NORTHFIELD, Illinois: The students — most with gray hair, some with canes, all at least in their 60s — couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
“Oh, my God,” whispered a retired college professor.
“Does it come with viruses?” wondered a bewildered woman scribbling notes in the second row.
A 79-year-old in a black-and-white floral shirt then asked the question on many minds: “How do you know if it is fake or not?”
This is how older adults — many of whom lived through the advent of refrigeration, the transition from radio to television and the invention of the Internet — are grappling with artificial intelligence: taking a class. Sitting in a classroom in an airy senior center in a Chicago suburb, the dozen students were learning about the latest — and possibly greatest — technological leap in their lives.
And they are not alone. Across the country, scores of such classes have sprung up to teach seniors about AI’s ability to transform their lives and the threats the technology poses.
“I saw ice boxes turn into refrigerators, that is how long I have been around,” said Barbara Winston, 89, who paid to attend the class put on at the North Shore Senior Center in Northfield. “And I think this is probably the greatest technical revolution that I will see in my lifetime.”
Older adults find themselves in a unique moment with technology. Artificial intelligence offers significant benefits for seniors, from the ability to curb loneliness to making it easier for them to get to medical appointments.
But it also has drawbacks that are uniquely threatening to this older group of Americans: A series of studies have found that senior citizens are more susceptible to both scams perpetrated using artificial intelligence and believing the types of misinformation that are being supercharged by the technology. Experts are particularly concerned about the role deepfakes and other AI-produced misinformation could play in politics.
Winston left the class to start her own AI journey, even if others remained skeptical. When she got home, the retired professor downloaded books on the technology, researched the platforms she wanted to use from her kitchen table and eventually queried ChatGPT about how to treat a personal medical ailment.
“This is the beginning of my education,” she said, her floral cup of coffee nearby. “I’m not worried about protecting myself. I’m too old to worry about that.”
Classes like these aim to familiarize aging early adopters with the myriad ways the technology could better their lives but also encourage skepticism about how artificial intelligence can distort the truth.
Balanced skepticism, say experts on the technology, is critical for seniors who plan to interact with AI.
“It’s tricky,” said Michael Gershbein, the instructor of the class in Northfield. “Overall, the suspicion that is there on the part of seniors is good but I don’t want them to become paralyzed from their fears and not be willing to do anything online.”
The questions in his class outside Chicago ranged from the absurd to the practical to the academic. Why are so many new shoes no longer including shoelaces? Can AI create a multiday itinerary for a visit to Charleston, South Carolina? What are the geopolitical implications of artificial intelligence?
Gershbein, who teaches classes on a range of technological topics, said interest in AI has ballooned in the last nine months. The 52-year-old teaches an AI course once or twice a week, he said, and aims to create a “safe space where (seniors) can come in and we can discuss all the issues they may be hearing bits and pieces of but we can put it all together and they can ask questions.”
During a 90-minute-long session on a June Thursday, Gershbein discussed deepfakes — videos that use generative AI to make it appear someone said something they did not. When he played a few deepfakes, the seniors sat agog. They could not believe how real the fakes seemed. There are widespread concerns that such videos could be used to trick voters, especially seniors.
The threats to seniors go beyond politics, however, and range from basic misinformation on social media sites to scams that use voice-cloning technology to trick them. An AARP report published last year said that Americans over 60 lose $28.3 billion annually to financial extortion schemes, some assisted by AI.
Experts from the National Council on Aging, an organization established in 1950 to advocate for seniors, said classes on AI at senior centers have increased in recent years and are at the forefront of digital literacy efforts.
“There’s a myth out there that older adults don’t use technology. We know that that’s not true,” said Dianne Stone, associate director at the National Council on Aging who ran a senior center in Connecticut for over two decades. Such courses, she said, are meant to foster a “healthy skepticism” in what the technology can do, arming older Americans with the knowledge “that not everything you hear is true, it’s good to get the information, but you have to kind of sort it out for yourself.”
Striking that balance, said Siwei Lyu, a University at Buffalo professor, can be difficult, and classes tend to either promote AI’s benefits or focus on its dangers.
“We need this kind of education for seniors, but the approach we take has to be very balanced and well-designed,” said Lyu, who has lectured to seniors and other groups.
Seniors who have taken such AI classes said they came away with a clear understanding of AI’s benefits and pitfalls.
“It’s only as good as the people who program it, and the users need to understand that. You really have to question it,” said Linda Chipko, a 70-year-old who attended an AI class in June in suburban Atlanta.
Chipko said she took the class because she wanted to “understand” AI, but on her way out said, “It’s not for me.”
Others have even embraced it. Ruth Schneiderman, 77, used AI to help illustrate a children’s book she was writing, and that experience sparked her interest in taking the Northfield class to learn more about the technology.
“My mother lived until she was 90,” Schneiderman said, “and I learned from her if you want to survive in this world, you have to adjust to the change. Otherwise you are left behind.”
Older Americans prepare themselves for a world altered by artificial intelligence
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Older Americans prepare themselves for a world altered by artificial intelligence
- Artificial intelligence offers significant benefits for seniors, from the ability to curb loneliness to making it easier for them to get to medical appointments
Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers
- The Seattle-based company’s strategy to drive demand through promotions and improved loyalty program offers fell flat
Last week, Starbucks reported preliminary fourth-quarter results and suspended its annual forecast through the next fiscal year as new CEO Brian Niccol tries to steer the company toward the path to growth.
The Seattle-based company’s strategy to drive demand through promotions and improved loyalty program offers fell flat in the face of muted spending from cost-conscious consumers.
Starbucks is also facing an uphill battle in China, where it is dealing with a choppy macroeconomic recovery and stiff competition from local brands.
Comparable sales in China, the company’s second-largest market after the US, declined for three straight quarters, falling 14 percent in the fourth quarter.
Investors, however, are betting on seasoned industry veteran and ex-Chipotle Mexican Grill head Niccol to simplify the company’s leadership and operating structure, and reinvigorate the coffee-house culture at Starbucks’ US stores.
Shares of the company have risen about 26 percent since Niccol replaced Laxman Narasimhan as CEO in a surprise announcement in August. They were down about 1 percent in extended trading on Wednesday.
International comparable sales fell 9 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with expectations of a 6.5 percent drop, as per data compiled by LSEG.
Starbucks’ loyalty program growth was also tempered in the fourth quarter, with 90-day active members in the US remaining flat sequentially. That compares with a 3 percent sequential rise reported in the third quarter.
The company’s net income fell to $909.3 million, or 80 cents per share, from $1.22 billion, or $1.06 per share, a year earlier in the fourth quarter ended Sept 29.
Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’
- A police statement said on Wednesday 40,061 coins were found on Tuesday afternoon in a self-storage business in Sydney
- Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the coins had been stolen from a Sydney warehouse
SYDNEY: Australian police said on Wednesday they had recovered more than 40,000 stolen limited-edition coins based on the hit children’s animated series “Bluey.”
The Bluey coins, with a face value of one Australian dollar (65 US cents) each, were found on Tuesday afternoon in a self-storage business in the Sydney suburb of Wentworthville, a police statement said.
Bluey is the name of a blue heeler puppy whose adventures with her cattle dog family living in the Australian city of Brisbane, where the series is produced, have become popular among children around the globe.
The series premiered in Australia in 2018 and began streaming on Disney+ in 2020.
The 40,061 recovered coins were still in the Royal Australian Mint plastic bags that they had been stolen in three months earlier, police said.
Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the yet-to-be-released series of coins produced by the national mint in Canberra had been stolen from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park, not far from where the coins were recovered on Tuesday.
Police formed Strike Force Bandit to investigate. Bandit is the name of Bluey’s dad.
Three people have been charged over the theft.
A 27-year-old woman whom police allege drove two accomplices to the July burglary was arrested on Tuesday hours before the coins were recovered.
Two men had earlier been charged over the theft and police were a searching for a fourth suspect.
Police raided a Sydney property on July 31 and recovered 189 of the coins. They discovered the dealer selling them was a legitimate coin collector who had innocently bought them for AU$1.50 (98 US cents) each. He was paid no compensation for the seized coins.
A Royal Australian Mint spokesperson was not available for comment on Wednesday.
Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday
- The simple design of the character – who is not a cat, but a little girl from London according to Sanrio – has mileage as a money-spinner for years to come, experts say
TOKYO: Hello Kitty, the cute, enigmatic character that adorns everything from handbags to rice cookers, turns 50 on Friday – still making millions for her Japanese creators.
The simple design of the character – who is not a cat, but a little girl from London according to Sanrio, the company behind Kitty – has mileage as a money-spinner for years to come, experts say.
One woman in the US state of California has amassed so much Hello Kitty merchandise that her husband built her a pink so-called “she-shed” to keep it in.
Stuffed inside are thousands of toys and other items featuring Kitty and her eye-catching red bow, including rows of sunglasses, a swivel chair and novelty gumball dispensers.
“People my age, you know, we are told many times, ‘Hello Kitty is for little kids,’ and I laugh at that,” said Helen from Riverside County, conceding she is “50 plus.”
Helen, who drives a Hello Kitty-decorated SUV and runs the local fan club “Hello Kitty SoCal Babes,” has been “obsessed” with the character since its 1970s US debut.
Her vast collection of Hello Kitty plushies “make me feel warm,” she said, describing spending hours among the soft toys, many of them rare, on a regular basis.
“Something in my inner child gets healed,” she said.
Hello Kitty started life as an illustration on a vinyl coin purse.
It has since appeared on tens of thousands of products – official and unofficial – including tie-ups with Adidas, Balenciaga and other top brands.
The phenomenon shows no sign of slowing, with a Warner Bros movie in the pipeline and a new Hello Kitty theme park due to open next year on China’s tropical Hainan island.
Sanrio’s share price has soared more than seven-fold, pushing its market cap over one trillion yen ($6.8 billion), since young CEO Tomokuni Tsuji took over from his grandfather in 2020.
“We’d be foolishly cynical to say that we don’t need these soft, fluffy, pink things,” Christine R. Yano of the University of Hawaii said.
In fact, “given the fraught nature of our contemporary lives, perhaps we need it now more than ever,” said Yano, author of the book “Pink Globalization” about Hello Kitty.
“This is not a phenomenon that has died or is going to die, at least soon.”
Unlike other Japanese cultural exports such as Pokemon or Dragon Ball, there is minimal narrative around the character, whose full name is Kitty White.
She has a twin sister Mimmy, a boyfriend called Dear Daniel, and a pet cat of her own, Sanrio says. She loves her mother’s apple pie and dreams of becoming a pianist or poet.
The rest is left to fans’ imaginations – just like her “abstract, bare design that can speak with a kind of simplicity and elegance to more people,” Yano said.
“I call her a ‘pure product’,” the researcher added.
Some feminists say Hello Kitty’s lack of mouth is a symbol of disempowerment, but Yano counters that by not depicting it, “she has a greater range of expression.”
Famous Hello Kitty fans include Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry, and her appeal extends to royalty: Britain’s King Charles wished her a happy birthday this year.
And on Hello Kitty’s TikTok account – whose bio is “CEO of supercute” – sardonic memes and footage from “Hello Kitty Day” at US baseball games delight 3.5 million followers.
Hello Kitty is the epitome of Japan’s “kawaii” – cute – soft power, and she is the mascot of a campaign promoting good tourist etiquette in Tokyo.
Posters celebrating the 50th anniversary are on display at Sanrio Puroland theme park, where businesswoman Kim Lu from Manila had brought her four-year-old niece on their holiday.
“This really is our priority here in Tokyo,” she said.
“To be honest, we really don’t know” the reason for Hello Kitty’s ineffable popularity, said Lu, 36.
“I think it’s the kawaii charm.”
Sanrio owns the copyright to hundreds of other popular characters, and Hello Kitty now accounts for 30 percent of profits, down from 75 percent a decade ago.
But Kitty is still a favorite of 23-year-old Rio Ueno, who took an overnight bus from Japan’s northern Niigata region to visit the park with a friend.
“I’ve had Kitty goods around me since I was a small child,” said Ueno, dressed in a fluffy Hello Kitty sweater, sporting a Kitty bag, and clutching a Kitty doll.
“She is someone who is always close to me, and I want it to stay that way.”
’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’
- Now French director Jacques Audiard is steeling himself for the next, arduous stage — a glitzy yet grueling campaign as an Oscars frontrunner
LOS ANGELES: His film “Emilia Perez” won multiple prizes at Cannes, and was snapped up by Netflix. Now French director Jacques Audiard is steeling himself for the next, arduous stage — a glitzy yet grueling campaign as an Oscars frontrunner.
“I’m terrified,” Audiard told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles, before the surreal musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord hits limited US theaters this Friday, before streaming on November 13.
“Mass success is something very unsettling — it’s not real life.”
With his movie a favorite for the best picture Academy Award, and tipped for nods in categories from best actress to best director, the 72-year-old Audiard will be shuttling back and forth from France to the United States for the next several months.
Modern Oscars campaigns involve a swirl of galas, press conferences, screenings and smaller awards shows, each offering chances to press the flesh with mercurial Hollywood voters in an expensive and crowded marketplace.
Netflix, which has come to dominate Hollywood’s vital streaming sector but has yet to win the coveted best picture Oscar, intends to use all its considerable heft in promoting Audiard’s 10th feature.
Following North American festival appearances in Telluride in August and Toronto in September, “Emilia Perez” opens The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) in Los Angeles this week.
The campaign promises to be much more intense than in 2010, when Audiard’s film “A Prophet” was nominated for an Oscar in the lower profile though still highly prestigious best international film category.
“It’s like going from a provincial competition to the Olympics,” said Audiard, a Parisian dandy, who wore a leopard-print shirt and a scarf around his neck under his blue suit.
Audiard’s genre-hopping film — winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes — is the story of the repentance of Manitas, a powerful Mexican drug lord.
Trapped in a violent, macho world, Manitas employs a lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to arrange a deep, lifelong aspiration — to become a woman, named Emilia.
Finally free to be herself, Emilia begins a crusade to help victims of the narco gangs. She also reconnects with her former wife (Selena Gomez) and children, who believe she is dead, by posing as a distant relative.
Playing both Manitas and Emilia, Karla Sofia Gascon is heavily tipped to become the first openly transgender actress ever nominated for an Oscar.
Indeed, Gascon heavily shaped the role. Audiard had originally envisioned a younger heroine, but upon meeting the Spanish star who transitioned at 46, he quickly reworked the script.
A younger character would not have suffered enough to be credible, he told AFP.
“I tried hard to make it work, but it didn’t add up,” said Audiard.
“When Karla Sofia appeared, it was a revelation. It was like the Virgin appeared before me — it was so clear.”
“When you transition at 46, I can’t even dare to imagine what her experience was like before... what was her life and her pain?“
This epiphany helped Audiard give more substance to his transgender heroine, who was first inspired by the Boris Razon novel “Ecoute.”
Borrowing stylings from opera, “Emilia Perez” is billed as a musical drama but stands at the crossroads of multiple genres — narco-thriller, Latin American telenovela, and LGBTQ drama, among others.
That unique combination was, for Audiard, the “obvious” way to embrace his heroine’s transition and the many contradictory facets of her personality.
The film’s “kitsch” trappings insolently address social issues, such as when choirs sings the refrain “Rhinoplasty! Vaginoplasty” in a hospital-set dance sequence, he said.
“It had to absorb everything. It’s a film that has to be embarrassing,” Audiard said. “We are singing about things that are improbable.”
Those unlikely ingredients have combined to make a work hailed in the American press as one of the leading Oscars contenders, with nominations set to be revealed in January. The ceremony takes place on March 2.
Success would be a crowning achievement for Audiard’s award-winning career, in which he has repeatedly put diverse outsiders at the center of his films.
“Dheepan,” which won the Cannes top prize Palme d’Or in 2015, followed the lives of Tamil refugees in a Paris suburb. “Rust and Bone” chronicled an orca trainer who lost her legs in a horrific accident. “A Prophet” delved into the world of prison violence.
“I am a curious person,” said Audiard.
“I’m fascinated by people who are difficult to categorize.”
Adidas reaches settlement with rapper Ye
- Adidas and Ye had been embroiled in multiple lawsuits for the past two years, since the German company ended a partnership with Kanye West
LONDON: Adidas has reached a settlement with rapper Ye to end all legal proceedings between them, the sportswear brand said on Tuesday, without giving a value for the deal.
Adidas and Ye had been embroiled in multiple lawsuits for the past two years, since the German company ended a partnership with the rapper previously known as Kanye West over antisemitic comments he made.
“There isn’t any more open issues, and there is no... money going either way,” CEO Bjorn Gulden told reporters on a conference call.
