Israeli authorities arrested several individuals and charged two with using classified information to place bets on the prediction market platform Polymarket, according to NPR. The charges include bribery and obstruction of justice, stemming from wagers made about military operations. Meanwhile, AI continues to develop rapidly, with Chinese companies releasing models that rival Western counterparts at a lower cost, and AI is also making online crimes easier.
Prosecutors in Israel indicted a civilian and a military reservist, with an undisclosed number of others also arrested for placing Polymarket wagers based on classified information, NPR reported. The specific trades under investigation have not been identified. This news comes as protests in Iran, sparked by economic hardship partly caused by U.S. sanctions, continue to unfold, as reported by NPR.
In the realm of technology, the AI landscape is rapidly evolving. Chinese companies are making significant strides, releasing AI models that match the performance of leading Western models but at a fraction of the cost, according to MIT Technology Review. Moonshot AI's Kimi K2.5 model, for example, came close to top proprietary systems like Anthropic's Claude Opus in early benchmarks, but at one-seventh the price. Alibaba's Qwen family has also gained prominence, surpassing Meta's Llama on Hugging Face.
However, the advancements in AI also present new challenges. Cybersecurity researchers are concerned about how AI is making online crimes easier, according to MIT Technology Review. One example involved a ransomware file that employed AI techniques, making it unlike anything previously encountered.
In other news, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis juggles multiple roles, including leading a multibillion-dollar startup, and manages his schedule with unusual sleeping habits, according to Fortune. "I don't sleep very much," Hassabis said on Fortunes Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast. He packs his day with back-to-back meetings.
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