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Nearly six million savers have their premium pension in a global index fund where AI companies are becoming heavier and heavier without anyone being able to see what the money is financing: electricity, water, military target systems, or a new financial bubble? writes investment profile Sasja Beslik. #Pensioner #AI #Investeringar (translated)

The article discusses risk scenarios related to Swedish pension funds' investments in AI companies, where the author warns about the lack of transparency and the potential economic, physical, social, and military risks that come with this development. #Pensioner #AI #Investeringar (translated)

Brazil’s synthetic voters – when AI manufactures public opinion They look like ordinary street interviews. A reporter approaches a passer-by in a Brazilian square and asks a simple question: who will you vote for? A young voter explains why Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva deserves another term. An elderly woman says Brazil needs Flávio Bolsonaro because he represents political renewal and greater security. The locations look plausible, the microphones are visible and the answers sound much like the brief political opinions heard in television vox pops around the world. None of the people are real. Ahead of Brazil’s presidential election on 4 October, fact-checking organisation Aos Fatos identified at least 50 TikTok videos in which artificial intelligence was used to manufacture voters, reporters and apparently spontaneous political interviews. Together, the videos had accumulated around 7.4 million views by mid-August. Some promoted Lula, others Flávio Bolsonaro, while another group used synthetic characters to ridicule or stereotype supporters of one side. Aos Fatos found no apparent evidence linking the accounts producing the videos to either presidential campaign. The opinion poll that never took place The format is important. These were not conventional deepfakes in which a recognisable politician is made to say something he never said. Instead, the creators reproduced the visual language of the vox pop – the short street interview used by broadcasters and social-media creators to illustrate what ordinary people supposedly think. In pro-Lula videos, synthetic voters described themselves as beneficiaries of social programmes or credited the president with improving their lives. In videos supporting Flávio Bolsonaro, artificial interviewees associated him with political renewal, public security and fighting corruption. Other clips were openly hostile: AI-generated characters presented as poor or living in parts of Brazil’s north-east were shown in dirty clothes or run-down surroundings, declaring support for Lula because they supposedly preferred welfare payments to work. The deception is therefore subtler than fabricating a candidate’s statement. It manufactures something that political communication normally treats as evidence of public sentiment. A real vox pop may be unscientific, but the people interviewed at least exist. These videos created the appearance that identifiable social groups – young people, pensioners, welfare recipients or residents of particular regions – were spontaneously expressing political preferences when no such encounters had taken place. An electoral-law specialist interviewed by Aos Fatos described the technique as the fabrication of a “social fact that never occurred”. That captures the central innovation: AI is being used not merely to falsify political speech, but to manufacture the impression of grassroots opinion. Fifty videos, but not one proven network The available evidence does not support describing the 50 posts as a centrally controlled influence operation. Aos Fatos located them through TikTok searches and recommendations produced by the platform itself, then examined the accounts responsible for publication. Most had relatively small individual audiences, although their combined reach was substantial. The first examples identified by the investigation appeared as early as March 2026. Activity increased in June and was concentrated particularly in July and the first half of August as Brazil’s election calendar intensified. Some accounts specialised in AI-generated videos generally, including fabricated podcast-style material. Others were explicitly political or supportive of a candidate, but Aos Fatos found no apparent links between those profiles and the official Lula or Bolsonaro campaigns. That distinction is essential. The evidence demonstrates a common technique and a shared political environment, not a single command structure. Some creators may have been motivated by ideology, others by engagement or monetisation. Publicly available evidence does not establish who commissioned the individual videos or whether any coordination existed between the accounts. This decentralised model also creates a different enforcement problem from a traditional bot network. There may be no headquarters to expose and no infrastructure whose removal disables the entire operation. The format itself can be copied by anyone with access to inexpensive generative-video tools. When the algorithm mixes real and synthetic citizens Aos Fatos documented another important feature of the phenomenon: TikTok’s recommendation system placed AI-generated interviews alongside genuine street interviews. For a user scrolling quickly through the platform, the transition between an authentic citizen and an entirely fabricated one could therefore be almost invisible. In 18 per cent of the 50 videos analysed, there was no indication that the people shown had been generated using AI. After Aos Fatos provided TikTok with the videos, the company said it had removed all of them for violating its rules on edited and AI-generated media. TikTok said its policies require creators to identify synthetic content and prohibit manipulated media capable of misleading users about matters of public importance or impersonating genuine journalistic material. The issue extends beyond one platform. Factchequeado’s review of Brazil’s 2026 election campaign found that synthetic endorsements and other deepfakes had become one of the most visible forms of AI-assisted electoral misinformation, alongside fabricated candidate statements and invented scenes. Brazil already had rules for synthetic politics Brazil entered the campaign with unusually detailed electoral rules governing artificial intelligence. The Superior Electoral Court, the TSE, requires electoral propaganda using synthetic multimedia to disclose clearly that AI was used. More importantly for the fake-voter videos, its rules prohibit synthetic audio or video used to favour or harm a candidacy when it creates or alters the image or voice of a living, deceased or fictitious person. The difficulty is attribution and enforcement. When a synthetic video is published by an official campaign, responsibility can be relatively straightforward to investigate. When it comes from an apparently independent account with no demonstrated relationship to a candidate, lawyers interviewed by Aos Fatos said responsibility is more likely to fall on the individual creator, while imposing electoral sanctions on a campaign would require evidence of a connection. For the final 72 hours before the election and the 24 hours following it, the TSE has imposed additional restrictions on newly published or republished synthetic material involving candidates or public figures, reflecting the particular difficulty of correcting fabricated content immediately before voting. From deepfake politicians to synthetic electorates The Brazilian case illustrates a broader change in political manipulation. The first generation of electoral deepfakes concentrated on famous people: make a politician appear to say something damaging, or fabricate an endorsement from a celebrity. Synthetic vox pops reverse the perspective. The politician can remain completely authentic; it is the electorate around the politician that is fabricated. That changes the psychological proposition of the message. Instead of saying the candidate believes this, the video suggests people like you believe this. Age, clothing, accent, neighbourhood and social class can all be generated to construct an artificial constituency around almost any political claim. There is no evidence that the 50 Brazilian videos identified by Aos Fatos constitute a single centrally directed campaign, nor evidence that they changed voting intentions. What they demonstrate is a technique whose barrier to entry has become extremely low. AI no longer needs to forge the politician. #DISINFORMED #Episode14 #Brazil #BrazilElection2026 #Elections #ElectionDisinformation #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #SyntheticVoters #SyntheticMedia #AIAvatars #AIGeneratedVideo #VoxPop #FakeInterviews #Astroturfing #AIPropaganda #PoliticalDisinformation #InfluenceOperations #InformationWarfare #SocialMediaManipulation #TikTok #PublicOpinion #ManufacturedConsent #SyntheticPublicOpinion #DigitalInfluence #Deepfakes #ElectionIntegrity #TSE #AosFatos #FactChecking #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD (translated)

"Der var en periode, hvor Rasmus Højlund spillede som en, der havde mistet begge sine forældre." - Morten Bruun Seriøst. Hvem tænker på - og siger så - SÅ mærkelige ting på sin professionelle arbejdsplads indenfor kommunikationsarbejde? Hvor hele landet lytter med. Nogen på tv2 skal pensionere den mand. Ind med taktisk-fodboldkyndige mennesker. #fodbold #kommentar #TV2

Out last night in Whitechurch campaigning against Council rent hikes. We need people to get organised to stop these unjust hikes. I met a pensioner couple whose rent is going up 40% under the new scheme! People simply cannot afford this during the cost of living crisis. https://t.co/Jt6IgM0Lxa #StopRentHikes #CostOfLivingCrisis #Whitechurch #Thistweetdoesnotmentionanyspecificcountries.Therefore #therearenocountrycodestoreturn.

I Sverige kan kurder, palestinier eller vilket annat folkslag som helst, kapa ett parti att stödja ena sidan i en konflikt på andra sidan jorden. Så ett riksdagsval i Sverige kan mer handla om andra länders konflikter än svensk sjukvård, pensioner eller skola. Ska vi ändra det? #Sverige #Politik #Konflikt

Govt must introduce plan to end homelessness Since @JamesBrowneTD became Minister homelessness up 11%, child homeless up 23% Latest monthly figures: 🚨Adults 11,868, +6 🚨Children 5,656, +39 🚨Total 17,527, +45 🚨Families 2,724, +16 🚨Singles 7,244, -44 🚨Pensioners 272, -13 https://t.co/iYK5ubXGGz #EndHomelessness #HousingCrisis #GovernmentAction #Thetweetdoesnotmentionanyspecificcountries.Therefore #theoutputis:

Nästa mandatperiod ska familjer vara vinnare KD vill höja barnbidraget. Minska barngrupperna och höja mammors pensioner för att nämna några viktiga förslag. Positivt att fler pratar familj – senast M idag om avgiftsfri förskola. M:s förslag är i samma riktning. Men förslaget riskerar att öka trycket på förskolan. Vi tycker att man behöver säkerställa att barngrupperna minskar först och lägger mer pengar där. Skulle man avskaffa förskoleavgiften får en ensamstående mamma som jobbar som undersköterska i Stockholm med två barn ca 684 kr i lägre avgift. Med Kristdemokraternas förslag får hon 1500 kr i höjt barnbidrag. Vi tror på Sveriges familjer. #Familj #Barnbidrag #Förskola