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Opening a door to mental-health help online

Rob Morris, SM ’09, PhD ’15, didn’t know where to turn when he first felt symptoms of depression as a teenager: “I had no exposure to healthy coping strategies. I had no vocabulary for what was happening to me.”  That experience, he says, has driven his work on Koko, a tech nonprofit that grew out of his PhD work at the MIT Media Lab and aims to “address youth mental health by reaching young people where they are.” And where they are is online—on TikTok, Snapchat, or Discord, or maybe chatting with an AI bot.  In partnership with such platforms, Koko offers free mental-health interventions backed by research and the input of an external ethics advisory board. Its website lets young people in nearly 200 countries help themselves through self-guided tutorials and help each other by sharing brief, anonymous messages of support using applications such as WhatsApp, Discord, or Telegram. —Sara Shay Read more at www.technologyreview.com/alumni-profiles . from MIT...
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The FCC says an auction of wireless mid-band spectrum raised $3.5B+, which will largely be used to fund the replacement of Chinese telecom equipment in the US (David Shepardson/Reuters)

David Shepardson / Reuters : The FCC says an auction of wireless mid-band spectrum raised $3.5B+, which will largely be used to fund the replacement of Chinese telecom equipment in the US   —  The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said Thursday an auction of wireless mid-band spectrum raised more than $3.5 billion … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/m8sZWvf via IFTTT

Alibaba sues the DOD, seeking removal from a blacklist of companies supporting China's military, says the decision is a violation of constitutional due process (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Alibaba sues the DOD, seeking removal from a blacklist of companies supporting China's military, says the decision is a violation of constitutional due process   —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. sued the Department of Defense to be removed from a blacklist that identifies the e-commerce leader … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/8YJwRIU via IFTTT

Sources: Meta internally exposed data from its employee-tracking program meant to help train its AI models, including full prompts and private conversations (Wired)

Wired : Sources: Meta internally exposed data from its employee-tracking program meant to help train its AI models, including full prompts and private conversations   —  Employees had previously raised concerns about the initiative, which involves collecting workers' keystroke data to train AI models. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/d82UEBg via IFTTT

Air Space Intelligence won an $875M, 12-year FAA contract to develop AI tools that map flight trajectories and identify areas of congestion to reduce delays (Allyson Versprille/Bloomberg)

Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg : Air Space Intelligence won an $875M, 12-year FAA contract to develop AI tools that map flight trajectories and identify areas of congestion to reduce delays   —  Air Space Intelligence Inc. won a US government contract to develop artificial intelligence technologies for managing flight traffic … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/kZuCAyR via IFTTT

Sakana AI launches Fugu, a multi-agent orchestration system accessible through a single model API, claiming Fugu Ultra matches Fable and Mythos on benchmarks (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat)

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat : Sakana AI launches Fugu, a multi-agent orchestration system accessible through a single model API, claiming Fugu Ultra matches Fable and Mythos on benchmarks   —  Last night, the increasingly enterprise-focused AI startup Sakana launched Fugu, a multi-agent orchestration system … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/8hFRxCs via IFTTT

Three things to watch amid Anthropic’s latest feud with the government

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first,  sign up here . For those of you enjoying your summer unaware of Anthropic’s latest feud with the US government, here’s a recap: In April the company said it had built an AI model called Mythos that was so good at working with code it could pose a global cybersecurity threat. Anthropic gave access to a small group of cybersecurity experts so they could see what they were up against. Then it released a modified version called Fable which it said was safer to the public on Tuesday, June 9. That Friday, the federal government told the company it was a threat to national security and placed export controls on the new release. Anthropic revoked access to both models hours later. People worried about catastrophic effects of AI—broadly labeled “doomers”—have said for years that the technology poses a threat to humanity and published proposals for how the governm...