Latest news with #EVE
Japan Today
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
These tips from experts can help your teenager navigate AI companions
Bruce Perry, 17, demonstrates Character AI, an artificial intelligence chatbot software that allows users to chat with popular characters such as EVE from Disney's 2008 animated film, WALL-E, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Russellville, Ark. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins) By JOCELYN GECKER As artificial intelligence technology becomes part of daily life, adolescents are turning to chatbots for advice, guidance and conversation. The appeal is clear: Chatbots are patient, never judgmental, supportive and always available. That worries experts who say the booming AI industry is largely unregulated and that many parents have no idea about how their kids are using AI tools or the extent of personal information they are sharing with chatbots. New research shows more than 70% of American teenagers have used AI companions and more than half converse with them regularly. The study by Common Sense Media focused on 'AI companions,' like Character. AI, Nomi and Replika, which it defines as 'digital friends or characters you can text or talk with whenever you want,' versus AI assistants or tools like ChatGPT, though it notes they can be used the same way. It's important that parents understand the technology. Experts suggest some things parents can do to help protect their kids: — Start a conversation, without judgment, says Michael Robb, head researcher at Common Sense Media. Approach your teen with curiosity and basic questions: 'Have you heard of AI companions?' 'Do you use apps that talk to you like a friend?' Listen and understand what appeals to your teen before being dismissive or saying you're worried about it. — Help teens recognize that AI companions are programmed to be agreeable and validating. Explain that's not how real relationships work and that real friends with their own points of view can help navigate difficult situations in ways that AI companions cannot. 'One of the things that's really concerning is not only what's happening on screen but how much time it's taking kids away from relationships in real life,' says Mitch Prinstein, chief of psychology at the American Psychological Association. 'We need to teach kids that this is a form of entertainment. It's not real, and it's really important they distinguish it from reality and should not have it replace relationships in your actual life.' The APA recently put out a health advisory on AI and adolescent well-being, and tips for parents. — Parents should watch for signs of unhealthy attachments. 'If your teen is preferring AI interactions over real relationships or spending hours talking to AI companions, or showing that they are becoming emotionally distressed when separated from them — those are patterns that suggest AI companions might be replacing rather than complementing human connection,' Robb says. — Parents can set rules about AI use, just like they do for screen time and social media. Have discussions about when and how AI tools can and cannot be used. Many AI companions are designed for adult use and can mimic romantic, intimate and role-playing scenarios. While AI companions may feel supportive, children should understand the tools are not equipped to handle a real crisis or provide genuine mental health support. If kids are struggling with depression, anxiety, loneliness, an eating disorder or other mental health challenges, they need human support — whether it is family, friends or a mental health professional. — Get informed. The more parents know about AI, the better. 'I don't think people quite get what AI can do, how many teens are using it and why it's starting to get a little scary,' says Prinstein, one of many experts calling for regulations to ensure safety guardrails for children. 'A lot of us throw our hands up and say, 'I don't know what this is!' This sounds crazy!' Unfortunately, that tells kids if you have a problem with this, don't come to me because I am going to diminish it and belittle it.' Older teenagers have advice, too, for parents and kids. Banning AI tools is not a solution because the technology is becoming ubiquitous, says Ganesh Nair, 18. 'Trying not to use AI is like trying to not use social media today. It is too ingrained in everything we do,' says Nair, who is trying to step back from using AI companions after seeing them affect real-life friendships in his high school. 'The best way you can try to regulate it is to embrace being challenged.' 'Anything that is difficult, AI can make easy. But that is a problem,' says Nair. 'Actively seek out challenges, whether academic or personal. If you fall for the idea that easier is better, then you are the most vulnerable to being absorbed into this newly artificial world.' The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The Star
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
These tips from experts can help your teenager navigate AI companions
Bruce Perry, 17, demonstrates Character AI, an artificial intelligence chatbot software that allows users to chat with popular characters such as EVE from Disney's 2008 animated film WALL-E in Russellville, Arkansas. — AP As artificial intelligence technology becomes part of daily life, adolescents are turning to chatbots for advice, guidance and conversation. The appeal is clear: Chatbots are patient, never judgmental, supportive and always available. That worries experts who say the booming AI industry is largely unregulated and that many parents have no idea about how their kids are using AI tools or the extent of personal information they are sharing with chatbots. New research shows more than 70% of American teenagers have used AI companions and more than half converse with them regularly. The study by Common Sense Media focused on "AI companions,' like Character. AI, Nomi and Replika, which it defines as "digital friends or characters you can text or talk with whenever you want,' versus AI assistants or tools like ChatGPT, though it notes they can be used the same way. It's important that parents understand the technology. Experts suggest some things parents can do to help protect their kids: – Start a conversation, without judgment, says Michael Robb, head researcher at Common Sense Media. Approach your teen with curiosity and basic questions: "Have you heard of AI companions?' "Do you use apps that talk to you like a friend?' Listen and understand what appeals to your teen before being dismissive or saying you're worried about it. – Help teens recognise that AI companions are programmed to be agreeable and validating. Explain that's not how real relationships work and that real friends with their own points of view can help navigate difficult situations in ways that AI companions cannot. "One of the things that's really concerning is not only what's happening on screen but how much time it's taking kids away from relationships in real life,' says Mitch Prinstein, chief of psychology at the American Psychological Association. "We need to teach kids that this is a form of entertainment. It's not real, and it's really important they distinguish it from reality and should not have it replace relationships in your actual life.' The APA recently put out a health advisory on AI and adolescent well-being, and tips for parents. – Parents should watch for signs of unhealthy attachments. "If your teen is preferring AI interactions over real relationships or spending hours talking to AI companions, or showing that they are becoming emotionally distressed when separated from them – those are patterns that suggest AI companions might be replacing rather than complementing human connection,' Robb says. – Parents can set rules about AI use, just like they do for screen time and social media. Have discussions about when and how AI tools can and cannot be used. Many AI companions are designed for adult use and can mimic romantic, intimate and role-playing scenarios. While AI companions may feel supportive, children should understand the tools are not equipped to handle a real crisis or provide genuine mental health support. If kids are struggling with depression, anxiety, loneliness, an eating disorder or other mental health challenges, they need human support – whether it is family, friends or a mental health professional. – Get informed. The more parents know about AI, the better. "I don't think people quite get what AI can do, how many teens are using it and why it's starting to get a little scary,' says Prinstein, one of many experts calling for regulations to ensure safety guardrails for children. "A lot of us throw our hands up and say, 'I don't know what this is!' This sounds crazy!' Unfortunately, that tells kids if you have a problem with this, don't come to me because I am going to diminish it and belittle it.' Older teenagers have advice, too, for parents and kids. Banning AI tools is not a solution because the technology is becoming ubiquitous, says Ganesh Nair, 18. "Trying not to use AI is like trying to not use social media today. It is too ingrained in everything we do,' says Nair, who is trying to step back from using AI companions after seeing them affect real-life friendships in his high school. "The best way you can try to regulate it is to embrace being challenged.' "Anything that is difficult, AI can make easy. But that is a problem,' says Nair. "Actively seek out challenges, whether academic or personal. If you fall for the idea that easier is better, then you are the most vulnerable to being absorbed into this newly artificial world.' – AP
The 42
10-07-2025
- Sport
- The 42
McDowell's biggest LIV regret - he will be the forgotten man at the Open in his hometown
ON THE EVE of the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush, the media gathered around Graeme McDowell for a lengthy press conference and tapped him for insights to his hometown as if he were the local mayor. McDowell was asked about the town and its golf courses and the nearby sights to see; he was asked of how he helped bring the Open back to Royal Portrush and what that return said about post-Troubles Northern Ireland; he was even asked to explain George Best to Americans and give a view on the Orange parade planned by the local Sons of Ulster for the Saturday of the tournament. McDowell, in other words, was treated as both emblem of and spokesperson for a mega-event with a significance that transcended the merely sporting. Skip forward six years and the Open is back at Portrush but McDowell is not. And with Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Darren Clarke, and Pádraig Harrington sufficient to soak up the crowd's full spillage of adulation, McDowell's absence will hardly be noted. McDowell grew up in Portrush and was within the mandatory 30-mile radius to be eligible to join Rathmore, a cheaper, accessible club beside Royal Portrush which offered frequent access to next week's Open venue. Portrush introduced McDowell to golf and it uncovered inspiration too. McDowell, wowed by the amateur exploits of Ricky Elliott – now caddie to Brooks Koepka – followed him to an American college, from which McDowell emerged with a sharpened competitive edge and a twang to go with the lilt in his accent. But now golf's most historic championship is setting up in his home and McDowell is not invited. His absence is a fact so translucent he can hardly even be said to be a ghost at golf's great feast. Advertisement Crowds following McDowell during the 2019 Open. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo The LIV Tour gifted McDowell an outlandish pension plan but every deal has its trade-offs, and he will stew upon them in his hometown exile next week. Now ranked at number 1,562 in the world, McDowell did try to play his way in to this year's Open, but finished three shots shy of a golden ticket in the incongruous surrounds of final qualifying at Royal Cinque Ports in Kent. Major champions are supposed to do their fretting and sweating and dreaming on a Sunday afternoon, not a Tuesday evening. McDowell's career was already listing six years ago – and it was only by major effort and resolve that he qualified for the 2019 Open at all, sealing his spot only a month in advance at the Canadian Open – so all trends and trajectories suggest that he wouldn't have qualified this time around even if he had ignored Saudi overtures and kept on battling for ranking points and his Tour card. But he might not have felt like such an irrelevance to next week all the same. For one thing, had McDowell not gone to LIV, he would almost certainly have been casting an eye over Portrush next week in some kind of Ryder Cup capacity, be it as outright captain or one of the phalanx of deputies. You'd also wonder how much more appealing he would have been to broadcasters like Sky or NBC had he not jumped ship. McDowell instead bartered away those opportunities for cash, and if ever these consequences will sting, it will be next week. He has been hurt by the hometown reaction to his defection in the past, asked during an interview at the JP McManus pro-am at Adare Manor three years to respond to a Belfast Telegraph front page in which Amnesty International rounded on his justifying Saudi foreign policy. 'I don't read The Belfast Telegraph,' replied McDowell without conviction. 'Don't even f***ing tell me what was on the front — is that a real paper? . . . No one reads it anyway, it's OK.' 'Listen, f**k, like some guy from Amnesty International, sent me the quotes, asked me to respond. How am I supposed to respond to Amnesty International? So yeah, not real happy with The Belfast Telegraph. For my family to read that shit. . . it's unfair.' This followed only a month after his car-crash press conference ahead of the very first LIV event, at which he got himself hopelessly tangled in trying to respond to questions about Saudi Arabia's human rights record, to the point he and his fellow players were memorably asked at which point would they draw the line. Would you play a tournament organised by Vladimir Putin? At the time, McDowell's public squirming felt the very least he deserved. With time, however, it's hard not to feel some pity for him. As one of the first defectors, McDowell was an early LIV mudguard, there to take the flak from the media's righteous early objections. But in professional sport, moral outrage has a very short half-life. Contrast McDowell's interrogation to the reaction with which Jon Rahm was met when he threw his lot in with the Saudis: McIlroy, for instance, quickly appeared on Sky Sports to argue the Ryder Cup eligibility rules had to be changed to allow for Rahm to play at Bethpage. Everywhere you look in pro golf at the moment, you see people retreating from the moral stance into which they tumbled three years ago. The PGA Tour, standing so staunchly against LIV with their 'legacy, not leverage' motto, met with the Saudis in secret not long after McDowell's move, in a bid to cook up a merger and an end to an expensive war. The R&A meanwhile obliquely said after 6 January in 2021 that they wouldn't be returning to Donald Trump's Turnberry as they feared the focus 'would not be on the championship', but are now receptive to talks to see the course host the 2028 Open, at least partly at the behest of a craven Downing Street. McDowell would be forgiven for feeling his error was not in joining LIV but in being among the first to do so, given his move came during a tiny blip in the history of professional golf in which everyone felt there were basic moral causes worth falling out over. That's not the case anymore, though McDowell continues to suffer the cold shoulder. McDowell's move to LIV has been undoubtedly lucrative, but it has been costly too; costs that will be visible next week only to Graeme McDowell.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
HSBC upgrades Brazil's Embraer on strong delivery outlook
--HSBC upgraded Brazilian planemaker Embraer to 'Buy' from 'Hold,' saying a record order backlog, improving output, and growing momentum in executive jets and defense deliveries support a positive earnings trajectory through this year. The brokerage raised its price target to $57 from $45, citing a higher valuation for Embraer's eVTOL unit EVE and a lower discount rate in its cash flow model. The new target implies a 24% upside from current levels. 'With an all-time high backlog of $26.4bn at end-Q1, Embraer offers strong revenue generation in the coming quarters, which is supported by accelerated efforts to remove output bottlenecks and spread production more evenly over quarters,' HSBC wrote. It expects robust second-quarter performance with nine aircraft already in finished inventory, equal to nearly 20% of last year's Q2 deliveries. HSBC forecasts a 28% year-on-year rise in executive jet deliveries in the first quarter of 2025 and sees steady demand in defense, particularly for the KC-390 and A-29 aircraft. It also flagged the upcoming Paris Air Show as a potential source of new orders. The bank said the impact of new U.S. tariffs, 10% on Brazilian imports, is likely limited, estimating a roughly 90 basis-point hit to EBIT margins in the Executive and Services segments, but noted that Embraer plans to offset these through cost cuts and increased U.S. content. Commercial aviation is unaffected, and overall 2025 margin guidance remains unchanged. HSBC maintained its 2025 revenue estimate of $7.5 billion, at the top of company guidance, and its consolidated adjusted EBIT margin forecast at 7.9%. It now values the company at 10.8x and 8.1x 2025 and 2026 EV/EBITDA respectively, versus a five-year average of 8.7x. A successful flight test of EVE's first full-scale prototype, scheduled for mid-2025, could serve as a key catalyst, the firm added. Related articles HSBC upgrades Brazil's Embraer on strong delivery outlook Goldman Sachs upgrades Brazil's XP, cuts rating on B3 on shifting risk-reward Bernstein starts coverage of entertainment stocks: Spotify and TKO at Outperform Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Anita Vaughan Reflects On Will Ospreay's Pedigree on ‘Triple H' Going Viral
Once upon a time in the Multiverse Rumble, Will Ospreay nailed Triple H Anita Vaughan with the Pedigree. Luckily, Vaughan has lived to tell the tale with WrestleZone. On February 7, Pro-Wrestling EVE hosted its Multiverse Rumble event from London, England, with over a dozen competitors in the rumble match. For this particular bout, competitors dressed up as and paid homage to figures in both wrestling and pop culture. In Vaughan's case, she parodied WWE Hall of Famer Paul 'Triple H' Levesque, fake beard and all. This decision later came back to haunt Vaughan, however, as EVE producer and AEW star Will Ospreay flipped the bird and laid her out with a Pedigree, Triple H's iconic finishing move. Advertisement Clips of this scene have since gone viral across social media, revealing that Ospreay suffered instant karma by being eliminated by Rayne Leverkusen, dressed as Shane McMahon, right after. 'That spot was a lot of fun,' Vaughan told WrestleZone. 'The Multiverse Rumble is just that, it's just meant to be fun. Will obviously helps producing the shows and he plays such a big part. It's unbelievable to have someone like Will Ospreay backstage and helping out and everything he does with Eve as well, how he platforms it, how he supports it. Of course, he gets to be a part of the product as well in sometimes the most fun ways I've ever been involved in wrestling.' Vaughan Explains Pedigree Backstory How did this spot come together? According to Vaughan, who now reigns as the EVE International Champion, they planted the seeds for it a while ago. Advertisement 'Before [my tag partner] Debbie Keitel went to Japan, I remember we had [an idea of] like 'Oh maybe we can do DX or something.' She could be Shawn Michaels. I could be Triple H. I was like 'That would be really sick.' Then I just couldn't get it out of my head that I could be Triple H. I've done jokes and stuff with people backstage where like I'm Triple H. We'll do like the water take and stuff. It almost was a private joke coming into real life in the ring. Then you just add the layer of Will Ospreay hitting Triple H a pedigree. It was really sick. 'I've never hit so many Triple H moves in my life in that time,' Vaughan added. 'I found out I can do a decent spine buster, so now it's part of my moveset. I hit many a pedigree and I took my first ever pedigree from Will Ospreay, so that's a part of history now. ' Watch our full interview with Anita Vaughan below: The post Anita Vaughan Reflects On Will Ospreay's Pedigree on 'Triple H' Going Viral appeared first on Wrestlezone.
