Економіка

London — False and misleading information supercharged with cutting-edge artificial intelligence that threatens to erode democracy and polarize society is the top immediate risk to the global economy, the World Economic Forum said in a report Wednesday.

In its latest Global Risks Report, the organization also said an array of environmental risks pose the biggest threats in the longer term. The report was released ahead of the annual elite gathering of CEOs and world leaders in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos and is based on a survey of nearly 1,500 experts, industry leaders and policymakers.

The report listed misinformation and disinformation as the most severe risk over the next two years, highlighting how rapid advances in technology also are creating new problems or making existing ones worse.

The authors worry that the boom in generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT means that creating sophisticated synthetic content that can be used to manipulate groups of people won’t be limited any longer to those with specialized skills.

AI is set to be a hot topic next week at the Davos meetings, which are expected to be attended by tech company bosses including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and AI industry players like Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun.

AI-powered misinformation and disinformation is emerging as a risk just as a billions of people in a slew of countries, including large economies like the United States, Britain, Indonesia, India, Mexico, and Pakistan, are set to head to the polls this year and next, the report said.

“You can leverage AI to do deepfakes and to really impact large groups, which really drives misinformation,” said Carolina Klint, a risk management leader at Marsh, whose parent company Marsh McLennan co-authored the report with Zurich Insurance Group.

“Societies could become further polarized” as people find it harder to verify facts, she said. Fake information also could be used to fuel questions about the legitimacy of elected governments, “which means that democratic processes could be eroded, and it would also drive societal polarization even further,” Klint said.

The rise of AI brings a host of other risks, she said. It can empower “malicious actors” by making it easier to carry out cyberattacks, such as by automating phishing attempts or creating advanced malware.

With AI, “you don’t need to be the sharpest tool in the shed to be a malicious actor,” Klint said.

It can even poison data that is scraped off the internet to train other AI systems, which is “incredibly difficult to reverse” and could result in further embedding biases into AI models, she said.

The other big global concern for respondents of the risk survey centered around climate change.

Following disinformation and misinformation, extreme weather is the second-most-pressing short-term risk.

In the long term — defined as 10 years — extreme weather was described as the No. 1 threat, followed by four other environmental-related risks: critical change to Earth systems; biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; and natural resource shortages.

“We could be pushed past that irreversible climate change tipping point” over the next decade as the Earth’s systems undergo long-term changes, Klint said.
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WASHINGTON — A recent cyber kidnapping incident involving a Chinese exchange student in Utah appears to be part of an international pattern in which unknown perpetrators, often masquerading as Chinese police or government officials, target Chinese students around the world and extort their families for upwards of tens of thousands of dollars.

In late December, 17-year-old Chinese student Kai Zhuang was reported missing near Salt Lake City, only to be found days later alone and freezing in a tent in the mountains. Authorities have said the case was part of an apparent cyber kidnapping scheme to scam his family in China out of $80,000.

Cyber kidnapping is when perpetrators pretend to have abducted someone to coerce their family into paying a ransom.

“At the heart of it are the heartstrings of the victim, who is told to go run and hide, and the heartstrings of the people who think their loved one is actually in the possession of kidnappers,” said Theresa Payton, CEO of cybersecurity company Fortalice Solutions.

“Virtual kidnapping is, at its very root, manipulative. It is coercive. It is emotionally draining and complex,” said Payton, who is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

On January 3, just days after Kai Zhuang was found, the FBI issued a warning about criminals impersonating Chinese police officers to defraud Chinese people based in the United States, especially Chinese students.

Around the world

VOA has learned that the cyber scams aren’t targeting only Chinese students studying in the United States.

Over the past year, Chinese students studying abroad in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan have also been targeted by cyber kidnapping scams and other cybercrime schemes, VOA found.

In these countries, the perpetrators also often pretended to be Chinese police officers or government officials. Cybersecurity experts said this tactic indicates criminals are leveraging China’s authoritarian system, in which deference to and fear of the police are the norm, to their advantage.

“Chinese people are naturally afraid of the police,” said Han Jiang Du Diao Seng, a pharmacist based in the United States who runs accounts on YouTube and Weibo that are popular among Chinese exchange students.

Han Jiang Du Diao Seng has helped four Chinese students caught up in cyber kidnapping scams, he said. In his experience, he said, scammers posing as government officials tend to approach Chinese students and first ask if they recently received money from their family in China.

If the student says yes, he said, the scammer either claims the money was transferred illegally or that their family is being targeted by criminals, before requiring the student to halt contact with their family during an investigation — all of which is a ploy to then extort money from the family.

Left their homes

In the incidents Han Jiang Du Diao Seng worked on, he said, the criminals coerced all the students to leave where they lived and go stay at a hotel, which helped convince their parents that they were actually kidnapped.

He said that these criminals may be taking advantage of the fact that Chinese parents may be less likely to report the incidents to American police — in part due to language barriers but also due to general distrust among Chinese people of the American police. Chinese state media regularly depict American police as violent and irresponsible.

“You have a fear of government involvement and law enforcement involvement because the relationship to the government is different,” cybersecurity expert Joseph Steinberg said, referring to people from authoritarian countries such as China.

There is no clear data on the number of cyber kidnapping cases in the United States or around the world, cybersecurity experts told VOA, but incidents seem to be rising. Technological advancements, particularly with artificial intelligence, risk making the schemes even easier to perpetrate, they said.

There are different tiers of sophistication in these cybercrime syndicates, according to Payton. At the lower end, perpetrators may use an auto dialer to target random people in hopes of getting a few hundred dollars, she said.

More sophisticated schemes

At the upper end, perpetrators use artificial intelligence algorithms to identify targets and deepfake technology to create photos and audio intended to make victims believe their loved one has actually been kidnapped, Payton said.

“You do not actually have to be technically minded to get into this type of crime. You just have to be a twisted, evil individual,” she said.

AI advancements mean perpetrators don’t even need to speak the same language as their victims, according to Steinberg, who is based in New York City.

“AI is only going to get better, and that means that the attacks will only be more and more realistic,” he told VOA.

Some cybercriminals are just after a quick buck, Steinberg said. “But you have some that are after the big dollars and will spend the time to do the research,” he said.

That may help explain why Chinese exchange students apparently are being specifically targeted.

Payton said that given the complex relationship between the Chinese government and its citizens, as well as other factors such as culture, history and economics, “it is conceivable that global criminal syndicates engaging in such activities as virtual kidnapping may perceive young Chinese adults studying abroad as more susceptible to fall prey to this crime,” Payton said.

In Canada in February 2023, regional police said Chinese students had been swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by scammers claiming to be Chinese government officials.

Similar incidents have played out in Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom. It is not clear whether the perpetrators of any of these crimes are linked in any way. The investigation into the recent Utah incident is ongoing, and it is not clear whether the perpetrators imitated Chinese officials.

China’s embassy in Washington did not respond to that question when VOA reached out for comment.

Warnings from embassies and police

The embassy did urge Chinese citizens in the U.S., especially those studying in the country, to boost safety awareness, take necessary precautions, and stay vigilant against “virtual kidnapping” and other forms of telecom and online fraud.

In the span of two months in Japan last summer, at least six Chinese students were targeted in cyber kidnapping schemes, local police said. The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo issued a warning about the scams in August, urging Chinese citizens in the country to “be wary” and “vigilant.”

Local British police issued a warning about cyber scams targeting Chinese students in September, and the Australian government released a similar warning a month later.

“These criminal syndicates demonstrate a profound understanding of human behavior, potentially leveraging fear tactics to manipulate individuals into compliance and their families into making payments. They are targeting all demographics, but the trend appears to indicate they favor targeting Chinese exchange students studying abroad,” Payton said.

To avoid falling victim to these kinds of schemes, cybersecurity experts recommended families set up a password to verify one another’s identity over the phone during these kinds of scenarios.

“The cyber kidnapping scam very much can happen to anybody, and that’s what people need to be aware of,” Steinberg said.
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washington — The United States is pushing back its planned return of astronauts to the surface of the Moon from 2025 to 2026, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday.

Artemis, named after the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, was officially announced in 2017 as part of the US space agency’s plans to establish a sustained presence on Earth’s nearest space neighbor, and apply lessons learned there for a future mission to Mars.

Its first mission, an uncrewed test flight to the Moon and back called Artemis 1, took place in 2022, after several postponements.

Artemis 2, involving a crew that doesn’t land on the surface, has been postponed from later this year to September 2025, Nelson told reporters.

Artemis 3, in which the first woman and first person of color are to set foot on lunar soil at the Moon’s south pole, should now take place in September 2026.

“Safety is our top priority, and to give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges,” said Nelson.

NASA is also looking to build a lunar space station called Gateway where spacecraft will dock during later missions.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has won the contract for a landing system for Artemis 3 based on a version of its prototype Starship rocket, which remains far from ready. Both of its orbital tests have ended in explosions.

Delays to Starship have knock-on effects because the spacesuit contractor needs to know how the suits will interface with the spacecraft, and simulators need to be built for astronauts to learn its systems.

And the Artemis 1 mission itself revealed technical issues, such as the heat shield on the Orion crew capsule eroded in an unexpected way, and the ground structure used to launch the giant SLS rocket sustained more damage than expected.

As of March 2023, NASA has agreed to pay approximately $40 billion to hundreds of contractors in support of Artemis, the same watchdog found.

A key difference between the 20th-century Apollo missions and the Artemis era is the increasing role of commercial partnerships, part of a broader strategy to involve the private companies in space exploration to reduce costs and to make space more accessible.
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Washington — Meta on Tuesday said it was tightening up content restrictions for teens on Instagram and Facebook as it faces increased scrutiny that its platforms are harmful for young people. 

The changes come months after dozens of U.S. states accused Meta of damaging the mental health of children and teens, and misleading users about the safety of its platforms. 

In a blog post, the company run by Mark Zuckerberg said it will now “restrict teens from seeing certain types of content across Facebook and Instagram even if it’s from friends or people they follow.” 

This type of content would include content that discusses suicide or self-harm, as well as nudity or mentions of restricted goods, the company added. 

Restricted goods on Instagram include tobacco products and weapons as well as alcohol, contraception, cosmetic procedures and weight loss programs, according to its website. 

In addition, teens will now be defaulted into the most restricted settings on Instagram and Facebook, a policy that was in place for new users and that now will be expanded to existing users. 

This will “make it more difficult for people to come across potentially sensitive content or accounts in places like Search and Explore,” the company said. 

Meta also said that it will expand its policy of hiding results to searches related to suicide and self harm to include more terms.

Leaked internal research from Meta, including by the Wall Street Journal and whistle-blower Frances Haugen, has shown that the company was long aware of dangers its platforms have on the mental health for young people.

On the platforms, teens are defined as being under eighteen, based on the date of birth they give when signing up. 
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Cape Canaveral, Florida — The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed toward the moon Monday, launching private companies on a space race to make deliveries for NASA and other customers.

Astrobotic Technology’s lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon that should culminate with an attempted landing on Feb. 23.

The Pittsburgh company aims to be the first private business to successfully land on the moon, something only four countries have accomplished. But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly, and could beat it to the lunar surface, taking a more direct path.

“First to launch. First to land is TBD” — to be determined, said Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton.

NASA gave the two companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers. The space agency wants the privately owned landers to scope out the place before astronauts arrive while delivering NASA tech and science experiments as well as odds and ends for other customers.

Astrobotic’s contract for the Peregrine lander: $108 million.

The last time the U.S. launched a moon-landing mission was in December 1972.

Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, closing out an era that has remained NASA’s pinnacle.

The space agency’s new Artemis program — named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology — looks to return astronauts to the moon’s surface within the next few years.

First will be a lunar fly-around with four astronauts, possibly before the end of the year.

Highlighting Monday’s moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The 61-meter rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s hugely successful workhorse Atlas V, which is being phased out along with the company’s Delta IV. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, provided the Vulcan’s two main engines.

The Soviet Union and the U.S. racked up a string of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 70s, before putting touchdowns on pause. China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023. But last year also saw landers from Russia and a private Japanese company slam into the moon. An Israeli nonprofit crashed in 2019.

Next month, SpaceX will provide the lift for a lander from Intuitive Machines. The Nova-C lander’s more direct one-week route could see both spacecraft attempting to land within days or even hours of one another.

The hourlong descent to the lunar surface — by far the biggest challenge — will be “exciting, nail-biting, terrifying all at once,” said Thornton.

Besides flying experiments for NASA, Astrobotic drummed up its own freight business, packing the 1.9-meter-tall Peregrine lander with everything from a chip of rock from Mount Everest and toy-size cars from Mexico that will catapult to the lunar surface and cruise around, to the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

The Navajo Nation recently sought to have the launch delayed because of the human remains, saying it would be a “profound desecration” of a celestial body revered by Native Americans.

Thornton said the December objections came too late but promised to try to find “a good path forward” with the Navajo for future missions.

One of the spaceflight memorial companies that bought room on the lander, Celestis, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission.

More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which, once free of the lander, will indefinitely circle the sun as far out as Mars.

Cargo fares for Peregrine ranged from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram, not nearly enough for Astrobotic to break even. But for this first flight, that’s not the point, according to Thornton.

“A lot of people’s dreams and hopes are riding on this,” he said.
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