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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg balances metaverse bet with generative AI push

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg balances metaverse bet with generative AI push

Last month, internal chatter about Meta’s investments in artificial intelligence reached such a fever pitch that some employees began to wonder if the company was making a pivot away from virtual reality.

During a companywide meeting in April with top executives, employees up-voted a question on the subject: Do we still care about the metaverse? Workers were told the answer was yes.

That Meta workers even had to ask was notable. It was less than two years since Mark Zuckerberg had renamed the company he founded as Facebook to Meta, staking its future on the immersive digital realms called “the metaverse.”

Now, Meta’s chief executive officer is trying to project the social media giant as a serious player in artificial intelligence, as an arms race to command the burgeoning technology is captivating Silicon Valley. While Microsoft, Google and a string of start-ups have pushed out chatbots and other splashy innovations using generative artificial intelligence, a form of the technology that can produce humanlike original content, Meta appears to be playing catch-up.

Two of its generative AI projects including Galatica, a large-language model for synthesizing scientific research, and its BlenderBot 3 all-purpose chatbot, faced negative publicity when the models spewed inaccurate and hateful rhetoric. The company quickly paused the public demo of Galatica while BlenderBot failed to gain much traction. Since then, the company has touted more mundane innovations, including advertising tools.

Zuckerberg endorsed artificial intelligence as a driving force behind Meta’s revenue growth last quarter, after nearly a year of dismal financial performance.

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“Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business,” Zuckerberg said in a statement last month at the time of the earnings release.

Meta starts cutting 10,000 workers in second round of layoffs

The Meta CEO has forcefully denied its newfound attention on AI signals the company is less committed to its larger metaverse bet. In fact, Zuckerberg has argued AI is foundational to the metaverse, and will be a critical tool to create more dynamic and accessible virtual reality-powered experiences. For instance, less tech-savvy users will be able to use generative AI to create their own new worlds in Meta’s virtual reality-powered apps.

But both Wall Street and workers will be watching how Zuckerberg prioritizes investing in both technologies as he seeks to shore up the company’s financial performance and employee morale.

“It’s crucial that Meta outlines the strategy, how they’re going to monetize it and flex the muscles to show that they also are a key AI player,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. They should demonstrate “they’re not sitting at the kids’ table with Microsoft, Google and Apple at the adults table.”

The rhetoric about AI has confused some employees and investors about the company’s core focus, as a string of news articles and analysts mulling whether the metaverse is dead and Zuckerberg is walking away from his multibillion-dollar investment.

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Some workers expressed frustration that the company’s direction is convoluted, as it endorses AI while cutting back on jobs and other projects, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about internal matters. Other workers rushed to receive an internal alert for AI-related jobs, a way to safely position themselves for the company’s next big bet, one of the people said.

How Mark Zuckerberg broke Meta’s workforce

On Thursday, the company announced it was launching AI Sandbox, which enables marketers to use AI to create more text and visual options for ads. Meta executives said the product will help marketers more effectively target their ads to different types of consumers, by experimenting with extremely subtle changes to copy, pictures and backgrounds.

For example, an ad might get more traction with women under 35 if the company’s logo is depicted on top of a cityscape with blurry lights rather than a snowy mountain. Meta also announced Meta Lattice, a new artificial-intelligence-driven model to improve the performance of its ads on its networks.

But these products are far more modest than those championed by its competitors in recent months. On Wednesday, Google announced it would start answering some search queries directly by generating its own results, drawing from sources around the web, rather than linking and summarizing from other websites as it has done for two decades.

That strategic shift could transform users’ experience of the internet while upending publishers and content creators who depend on Google for traffic. Google’s announcement followed pressure from investors who urged the company to catch-up with Microsoft, which had already incorporated ChatGPT into its own search engine, Bing.

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Google is changing the way we search with AI. It could upend the web.

Meta appears to be taking a more reserved path.

In February, the company announced it was forming a new product group to “turbocharge” its use of generative AI. The group, led by former Apple executive Ahmed Al-Dahle, aims to bring together key teams from research and consumer-focused groups to create new products, according to the company. Zuckerberg has said he expects to build generative AI-powered chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger as well as innovations in business messaging and customer support.

On the research front, Meta has long been a player in artificial intelligence. The company’s laboratory stands out in the industry for publicly releasing a lot of its research. Research projects include technology using AI to animate children’s drawings, decode speech from imagery of brain activity, and enable real-time translation of most languages.

Some think Meta’s new focus on AI could help overcome threats to its ad-based business model. Increasing competition in the social media market from upstarts such as TikTok and new privacy rules from Apple have hurt the digital advertising market.

Meta begins fresh round of job cuts among highly skilled staff

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Zuckerberg credited AI last month for driving people to spend more time on Instagram, as the company promotes social short-form videos called Reels. And he reminded investors during an earnings call that artificial intelligence is powering how the company recommends content to users, delivers ads to consumers and roots out rule-breaking and offensive content — systems the company has “been working on for many, many years.”

But Meta executives in recent weeks have sought to push back on claims that their investment strategy has dramatically shifted.

“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say upfront that that’s not accurate,” Zuckerberg said last month. “We’ve been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both.”

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Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

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Facebook Problem Again

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

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During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.

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Christian family goes in hiding after being cleared of blasphemy

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Christian family goes in hiding after being cleared of blasphemy

LAHORE, Pakistan — A court in Pakistan granted bail to a Christian falsely charged with blasphemy, but he and his family have separated and gone into hiding amid threats to their lives, sources said.

Haroon Shahzad (right) with attorney Aneeqa Maria. | The Voice Society/Morning Star News

Haroon Shahzad, 45, was released from Sargodha District Jail on Nov. 15, said his attorney, Aneeqa Maria. Shahzad was charged with blasphemy on June 30 after posting Bible verses on Facebook that infuriated Muslims, causing dozens of Christian families in Chak 49 Shumaali, near Sargodha in Punjab Province, to flee their homes.

Lahore High Court Judge Ali Baqir Najfi granted bail on Nov. 6, but the decision and his release on Nov. 15 were not made public until now due to security fears for his life, Maria said.

Shahzad told Morning Star News by telephone from an undisclosed location that the false accusation has changed his family’s lives forever.

“My family has been on the run from the time I was implicated in this false charge and arrested by the police under mob pressure,” Shahzad told Morning Star News. “My eldest daughter had just started her second year in college, but it’s been more than four months now that she hasn’t been able to return to her institution. My other children are also unable to resume their education as my family is compelled to change their location after 15-20 days as a security precaution.”

Though he was not tortured during incarceration, he said, the pain of being away from his family and thinking about their well-being and safety gave him countless sleepless nights.

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“All of this is due to the fact that the complainant, Imran Ladhar, has widely shared my photo on social media and declared me liable for death for alleged blasphemy,” he said in a choked voice. “As soon as Ladhar heard about my bail, he and his accomplices started gathering people in the village and incited them against me and my family. He’s trying his best to ensure that we are never able to go back to the village.”

Shahzad has met with his family only once since his release on bail, and they are unable to return to their village in the foreseeable future, he said.

“We are not together,” he told Morning Star News. “They are living at a relative’s house while I’m taking refuge elsewhere. I don’t know when this agonizing situation will come to an end.”

The Christian said the complainant, said to be a member of Islamist extremist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and also allegedly connected with banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, filed the charge because of a grudge. Shahzad said he and his family had obtained valuable government land and allotted it for construction of a church building, and Ladhar and others had filed multiple cases against the allotment and lost all of them after a four-year legal battle.

“Another probable reason for Ladhar’s jealousy could be that we were financially better off than most Christian families of the village,” he said. “I was running a successful paint business in Sargodha city, but that too has shut down due to this case.”

Regarding the social media post, Shahzad said he had no intention of hurting Muslim sentiments by sharing the biblical verse on his Facebook page.

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“I posted the verse a week before Eid Al Adha [Feast of the Sacrifice] but I had no idea that it would be used to target me and my family,” he said. “In fact, when I came to know that Ladhar was provoking the villagers against me, I deleted the post and decided to meet the village elders to explain my position.”

The village elders were already influenced by Ladhar and refused to listen to him, Shahzad said.

“I was left with no option but to flee the village when I heard that Ladhar was amassing a mob to attack me,” he said.

Shahzad pleaded with government authorities for justice, saying he should not be punished for sharing a verse from the Bible that in no way constituted blasphemy.

Similar to other cases

Shahzad’s attorney, Maria, told Morning Star News that events in Shahzad’s case were similar to other blasphemy cases filed against Christians.

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“Defective investigation, mala fide on the part of the police and complainant, violent protests against the accused persons and threats to them and their families, forcing their displacement from their ancestral areas, have become hallmarks of all blasphemy allegations in Pakistan,” said Maria, head of The Voice Society, a Christian paralegal organization.

She said that the case filed against Shahzad was gross violation of Section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which states that police cannot register a case under the Section 295-A blasphemy statute against a private citizen without the approval of the provincial government or federal agencies.

Maria added that Shahzad and his family have continued to suffer even though there was no evidence of blasphemy.

“The social stigma attached with a blasphemy accusation will likely have a long-lasting impact on their lives, whereas his accuser, Imran Ladhar, would not have to face any consequence of his false accusation,” she said.

The judge who granted bail noted that Shahzad was charged with blasphemy under Section 295-A, which is a non-cognizable offense, and Section 298, which is bailable. The judge also noted that police had not submitted the forensic report of Shahzad’s cell phone and said evidence was required to prove that the social media was blasphemous, according to Maria.

Bail was set at 100,000 Pakistani rupees (US $350) and two personal sureties, and the judge ordered police to further investigate, she said.

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Shahzad, a paint contractor, on June 29 posted on his Facebook page 1 Cor. 10:18-21 regarding food sacrificed to idols, as Muslims were beginning the four-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which involves slaughtering an animal and sharing the meat.

A Muslim villager took a screenshot of the post, sent it to local social media groups and accused Shahzad of likening Muslims to pagans and disrespecting the Abrahamic tradition of animal sacrifice.

Though Shahzad made no comment in the post, inflammatory or otherwise, the situation became tense after Friday prayers when announcements were made from mosque loudspeakers telling people to gather for a protest, family sources previously told Morning Star News.

Fearing violence as mobs grew in the village, most Christian families fled their homes, leaving everything behind.

In a bid to restore order, the police registered a case against Shahzad under Sections 295-A and 298. Section 295-A relates to “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs” and is punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fine, or both. Section 298 prescribes up to one year in prison and a fine, or both, for hurting religious sentiments.

Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, up from eighth the previous year.

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Morning Star News is the only independent news service focusing exclusively on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide complete, reliable, even-handed news in order to empower those in the free world to help persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they are not alone in their suffering.

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Individual + Team Stats: Hornets vs. Timberwolves

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CHARLOTTE HORNETS MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES You can follow us for future coverage by liking us on Facebook & following us on X: Facebook – All Hornets X – …

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