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A computer science student is behind a new AI tool designed to track down Redditors showing signs of radicalization and deploy bots to deradicalize them through conversation. First reported by 404 Media, PrismX was built by Sairaj Balaji, a computer science student at SRMIST in Chennai, India. The tool works by analyzing posts for specific keywords and patterns associated with extreme views, giving those users a radical score. High scorers are then targeted by AI bots programmed to attempt deradicalization through engaging the user in conversation. According to the federal government, the primary terror threat to the U.S. now is individuals radicalized to violence online through social media. At the same time, fears around surveillance technology and artificial intelligence infiltrating online communities pose an ethical minefield. Responding to concerns, Balaji clarified in a Linkedin post that the conversation part of the tool has not been tested on real Reddit users without consent. Instead, the scoring and conversation elements were used in simulated environments for research-purposes only. The tool was designed to provoke discussion, not controversy, he explained in the post. Were at a point in history where rogue actors and nation-states are already deploying weaponized AI. If a college student can build something like PrismX, it raises urgent questions: Whos watching the watchers? While Balaji doesnt claim to be an expert in deradicalization, as an engineer, he is interested in the ethical implications of surveillance technology. Discomfort sparks debate. Debate leads to oversight. And oversight is how we prevent the misuse of emerging technologies, he continued. This isnt the first time Redditors have been used as guinea pigs in recent months. Just last month, researchers from the University of Zurich faced intense backlash after experimenting on an unsuspecting subreddit. The research involved deploying AI-powered bots into the r/ChangeMyView subreddit, which positions itself as a place to post an opinion you accept may be flawed, in an experiment to see if AI could be used to change peoples minds. When Redditors, and Reddit itself, found out they were being experimented on without their knowledge, they werent impressed. Reddits chief legal officer, Ben Lee, wrote in a post that neither Reddit nor the r/changemyview mods knew about the experiment ahead of time. What this University of Zurich team did is deeply wrong on both a moral and legal level, Lee wrote. It violates academic research and human rights norms, and is prohibited by Reddits user agreement and rules, in addition to the subreddit rules. While PrismX is not currently being tested on real unconsenting users, it piles on the ever-growing question of the role of artificial intelligence in human spaces.
Category:
E-Commerce
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administrations ban to prevent international students from enrolling at Harvard on Friday, the latest development in the White Houses escalating pressure campaign against the Ivy League university. The judge granted Harvards request for a temporary restraining order on the basis that the school would sustain immediate and irreparable injury before a hearing, which CNBC reports is set for Tuesday, could take place. On Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered her agency to withdraw the schools certification for admitting foreign students, known as a Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification. The change would block future international students from enrolling at Harvard while also imperiling the legal status of international students currently studying there. The university filed a lawsuit on Friday morning to oppose the ban, arguing that it violates the First Amendment. Harvard has, over this time, developed programs and degrees tailored to its international students, invested millions to recruit the most talented such students, and integrated its international students into all aspects of the Harvard community, the lawsuit states, noting that the university along with 7,000 visa holders would suffer immediate and devastating effects. Homeland Security accused Harvard of permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students and jeopardizing safety on campus, pointing the finger at foreign students. The agency also referenced alleged connections between the university and the Chinese Communist Party. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law, Noem said. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country. The escalation against Harvard is the latest attack on high-profile universities during Trumps second term. The administration has repeatedly targeted Harvard and other academic institutions over their diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments, and claims that they foster antisemitism through student protests over Israels ongoing invasion of Gaza. However the Trump administrations attack on Harvard shakes out in court, schools that attract the best and brightest from around the globe are likely to suffer as foreign students think twice about taking the risk on elite American universities.
Category:
E-Commerce
We should have known it was too good to last. After markets enjoyed a month of relative peace in Donald Trumps trade war with the worlda stretch of time during which Trump paused his so-called reciprocal tariffs on most countries and then rolled back his massive 145% tariffs on Chinathe president reignited the conflict Friday morning with a couple of posts on TruthSocial. First, he directly threatened Apple with a company-specific 25% tariff on all iPhones if it shifts production to India from China, rather than to the U.S. Then, he attacked the European Union for being very difficult to deal with, and said he wanted to impose a 50% tariff on all U.S. imports from the EU on June 1. The threatswhich he may not have the legal authority to follow through onrattled markets severely at first, with S&P futures dropping more than 2%. Stocks recovered somewhat after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to cool investor anxieties in an appearance on Fox, and European officials said they were continuing to negotiate. But the turmoil engendered by Trumps posts was a reminder of the fact that U.S. trade policy is now being made, in effect, by presidential whim, making the future profits of many American companies dependent on how Trump happens to feel on any given day. When the president first unveiled his plan to impose high tariffs on imports from most of the worlds countrieswhich he called “Liberation Day“he claimed that the goal of his scheme was to bring about an ECONOMIC REVOLUTION. But that implied a level of planning and strategy that has been sorely lacking in the way Trump has handled tariffs since April 2. He jacked up tariffs (relying on an absurd formula), only to roll them back when markets cratered. He promised that trade deals galore were in the offing, only to then say he would raise tariffs unilaterally because the deals were taking too long to do. And he promised a 90-day pause on all the reciprocal tariffs, only to now say hes going to tariff the EU less than 60 days into the pause. The most obvious consequence of Trumps chaotic trade policy is that he has massively increased the amount of uncertainty American businesses (and, by extension, American consumers) will face going forward. Its next to impossible for businesses that import goods (either for sale or as part of their supply chain) to make reasonable plans for the future, since theres no way for them to know what Trump will require them to pay for imports down the road. Nor is there any guarantee that the tariff rates Trump comes up with will stay the same over time. As a result, companies dont know whether they now should be massively stocking up on imports in anticipation of higher tariffs (a move that would increase their inventory costs)or if they should be buying like normal in anticipation that deals will get made. They have to decide, but that decision cant be built on much more than guesswork. The only thing companies do know, in fact, is that regardless of whatever else Trump decides, theyre going to have to pay a 10% universal tariff on everything they import (along with permanently higher tariffs on imports from certain countries, like China). This universal 10% tariffwhich Trump imposed on Liberation Day and kept in place even as he rolled his other tariffs backis not a bargaining tool or a threat: Its here to stay for as long as Trump remains president. So companies are facing permanently higher import costs on top of major uncertainty. The fact that, for all his changes of mind, Trump has stayed committed to the 10% universal tariff isnt surprising. In the first place, it was one of his oft-repeated campaign promiseshe said it would be a ring around the U.S. economy. And it fits well with Trumps basic view of trade, which is that when we buy stuff made abroad, we’re losing money, so the government should charge what he thinks of as effectively a cover charge to sell to U.S. customers. (That cover charge, of course, is paid by the U.S. businesses that are importing the goods, but Trump prefers to ignore that fact.) Trump may talk about the importance of opening foreign markets (as he did in his post about the EU Friday morning), but hes always been more interested in imposing tariffs on imports than he has been in encouraging exports. The 10% tariff is not as dramatic as the China tariffs or the threats against the EU and Apple, which helps explain why investors have, for the most part, shrugged off its potential impact. But American businesses and consumers wont be so lucky. Thats why Walmart said on an earnings call last week that it would be hiking prices as soon as the end of the month because of tariff costs. As the companys CFO explained in an interview with CNBC: Were wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb. And so Im concerned that consumer is going to start seeing higher prices. This of course infuriated Trump, who wrote on TruthSocial that Walmart should eat the tariffs. But the company was simply acknowledging economic reality: Its net profit margin last year was around 2.6%, and it imports almost $50 billion a year in goods from China alone, plus tens of billions of dollars of goods from other countries. It does not have the leeway to absorb a sizable increase in the price of those goods without passing at least some of the cost along. And the same is true of many other retailersindeed, its even more true of small- to medium-size retailers. In response to Trumps criticism, Walmart said: Well keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can, given the reality of small retail margins. But the message was ultimately the same: Prices will have to rise. Those price increases are not likely to be massive. But that doesnt mean they wont matter. What Trumps policy means is that we are now looking at a global economy in which tariffs are going to be higher across the board, and in which he is imposing, at a minimum, a new 10% tax on trade. When you tax something, you get less of itmeaning that in addition to higher retail prices, were likely to have less trade and lower retail sales. This will be even more true if Trump follows through on his latest threats. But even if he backs down from them, the Yale Budget Lab estimates that a universal 10% tariff, along with 60% tariffs on Chinese imports (which would be a little higher than they are now), would cost consumers, on average, a minimum of $1,900 a year in higher prices, and could shrink U.S. GDP by somewhere between 0.5% and 1.4%. We may yet dodge the disaster that the U.S. is headed for if Trump ends up returning to his original Liberation Day tariffs, and if we have a real trade war with the EU and China. But even if we do, the tariffs well still be stuck with ar going to be a permanent, steady drag on the economya drag that may not be big enough to make headlines but that nonetheless will be impossible to avoid.
Category:
E-Commerce
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