Kimi Antonelli has been rewriting the record books in 2026, the 19-year-old going on a five-race winning streak earlier in the season as he showed everyone why Toto Wolff rated him so highly.

Aston Martin Team Principal Adrian Newey has given his take on whether Fernando Alonso will continue on with the squad into 2027.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: LinkedIn, a social network awash with long AI-generated posts from executives and other corporate workers, has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post "seems like AI slop," according to 404 Media's own tests. If you have been anywhere near LinkedIn in the past couple of years, you have undoubtedly seen users posting blatantly AI-generated missives. Often these posts take some sort of news event, and opine on how this relates to thought leadership, or some other LinkedIn brainrot term. It's also pretty wild the button specifically uses the term "AI slop" and not, say, "It seems this was generated with AI."

[...] After publication of this piece, Hari Srinivasan, chief product officer at LinkedIn, wrote their own post about the button. "AI slop is a top priority for all of us. We really care about this. People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives, ideas and expertise. Here are a few more changes to keep it that way," he wrote.

The button in part will help LinkedIn tune its own models for identifying AI slop. "We are ramping up a series of new and improved classifiers that identify if a post is AI-slop or generally low-quality content. This will reduce the amount of AI slop you might see in suggested content and content from outside your network," the post said. "We are ramping the ability for members to tell us if they believe a post or comment seems like AI slop. Slop is hard to define and the definition changes; this lets us tune our models and make better feeds." Srinivasan also said LinkedIn is removing the AI-powered "enhance your post" feature with another that "proofreads your words, but does not change your voice."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Donderdag zwommen bijna zestigduizend mensen vanuit Marokko naar Ceuta. De Spaanse exclave was al vaker het brandpunt van een migratiecrisis, maar nooit eerder op deze schaal. De Spaanse premier Pedro Sánchez moet nu bedenken hoe hij de zuiderburen tot de orde kan roepen zonder de relatie te verstoren.

Het aantal geregistreerde gevallen stond vrijdag op 3.532, blijkt uit cijfers van het Congolese ministerie van Communicatie. Ook zijn er zo’n 1.556 sterfgevallen geregistreerd.

Met de keiharde opstelling van de UEFA en andere federaties neemt de druk op FIFA-voorzitter Gianni Infantino verder toe. Is een WK zonder Europese landen überhaupt haalbaar?

Demi Vollering gaat zaterdag als topfavoriet van start in de Tour de France Femmes. FDJ-United Suez, de Franse ploeg waarvan zij sinds vorig jaar de kopvrouw is, groeide onder de bezielende leiding van ploegbaas Stéphen Delcourt uit tot een superteam. „Ik ga lekker op iemand die zo ambitieus is dat het haast waanbeelden zijn.”

Nieuwe EU-regels moeten een reparatie-economie stimuleren. Is AI-hulp daarbij een zegen of de doodsteek voor de echte specialist? Christiaan Weijts twijfelt nog, na een lek in zijn accu.

Amerikaanse techbedrijven investeren tientallen miljarden per kwartaal in de infrastructuur voor AI, zoals datacenters. Maar zullen die enorme investeringen zich wel terugbetalen, beginnen beleggers zich af te vragen.

Mag de telefoon mee op vakantie? En wanneer mogen kinderen daar dan op? Drie gezinnen vertellen over hun afspraken.

De private pijnkliniek Excellent Care Clinics in Velsen-Noord claimde vorig jaar het eerste werkende medicijn tegen postcovid te hebben gevonden, maar het middel was nog helemaal niet veilig bewezen. Patiënten zijn onnodig in gevaar gebracht, oordeelt de inspectie nu.

NRC-columnist Floor Rusman kreeg in september te horen dat ze eierstokkanker had. Deze zomer schrijft ze wekelijks over wat er in haar hoofd gebeurde toen haar lichaam een bedreiging werd.

Stephanie Knoors en Mike van Woudenberg schelen negentien jaar in leeftijd. „In het begin ben je natuurlijk verliefd en zit je op een roze wolk. Daarna denk je: wat gaan andere mensen ervan zeggen?”

Set against uninterrupted backgrounds, the bold, metallic portraits of Kip Omolade float almost deity-like amid vibrant color. Known for his hyperrealistic treatment of chrome-like visages in oil paint, the artist sometimes incorporates spray-painted elements, drawing on the graffiti culture of New York City’s subways during the 1980s and 1990s when Omolade tagged using the moniker “Kace.”

The artist also presents the mask-like faces from different vantage points, sometimes with incredible eyelashes, whether peering directly at the viewer or positioned in regal profile. Reflections are typically abstract, showing little indication of the surrounding space beyond perhaps blue skies, the sun, and local color, although the monumental “African History” is an exception.

Upon closer inspection, the whorls of “African History” reveal numerous additional faces inspired by a wide range of carved sculptures the artist observed in a long-running exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art titled The African Origin of Civilization, plus other examples from art history. Within this one, larger-than-life identity is a host of time-honored traditions and creative expressions.

See more on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Reflections Dazzle in Hyperrealistic Chrome Faces in Kip Omolade’s Vivid Portraits appeared first on Colossal.

​Als de bestorming van de Spaanse exclave Ceuta door tienduizenden migranten iets duidelijk maakt, dan is het wel dat mensensmokkelaars de definitie van smokkelen niet meer zo scherp hebben. Oud-smokkelaars maken zich zorgen over de toekomst van hun vak.

"Smokkelen betekent dat je iets illegaal en in het geheim de grens over brengt", zegt voormalig mensensmokkelaar Yassine Agougil. "In ons geval gaat het dan om mensen. Noem me ouderwets, maar ik hecht aan het element 'in het geheim'. Met enorme mensenmassa's een grens bestormen is meer een invasie. Dat geeft ook welwillende smokkelaars een slechte naam."

De Spaanse premier Pedro Sánchez heeft inderdaad mensensmokkelaars de schuld gegeven van de situatie in Ceuta. Zo ver had het volgens Yassine niet hoeven komen. "Nu zijn al die doden groot nieuws, terwijl er geen haan naar gekraaid had als ze gewoon verspreid over de zomer in kleine bootjes waren verdronken."

De veteraan hoopt dat zijn jonge vakbroeders terugkeren naar de oude heimelijke manier van werken. "Anders loop je het risico dat Europa gaat praten over beleid."

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Following 404 Media’s reporting that book database company ISBNdb claimed to source printed books to then sell to AI companies for AI training, the company deleted the part of its website offering the service and walked back claims that it would train AI models, and instead called it “a test of market interest.” 

On July 30, nine days after 404 Media’s reporting, ISBNdb added a note to its homepage and an update on its news page about the change. “We've seen the recent coverage about a marketing landing page on our site, and we understand the concern it raised. The facts: ISBNdb has never purchased, scanned, or sold a book — for AI training or anything else,” ISBNdb wrote. “We don't train AI models, and we never have. The page was a test of market interest; no such service was ever brought to life. We've taken the page down. Our job is helping people find books. For more than two decades, ISBNdb has been the card catalog of the book world — the data behind how bookstores, libraries, and reading apps connect readers with titles. Data about books, not the books themselves. That hasn't changed.” 

ISBNdb removed the landing page for “Printed Books Sourcing for Your AI LLMs Dataset Needs” on July 28. “It was part of exploring demand, and we've chosen to pivot away from that direction. Our main ISBNdb (book metadata API) services are unaffected and running as usual,” the site says. 

ISBNdb has not responded to any requests for comment from 404 Media. 

AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They’re Free of AI Slop

ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”

In one now-removed article on its site, ISBNdb said that printed books published before 2022 are ideal for AI training data because they don’t include AI generated text, and ingesting these books could prevent model collapse. The article also suggested that book authors who might be opposed to this use of their work could just write with manipulating and sabotaging AI models in mind. 

404 Media spoke to booksellers and saw reports online detailing a sudden uptick in sales recently. “It's not just the quantity, but the weirdness of the orders,” one bookseller told 404 Media. “The type of books [...] there's no rhyme or reason to it. Also, there's a total disregard for the price of the book. I've had some books that sold through this way that were [...] greatly overpriced. That's kind of a tell for AI because they have just so much money.” 

“Purchasing paper books at scale from the secondary market does not deprive any creator of income they would otherwise have received,” one of ISBNdb’s now-removed pages said. “These are books that have already fully discharged their financial obligation to their creators.” 

In January, book authors filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, revealing internal documents that showed Anthropic planned to obtain and scan millions of printed books and destroy them in the process. An investigation by the Washington Post found that Anthropic was buying books from a company called Better World Books, one of several marketplaces where libraries, retailers, and individuals sell books.  

In ISBNdb’s now-removed marketing materials, it admitted that getting caught destroying printed books during the scanning process would not be a good look. “The optics problem is real,” ISBNdb’s site said. “‘AI company destroys two million books’ is not a headline that generates sympathy.”

Emanuel Maiberg contributed reporting to this story.

Miffy_ has added a photo to the pool:

Miffy_ has added a photo to the pool:

Will collagen make you look younger? Could magnesium help you sleep better? Or are the benefits overstated? A dietitian reveals which are worth taking

Multivitamins are one of the most commonly used supplements worldwide – but for most people, there isn’t evidence of a huge benefit.

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Er zijn van die dagen dat je je afvraagt of het wel zo'n goed idee is om lid te zijn van de Europese Unie, een vergaande samenwerking tussen landen die niet alleen ontzettend verschillend zijn, maar ook simpelweg verschillende belangen hebben. En dan lees je weer een hartverwarmend bericht over transnationale samenwerking waardoor je zeker weet: het is Brussel waar wij allen thuis horen. "Van zaterdag tot en met woensdag reden 8141 vrachtwagens en touringcars over de verzwakte brug, ondanks het verbod. Dat meldt Rijkswaterstaat (RWS). Een groot deel daarvan, ongeveer 80 procent, had een buitenlands kenteken. Vanwege regelgeving konden zij nog niet worden beboet; die kentekens worden niet door de camerasystemen geregistreerd. De overtreding valt namelijk niet onder Europese afspraken die het uitwisselen van kentekengegevens tussen landen mogelijk maakt." Dus 20% van de vrachtwagens betaalt 100% van de boetes a 500 euro voor het beschadigen van een brug die met 100% Nederlands belastinggeld gerepareerd moet gaan worden. Schitterend.

Ja nee dat schiet op