Weggebruikers moeten ook dit weekend rekening houden met werkzaamheden. Zo zijn delen van de A4 en de A27 afgesloten. Ook de Ketheltunnel (A4) is vrijdagnacht dicht.

BRUSSEL (ANP) - Mathieu van der Poel bereidt zich in de Ronde van Zwitserland voor op de Tour de France. De 31-jarige Nederlander maakt in de vijfdaagse rittenkoers, van 17 tot en met 21 juni, zijn rentree in het wielerpeloton na een afwezigheid van ruim twee maanden. Van der Poel reed op 12 april met Parijs-Roubaix zijn laatste wedstrijd.

Van der Poel krijgt in de Ronde van Zwitserland en de Tour de France in ieder geval de Belgische sprinter Jasper Philipsen mee als teamgenoot. Dat heeft hun ploeg Alpecin-Premier Tech bekendgemaakt.

De Tour begint op 4 juli in Barcelona en eindigt op 26 juli. Voor die tijd rijdt Van der Poel ook geen mountainbikewedstrijden. Eerder gaf de voormalig wereldkampioen op de weg aan dat hij hoopt eind augustus mee te doen aan de WK in Italië.

SAN FRANCISCO (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Anthropic pleit voor een 'pauzeknop' bij de ontwikkeling van de geavanceerdste AI-systemen. Die moet mensen de mogelijkheid geven om na te gaan wat de gevolgen van de nieuwe technologie zijn. Wereldwijde afspraken daarover worden vooral belangrijk als AI-systemen steeds meer taken van mensen overnemen bij de verdere ontwikkeling van kunstmatige intelligentie, stelt medeoprichter Jack Clark in een blogpost.

In het stuk schetst Clark, samen met onderzoekster Marina Favaro, een toekomst waarin AI-systemen helemaal zelf aan hun eigen ontwikkeling werken. Als dat steeds sneller gebeurt, kunnen mensen niet in hetzelfde tempo beoordelen of die ontwikkelingen goed of slecht zijn.

"We denken dat het goed voor de wereld zou zijn om de optie te hebben om vooraanstaande AI-ontwikkelingen te vertragen of pauzeren, zodat maatschappelijke structuren en veiligheidsonderzoek de technologische voortgang kunnen bijbenen", schrijven Clark en Favaro.

Anthropic is op dit moment zelf een van de vooraanstaande bedrijven bij de ontwikkeling van AI en heeft veel succes met zijn assistent Claude. Tegelijkertijd is er commotie over zijn Mythos-model dat razendsnel zwakke plekken in softwarebeveiliging zou kunnen opsporen.

TIVAT (ANP) - Nog voor de zomer komen de Benelux-landen met een plan om kandidaat-landen op een snellere en correcte manier de EU in te trekken. Dat zei premier Rob Jetten na afloop van een top tussen de EU en Westelijke Balkanlanden in het Montenegrijnse Tivat.

België, Luxemburg en Nederland komen met een voorstel "over hoe je die Europese integratie en uitbreiding op een goede manier kan vormgeven. Ook met het oog op Oekraïne. Omdat als je een einde aan de oorlog daar wil, er ook duidelijkheid moet zijn over hoe Oekraïne kan worden opgenomen in de Europese familie."

Op een plan van onder meer Duitsland om bijvoorbeeld Oekraïne een proeflidmaatschap te geven, waren de reacties binnen de EU wisselend, zei Jetten. Hij hamert er vooral op, samen met België en Luxemburg, dat landen echt aan alle criteria voldoen voordat ze volwaardig lid worden.

"De Europese Unie en de Balkanlanden moeten goed met elkaar samenwerken in deze geopolitiek onrustige tijd", zei Jetten.

WASHINGTON (ANP) - Astronauten aan boord van het internationale ruimtestation ISS hebben de opdracht gekregen te schuilen in hun ruimtevaartuig en zich voor te bereiden op een mogelijke evacuatie, meldt een woordvoerder van NASA op X. Het gaat om een voorzorgsmaatregel, terwijl de Russische bemanning van het ruimtestation probeert een steeds groter wordend lek in hun deel van het ISS te dichten.

De Russische Zvezda-module kampt volgens de NASA-woordvoerder al enige tijd met scheuren en lekkages. Na nieuwe lekkages heeft het Russische ruimtevaartagentschap Roscosmos besloten om vrijdag een uitgebreidere reparatie uit te voeren.

"Uit voorzorg heeft NASA alle vier de leden van de SpaceX Crew-12 en NASA-astronaut Chris Williams opgedragen een verhoogde veiligheidshouding aan te nemen in het Dragon-ruimtevaartuig gedurende de reparatie."

ZTE has joined forces with China Mobile Jiangsu under the guidance of China Mobile's Network Division to pioneer the implementation of core network complaint agent capabilities, marking a significant step forward in accelerating intelligent network operations and maintenance (O&M) transformation. Both parties innovatively introduce the multi-modal signaling model and agent technology to reconstruct the complaint handling process, implement automatic signaling analysis, and efficiently locate customer complaints. This solution sets a new benchmark for digital and intelligent O&M in the industry. At present, the complexity of service signaling interaction in mobile communication networks increases dramatically. Manual analysis of original signaling to locate problems has a high technical threshold, which relies on expert experience. In 2024, the Network Division of China Mobile Communications Group proposed a planning framework for intelligent agent-based complaint handling, leveraging agent and large model architectures to intelligently process complaint work orders. China Mobile Jiangsu and ZTE innovatively launched the complaint agent solution, and implemented it in 2025, breaking through the bottleneck of the industry through three core technologies. Modal Signaling Large Model: Learn massive raw signaling rules to train a core network multi-modal signaling large model, achieving end-to-end automatic signaling parsing and anomaly detection. The system inherits signaling expert knowledge to significantly enhance signaling interpretation efficiency. In customer complaint scenarios, the complaint agent automatically orchestrates the analysis workflow by integrating the signaling analysis large model and core network configuration data. It enables precise localization of issues in complex scenarios such as international roaming. Knowledge-based Complaint Handling: Intelligently recommend complaint handling suggestions based on complaint localization results to assist operations personnel in making rapid decisions. It can drive the transformation of complaint handling from "experience-driven" to "knowledge-driven" and close the loop on complaint resolution tickets. In the future, China Mobile Jiangsu and ZTE will continue to focus on digital and intelligent transformation, driven by value-oriented scenarios, to extend coverage to all scenarios and processes of core network operations and maintenance. It will continuously produce core network operations and maintenance agents and large models tailored to diverse maintenance scenarios, forming an agent cluster to enhance analytical capabilities in complex scenarios and empower industrial digital transformation. Through in-depth integration of AI and communications technologies, ZTE has created a new O&M mode to improve user experience and satisfaction. Contributed by ZTE.

K-pop fans are well-known as a force to be reckoned with on the internet, with some fans holding fierce allegiances and passions when it comes to specific artists. On social media, some obsessive fans are using generative AI to create what is essentially self-insert fan-fiction—creepy videos and images of themselves kissing, cuddling and getting various kinds of lovey-dovey with their favorite idols. The result is a contemporary, tech-powered mutation of idol culture that takes fan art to new extremes, and many people in K-pop fan communities are understandably pretty upset about it.

Users on Reddit and various K-pop forums have expressed outrage at these deepfake fantasies, calling on other fans to report those who use AI tools to generate nonconsensual videos of their K-Pop heartthrobs. In one thread on the K-pop Uncensored subreddit, a user posted redacted screenshots from an AI-generated video by another fan showing themselves being hugged and kissed on the cheek by Keonho from the boy group CORTIS, who is a minor. “Some fans may think it's harmless but if you tolerate this, you're opening doors to much worse things in the future,” Reddit user wbu_lizzie wrote in the thread. “The idols didn't consent to this, they are real people living their lives, not a bunch of wattpad / ao3 characters.”

“People have been cutting and pasting these kind[s] of things forever but the more realistic the images get the more dicey it gets psychologically,” wrote user Goldie_Prawn, in another thread on K-pop Uncensored calling out AI usage. “I think even with traditional photoshop the work and skill required gives some level of mental buffer to the creator that isn't there with AI.”

Dr. Sarah Keith, a professor at MacQuarie University in Australia who has done extensive research on K-pop fandom, says that the AI deepfake videos come from a long legacy of fan-created content that goes far beyond the world of K-pop. Fan fiction and art have always been an essential component of fan culture, and while these creations often skirt the boundaries of copyright, they are generally not viewed as creepy or exploitative. But with the advent of generative AI tools that can quickly create realistic images and videos of real people, Silicon Valley has built a technical workaround for the law and the social norms of consent.

“K-pop fans (like all pop culture fans) have long been active producers of fan materials about their preferred idols. However, these to date have not been 'convincing' as artefacts that might have involved the idol themselves,” Keith told 404 Media. “It's a parallel issue involving both fans and AI tools. Because of these two factors, there is now an increased facility for fans to create large volumes of content, which do not respect the idols' personal integrity, and which can be distributed online in ways that undermine the idols' reputation (e.g. sexualized deepfakes).”

While many fans spoke out against these creepy behaviors, others pointed the blame at the K-pop industry’s business model that encourages parasocial fandom  while exploiting many artists and fans alike.

“This is a sad side effect of an industry that for years [has] pushed parasocial relationships on their fans,” wrote Serious-Wish4868, in a thread on r/kpopthoughts about the AI-powered sexualization of idols. “When idols and companies are constantly pushing you to live out your romantic and sexual fantasies with idols in everything they do from social media posts to live interactions, what do [you] expect to happen?”

But some of the entertainment agencies that manage K-pop artists—and the artists themselves—have expressed they’re not happy about the situation either. Members of hugely popular K-pop groups like BTS and Tomorrow X Together have spoken out against the use of generative AI to create digital simulacra using artists’ likenesses. In March, OA Entertainment, a label founded by and representing Blackpink member Jennie, warned in a press statement that it would begin taking “strong legal action, including civil and criminal proceedings, against any acts that infringe upon the artist’s reputation, rights, portrait rights, and other intellectual property rights.” The statement came in response to harassment and stalking incidents involving the artists, and heavily implied the issue of AI-generated content without naming it explicitly.

At the same time, many of these idol talent companies are embracing generative AI tools as a vehicle for cutting costs throughout the industry. SM Entertainment, one of the biggest labels in Korea which represents major acts like Girls Generation and Super Junior, has described generative AI integration as a core part of its business strategy, and last year it released a fully AI-generated music video for the girl group Aespa. And last December, the K-pop world saw the launch of a fully synthetic idol group called GLXE (pronounced “galaxy”), which combines AI-generated songs with uncanny AI avatars. 

“They'd automate the whole industry if they could make money,” Lindsey Knuth, a K-pop fan and associate editor at Tangle News, told 404 Media. “Pornographic deepfakes of minor idols is an issue, as is the industry's (lack of) response, to me.”

The cultural tolerance for fan-generated AI slop varies depending on region and context. South Korea currently ranks number one in consumption of AI slop content, as the country’s tech industry pushes adoption and cultural acceptance of the technology. In the US, however, polling consistently shows that the majority of young people have extremely negative opinions of AI tools and AI-generated content—and are becoming more and more anti-AI as jobs, schools, and institutions pressure or force them to use it.

Keith notes that while labels and talent companies have always been very active in protecting artists and their reputations, they only do so from the perspective of protecting an investment. Fans, on the other hand, generally tend to be more emotionally invested and likely to defend idols as human beings, both from creepy fans and from the companies themselves.

And like with AI and tech more generally, the lack of technical or legal safeguards against the technology’s many well-documented harms has made social shaming one of the only effective deterrents against abusive behavior in the K-pop world.

“It's reassuring that many fans are openly calling out non-consensual uses of AI and deepfakes, because in the absence of technical guardrails on this kind of content, social acceptability is really what's important,” said Keith. “So yes, it is reassuring that many active fans online are building a culture of respect where idols' likenesses are not used in non-consensual ways.”

I’m observing summer Fridays here at KDO again this year, which means I (mostly) won’t be posting here on Fridays. If past years are any guide, this doesn’t actually have too much of an effect on how much I work or post…more of a redistribution of time & effort. But it’s nice to have the extra non-weekend day to catch up on other things. This morning, I lounged in bed a little, sat on my deck and read while drinking my morning chai, and stared off into the distance on this lovely day. Then I need to finish mowing my lawn after posting this.

Since it’s been a bit since the last open thread, let’s convene one today. What’s been going on in your neck of the woods? Anything you’d like to share with the rest of the group? Do you have something fun coming up? Something you’re dreading? How can we help? What’s the best thing you’ve seen or read or listened to recently? Got a new project? Or an old one, rekindled?

Tags: kottke.org · open threads

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