Millions of WhatsApp accounts deleted in scam crackdown
These scams are operated by organised crime networks, predominantly in Southeast Asia, who force individuals into virtual slavery to defraud victims.
The 'pig butchering' method involves building trusted relationships online, often via text messages or dating apps, to manipulate victims into transferring money into fraudulent investment schemes, frequently using cryptocurrency.
Tech companies, including WhatsApp and OpenAI, have coordinated efforts to disrupt these operations, with OpenAI noting the use of ChatGPT to generate initial scam messages.
WhatsApp's recent action involved proactively detecting and taking down accounts before scam centres could operationalise them, advising users to verify suspicious messages.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
OpenAI will not disclose GPT-5's energy use. It could be higher than past models
In mid-2023, if a user asked OpenAI's ChatGPT for a recipe for artichoke pasta or instructions on how to make a ritual offering to the ancient Canaanite deity Moloch, its response might have taken – very roughly – 2 watt-hours, or about as much electricity as an incandescent bulb consumes in 2 minutes. OpenAI released a model on Thursday that will underpin the popular chatbot – GPT-5. Ask that version of the AI for an artichoke recipe, and the same amount of pasta-related text could take several times – even 20 times – that amount of energy, experts say. As it rolled out GPT-5, the company highlighted the model's breakthrough capabilities: its ability to create websites, answer PhD-level science questions, and reason through difficult problems. But experts who have spent the past years working to benchmark the energy and resource usage of AI models say those new powers come at a cost: a response from GPT-5 may take a significantly larger amount of energy than a response from previous versions of ChatGPT. OpenAI, like most of its competitors, has released no official information on the power usage of its models since GPT-3, which came out in 2020. Sam Altman, its CEO, tossed out some numbers on ChatGPT's resource consumption on his blog this June. However, these figures, 0.34 watt-hours and 0.000085 gallons of water per query, do not refer to a specific model and have no supporting documentation. 'A more complex model like GPT-5 consumes more power both during training and during inference. It's also targeted at long thinking … I can safely say that it's going to consume a lot more power than GPT-4,' said Rakesh Kumar, a professor at the University of Illinois, currently working on the energy consumption of computation and AI models. The day GPT-5 was released, researchers at the University of Rhode Island's AI lab found that the model can use up to 40 watt-hours of electricity to generate a medium-length response of about 1,000 tokens, which are the building blocks of text for an AI model and are approximately equivalent to words. A dashboard they put up on Friday indicates GPT-5's average energy consumption for a medium-length response is just over 18 watt-hours, a figure that is higher than all other models they benchmark except for OpenAI's o3 reasoning model, released in April, and R1, made by the Chinese AI firm Deepseek. This is 'significantly more energy than GPT-4o', the previous model from OpenAI, said Nidhal Jegham, a researcher in the group. Eighteen watt-hours would correspond to burning that incandescent bulb for 18 minutes. Given recent reports that ChatGPT handles 2.5bn requests a day, the total consumption of GPT-5 could reach the daily electricity demand of 1.5m US homes. As large as these numbers are, researchers in the field say they align with their broad expectations for GPT-5's energy consumption, given that GPT-5 is believed to be several times larger than OpenAI's previous models. OpenAI has not released the parameter counts – which determine a model's size – for any of its models since GPT-3, which had 175bn parameters. A disclosure this summer from the French AI company Mistral finds a 'strong correlation' between a model's size and its energy consumption, based on Mistral's study of its in-house systems. 'Based on the model size, the amount of resources [used by GPT-5] should be orders of magnitude higher than that for GPT-3,' said Shaolei Ren, a professor at the University of California, Riverside who studies the resource footprint of AI. GPT-4 was widely believed to be 10 times the size of GPT-3. Jegham, Kumar, Ren and others say that GPT-5 is likely to be significantly larger than GPT-4. Leading AI companies like OpenAI believe that extremely large models may be necessary to achieve AGI, that is, an AI system capable of doing humans' jobs. Altman has argued strongly for this view, writing in February: 'It appears that you can spend arbitrary amounts of money and get continuous and predictable gains,' though he said GPT-5 did not surpass human intelligence. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion In its benchmarking study in July, which looked at the power consumption, water usage and carbon emissions for Mistral's Le Chat bot, the startup found a one-to-one relationship between a model's size and its resource consumption, writing: 'A model 10 times bigger will generate impacts one order of magnitude larger than a smaller model for the same amount of generated tokens.' Jegham, Kumar and Ren said that while GPT-5's scale is significant, there are probably other factors that will come into play in determining its resource consumption. GPT-5 is deployed on more efficient hardware than some previous models. GPT-5 appears to use a 'mixture-of-experts' architecture, which means that it is streamlined so that not all of its parameters are activated when responding to a query, a construction which will likely cut its energy consumption. On the other hand, GPT-5 is also a reasoning model, and works in video and images as well as text, which likely makes its energy footprint far greater than text-only operations, both Ren and Kumar say – especially as the reasoning mode means that the model will compute for a longer time before responding to a query. 'If you use the reasoning mode, the amount of resources you spend for getting the same answer will likely be several times higher, five to 10,' said Ren. In order to calculate an AI model's resource consumption, the group at the University of Rhode Island multiplied the average time that model takes to respond to a query – be it for a pasta recipe or an offering to Moloch – by the model's average power draw during its operation. Estimating a model's power draw was 'a lot of work', said Abdeltawab Hendawi, a professor of data science at the University of Rhode Island. The group struggled to find information on how different models are deployed within data centers. Their final paper contains estimates for which chips are used for a given model, and how different queries are parceled out between different chips in a datacenter. Altman's June blog post confirmed their findings. The figure he gave for ChatGPT's energy consumption per query, 0.34 watt-hours per query, closely matches what the group found for GPT-4o. Hendawi, Jegham and others in their group said that their findings underscored the need for more transparency from AI companies as they release ever-larger models. 'It's more critical than ever to address AI's true environmental cost,' said Marwan Abdelatti, a professor at URI. 'We call on OpenAI and other developers to use this moment to commit to full transparency by publicly disclosing GPT-5's environmental impact.'
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Two arrested as £74k drugs haul recovered in Edinburgh
A quantity of cash was also recovered during a search of a property. Two people have been arrested after a five-figure haul of drugs was recovered in Edinburgh. Police in the capital stopped and searched a 21-year-old man in Hailesland Grove, in the Wester Hailes area on Friday, August 8. He was allegedly found to be in possession of cannabis. Further enquiries led officers to a car parked nearby, where quantities of cocaine and heroin were recovered. The drugs had an estimated value of more than £74,000. Two addresses, one in Wester Hailes, the other in the Pilton area, were later searched. A quantity of cash was discovered in one of the properties. A man and woman, both aged 21, have been arrested and charged in connection with drugs offences. They are due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Monday, August 11. Detective Sergeant John Dunn said: 'We work tirelessly to remove illegal drugs from communities every day and remain committed to disrupting the activities of those who supply drugs. 'We cannot tackle this issue alone and would urge the public to continue supporting us in building intelligence about the possession and supply of drugs by contacting Police Scotland on 101 or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.' Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. It comes as three people were arrested at the first of Oasis' three gigs in the capital on Friday night in separate incidents. A man and two women, all in their 40s, were arrested at Murrayfield Stadium over offences including abusive behaviour, assault and possession of illegal drugs. The man and one of the women are expected to appear in court at a later date. The second woman received a recorded police warning.
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Teenager slashed in face as bloody brawl breaks out on Paisley street
The 17-year-old was slashed in the face in Gauze Street, Paisley on Friday evening. A teenager was rushed to hospital after being slashed in the face with a knife during a violent street brawl in Paisley. The 17-year-old was injured in a fight involving rival gangs of youths in Gauze Street at around 9.30pm on Friday. Police say the victim had been with a group "who appear to have met up with another group of youths" in the Renfrewshire town, before a fight broke out. Officers believe several of those involved were armed with knives and one was used to inflict the teenager's facial injury. He was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for treatment before being discharged. Officers described his attacker as white, in his late teens, of slim build and wearing a blue North Face hooded top with white horizontal stripes, and a black "bum-bag". A second 17-year-old boy was also attacked, suffering a punch to the face, but did not require hospital treatment. The suspect in this other attack is described as white, in his late teens, of slim build, and wearing a grey tracksuit which was light grey on top half and dark grey bottom half, and with a tattoo on his left hand. Officers said both suspects ran off under the bridge at Gilmour Street towards Christie Lane following the incident. Both were then caught on CCTV in Old Sneddon Street later in the evening dressed in different clothes. Detective Constable Rhys Wake of Paisley CID said: "From our inquiries so far, we know that the injured youths were part of a group who appear to have met up with another group of youths. During that meet, a fight took place. "We believe a number of the youths were armed with knives, with obviously one being used and causing injury. "We also know from our CCTV inquiries that the suspects have changed their clothes and were later seen around midnight in Old Sneddon Street walking towards Moncrieff Street. The suspect, who was in light blue hoodie originally, is described on this occasion as wearing a black top and royal blue tracksuit bottoms. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. "The suspect in grey tracksuit changed into a full black tracksuit and this time he had a black "bum bag". "Gauze Street around 9.30pm is very busy, so we'd like to hear from anyone who saw the fight or has information that may help us trace those responsible. "If you were driving in the Gauze Street, Gilmour Street, Christie Lane area between 9.20 and 9.40pm, or Old Sneddon Street or Moncrieff Street around midnight, and have dashcam on your vehicle, we'd be keen to view any footage you think may be of assistance." Police have appealed to anyone with information to call them on 101, quoting incident number 3760 of Friday, August 8 2025, or to call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
