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Some users will scoff at befriending a chatbot. But others, especially people for whom socializing is difficult or unattractive, will invite AI into the most hidden parts of their lives.This change will be shocking. One day you will wake up and someone you know (maybe your child) will have an AI friend. It will not be a gimmick, a game or a sign of mental illness. It will feel like a real and important relationship to them, one that offers a convincing replica of empathy and understanding and that, in some cases, feels just as good as the real thing.I wanted to experience that future for myself.Building my friends and setting them freeThe first step was to create my AI friends.The apps I tested all work essentially the same way: Users sign up and receive a menu of AI companions, which ...

On the 15th night of Ramadan, in a suburb of Belize City, Majid Khan and his family of four sat down for a traditional iftar meal to quickly break up the daylight hours. There was a leg of lamb that Majid, a former Guantánamo detainee, had slaughtered himself, and some sweets brought from Saudi Arabia by a sister in Maryland.The atmosphere was a bit noisy, but not enough to disturb the sleep of little Hamza, born two weeks earlier in a hospital in the Central American city. Little was said about whether the biryani dish was too spicy and how the lamb was perfectly roasted.These are trivial matters, made more significant because Majid Khan, a former Al Qaeda courier, was celebrating with his wife Rabia and daughter Manaal in their first home together, in Belize, their new adopted homeland...

Academic conferences are usually serious affairs, but the 1973 International Symposium on Gender Identity, held in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, was an exception. All was quiet until a psychologist named John Money stood up and shouted, "Mickey Diamond, I hate your guts!"Milton Diamond, a sexologist who had been called Mickey since childhood, was sitting across the room. Dr. Money and Dr. Diamond were bitter rivals: Dr. Money, a nationally recognized researcher at Johns Hopkins University, had long argued that sexual and gender identities are neutral at birth and shaped primarily by one's environment. the child is found.Dr. Diamond, who had just begun his career at the University of Hawaii, strongly disagreed, and had said so repeatedly, including in a widely read critique of Dr. Money'...

Before crowds thronging the seafront and hills of the ancient port city of Marseille, the Olympic flame arrived on French soil on Wednesday, beginning a 79-day relay across the country and its territories that will culminate in Paris with the start of the Olympic Games. on July 26.Florent Manaudou, the 2012 French Olympic men's 50m freestyle swimming champion, brought the flame to shore from a historic three-masted ship, the Belem. He left Greece on April 27, taking with him the flame lit in ancient Olympia 11 days earlier.After a unit of the French Air Force, known as the "Acrobatic Team," traced the five Olympic rings in the sky, Mr. Manaudou walked with the flame along a temporary pier made to resemble athletics lanes, in front of a crowd estimated by local authorities at more tha...

The trumpet is the first thing to be crushed. Then the industrial compressor flattens a row of paint cans, straps on a piano and levels what appears to be a marble bust. In a final act of destruction, he pops the eyes out of a yellow ball emoji.When the compressor rises, it reveals Apple's latest product: the updated iPad Pro.Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, released the ad, called "Crush," on Tuesday after the company held an event to announce new tablets. “Introducing the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we've ever created,” Cook wrote, adding, “Imagine all the things it will be used to create.”For decades, Apple has been the beacon of the creative class. He won over designers, musicians and film editors with the promise that his products would help them “Think Differ...

President Biden has suspended shipments of bombs to Israel to prevent their use in the assault on the city of Rafah. Administration officials said that 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs will be withheld and that the administration is evaluating whether to withhold future transfers.The United States is by far Israel's largest arms supplier and has accelerated deliveries since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7. It's difficult to determine how much Israel received, but here's a closer look at what we know.What happened after October 7th?Since October 7, the United States has sent tens of thousands of weapons to Israel. According to Bradley, in most cases, it accelerated supplies already committed under contracts, many of which were approved by Congress and the ...

In 2010, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was suffering from memory loss and brain fog so severe that a friend began to fear he might have a brain tumor. Mr. Kennedy said he had consulted many of the country's top neurologists, many of whom had treated or spoken to his uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, before his death the previous year from brain cancer.Several doctors noticed a dark spot on the young Mr. Kennedy's brain scans and concluded that he had a tumor, he said in a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Kennedy was immediately scheduled for surgery at Duke University Medical Center by the same surgeon who had operated on his uncle, he said.As he was packing for the trip, he said, he received a call from a doctor at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital who had a different opi...

China and Serbia proclaimed an "iron friendship" during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Belgrade on Wednesday, underscoring the close political and economic ties between two countries that share mistrust of the United States.Mr Xi arrived in Serbia on Tuesday, marking the 25th anniversary of a 1999 plane crash involving the US Air Force during the Kosovo war and destroying the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Three Chinese journalists were killed in the strike.“We should never forget this,” Xi said in a statement published Tuesday by Politika, a Serbian newspaper, recalling that “25 years ago today, NATO flagrantly bombed the Chinese embassy.” He said China's friendship with Serbia was "forged with the blood of our compatriots" and "will remain in the sha...

President Biden will travel to Wisconsin on Wednesday to announce the creation of an artificial intelligence data center, highlighting one of his administration's biggest economic achievements in a crucial state and underscoring a significant failure of his immediate predecessor and 2024 challenger.At a technical college in Racine, Biden will announce that Microsoft will invest $3.3 billion to build the center, which the tech giant estimates will create 2,300 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs, according to the White House . The project is part of Biden's "Investing in America" ​​agenda, which has focused on bringing billions of private sector dollars into manufacturing and areas such as clean energy and artificial intelligence.In his fourth trip to Wisconsin this ye...

President Biden suspended arms shipments to Israel last week to prevent U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened assault on the city of Rafah, administration officials said Tuesday evening, a sign of the growing rift between the United States and the United States. Israel on the conduct of the war.The president withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared might be dropped on Rafah, where more than a million Gazans have taken refuge, officials said. The administration is considering whether to withhold future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.The decision to delay delivery of the 3,500 bombs was the first time since the October 7 Hamas-led terror attack in which Biden used his pow...