Grok chatbot repeatedly mentions 'white genocide' in unrelated chats(theguardian.com) Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok went on the fritz on Wednesday, repeatedly mentioning “white genocide” in South Africa in its responses on completely unrelated topics. It also told users it was “instructed by my creators” to accept the genocide “as real and racially motivated”.
Grok wants people to know claim of white genocide in S.A. is contentious(theverge.com) Grok, the AI model from Elon Musk’s xAI, was sending strange responses to people on X earlier on Wednesday. In responses to a number of people, Grok focused on debunking claims of white genocide in South Africa – even when tagged into a post about totally unrelated topics.
7 points by JumpCrisscross 123 days ago | 1 comments
South Africa's history uncovered: the 1k-year gap they don't teach in school(theconversation.com) Were you told that gold mining in southern Africa started after 1852? Or that the export of iron, steel, copper and gold began in the late 19th century? Or that South Africa became integrated into a global trading system only after 1652? Or that the first powerful state in South Africa was the Zulu kingdom?
Inside South Africa's 'ruthless' gang-controlled gold mines(bbc.com) Along with about 600 other men, Ndumiso lives and works in a small gang-controlled "town" - complete with markets and a red light district - that has grown up deep underground at a disused gold mine in South Africa.
179 points by donsupreme 216 days ago | 123 comments
MPTA Finds Evidence of Gravitational Wave Background(spaceaustralia.com) The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array (MPTA) has detected the gravitational wave background within just 4.5 years, using South Africa's sensitive telescope. Lead author Dr. Matt Miles shares insights into this groundbreaking discovery.
Code that helped end Apartheid(wired.com) John Graham-Cumming, who happens to be Cloudflare's CTO, cracked a 30-year-old encrypted file that had a role in rewriting South Africa’s history.
362 points by impish9208 264 days ago | 207 comments
Cracking an old ZIP file to help open source the ANC's "Vula" secret crypto code(jgc.org) It's not often that you find yourself staring at code that few people have ever seen, code that was an important part in bringing down the apartheid system in South Africa, and code that was used for secure communication using one-time pads smuggled into South Africa by a flight attendant on floppy disks. But I found myself doing that one morning recently after having helped decrypt a 30 year old PKZIP file whose password had long been forgotten.