Israel-linked group hacks Iranian cryptocurrency exchange in $90m heist

An Israel-linked hacking group has claimed responsibility for a $90m (£67m) heist on an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange.The group known as Gonjeshke Darande, Farsi for Predatory Sparrow, said on Wednesday it had hacked the Nobitex exchange, a day after claiming it had destroyed data at Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah.Elliptic, a consultancy specialising in crypto-related crime, said it had so far identified more than $90m in cryptocurrency sent from Nobitex crypto wallets to hacker addresses.The hackers appear to have in effect “burned” those funds, rendering them inaccessible by storing them in “vanity addresses” for which they do not have the cryptographic keys, Elliptic said.Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s co-founder, told the Guardian it would take current computer technology “billions of years” to create the cryptographic key pairs that match the vanity addresses

OpenAI boss accuses Meta of trying to poach staff with $100m sign-on bonuses

The boss of OpenAI has claimed that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has tried to poach his top artificial intelligence experts with “crazy” signing bonuses of $100m (£74m), as the scramble for talent in the booming sector intensifies.Sam Altman spoke about the offers in a podcast on Tuesday. They have not been confirmed by Meta. OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, said it had nothing to add beyond its chief executive’s comments.“They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team – $100m signing bonuses, more than that comp [compensation] per year,” Altman told the Uncapped podcast, which is presented by his brother, Jack

‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number

The Meta chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, called it “the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use”. But Barry Smethurst, 41, a record shop worker trying to travel by rail from Saddleworth to Manchester Piccadilly, did not agree.Waiting on the platform for a morning train that was nowhere to be seen, he asked Meta’s WhatsApp AI assistant for a contact number for TransPennine Express. The chatbot confidently sent him a mobile phone number for customer services, but it turned out to be the private number of a completely unconnected WhatsApp user 170 miles away in Oxfordshire.It was the beginning of a bizarre exchange of the kind more and more people are having with AI systems, in which chatbots try to negotiate their way out of trouble, deflect attention from their mistakes and contradict themselves, all in an attempt to continue to appear useful

Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years

The boss of Amazon has told white collar staff at the e-commerce company their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence in the next few years.Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that carry out tasks autonomously – and generative AI systems such as chatbots would require fewer employees in certain areas.“As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” he said in a memo to staff. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce

Up to 70% of streams of AI-generated music on Deezer are fraudulent, says report

Up to seven out of 10 streams of artificial intelligence-generated music on the Deezer platform are fraudulent, according to the French streaming platform.The company said AI-made music accounts for just 0.5% of streams on the music streaming platform but its analysis shows that fraudsters are behind up to 70% of those streams.AI-generated music is a growing problem on streaming platforms. Fraudsters typically generate revenue on platforms such as Deezer by using bots to “listen” to AI-generated songs – and take the subsequent royalty payments, which become sizeable once spread across multiple tracks

Elon Musk’s X sues New York over hate speech and disinformation law

Elon Musk’s X Corp filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the state of New York, arguing a recently passed law compelling large social media companies to divulge how they address hate speech is unconstitutional.The complaint alleges that bill S895B, known as the Stop Hiding Hate Act, violates free speech rights under the first amendment. The act, which the governor, Kathy Hochul, signed into law last December, requires companies to publish their terms of service and submit reports detailing the steps they take to moderate extremism, foreign influence, disinformation, hate speech and other forms of harmful content.Musk’s lawyers argue that the law, which goes into effect this week, would require X to submit “highly sensitive information” and compel non-commercial speech, which is subject to greater first amendment protections. The complaint also opposes the possible penalty of $15,000 per violation per day for failing to comply with the law