Your contacts on the networking site LinkedIn could be deepfakes, according to a new study. Researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory found more than 1,000 deepfake accounts on LinkedIn, the social media platform for professional networking. The Times said the profiles are created by artificial intelligence software that has learnt, through viewing thousands of real faces, how to create convincing facial features.
Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster’s hat battle
The leader of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is campaigning hard on a key issue: the right to wear a pirate hat for a driver’s licence photo. Gary Smith, who identifies himself as a Pastafarian, insisted that his pirate hat is part of his church’s religious headwear. He has accused licensing authorities of “sheer arrogance” for blocking his request, reported Vancouver Island’s Times Colonist. According to followers, Pastafarianism is a “real, legitimate religion, as much as any other”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Message in bottle found after 56 years
A message in a bottle written by two teens looking for boyfriends has been found 56 years after it was released. The requests have been floating in the Humber Estuary for nearly six decades, after Jennifer Coleman and Janet Blankley wrote them aged 15 in August 1966. A mother and daughter spotted the bottle when they were litter-picking in Scunthorpe, said The Metro. They hope to reunite the notes with their authors.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.