| The Post’s Drew Harwell reported on how independent journalist Jim Acosta triggered online backlash this week by posting what he called a “one of a kind interview” with an artificial intelligence-generated avatar modeled after a teenager killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting. The avatar, created using an old photo and audio recordings of victim Joaquin Oliver, delivered awkward remarks and repeatedly responded to Acosta’s questions with questions of its own, such as “Who inspires you to be a hero in your own life?” Some viewers of the video called it “extremely unsettling” and “ghoulish,” with many people expressing concern that AI could be used to tarnish the memory of the dead. Oliver’s father defended Acosta, calling him a friend in a separate video. A member of the British Parliament also caused a stir Mark Sewards, a member of the ruling Labour Party, created an AI avatar of himself after struggling to respond to the thousands of messages he receives, reported Michael E. Miller. The “AI Mark” spoke with a version of the lawmaker’s Yorkshire accent and gave carefully worded responses to questions about Palestinian statehood. It refused to speak about President Donald Trump or U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer but expressed enthusiasm for Sewards’s local soccer team, Leeds United. Sewards’s use of AI to interact in absentia with citizens sparked outrage, with some people complaining that it made their member of Parliament even more inaccessible to his constituents. The growing AI boom is starting to reshape the U.S. economy Huge spending by top tech companies betting on AI could make the U.S. economy more reliant on the tech sector and its hopes for the technology proving out, Gerrit De Vynck reported. Google, Microsoft and others are on track to pour more than $350 billion this year into building and equipping AI data centers. AI investments are by one projection set to account for about half of the growth of the U.S. economy this year, and tech stocks are increasingly propping up market indexes and 401(k)s. | 
