Facebook says it wants to help fight misinformation rampant across the internet in recent years. But it’s an issue it may have helped create in the first place. Facebook parent company Meta announced a new AI-powered tool on July 11 called Sphere. The Meta Sphere AI is intended to help detect and address misinformation, or “fake news,” on the internet. The company claims it is the first AI model that can automatically scan numerous citations at once.

How It Works 

The idea behind applying Meta Sphere AI for Wikipedia is quite simple. The online encyclopedia contains 6.5 million entries. On average, it displays almost 17,000 articles added monthly. The wiki concept behind that means that adding and editing content is crowd-sourced. While there is an editorial team, it is still a tiring task that increases daily.  

At the same time, the Wikimedia Foundation oversees Wikipedia and has been weighing up new ways of leveraging all that data. 

Meta’s announcement regarding a partnership with Wikipedia does not reference Wikimedia Enterprise. Adding more tools for Wikipedia ensures that its content is verified and accurate. So, it will be something that target Enterprise service customers will want to know when considering paying for the service.

Meta has confirmed that there is no financial arrangement in this deal. However, the company notes that training the Meta Sphere AI model created “a new data set (WAFER) of 4 million Wikipedia citations.

What Can Happen in The Future

Based on the comments that TechCrunch got from Meta, here are the things that might happen soon. 

• Meta believes that the Sphere’s “white box” knowledge base has significantly more data than traditional “black box” knowledge sources. The 134 million documents at Meta used together to develop the Sphere AI were split into 906 million passages of 100 tokens each.

• By open sourcing this tool, Meta argues it’s a more solid foundation for AI training models and other work than any proprietary base. It concedes that the very foundations of the knowledge are potentially shaky, especially in these early days. What if a “truth” is not reported as widely as fake news? That’s where Meta wants to focus its future efforts in Sphere. Meta intends to develop models to evaluate the quality of retrieved documents, detect potential errors and prioritize more credible sources. 

• Meta Sphere AIl raises some interesting questions on what Sphere’s hierarchy of truth will be based on compared to other knowledge bases. Because it’s open source, users may be able to tweak those algorithms in ways better suited to their own needs.

• Meanwhile, Meta has confirmed that it is not using Sphere or a version of it on its platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, which have long grappled with misinformation and toxicity from bad actors. (We have also asked whether other customers are in line for Sphere.) It has separate tools to manage its content and moderate it.

• The development seems to be designed for mega scale. Wikipedia’s current size has exceeded what any great team of humans could check for accuracy. The critical point is that Sphere is being used to automatically scan hundreds of thousands of citations simultaneously to spot when a citation doesn’t have much support across the wider web. 

While Meta Sphere AI is still in the production phase, it also seems like the editors might be selecting the content, which might need verifying for now. Eventually, Meta’s goal is to build a platform to help Wikipedia editors systematically spot citation issues and quickly fix them or correct the content of the corresponding article at scale.

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Ever felt dizzy or nauseous after using your laptop or smartphone? These could be signs of cybersickness. But what is cybersickness? Angelica Jasper, a Ph.D. student in Human-Computer Interaction at Iowa State University, explains its symptoms and how to cope with it

What is Cybersickness?

Cybersickness is a cluster of symptoms during the absence of physical motion, akin to motion sickness. These symptoms are categorized into nausea, oculomotor issues, and general disorientation. Oculomotor symptoms, including eye strain, fatigue, and headaches, involve stressing the nerve that controls eye movement. Disorientation can manifest as dizziness and vertigo. Meanwhile, several cybersickness symptoms overlap categories, such as difficulty concentrating and blurred vision. These issues can persist for several hours and may affect sleep quality.

People can experience the symptoms when using daily devices like computers, phones, and TV. In 2013, Apple introduced a parallax effect on iPhone lock screens that made the background image seem like it floated when a user moved their phone around. But, many people found it extremely uncomfortable. Surprisingly, the reason behind the discomfort is that it triggered cybersickness symptoms. 

However, some researchers have different views about why people experience cybersickness. For instance, sensory conflict theory assumes that it is due to a mismatch of information sensed by our body parts that regulate vision and balance. Using every device can cause this conflict between visual perception and physical experience.

Cybersickness in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Cybersickness symptoms are perceived to become more intense with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

VR is widely available through popular gaming platforms like Facebook’s Oculus devices and Sony PlayStation VR. VR can trigger severe levels of nausea that increase with the duration of use. Also, this can cause some applications and games unusable for many individuals.

AR, on the other hand, are head-mounted devices that allow the user to see what’s in front of him. This includes games like Pokémon Go, accessible on your phone or tablet. Prolonged use of AR devices can result in more severe oculomotor fatigue. 

A rise in the popularity of owning AR and VR devices can trigger an increase in cybersickness symptoms. Research and Markets estimate that adopting these technologies for various purposes may grow over 60 percent and reach USD 905.71 billion by 2027.

Cybersickness Symptoms Is Dangerous

While cybersickness symptoms may initially appear mild, they can have enduring effects over time. This may not seem like a big issue initially, but lingering symptoms may affect your ability to function well and could be dangerous. Symptoms such as severe headache, eye strain, or dizziness could affect your coordination and attention. If these symptoms persist while driving, it could lead to a car accident.

How to Deal With Cybersickness 

If you are experiencing cybersickness symptoms, there are a few ways to ease the discomfort. 

• Use blue light glasses to block out some of the blue light waves on your device screen. 
• Zoom in your device screen or use larger font sizes to lessen eye strain and make daily work more sustainable and productive.
• Adjust devices visually, so your eyes are as comfortable as possible.
• Use devices in open spaces to reduce the risk of getting injured if you get dizzy and lose your balance. 
• Take a short break if you start to feel any discomfort.

Proper Use of New Technology

The work-from-home trend has grown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Commuting to work at an office setup was replaced with staying at home and enduring endless Zoom meetings. Even though the convenience is undeniable, it has also come with an increasing awareness of how hard it can be to look at a screen for over 40 hours per week.

However, don’t let cybersickness affect your motivation. As researchers continue to find ways to address cybersickness across all devices, people may be able to enjoy advancements in innovative technologies in the future without feeling uncomfortable. 

Artificial intelligence has long played a role in the game of chess, with intelligent robots even challenging grandmasters. But in a shocking incident, a chess robot breaks a boy’s finger during a competition in Russia, raising serious concerns about safety around AI-powered machines.

In late July, video footage went viral showing the robot gripping the hand of its young opponent. The 7-year-old boy suffered a fractured finger after being held for roughly 15 seconds before the robot finally released him.

According to the Moscow Chess Federation, the incident happened during a tournament designed to showcase technological advancements in the game.

A freak incident?

In an interview with Tass, a state-controlled news network, the chess federation said the boy hurried the robot. The event took place during the Moscow Open Chess Competition.

The video shows the robot reaching for the boy’s piece and discarding it. In response, the boy attempted another move. He pushed one of his rooks to the spot of the recently moved piece. But, the robot’s arm had yet to retract. 

So, the robot reached its mechanical claws toward the board. But instead of reaching for a chess piece, it grabbed the boy’s fingers for about 15 seconds. Two bystanders jumped to action and tried to pry the claws open. But, the chess robot had already fractured the boy’s finger. 

Sergey Lazarev, a representative of the federation, reacted to the situation. He begins by clarifying that there were certain safety rules that the child violated. “When he made the move, he did not realize he first had to wait,” he said. 

Lazarev also noted that prior to the incident, the machine had played other matches. All went without a hitch. He still stands that the robot is safe. But because the chess robot breaks the boy’s finger, he says, “This is, of course, bad.” He added that the children “apparently need to be warned” about the safety rules. Nevertheless, the boy continued playing in the competition with his hand on a cast. 

Furthermore, he also revealed that the boy’s parents were thinking of calling the prosecutor’s office. Lazarev promised that the federation “will communicate, try to sort it out and help in any way we can.” 

He added that the robot operators have to do some thinking, so the situation doesn’t happen again. 

Chess Robot Breaks Boy’s Finger Incident Elicits Online Reactions

News outfits say a Telegram post from Baza News named the boy Christopher. According to the outlet, he is in the top 30 list of best chess players under 9. 

Since videos of the event went online, social media users expressed a lot of fear. 

Garry Kasparov, a Soviet Era world chess champion, even tweeted: “I tried to warn you!” Kasparov had been famously defeated by an AI chess robot himself. In 1997, the supercomputer Deep Blue, programmed by IBM scientists, defeated Kasparov in a six-game match. 

And since Kasparov’s bitter loss, scientists have only strengthened chess robots. Even today, a joint chess program by Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Toronto is in the works. Entitled Maia Chess, the program seeks to use chess as a case study to help AIs develop human skills. 

And the chess robot breaks boy’s fingers incident may serve as a case study itself.

AI in chess

Notably, AI in chess has been popularized since the late 90s. It’s not uncommon to find chess apps and games which put players against robots. 

The system itself began taking shape in the 70s. By then, scientists have created chess-playing calculators. Deep Blue was created in 1989. But that same year, it was defeated by Kasparov in two games. Scientists then continued to program Deep Blue until it could defeat Kasparov. 

But since chess robot breaks boy’s fingers, operators have a new puzzle to figure out. And that’s to guarantee the safety of human opponents.

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