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Avalanche kills at least seven people in the Himalayas

admin - Latest News - November 4, 2025
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Avalanche kills at least seven people in the Himalayas



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October 18, 2025
Zelenskyy: ‘Trump didn't say no’ but ‘didn't say yes’ to Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine
October 2, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 2, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 2, 2025, 8:41 AM EDTBy Jared PerloSam Altman singing in a toilet. James Bond playing Altman in high-stakes poker. Pikachu storming Normandy’s beaches. Mario jumping from his virtual world into real life.Those are just some of the lifelike videos that are rocketing through the internet a day after OpenAI released Sora, an app at the intersection of social media and artificial intelligence-powered media generation. The app surged to be the most popular app in the iOS App Store’s Photo and Video category within a day of its release.Powered by OpenAI’s upgraded Sora 2 media generation AI model, the app allows users to create high-definition videos from simple text prompts. After it processes one-time video and audio recordings of users’ likenesses, Sora allows users to embed lifelike “cameos” of themselves, their friends and others who give their permission. The app is a recipe made for virality. But many of the videos published within the first day of Sora’s debut have also raised alarm bells from copyright and deepfake experts.Users have so far reported being able to feature video game characters like Lara Croft or Nintendo heavyweights like Mario, Luigi and even Princess Peach in their AI creations. One user inserted Ronald McDonald into a saucy scene from the romantic reality TV show “Love Island.” The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the app would enable users to feature material protected by copyright unless the copyright holders opted out of having their work appear. However, the report said, blanket opt-outs did not appear to be an option, instead requiring copyright holders to submit examples of offending content.Sora 2 builds on OpenAI’s original Sora model, which was released to the public in December. Unlike the original Sora, Sora 2 now enables users to create videos with matching dialogue and sound effects.AI models ingest large swaths of information in the “training” process as they learn how to respond to users’ queries. That data forms the basis for models’ responses to future user requests. For example, Google’s Veo 3 video generation model was trained on YouTube videos, much to the dismay of some YouTube creators. OpenAI has not clearly indicated which exact data its models draw from, but the appearance of characters under copyright indicates that it used copyright-protected information to design the Sora 2 system. China’s ByteDance and its Seedance video generation model have also attracted recent copyright scrutiny.OpenAI faces legal action over copyright infringement claims, including a high-profile lawsuit featuring authors including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jodi Picoult and newspapers like The New York Times. OpenAI competitor Anthropic recently agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims from authors who alleged that Anthropic illegally downloaded and used their books to train its AI models. In an interview, Mark McKenna, a law professor and the faculty director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, drew a stark line between using copyrighted data as an input to train models and generating outputs that depict copyright-protected information.“If OpenAI is taking an aggressive approach that says they’re going to allow outputs of your copyright-protected material unless you opt out, that strikes me as not likely to work. That’s not how copyright law works. You don’t have to opt out of somebody else’s rules,” McKenna said.“The early indications show that training AI models on legitimately acquired copyright material can be considered fair use. There’s a very different question about the outputs of these systems,” he continued. “Outputting visual material is a harder copyright question than just the training of models.”As McKenna sees it, that approach is a calculated risk. “The opt-out is clearly a ‘move fast and break things’ mindset,” he said. “And the aggressive response by some of the studios is ‘No, we’re not going to go along with that.’”Disney, Warner Bros. and Sony Music Entertainment did not reply to requests for comment.In addition to copyright issues, some observers were unsettled by one of the most popular first-day creations, which depicted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stealing valuable computer components from Target — illustrating the ease with which Sora 2 can create content depicting real people committing crimes they had not actually committed. Sora 2’s high-quality outputs arrive as some have expressed concerns about illicit or harmful creations, from worries about gory scenes and child safety to the model’s role in spreading deepfakes. OpenAI includes techniques to indicate Sora 2’s creations are AI-generated as concerns grow about the ever-blurrier line between reality and computer-generated content.Sora 2 will include moving watermarks on all videos on the Sora app or downloaded from sora.com, while invisible metadata will indicate Sora-generated videos are created by AI systems.However, the metadata can be easily removed. OpenAI’s own documentation says the metadata approach “is not a silver bullet to address issues of provenance. It can easily be removed either accidentally or intentionally,” like when users upload images to social media websites.Siwei Lyu, a professor of computer science and the director of the University of Buffalo’s Media Forensic Lab and Center for Information Integrity, agreed that multiple layers of authentication were key to prove content’s origin from Sora. “OpenAI claimed they have other responsible use measures, such as the inclusion of visible and invisible watermarks, and tracing tools for Sora-made images and audio. These complement the metadata and provide an additional layer of protection,” Lyu said.“However, their effectiveness requires additional testing. The invisible watermark and tracing tools can only be tested internally, so it is hard to judge how well they work at this point,” he added.OpenAI addressed those limitations in its technical safety report, writing that “we will continue to improve the provenance ecosystem to help bring more transparency to content created from our tools.” OpenAI did not immediately reply to a request for comment.Though the Sora app is available for download, access to Sora’s services remains invitation-only as OpenAI gradually increases access. Jared PerloJared Perlo is a writer and reporter at NBC News covering AI. He is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.
November 12, 2025
Nov. 12, 2025, 9:46 AM EST / Updated Nov. 12, 2025, 9:48 AM ESTBy Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube and Carol E. LeeWASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s directive to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War could cost as much as $2 billion, according to six people with knowledge of the potential cost.The name change, which must be approved by Congress, would require replacing thousands of signs, placards, letterheads and badges, as well as any other items at U.S. military sites around the world that feature the Department of Defense name, according to two senior Republican congressional staffers, two senior Democratic congressional staffers and two other people briefed on the potential cost.New department letterhead and signage alone could cost about $1 billion, according to the four senior congressional staffers and one of the people briefed on the potential cost.One of the biggest contributors to the cost of changing the name would be rewriting digital code for all of the department’s internal and external facing websites, as well as other computer software on classified and unclassified systems, the four senior congressional staffers said.The government could decide not to make every change to the Department of Defense branding, which could bring down the cost. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said a final cost estimate for changing the name has not been set.“The Department of War is aggressively implementing the name change directed by President Trump, and is making the name permanent,” Parnell said in an emailed statement. “A final cost estimate has not been determined at this time due to the Democrat shutdown furloughing many of our critical civilians. A nod to our proud heritage, this change is essential because it reflects the Department’s core mission: winning wars. This has always been our mission, and while we hope for peace, we will prepare for war.”A spokesperson for the White House directed questions to the Pentagon when asked for comment on the cost of changing the Pentagon’s name.The cost estimate for renaming the Pentagon comes as Trump has promised to cut back on federal spending. He’s signed off on steep cuts to government agencies since taking office. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth specifically plans to cut thousands of Pentagon military and civilian personnel as part of his effort to reshape the department’s budget to focus on what he dubs “lethality” and a “warrior ethos.”“Under the Trump administration, we are restoring the pride and the winning spirit of the United States military. That’s why we have officially renamed the Department of Defense back to the original name Department of War,” Trump said Tuesday during a Veterans Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.Currently, the Department of War is a secondary title for the Department of Defense, not the formal name of the department. Trump did not mention that an official name change requires congressional approval, but said Department of War better conveys the message that the U.S. is ready to “fight to win.”He first announced a proposed name change in early September when he signed an executive order that authorized Hegseth to adopt the title “secretary of war” and to use “Department of War” in official correspondence and public communications. Trump’s new order gave the Pentagon two deadlines — one 30 days after the president signed the order and another 60 days after — to submit paperwork to the National Security Council that would move the process forward to formally and legally provide Congress with what it needs to consider the name change.White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly would not say whether either of those deadlines have been met.“Under President Trump’s leadership, the now aptly-named Department of War is refocused on readiness and lethality — and its title now reflects its status as the most powerful fighting force in the world,” Kelly said in an emailed statement. “The White House is working hand-in-glove with the Department of War on implementation of the Executive Order.”Following the signing of the order, the Pentagon quickly changed its website URL and social media handles to feature the Department of War rather than Department of Defense. Hegseth also replaced the sign outside his office –- which now reads, “The Office of the Secretary of War” — as well as some signs at the Pentagon.But many signs remain unchanged, including a brass nameplate that hangs outside one of the Pentagon’s entrances that still tells visitors they’re entering “The Department of Defense.”Trump’s executive order required that all executive branch departments and agencies “recognize and accommodate these secondary titles in internal and external communications.”It also acknowledged that the name change would require congressional action.Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah introduced legislation in September to make the name change, and Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla,, introduced legislation in the House. “Restoring the name to Department of War reflects our true purpose: to dominate wars, not merely respond after being provoked,” Scott said in a statement at the time. “It should always be clear to anyone who would harm our people: Americans don’t just play defense,” Lee wrote. But so far, the Trump administration has not made any formal attempt to push legislation through Congress, which would have to fund the cost of the name change.Some Republican lawmakers have privately griped about the focus on what they see as a vanity project, according to two of the senior congressional staffers. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has been public about his criticism of the change as potentially glorifying war and has vowed to lead opposition to formalize and fund the change in the Senate.Democrats have been dismissive of the idea.Last week, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said the name change is a form of “cosplay.”“The department is designated by congressional statue as the Department of Defense, not the Department of War,” Kaine said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “Congress has not authorized the name change … and as far as I’m concerned, there’s no effort for Congress to make the name change.” Ten Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Congressional Budget Office in September requesting the cost of changing the department’s name, including for procuring new signage, branding and ceremonial materials, updating titles of personnel, website redesign and digital infrastructure updates. They called the effort to change the name “wasteful and hypocritical,” particularly given the Trump administration’s focus on fiscal restraint, and said “it appears to prioritize political theater over responsible governance, while diverting resources from core national security functions.”The Pentagon has undergone name changes since its original Department of War designation in 1789. The first change was under President Harry Truman who changed it from the Department of War to the National Military Establishment. The National Security Act of 1947 that was signed by Truman organized all military services into a single entity led by a secretary of defense.Congress then changed the name to Department of Defense a couple years later.Gordon LuboldGordon Lubold is a national security reporter for NBC News.Courtney KubeCourtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Carol E. LeeCarol E. Lee is the Washington managing editor.
October 27, 2025
Nuclear power plant torn down in Germany
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