Experts are issuing stern warnings about business support for Trump – it could
backfire badly and endanger democracy
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, a growing number of billionaires, tech
titans and venture capitalists are backing Donald Trump’s campaign for
president, among them Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone, the world’s
largest private-equity fund, Steve Wynn, the casino tycoon, Bill Ackman, the
hedge fund manager, and Marc Andreessen, a leading venture capitalist.
But many business school professors and historians are issuing stern warnings
about this business support for Trump, saying that backing him could backfire
badly for business and endanger America’s democracy. These professors caution
that corporate America – along with everyone else – should be hugely concerned
about a candidate who has talked of being a dictator on day one, terminating the
constitution, and weaponizing the justice department to exact revenge against
his critics.
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Tag - US elections 2024
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The Democratic contender tells it like it is about Donald Trump
• You can order your own copy of this cartoon
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AI images posted to Truth Social bore the watermark of a tiny Texas non-profit
looking to bankroll X users
When Donald Trump shared a slew of AI-generated images this week that falsely
depicted Taylor Swift and her fans endorsing his campaign for president, the
former US president was amplifying the work of a murky non-profit with
aspirations to bankroll rightwing media influencers and a history of spreading
misinformation.
Several of the images Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, which showed
digitally rendered young women in “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts, were the
products of the John Milton Freedom Foundation. Launched last year, the
Texas-based non-profit organization frames itself as a press freedom group with
the goal of “empowering independent journalists” and “fortifying the bedrock of
democracy”.
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AI company bans accounts and says operation did not appear to have meaningful
audience engagement
OpenAI said on Friday it had taken down accounts of an Iranian group for using
its ChatGPT chatbot to generate content meant for influencing the US
presidential election and other issues.
The operation, identified as Storm-2035, used ChatGPT to generate content
focused on topics such as commentary on the candidates on both sides in the US
elections, the conflict in Gaza and Israel’s presence at the Olympic Games and
then shared it via social media accounts and websites, Open AI said.
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New Meta security report finds that AI-powered deception campaigns ‘provide only
incremental’ results for bad actors
Russia is putting generative artificial intelligence to work in online deception
campaigns, but its efforts have been unsuccessful, according to a Meta security
report released on Thursday.
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram found that so far AI-powered
tactics “provide only incremental productivity and content-generation gains” for
bad actors and Meta has been able to disrupt deceptive influence operations.
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Harris’s track record, and time as California senator and AG, has tech leaders
wondering if she’d have a friendlier approach to the industry
About 700 wealthy Democratic supporters packed into San Francisco’s Fairmont
hotel on Sunday to see Kamala Harris in her first return to the city since
launching her campaign for president. Among the crowd at the fundraiser, where
the cheapest tickets cost $3,300 and went up to $500,000, was a mixture of tech
billionaires, executives and Silicon Valley venture capitalists who have quickly
embraced the vice-president in her bid for the White House.
The event, which raised more than $12m, was the latest in the Harris campaign’s
outreach to tech Democrats and an extension of a relationship with Silicon
Valley elites that goes back more than a decade.
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The X owner, talking to Trump Monday, has cast doubt on mail ballots and claims
there’s rampant non-citizen voting
When Elon Musk took over as owner of Twitter, researchers and elections
officials feared a rampant spread of misinformation that would lead to threats
and harassment and undermine democracy.
Their fears came true – and Musk himself has emerged as one of its main drivers.
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