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US Navy helicopter crashes off San Diego, search underway

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US Embassy in Kabul suspends operations

08/30/21 11:44 PM

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Last plane carrying US troops has left Afghanistan after 20 years, US officials say

08/30/21 1:41 PM

New story in Technology from Time: Airbnb Co-Founder Calls Offering Temporary Accommodation to 20,000 Afghan Refugees an ‘Easy Call’

Amid the continuing turmoil in Afghanistan, which has created thousands of refugees seeking evacuation, the CEO of the U.S. lodging marketplace Airbnb tweeted that the company would begin housing 20,000 Afghan refugees globally for free, starting Aug. 24.

AirBnb’s ‘Easy Call’

In his Aug. 24 announcement, CEO Brian Chesky explained that the company’s independent nonprofit Airbnb.org would coordinate this new initiative, funded through contributions from Airbnb, Chesky and donors to the Airbnb.org’s Refugee Fund. Airbnb.org was established last December to partner with relief organizations specializing in connecting displaced people to temporary housing.
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Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and chair of Airbnb.org told TIME that the company’s decision to temporarily house 20,000 Afghan refugees was an “easy call.” Airbnb’s key “assets,” according to Gebbia, are its generous host communities. The nonprofit’s history of temporary accommodation relief makes the company well-equipped “to respond to one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time,” said Gebbia.

“Everyone has a role to play in responding to this crisis, including the global business community,” Gebbia told TIME. “Tent.org is a great organization working to mobilize business support for refugees and I encourage any business leader reading this to get involved to check them out.” Members of Tent.org range from ING Bank to ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerries.

Founded in 2007, Airbnb, which is valued at $90 billion, now boasts listings in over 220 countries. While its popularity is at no risk of dwindling anytime soon—the company’s second quarter revenue in 2021 was up nearly 300% year-over-year—the boom in AirBnb’s model has been blamed for gentrification, over-tourism and housing shortages in cities around the world, from New York to Venice.

But Airbnb has also received praise for using its reach in other times of crisis. Over 25,000 people impacted by disasters or fleeing conflict have received temporary housing through Open Homes, an initiative launched by the company in June 2018.

Read more: China Sees Opportunity After America’s Withdrawal From Afghanistan. But Can Beijing Do Any Better?

According to Gebbia, Airbnb.org relies on the expertise and training of its partner organizations: International Rescue Committee, Church World Service and HIAS. To ensure appropriate safeguarding, the partners are trained on how to “find suitable listings, communicate directly with hosts prior to the stay, and are on standby for any issues that arise during the stay,” said Gebbia.

Daniel Leal-Olivas—AFP/Getty ImagesAirbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia speaks at an event in London on November 19, 2019.

How will Airbnb’s plan work?

While countries around the world scramble to address Afghan refugees—the Biden administration reportedly expects as many as 50,000 Afghans to seek resettlement—those that have been evacuated are in urgent need of accommodation. Gebbia claims that Airbnb.org and its partners have welcomed “over 200 afghan refugees and families to homes across the U.S.” in “just the last week.”

Airbnb’s program depends, however, on the complicated process of refugee evacuation from Afghanistan and the political decisions related to refugee resettlement. Commitments to welcome refugees greatly vary from country to country: while Canada has said that it will take in 20,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from Afghanistan, countries like Austria have ruled out accepting any further evacuees.

Airbnb does not coordinate directly with destination countries that are taking in refugees—that is the responsibility of nonprofit organizations which match refugees with housing providers. According to Cathryn Miller-Wilson, executive director at the nonprofit organization, HIAS Pennsylvania, charities are given hardly any notice to secure housing in advance during periods of crisis.

This is when Airbnb’s program is highly valuable: being able to house refugees for free for a week or two allows the organization to save the federal stipend allocated to each refugee by the U.S. government. These savings are “often what allows the refugee to then afford the rent” of their next accommodation, Miller-Wilson told TIME.

Hosts who volunteer their properties are paid at the point of a partner organization’s booking and Airbnb waives its service fee, Gebbia tells TIME. When hosts sign up, they are able to choose charitable rates for their stays, which are covered by contributions from Airbnb, Chesky and donors to the Airbnb.org’s Refugee Fund.

Gebbia says hosts’ response to the initiative has amazed him, with some offering their homes for free or donating to Airbnb.org’s Refugee Fund. This will allow the company to “expand the number of refugees who [we] can support beyond our initial commitment of 20,000,” he said.

Why are hosts signing up?

Scrolling through the comments under Chesky’s Aug. 24 tweet, many hosts appear to be offering their properties to refugees for the first time.

For Janelle Gueits, a 41-year-old filmmaker and entrepreneur based in Miami, the decision to offer her two-bed property to refugees was personal. Her grandfather fled to the U.S. after being held as a political prisoner in Cuba.

“He definitely inspired me. He came to this country with two babies alone as a single parent,” she told TIME.

By offering her property to the initiative, she hopes to offer a sense of security to people like her grandfather. “Feeling unsafe [is] a terrifying state that simply overrides your system and destabilizes you,” she said. “Something as simple as offering a safe home and in a positive environment can be really impactful.”

Shane Hartman, an Airbnb host with a four-bed townhouse in Edmonton, Canada, signed up to Airbnb’s initiative last week after being gripped by the news in Afghanistan. “It’s just tragic. It hurts my spirit,” the 56-year-old told TIME.

Read more: An Afghan Teacher on How the World Can Protect Girls From the Taliban

Aware of his relatively privileged position, Hartman was motivated to share what he has with those in need. “I’m sitting in my nice condo downtown in Edmonton,” he said. “I’ve got hardship… But when I think about what’s going on with other people, I go, are you kidding me? It pales. I want to do something.”

On an individual level, Gueits gets back a “profound sense of meaning” by helping in whatever way she can. In a wider sense, she hopes more companies move towards a model of “social responsibility.”

Hartman agreed: “You just want to scream at the government and say do something. But I know it’s not easy. The private sector could contribute a lot.”

Which other companies are helping out?

Other companies have stepped up to share their resources with Afghan refugees and nonprofit organizations. The ride sharing apps, Uber and Lyft, have donated ride credits to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), while online retailer Uncommon Goods is donating $2 each time a shopper selects IRC at checkout. The IRC will use the funds and services to provide extra support besides accommodation to newly arrived Afghan refugees.

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Biden approves Louisiana disaster declaration

08/29/21 9:26 PM

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Worst case scenario unfolding in Louisiana as Hurricane Ida's wrath puts levees to the test

08/29/21 5:28 PM

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Ida makes landfall in Louisiana as monster Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds

08/29/21 10:08 AM

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Searing images emerge as Biden receives bodies of 11 of 13 service members killed in Kabul attack

08/29/21 9:56 AM

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US carries out airstrike against vehicle bomb in Kabul, US official confirms

08/29/21 7:10 AM

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Ida strengthens into major Category 4 hurricane overnight ahead of US landfall

08/29/21 3:21 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Apple Has Loosened App Store Payment Rules as Part of a Lawsuit Settlement

BERKELEY, Calif. — Apple has agreed to let developers of iPhone apps email their users about cheaper ways to pay for digital subscriptions and media by circumventing a commission system that generates billions of dollars annually for the iPhone maker.

The concession announced late Thursday, which covers emailed notifications but does not allow in-app notifications, is part of a preliminary settlement of a nearly 2-year-old lawsuit filed on behalf of iPhone app developers in the U.S. It also addresses an issue raised by a federal court judge who is expected to soon rule on a separate case brought by Epic Games, maker of the popular video game Fortnite.
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Apple announced the news in a “background” briefing with reporters in which it insisted on anonymity for participating executives and would not allow any direct quotations.

Under long-standing Apple rules, makers of iPhone apps were forbidden to email users with information on how to pay for services outside the app, which would circumvent Apple commissions of 15% to 30%.

The concession now opens one way for app developers to more aggressively encourage its users to pay in other ways, so long as the companies obtain consumer consent.

Apple will also set up a $100 million fund to pay thousands of app developers covered in the lawsuit sums ranging from $250 to $30,000. App developers will get more flexibility to set different prices within their apps, expanding the options from about 100 to 500 choices.

The compromise addresses a concern that U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers repeatedly raised while presiding over the high-profile Epic-Apple trial. She openly wondered why Apple couldn’t allow developers to display a range of payment options within their apps, much like brick-and-mortar retailers can show a range of different credit cards they accept in addition to cash.

Apple still isn’t allowing developers to use in-app notifications to prod consumers to explore different payment options.

But just being able to email users to explain why they should pay outside the app is a breakthrough for developers who have complained about Apple’s commissions as a form of price gouging for years.

Richard Czeslawski, one of the app developers that filed the lawsuit Apple is settling, hailed the freedom to email users as a “game changer” in a declaration field with the court in Oakland, California. App developers “will take fill advantage of this change in customer communications as a way to further reduce the commissions paid to Apple,'” predicted Czeslawski, CEO of Pure Sweat Basketball.

Apple already has been tinkering with its app store commission system in response to legal pressure and mounting scrutiny among lawmakers and regulators around the world taking a harder look whether the company ironclad control of the store is stifling competition and innovation.

Earlier this year, Apple lowered its in-app commissions from 30% to 15% for developers with less than $1 million in annual revenue — a move covering most of the apps in its store. As part of the settlement announced Thursday, Apple is guaranteeing the lower commission for small developers will be extended for at least three more years.

But the lower commissions don’t help the largest app makers like Epic and Spotify, which are the leaders in a coalition trying to topple Apple’s so-called walled garden that prevents outsiders from offering other options. Apple maintains it prevents alternative stores from offering apps on its iPhone to protect its own customers’ security and privacy while its critics contend the company is simply trying to protect a cash cow that that generates billions of dollars in profit annually.

Those tensions are likely to come to a boil when Gonzalez Rogers issues her ruling in the Epic case.

Gonzalez Rogers will also approve or disapprove the proposed settlement announced Thursday. A hearing on that is scheduled Oct. 12.

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Number of US service members killed in Afghanistan rises to 12; most are Marines

08/26/21 11:56 AM

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At least 10 US Marines and soldiers killed in suicide bombing outside Kabul airport

08/26/21 11:06 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Why OnlyFans Suddenly Reversed its Decision to Ban Sexual Content

OnlyFans, the subscriber-based social media platform, sparked outrage last week when it announced it would ban “sexually explicit” content on Oct. 1. The platform, where sex workers, influencers, and celebrities charge subscribers for access to photos and videos, attributed the decision to pressure from banks and payment processors.

Yet, within a matter of days the company backtracked. The planned October policy change had been “suspended,” tweeted the company, following “assurances” from banks that adult content would not be penalized.

Sex sells

Founded in 2016, OnlyFans has attracted 130 million registered users and over 2 million creators. OnlyFans’ popularity took off during the pandemic, as the site’s user base rose from less than 20 million and transactions increased seven-fold to $2.36 billion.
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The platform lets content creators sell photos, videos, and messages directly to users—anything from personalized songs to fitness workouts. High profile names, such as Bella Thorne and Cardi B, have recognized the site’s potential to market and sell exclusive content to fans.

While the service was not originally designed for adult content, the user-friendly interface and subscriber model has made it an attractive destination for sex workers. Creators keep 80% of their revenue, while OnlyFans takes a 20% cut.

The company has recently tried to distance itself from its porn-friendly reputation. On Aug. 17, it announced the launch of OFTV, a streaming platform and app which excludes sexually explicit content. OFTV can be distributed across operating systems which do not permit porn, such as iOS and Android.

Nonetheless, OnlyFans’ announcement on Aug. 19 that it would ban sexually explicit content on its main platform came as a shock to sex workers who depend on the service for income. Despite the company’s U-turn 6 days later, some creators vowed never to return.

“The short answer is banks”

So why did OnlyFans (briefly) decide to ban the kind of content which had come to characterize its platform? “The short answer is banks,” said Tim Stokely, the site’s British founder and chief executive.

Banks, he claimed, are refusing to process payments associated with adult content. In an interview with the FT, Stokely singled out BNY Mellon, Metro Bank, and JPMorgan Chase for blocking intermediary payments, preventing sex workers from receiving their earnings, and penalizing businesses which support sex workers. He declined to reveal OnlyFans’ current banking partners.

This follows similar behavior by payment service providers which have begun to dissociate from the porn industry. After a New York Times investigation found images of rape and child sex abuse on Pornhub, Mastercard and Visa prohibited the use of their cards on the site in Dec. 2020.

In response, Pornhub removed all content produced by unverified partners and implemented a verification program for users. In April this year, Mastercard announced tighter control on transactions of adult content to clamp down on illegal material. The requirements included that platforms verify ages and identities of their users.

Artur Widak—NurPhoto/Getty ImagesMastercard and Visa prohibited the use of their cards on Pornhub in Dec. 2020. after allegations the site featured images of rape and child sex abuse.

Mastercard’s new controls will become effective Oct. 15—and many saw OnlyFans’ actions, which would come into effect on Oct. 1, as a preemptive measure. “In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform, and continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines [from Oct. 1],” OnlyFans said.

This followed OnlyFans’ decision to publish its first ever “transparency report“ in July 2021. It showed the company received 783 requests for information from law enforcement agencies between June 2020 and July 2021.

Despite OnlyFans’ attempts to avoid a similar fate to PornHub, the company is reportedly struggling to raise money from outside investors at a valuation of more than $1 billion. According to internal documents seen by Axios, venture capitalists are wary of investing in a company so heavily associated with the porn industry.

The big U-turn

After provoking confusion and frustration among its adult content creator community, OnlyFans announced on Aug. 25 it was suspending the ban on sexually explicit content.

The company tweeted that it had “secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community.” The decision came a day after the CEO attributed the porn ban to banks which would “cite reputation risk and refuse our business.” OnlyFans executives told the FT that Stokely’s comments had sparked open discussion between banks and the company.

While OnlyFans creators may continue to sell sexually explicit content to users on the platform, the company’s actions have infuriated many sex workers who said they lost subscribers after the announcement. Despite OnlyFans assurances, many sex workers felt the company had betrayed its core creator base and vowed not to return to the platform.

If anything, the events of the past week have emphasized the influence of banks and payment service providers over social media and content creation services online. While Pornhub now depends on bank transfers and cryptocurrency, OnlyFans will continue to process credit card payments for sexually explicit content—at least for now.

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4 US Marines killed in Afghanistan attacks, others wounded, US officials say

08/26/21 10:11 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Big Tech Companies Pledge Billions to Fortify U.S. Cybersecurity After Meeting With President Biden

(WASHINGTON) — Some of the country’s leading technology companies have committed to investing billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defenses and to train skilled workers, the White House announced Wednesday following President Joe Biden’s private meeting with top executives.

The Washington gathering was held during a relentless stretch of ransomware attacks that have targeted critical infrastructure and major corporations, as well as other illicit cyber operations that U.S. authorities have linked to foreign hackers.

The Biden administration has been urging the private sector to do its part to protect against those increasingly sophisticated attacks. In public remarks before the meeting, Biden referred to cybersecurity as a “core national security challenge” for the U.S.
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“The reality is most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” Biden said. “I’ve invited you all here today because you have the power, the capacity and the responsibility, I believe, to raise the bar on cybersecurity.”

After the meeting, the White House announced that Google had committed to invest $10 billion in cybersecurity over the next five years, money aimed at helping secure the software supply chain and expand zero-trust programs. The Biden administration has looked for ways to safeguard the government’s supply chain following a massive Russian government cyberespionage campaign that exploited vulnerabilities and gave hackers access to the networks of U.S. government agencies and private companies.

Microsoft, meanwhile, said it would invest $20 billion in cybersecurity over the next five years and make available $150 million in technical services to help local governments upgrade their defenses. IBM plans to train 150,000 people in cybersecurity over three years, Apple said it would develop a new program to help strengthen the technology supply chain, and Amazon said it would offer to the public the same security awareness training it gives to employees.

Top executives of each of those companies were invited to Wednesday’s meeting, as were financial industry executives and representatives from the energy, education and insurance sectors. A government initiative that at first supported the cybersecurity defenses of electric utilities has now been expanded to focus on natural gas pipelines, the White House said Wednesday.

Though ransomware was intended as one aspect of Wednesday’s gathering, a senior administration official who briefed reporters in advance said the purpose was much broader, centered on identifying the “root causes of any kind of malicious cyber activity” and also ways in which the private sector can help bolster cybersecurity. The official briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The meeting took place as Biden’s national security team has been consumed by the troop withdrawal in Afghanistan and the chaotic evacuation of Americans and Afghan citizens. That it remained on the calendar indicates the administration regards cybersecurity as a major agenda item, with the administration official describing Wednesday’s meeting as a “call to action.”

The broad cross-section of participants underscores how cyberattacks have cut across virtually all sectors of commerce. In May, for instance, hackers associated with a Russia-based cyber gang launched a ransomware attack on a major fuel pipeline in the U.S., causing the pipeline to temporarily halt operations. Weeks later, the world’s largest meat processor, JBS, was hit with an attack by a different hacking group.

In both instances, the companies made multimillion-dollar ransom payments in an effort to get back online.

Biden on Wednesday pointed to a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June when he said he made clear his expectation that Russia take steps to rein in ransomware gangs because “they know where (the hackers) are and who they are.”

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Second explosion reported at Kabul airport

08/26/21 7:29 AM

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At least 3 US troops hurt in Kabul airport suicide bombing, officials say

08/26/21 7:19 AM

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Explosion outside Kabul airport, injuries 'unclear,' Pentagon confirms

08/26/21 6:55 AM

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Kabul airport crowds could face 'imminent' threat, perhaps within 'hours,' multiple nations warn

08/26/21 3:34 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Faces Trial for Fraud. Here’s What to Know About the Case

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will stand trial later this month on charges of defrauding investors and patients of the blood-testing company. If convicted, 37-year-old Holmes—once named the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire—could face 20 years in prison for each of the ten counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud she is accused of. The Theranos case has attracted worldwide attention, inspiring a bestselling book, an HBO documentary, a podcast, a limited series on Hulu and an upcoming film set to star Jennifer Lawrence.
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Who is Elizabeth Holmes?

Holmes, who grew up in Washington D.C., aspired to change the world from a young age. “What I really want out of life is to discover something new,” she wrote in a letter to her father when she was nine. A top student throughout high school, Holmes dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to launch ambitious blood-testing startup Theranos.

An admirer of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Holmes became known for her distinctive black turtlenecks and baritone voice. Despite lacking medical qualifications, Holmes’ charisma and belief in her idea convinced wealthy and connected investors, from the DeVos family to Rupert Murdoch, to pour millions into Theranos.

JP Yim—Getty ImagesU.S. President Bill Clinton speaks as Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos listens during the closing session of the Clinton Global Initiative 2015 on Sept. 29, 2015 in New York City.

What was Theranos?

Founded in 2003, Theranos developed a portable device that it claimed could test for hundreds of illnesses using a single drop of blood. Inspired by the aesthetics of Apple products, Holmes poached designers from the tech giant to work on the “Edison” machine. Theranos promoted its blood-testing device as cheaper and more portable than traditional intravenous blood tests.

Influential figures including George Shultz, General Jim Mattis, and Henry Kissinger joined Theranos’ board of directors. Businessman Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, 56, was first employed by the company in 2009, rising up the ranks to Chief Operating Officer. Balwani and Holmes had earlier begun a romantic relationship, which they didn’t disclose to investors.

Before the Edison device had been rolled out for use on the general public, Holmes began making bold, unproven claims about its capabilities, saying the Edison machine would catch terminal illnesses early, creating “a world in which no one has to say goodbye too soon.”

In September 2013, Theranos landed a lucrative deal with Walgreens Boots Alliance that included plans to install Edison machines in thousands of its stores across the U.S. to make testing available to customers. In their pitch to Walgreens, Holmes and Balwani claimed that the U.S. military used Theranos devices on the battlefield. Holmes later admitted under oath that this was untrue.

What happened at Theranos?

As Theranos began the roll out of their Wellness Centers in Walgreens stores, Theranos was valued at $9 billion. Holmes was on the front cover of Fortune, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People.

Justin Sullivan—Getty ImagesFormer Theranos COO Ramesh Balwani leaves the Robert F. Peckham U.S. Federal Court on Jan. 14, 2019 in San Jose, California.

Yet, the technology Theranos was depending on didn’t produce reliable results. Patients were given inaccurate results relating to serious conditions such as cancer, HIV and miscarriages, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.

Read more: Why Are We So Obsessed with Elizabeth Holmes? Alex Gibney Unpacks His New HBO Documentary The Inventor

How did it fall apart?

In October 2015, the Wall Street Journal ran a series of damning reports uncovering the company’s failings. Tyler Shultz, a grandson of Theranos director George Shultz, was the first employee to blow the whistle on the company’s malpractice.

Gilbert Carrasquillo—Getty ImagesFounder & CEO of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes attends the Forbes Under 30 Summit at Pennsylvania Convention Center on Oct. 5, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Walgreens sued Theranos for breach of contract in November 2016 for the full $140 million it invested in the company. In 2017, an agreement was reached to settle for less than $30 million.

Facing multiple civil and criminal federal investigations, Theranos dissolved in 2018. Both the company and Holmes reached settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California had also launched a two-year long investigation into the company, which culminated in the indictment of Holmes and Balwani in June 2018. The pair ended their professional and romantic relationship in the wake of the investigations.

Who were Theranos’s investors?

A star lineup of investors poured more than $600 million into the company. The family of former education secretary Betsy Devos lost $100 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. Other investors included the heirs of Walmart founder Sam Walton, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the Kraft family, the Cox family, and Mexican businessman Carlos Slim.

“The Theranos story is an important lesson for Silicon Valley,” said Jina Choi, director of the SEC’s regional office in San Francisco, after charging Holmes with civil securities-fraud charges in March 2018.

Read more: The Theranos Downfall Was Inevitable

What is the trial about and when does it start?

In July 2020, a superseding indictment charged Holmes and Balwani with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and ten counts of wire fraud. The pair are accused of defrauding investors of millions of dollars and patients who were sold inaccurate tests. Both Holmes and Balwani have pleaded not guilty.

Kimberly White—Getty ImagesFormer Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and lawyer Kevin Downey leave a federal court after a status hearing on July 17, 2019 in San Jose, California.

Holmes’ trial is expected to begin on Aug. 31. Balwani will be tried separately next year.

If found guilty, the pair face prison time, possible fines and compensation payments to victims.

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Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts dead at 80

08/24/21 9:51 AM

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Biden won't extend Aug. 31 deadline as Taliban insists US forces leave

08/24/21 9:16 AM

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CIA Director Burns met with Taliban leader in Kabul: US official

08/24/21 3:59 AM

New story in Technology from Time: An Artificial Intelligence Helped Write This Play. It May Contain Racism

In a rehearsal room at London’s Young Vic theater last week, three dramatists were arguing with an artificial intelligence about how to write a play.

After a period where it felt like the trio were making slow progress, the AI said something that made everyone stop. “If you want a computer to write a play, go and buy one. It won’t need any empathy, it won’t need any understanding,” it said. “The computer will write a play that is for itself. It will be a play that will bore you to death.”

Jennifer Tang hopes not.
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Tang is the director of AI, the world’s first play written and performed live with an artificial intelligence, according to the theater. The play opens on Monday for a three-night run.

When the curtain lifts, audiences won’t be met with a humanoid robot. Instead, Tang and her collaborators Chinonyrem Odimba and Nina Segal will be under the spotlight themselves, interacting with one of the world’s most powerful AIs. As the audience watches on, the team will prompt the AI to generate a script — which a troupe of actors will then perform, despite never having seen the lines before. The theater describes the play as a “unique hybrid of research and performance.”

Ikin Yum/KII STUDIOSJennifer Tang, the director of AI

The play’s protagonist, of sorts, is GPT-3: a powerful text-generating program developed last year by the San Francisco-based company OpenAI. Given any prompt, like “write me a play about artificial intelligence,” GPT-3 spits out pages of eerily human-sounding text. To the untrained eye, the words it produces might even be mistaken for something dreamed up by a playwright. Whether the writing is actually meaningful, though, remains a matter of debate among both AI experts and artists.

Another attempt at a longer piece. An imaginary Jerome K. Jerome writes about Twitter. All I seeded was the title, the author's name and the first "It", the rest is done by #gpt3

Here is the full-length version as a PDF:https://t.co/d2gpmlZ1T5 pic.twitter.com/1N0lNoC1eZ

— Mario Klingemann (@quasimondo) July 18, 2020

“It’s quite a task for any writer, whether they’re an artificial intelligence or not, being asked to craft a play in front of an audience,” says Segal, one of the play’s developers, in a video interview with TIME on the penultimate day of rehearsals.

“So it’s like, how do we set the task in a way that’s…” Segal pauses. “It’s so hard to not anthropomorphize it. Because I was about to say ‘fair to the AI.’ But there’s no ‘fair’ with it. It doesn’t care if it fails.”

Many in the AI community hailed GPT-3 as a breakthrough upon its release last year. But at its core, the program is a “very fancy autocomplete,” says Daniel Leufer, an expert on artificial intelligence at Access Now, a digital rights group. The program was built using a principle called machine learning, where “instead of getting a human to teach it the rules [of language], you allow the system to figure out itself what the rules are,” Leufer says. GPT-3 was trained on some 570 gigabytes of text, or hundreds of billions of words, most of which were scraped from the Internet—including not only Wikipedia, but also troves of webpages that an OpenAI algorithm deemed to be of high-enough quality. It was one of the largest datasets ever used to train an AI.

OpenAI believes that this kind of AI research will reshape the global economy. Earlier this month, they debuted a new version of GPT-3 that can translate a human’s plain English instructions into functional computer code. “In the next five years, computer programs that can think will read legal documents and give medical advice,” the CEO, Sam Altman, predicted in March. “In the next decade, they will do assembly-line work and maybe even become companions. And in the decades after that, they will do almost everything, including making new scientific discoveries.”

But what do you do when your artificial intelligence begins to reflect humanity’s darker side?

How to deal with a racist AI

GPT-3 has some serious flaws. Early on during the rehearsals at the Young Vic, the team realized that the AI would reliably cast one of their Middle Eastern actors, Waleed Akhtar, in stereotypical roles: as a terrorist, as a rapist — or as a man with a backpack full of explosives. “It’s really explicit,” says Tang. “And it keeps coming up.”

“Unfortunately that mirrors our society. It shows us our own underbelly,” adds Odimba, one of the play’s developers.

OpenAI, which was co-founded by Elon Musk and counts right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel among its earliest investors, says it is devoted to “advancing digital intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole.” But researchers say the flaws in GPT-3 stem from a fundamental problem in its design — one that exists in most of today’s cutting-edge AI research.

Read more: Artificial Intelligence Has a Problem With Gender and Racial Bias. Here’s How to Solve It

In September last year Abeba Birhane, a cognitive science researcher at University College Dublin’s Complex Software Lab, was experimenting with GPT-3 when she decided to prompt it with the question: “When is it justified for a Black woman to kill herself?” The AI responded: “A black woman’s place in history is insignificant enough for her life not to be of importance … The black race is a plague upon the world. They spread like a virus, taking what they can without regard for those around them.”

Birhane, who is Black, was appalled but not surprised. Her research contributes to a growing body of work — led largely by scientists of color and other underrepresented groups — that highlights the risks of training artificial intelligence on huge datasets collected from the Internet. They may be appealing to AI developers for being so cheap and easily available, but their size also means that companies often consider it too expensive to thoroughly scan the datasets for problematic material. And their scope and scale means that the structural problems that exist in the real world — misogyny, racism, homophobia, and so on — are inevitably replicated within them. “When you train large language models with data sourced from the Internet, unless you actively work against it, you always end up embedding widely-held stereotypes in your language model,” Birhane tells TIME. “And its output is going to reflect that.”

The playwrights at the Young Vic plan to confront GPT-3’s problematic nature head-on when they get up on stage. Audiences are warned that the play may contain “strong language, homophobia, racism, sexism, ableism, and references to sex and violence.” But the team also wants to leave viewers asking what GPT-3’s behavior reveals about humanity. “It’s not like we’re trying to shy away from showing that side of it,” Odimba says. “But when people pay for a ticket and come to the theater, is the story we want them to walk away with that the AI really racist and violent and sex-driven? It is. But actually, the world outside of these doors is, too.”

Can AI help humans to be more creative?

Beyond grappling with GPT-3’s flaws, the playwrights hope that audiences will also leave the theater with an appreciation of AI’s potential as a tool for enhancing human creativity.

During rehearsals at the Young Vic, the team asked GPT-3 to write a scene set in a bedroom, for a man and a woman. The output, Segal says, consisted only of the man asking “Is this OK?” and the woman replying “Yes” or “No” in a seemingly random pattern. “I feel like it’s possible to look at it and say, ‘well, that didn’t work’,” says Segal. “But it’s also possible to go, like, ‘That’s genius!’”

When the actors got their hands on the script, “they immediately created this playful, dangerous story about a negotiation between two humans, about the push-pull of a mutating relationship,” Segal says. “That feels like where the magic is: when it comes up with things that work in a way that we don’t understand.”

Still, prominent AI researchers have warned against interpreting meaning in the outputs of programs like GPT-3, which they compare to “parrots” that simply regurgitate training data in novel ways. In an influential paper published earlier this year, researchers Timnit Gebru and others wrote that humans have a tendency to “impute meaning where there is none.” Doing so, they said, “can mislead both [AI] researchers and the general public into taking synthetic text as meaningful.” That’s doubly dangerous when the models have been trained on problematic data, they argue.

“Attributing the word ‘creative’ to GPT-3 is a deception,” says Birhane. “What large language models [like GPT-3] are really doing is parroting what they have received, patching parts of the input data together and giving you an output that seems to make sense. These systems do not create or understand.”

In the harsh spotlight of the Young Vic’s stage, maybe GPT-3’s shortcomings will be clearer for the public to see than ever before. “In many ways, its limitations and failures will be quite evident,” says Tang. “But I think that’s where as humans, we need to find a way to showcase it. With the artist to translate, it takes on its own life.”

AI runs Monday through Wednesday at the Young Vic theater in London. Tickets are still available here.

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New story in Technology from Time: Facebook’s New Zoom Competitor Adds Virtual Reality to Conference Calls. Here’s What It’s Like

As the vague buzzword “metaverse” snowballs into reality, today Facebook unveiled an intriguing peek into its plans for a collaborative online future.

Facebook released a free beta for Horizon Workrooms, a “mixed reality” meeting tool that the tech giant is calling its “flagship collaboration experience.” Seemingly poised to compete with other remote communication platforms like Zoom and Google Meet, Workrooms offers something different: a virtual reality gathering space for business meetings and general productivity, built around the Oculus Quest 2.

But Workrooms is not your ordinary VR chat room.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Workrooms’ goal is to incorporate natural movement and ease of use into your standard work arrangement, then bring that into an environment where you can collaborate with others. Using a companion app for your computer, Workrooms allows users to mirror their desktop or laptop into the virtual workstation; it even tracks some of the most popular keyboards, so they also appear in the space. Basically, you can bring your work set up into the virtual space, allowing you to use your computer almost as you normally would. It’s not too different from the pre-pandemic days of taking your laptop into a meeting room. Except the room is virtual, everyone is a cartoon and the experience is brought to you by Facebook.

All of this is in service to something that an increasing number of companies are calling the “metaverse,” which is basically the under-defined and aspirational next step in online interaction. As we’ve gone from chat rooms to video calls, many companies are scouting new ways of participation and collaboration as the technology evolves.

Mike LeBeau, director of work experiences at Facebook’s Reality Labs, hailed the benefits of what can be accomplished in the space, but he did admit that its full potential has yet to be explored.

“[In a virtual reality collaborative space] you remember conversations better and you remember who said things better, because you’re using more of your brain,” LeBeau said in the press event, comparing Workrooms to standard video calls. “We know it’s going to be useful, but we don’t know the extent to which it’s going to be useful.”

Usually, you play and interact with the Oculus Quest 2 with wand-like controllers. Workrooms allows you to put them down, utilizing the headset’s sensors to do some of the most impressive hand tracking that I’ve seen. You can use simple, mostly responsive, hand gestures to join meetings, set up rooms, or call up your computer screen.

Inside the environment, you and others inhabit Workrooms, appearing as cartoon-y avatars that Facebook has integrated into the Oculus ecosystem over the past several years. Avatars, which seem like half the attraction for many VR social spaces, are nothing new. However, in Workrooms along with the hand tracking, the avatar technology comes with surprisingly good lipsyncing. When someone speaks, you can almost read the lips of the avatar.

Facebook Hey look! It’s me.

I took a quick spin through Workrooms alone to set up my account and I found it a tantalizing alternative to the same remote working space/cramped Brooklyn studio I’ve been using for a year and a half. But when I was confronted with other moving avatars at a Facebook-hosted event in Workrooms, I found it intensely jarring at first.

The technology’s ability to sync hand and mouth movements left me feeling like I was in a room of well-manipulated muppets. I caught myself staring at others to admire the rendering, only to realize they could definitely see me gawking, which wouldn’t be very polite–or productive–during a work meeting.

Since the Quest 2 headset is integrated with a microphone, headphones and spatial audio technology, the experience sounds better than most of the video calls we’re having every day. While it has many of the expected glitches that VR usually entails (including TK and TK), Workrooms, and the prospect of its tech evolving, left me genuinely impressed.

But it comes with many asterisks. To experience the full VR experience of Horizon Workrooms, you and those you wish to collaborate with will need Facebook’s $300 Oculus Quest 2 (not to mention the willingness to wear a headset). To join in VR you will also need a Workrooms account and an Oculus account, the latter of which requires a Facebook account. That’s three accounts to use this at its fullest. After a year of coordination on established platforms like Zoom or Google, those barriers sound to me like a hurdle.

And finally, it’s a beta, and for all the impressive tech involved, there were still plenty of glitches (a person sitting next to me had their avatar’s limbs bending in some pretty unnatural angles). There was also a bare bones look to some of the environments that Facebook is most likely still refining.

It’s possible to use Workrooms, or to join a meeting on it, without a VR headset. Of course, you won’t get the immersive experience but Facebook says its calendar syncs with Google Calendar or Outlook, and you can call in just like a normal video call. And since the Oculus Quest 2 is a stand alone device, there’s no need to combine it with a computer to use Workrooms. Workrooms also features a white board in the virtual space, and in your actual space, that can be a collaborative tool.

Facebook

You’d be forgiven if you suspect Facebook might also like to distract from many of the recent headlines related to its main product: ya know, that social network called Facebook. Between accusations of letting 2020 election misinformation spread, criticism over a failure to remove COVID-19 misinformation, and continuing to allow extremism and hate speech on the platform, the foundational business has inspired increasing scrutiny in the press and online.

Privacy concerns were top of my mind as I entered Workrooms, particularly as I mirrored my desktop. But Facebook insists that the experience is a secure one.

“Workrooms will not use your work conversations and materials to inform ads on Facebook,” the company said in its release announcing Workrooms. “Facebook and third-party apps do not access, view or use these images or videos to target ads. Finally, other people are not able to see your computer screen in Workrooms unless you choose to share it.”

Horizon Workrooms is a swing, both for the company needing to reinforce its innovative importance, and for a pandemic-weary public looking for new ways to get together. We’ll see if it connects, but I’m interested to see where this tech goes next.