while the approach could have applications in the real world – for example, AI could reply to posts relating to conspiracy theories on social media.?Prof Sander van der Linden of the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the work, questioned whether people would engage with such AI voluntarily in the real world.

Does Value Stream Management Really Work?

Value stream management is indeed working when it is approached holistically by integrating the framework with technology and people. By mapping and optimizing every step in the customer journey, companies can eliminate waste, create efficiency and ultimately deliver sought after value to customers. The key lies in continuous improvement and stakeholder engagement throughout the value stream, ensuring alignment and commitment to delivering responsiveness and quality to customer needs, according to Saraha Burnett, chief operations officer at full service digital experience and engineering firm TMG. “Value stream management is indeed working when it is approached holistically by integrating the framework with technology and people. By mapping and optimizing every step in the customer journey, companies can eliminate waste, create efficiency and ultimately deliver sought after value to customers,” says Burnett in an email interview. “The key lies in continuous improvement and stakeholder engagement throughout the value stream, ensuring alignment and commitment to delivering responsiveness and quality to customer needs.”

Digital ID hackathons to explore real-world use cases

The hackathons aim to address the cold start program by involving verifiers to facilitate the widespread adoption of mDLs. In this context, the cold start program refers to a marketplace that relies on identity holders and verifiers. The primary focus of the hackathon will be on building minimum viable products (MVPs) that showcase the functionality of the solution. These MVPs will enable participants to test real-world use cases for mDLs. The digital version of California driver’s licenses has a variety of potential uses, according to the OpenID Foundation, including facilitating TSA security checks at airport security checkpoints, verifying age for purchasing age-restricted items, accessing DMV websites online, and using for peer-to-peer identification purposes. For the hackathon, the California DMV will issue mDLs in two formats: the ISO 18013-5 standard and the W3C Verifiable Credentials v1.1 specification. The dual issuance provides verifiers with the flexibility to choose the verification method that best aligns with their system requirements, the foundation says. Christopher Goh, the national harmonization lead for digital identity at Austroads, has written a one-pager discussing the various standards within the ISO/IEC 180130-5 framework specifically related to mDL.

Microsoft VS Code Undermined in Asian Spy Attack

"While the abuse of VSCode is concerning, in our opinion, it is not a vulnerability," Assaf Dahan, director of threat research for Unit 42, clarifies. Instead, he says, "It's a legitimate feature that was abused by threat actors, as often happens with many legitimate software." And there are a number of ways organizations can protect against a bring-your-own-VSCode attack. Besides hunting for indicators of compromise (IoCs), he says, "It's also important to consider whether the organization would want to limit or block the use of VSCode on endpoints of employees that are not developers or do not require the use of this specific app. That can reduce the attack surface." "Lastly, consider limiting access to the VSCode tunnel domains '.tunnels.api.visualstudio[.]com' or '.devtunnels[.]ms' to users with a valid business requirement. Notice that these domains are legitimate and are not malicious, but limiting access to them will prevent the feature from working properly and consequently make it less attractive for threat actors," he adds.

Rather Than Managing Your Time, Consider Managing Your Energy

“Achievement is no longer enough to be successful,” Sunderland says. “People also want to feel happy at the same time. Before, people were concerned only with thinking (mental energy) and doing (physical energy). But that success formula no longer works. Today, it’s essential to add feelings (emotional energy) and inner self-experience (spiritual energy) into the mix for people to learn how to be able to connect to and manage their energy.” ... Sunderland says all forms of human energy exist in relation to one another. “When these energies are in sync with each other, people’s energy will be in flow. People who maintain good health will be able to track those feelings (emotional energy) that flow through their bodies (physical energy), which is an essential skill to help increase energy awareness. With greater levels of energy awareness, people can grow their self-acceptance (emotional energy), which enhances their self-confidence.” He says that as confidence builds, people experience greater clarity of thought (mental energy) and they are able to increase their ability to speak truth (spiritual energy), amplifying their creative energy.?

Mastercard Enhances Real-Time Threat Visibility With Recorded Future Purchase

The payments network has made billions of dollars worth of acquisitions through the years. Within the security solutions segment of Mastercard, key focal points center on examining and protecting digital identities, protecting transactions and using insights from 143 billion annual payments to fashion real-time intelligence that can be used by merchants and FIs to anticipate new threats. By way of example, the firm acquired Ekarta in 2021 to score transactions for the likelihood of fraud through robust identity verification. All told, Mastercard has invested more than $7 billion over the past five years in its efforts to protect the digital economy. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key ingredient here, and Gerber detailed to PYMNTS that the company has been a pioneer in harnessing generative AI to extract trends from huge swaths of data to create “identity graphs” that provide immediate value to any merchant or FI that wants to understand more about the individuals that’s interacting with them in the digital realm. The use of other “intelligence graphs” connects the dots across data points to turn threat-related data into actionable insights.

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