News

Large numbers of Americans believe the founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation. The belief is especially strong among Republicans and their white evangelical base.

Confession by Punjab commissioner exacerbates tension over legitimacy of February general election results

Russian opposition leader’s death occurred on Friday, say supporters, but official cause remains disputed

Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and TikTok outline methods they will use to try to detect and label deceptive AI content

Original article

A peer-reviewed scientific journal that this week published a study containing nonsensical AI-generated images including a gigantic rat penis has retracted the article and apologized.

The paper was authored by three scientists in China, edited by a researcher in India, reviewed by two people from the U.S. and India, and published in the open access journal Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology on Monday.

Despite undergoing multiple checks, the paper was published with AI-generated figures that went viral on social media because of their absurdity. One figure featured a rat with a massive dissected dick and balls and garbled labels such as “iollotte sserotgomar cell” and “testtomcels.” The authors said they used the generative AI tool Midjourney to create the images.

On Thursday afternoon, Frontiers added a notice saying that the paper had been corrected and a new version would be published soon. The journal later updated the notice to say that it was retracting the study entirely because “the article does not meet [Frontiers’] standards of editorial and scientific rigor.”

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Frontiers directed Motherboard to a statement posted to the journal’s web page on Thursday apologizing to the scientific community and explaining that, in fact, a reviewer of the paper had raised concerns about the AI-generated images that were ignored.

“Our investigation revealed that one of the reviewers raised valid concerns about the figures and requested author revisions,” Frontiers’ statement reads. “The authors failed to respond to these requests. We are investigating how our processes failed to act on the lack of author compliance with the reviewers' requirements. We sincerely apologize to the scientific community for this mistake and thank our readers who quickly brought this to our attention.”

The paper had two reviewers, one in India and one based in the U.S. Motherboard contacted the U.S.-based reviewer who said that they evaluated the study based solely on its scientific merits and that it was up to Frontiers whether or not to publish the AI-generated images since the authors disclosed that they used Midjourney. Frontiers’ policies allow the use of generative AI as long as it is disclosed but, crucially, the images must also be accurate.

The embarrassing incident is an example of how the issues surrounding generative AI more broadly have seeped into academia, in ways that are sometimes concerning to scientists. Science integrity consultant Elisabeth Bik wrote on her personal blog that it was “a sad example of how scientific journals, editors, and peer reviewers can be naive—or possibly even in the loop—in terms of accepting and publishing AI-generated crap.”

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny died in a Russian penal colony, Russian prison authorities said Friday.

The latest reaction as Labour celebrates victories in the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections, overturning big Tory majorities on another difficult night for Rishi Sunak.

Satellite images and footage reveal that Egypt is clearing land and building a wall along its border with Gaza, with an official suggesting it could be a contingency plan in the event of Palestinians crossing into the country to flee an Israeli offensive in Rafah.

Bernie Sanders and two Senate colleagues defined a new standard for foreign aid packages: No more complicity with Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, announced he will not run for president in 2024.

The jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian officials. Western leaders have condemned Vladimir Putin's regime and say the Russian president should be held accountable for the death.

Edit: One dead, several more wounded.

The recent release of a leaked transcript of a private WhatsApp group for Jewish writers, artists, musicians and academics has stirred a controversy that has led to threats of violence, a family in hiding, and the fast-tracking of new federal legislation to criminalise doxing.

The WhatsApp group in question, administered by writer Lee Kofman, was formed to give Jewish creative people a private and supportive space to connect, in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza. Not all members knew they had been added to the group at first, and many didn’t participate in the conversations that resulted in the leak.

Last week, a transcript from the group chat was leaked and uploaded onto social media by pro-Palestinians, including the writer Clementine Ford. The leak included a spreadsheet with links to social media accounts and “a separate file with a photo gallery of more than 100 Jewish people”.

The ex-president’s invitation to Vladimir Putin to attack American allies is an assault on NATO. Ultimately, that is bad for America

When it comes to autonomous vehicles, the landscape is littered with over-optimistic predictions and missed deadlines. What happened?

A person jumped on the hood of a Waymo driverless taxi and smashed its windshield in San Francisco’s Chinatown last night around 9PM PT, generating applause before a crowd formed around the car and covered it in spray paint, breaking its windows, and ultimately set it on fire. The fire department arrived minutes later, according to a report in The Autopian, but by then flames had already fully engulfed the car.

At the moment, no outlets seem to have reported a motive for the attack. Waymo representative Sandy Karp told The Verge via email that the fully autonomous car “was not transporting any riders” when it was attacked and fireworks were tossed inside the car, sparking the flames. Public Information Officer Robert Rueca of San Francisco’s police department confirmed in an email to The Verge that police responded at “approximately” 8:50PM PT to find the car already on fire, adding that there were “no reports of injuries.”

A video posted by the FriscoLive415 YouTube channel shows the burnt-out husk of the electric Waymo Jaguar.

Katalin Novák stepped down after pardoning a man convicted of helping cover up sex abuse

Across Europe, platform workers have won a series of court cases ruling that they are employees, not self-employed. Moves for new EU-wide legislation have faced serious resistance from lobbyists but now look set to deliver some new protections.

Jens Stoltenberg says Nato ‘ready and able to defend all allies’, after Trump invited Russia to attack member countries

Starting Feb. 5, Denver will start limiting the number of days migrants can stay in shelters and sending those who exceed their stay out onto the streets.

The past week saw Democrats take up Trump’s hard-right immigration policy as their own for campaign fodder, with the liberal press’s assent. The very xenophobia that Democrats decried as “fascism” has become their policy agenda.

More than 13,000 people are under pressure to find homes and work before they are mass-evicted from city-operated shelters.

Online access to home addresses is a cherished right. But as gangs target rivals with ease, innocent victims are caught in the blasts

After being found responsible for starting a deadly wildfire last summer, Hawaii’s for-profit energy utility is set to receive a public bailout. The episode makes a powerful case for bringing utilities under public ownership.

Remarks by former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee described as ‘unhinged’ by the White House