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Celebrity, sex and motherhood misery: the 10 best books by Rachel Cusk … ranked!

From an abstract portrait of an actor who might be Natalie Portman to a groundbreaking work of autofiction, we rate the best from the coolly controversial author In Cusk’s headline-grabbing latest, a writer invents the biography of a film star who sounds very like Natalie Portman. Set in the now standard late-Cusk sans serif typeface (no frivolous flourishes!), Life of M serves up observations on fame in a light fictional coating. “To always be playing a part is to have no home.” Having made her name as a devilishly good creator of brainy social comedies, Cusk’s pivot to wintry autofiction since the Outline trilogy appears to have reached its logical conclusion in this flat, abstracted portrait of empty celebrity. The New York Times called it “rarefied, cosmopolitan, self-serious”. Sample line: “Everything I did or said in her company was false. It was as if I was acting, while M came across as authentic and real.” Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•John Self21 Sept

Aaron Sorkin Says Jeremy Strong Treated His Co-Stars ‘The Way He Imagines’ Mark Zuckerberg Treats People While Shooting ‘The Social Reckoning’

Director Aaron Sorkin told The New York Times in the latest edition of The Interview that his “Social Reckoning” star Jeremy Strong, a known method actor, was treating his co-stars “the way he imagines” Mark Zuckerberg would treat them during filming. Strong, of course, plays the Meta CEO in “The Social Network” follow-up. “Jeremy does […]

VarietyVariety•Jack Dunn20 Sept

US intelligence dismantles Iranian AI proxies network on social media

The New York Times, citing US officials and security researchers, revealed that an Iranian state-backed campaign used what are known as ‘artificial intelligence proxies’, programmes capable of running software and accomplishing a series of tasks autonomously, in an operation targeting an audience within the United States. According to security officials, the danger of this new development lies in the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer used only to produce a fake image or write a misleading post, but has become capable of carrying out multiple parts of the same influence campaign, starting from creating accounts, through producing content, to publishing it and interacting with other users. According to the newspaper, the perpetrators used open-source Chinese artificial intelligence models to create hundreds of ‘agents’ before deploying them to manage accounts on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok. Officials said that safeguards intended to prevent the AI ​​systems from creating fake accounts or manipulating online discussions were disabled in several cases. The Iranian aspect of these operations was the most worrying for officials and researchers who spoke to the newspaper, along with Chinese and Israeli models. The AI-generated accounts presented themselves as ordinary Americans living in major cities and used those identities to participate in political discussions and comment on posts by journalists and politicians. The accounts posted satirical images and content addressing American political issues, including positions opposing the Republican Party, while the number of followers of the AI-created accounts reached about 80,000 people during the first half of the year, according to the New York Times. Security researchers said that these campaigns are still relatively primitive, but their importance lies in the direction they reveal, as more sophisticated systems in the future could make automated accounts more capable of impersonating the real user and engaging in conversations that are difficult to distinguish from human activity. Kyle Crichton, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies, said that agents could become so sophisticated that, in addition to running large numbers of accounts, they could “bluntly blend in and appear more like a human user.” Why open models? Part of the concern relates to the use of open artificial intelligence models that can be downloaded and run on private devices and have their protection mechanisms modified. Kyle Chan, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, explained that the difference from the closed models offered by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic is that open systems can be operated independently, reducing the ability of the developing companies to intervene and stop their use when they are exploited in illegal activities. The experiments are not limited to Iran. US officials said China has tested the same techniques, while two other campaigns have been linked to private companies in Israel. In one Israeli case, a company admitted to using the Chinese ‘deepsick’ model to control thousands of accounts, but said the activity was a defensive test to study the risks of misuse of such systems.

MBMobile Business•Emirates24718 Sept