Links 21/12/2023: Teslas Crash More Than Any Other Brand, "Hey Hi" (AI) Bubble Slammed as Hype and Fraud
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: How-To Outline
A "how-to" is an article that explains how to accomplish a task or solve a problem. Online, many article titles start with "How to", which provide a clear indicator that the article will show how to do something. But, not all articles follow that title pattern. Any article that shows you how to do something is a "how to".
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Manuel Matuzović ☛ Design pattern for custom tooltips
Should we use tooltips to convey information? Hints and descriptions are often included on web pages through tooltips – but not everyone has access to them.
A tooltip is a short text that usually appears as a popup when a user hovers a mouse pointer over an element. Tooltips can be attached to any HTML element using the title attribute. There are only a few exceptions when a tooltip created with a title attribute will not be displayed (e.g., a title attribute on an iframe element).
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Nico Cartron ☛ "Why this sudden increase in blogging, Nico?"
As part of my daily routine, I'm trying to write for ~15 minutes every day, which means I am coming up with a lot more articles now. It's a good exercise and a "virtuous circle", as the more I do it, the more topics I want to cover - with still the same approach, i.e. I'm doing it both for me (to keep track of things I want to remember) and for others.
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[Old] Wired ☛ Scientists Have an Audacious Plan to Map the Ancient World Before It Disappears
After seeing how much they achieved during Italy’s lockdown, Campana and his collaborators got to thinking about what else might be possible with the technology. Ground-penetrating radar waves travel at a fraction of the speed of light, so the entire process—transmission, reflection, recording—takes nanoseconds. With these new tools, archaeology is no longer a stationary activity, limited to one site; even while zipping by at highway speed, field surveyors can produce an accurate snapshot of what’s beneath centuries of cobblestone and brick, chewing gum and litter.
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Ali Reza Hayati ☛ Descriptive blogrolls
I, too, made these boring lists. Only listing names or projects. I even deleted my blogroll page for quite a time. Then I read Simone’s post. He was right. We should curate our blogroll pages in the old manner. We should care about what we post and publish or recommend to people.
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Science
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Omicron Limited ☛ Rare museum specimen reveals new insights into how trilobites curled themselves into a ball
Intrigued by the finding, the researchers took a closer look using a micro-CT scanner, which allowed them to study the interior of the ancient sea creature, which had been preserved in a mudslide hundreds of millions of years ago. The scanner also provided multiple image slices of the specimens giving them a previously unseen view of an enrolled trilobite with sternites still intact.
In studying the images, the research team was able to see in great detail how the tiny creature's stomach plates interacted with its appendages. And that showed them that a trilobite would have had to flex its entire body to allow for rolling, a move that would have allowed the plates to slide past one another, until locking in place.
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The Hill ☛ If countries are serious about climate change, they should get serious about quantum computing
Quantum computers are particularly good at solving the optimization and simulation problems underpinning many sustainability and energy-related challenges, and could overcome barriers to green technology innovation much faster than their conventional counterparts. Quantum computing, though an imperfect technology itself, could expedite critical breakthroughs and help achieve global climate objectives within desired timeframes.
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Education
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Reason ☛ Millions of Kids Left Classrooms During the Pandemic. New Data Show 50,000 Hadn't Returned 2 Years Later.
According to an analysis from the Associated Press, 50,000 children in 22 states were still missing from schools in fall 2022.
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Zach Flower ☛ Let's Get Digital
You may notice that "have I read this book yet?" is not one of the questions I'm asking. That's by design. If not having read a book is justification for keeping books around indefinitely, then I'll never be rid of them, because as many books as I have read in the past few years, I've accumulated even more.
And, if we're being honest, if a certain book holds no meaning to me yet because I've never read it, then do I really need to have a physical copy of it?
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Pete Warden ☛ Stanford’s HackLab Course
I’ve just finished the final work for the course, and while it was challenging in surprising ways, I learned a lot, and had some fun too. I found the legal questions the hardest because of how much the answers depended on what seem like very subtle and arbitrary distinctions, like that between stored communications and those being transmitted. As an engineer I know how much storage is involved in any network and that even “at rest” data gets shuttled around behind the scenes, but what impressed me was how hard lawyers and judges have worked to match the practical rules with the intent of the lawmakers. Law isn’t code, it’s run by humans, not machines, which meant I had to put aside my pedantry about technological definitions to understand the history of interpretations. I still get confused between a warrant and a writ, but now I have a bit more empathy for the lawyers in my life at least.
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Hardware
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Tedium ☛ Self-Checkout Game Theory
There have been a lot of takes in recent years slagging on self-checkout as a failed experiment or an expensive waste. I may lose my cool-kid card for saying this, but: I’m actually a fan.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia Edition: RTS sparks interest in JB property | Covid-19 cases rise
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Off Guardian ☛ A Letter from India: Stop WHO’s ‘Pandemic Preparedness’ Tyranny
The global pandemic preparedness accord (‘pandemic treaty’) currently being put in place by the World Health Organization (WHO) will pave the way for “a fascist approach to societal management.” The beneficiaries will be unscrupulous corporations and investors whom the COVID‐19 response served well.
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Reason ☛ COVID Lockdown Violation Conviction Reversed, Based on N.J. Policy Exempting "Political Activities"
Defendant was "walking along the highway holding up signs to passing motorists stating 'PHUCK,' '#THIN BLUE,' and 'Slow Down Police Ahead.'"
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NYPost ☛ More residents fled New York than any other state as Texas saw biggest population gain, Census Bureau finds
Since COVID began spreading in Spring 2020, New York’s population has decreased by 631,000 people, Census numbers indicate.
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Latvia ☛ Millions estimated in losses over scrapped Covid vaccines in Latvia
Across the European Union and in Latvia, millions have been lost in wasted Covid vaccines. Latvian Television attempted to clarify December 19 how much exactly Latvia has lost.
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NYPost ☛ Newly released documents on 2018 coronavirus research proposal reveal scientists’ safety concerns over Chinese lab
One of the researchers said US scientists would "likely freak out" at the proposal to do coronavirus testing in a lower-level biosafety lab, like Wuhan facility in China.
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Terence Eden ☛ The Joy and The Pity of making your own stuff
I made my own tofu a few weeks ago1. I got soy milk, heated it, mixed in coagulants, drained it, pressed it, sliced it, then cooked it. And, you know what? I'm not sure it was worth the effort.
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El País ☛ ‘Children are not dolls made for gaining followers’: This is how kids are affected by viral TikTok pranks
A baby cries endlessly. A slice of cheese is tossed onto their face and, as if by magic, they stop crying. This is one of the viral pranks of TikTok. In other cases, parents break eggs on kids’ faces to see their reaction or make them believe that they’ve stained themselves with poop when it’s actually Nutella. TikTok is full of viral videos of progenitors humiliating their children. Several experts advise against such pranks due to possible negative consequences for minors.
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Omicron Limited ☛ Social media posts may be viewed differently by others compared to how users perceive themselves
Many people post on social media platforms in order to express themselves and connect with others. Prior research has shown that viewers of personal websites, such as blogs or online profiles, form largely accurate perceptions of the authors' personalities. However, social media posts, such as Facebook status updates, are often isolated and lack context. Few studies have explored how users' self-perceptions align with how others perceive them after viewing such posts.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Futurism ☛ Cory Doctorow Blasts AI as a Fraud-Filled Bubble
But it's not all doom and gloom. Doctorow believes that the situation isn't a zero-sum game, and that once the dust settles, there may be some residual upshots that could drive meaningful technological progress in the future.
"Tech bubbles come in two varieties: The ones that leave something behind, and the ones that leave nothing behind," Doctorow argued.
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404 Media ☛ Largest Dataset Powering AI Images Removed After Discovery of Child Sexual Abuse Material
The LAION-5B machine learning dataset used by Stable Diffusion and other major AI products has been removed by the organization that created it after a Stanford study found that it contained 3,226 suspected instances of child sexual abuse material, 1,008 of which were externally validated.
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Gizmodo ☛ INTERPOL Arrests 3,500 Suspects in Sweeping Cybercrime Operation
Interpol, an international police organization, has arrested nearly 3,500 people allegedly connected to cybercrime in a sweeping operation announced on Tuesday. $300 million worth of assets across 34 countries were reportedly seized. The operation, Haechi IV, blocked over 80,000 suspicious bank accounts and warned government officials of new types of scams using AI and fake NFTs.
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INTERPOL ☛ USD 300 million seized and 3,500 suspects arrested in international financial crime operation
The UK leg of the operation reported several cases where AI-generated synthetic content was used to deceive, defraud, harass, and extort victims, particularly through impersonation scams, online sexual blackmail, and investment fraud. Cases also involved the impersonation of people known to the victims through voice cloning technology.
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[Repeat] Jussi Pakkanen ☛ AI silliness: getting to a no
One of the most annoying thing about LLM chatbots is that they all talk like american used car salespersons or people who work in sales departments of software companies. That is, the answer to every question is always yes. Somehow everything must be positive. This got me thinking: what would you need to do to get a "no" answer from a chatbot.
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Gizmodo ☛ Magic: The Gathering Formally Bans the Use of Generative AI in 'Final' Products
“For 30 years, Magic: The Gathering has been built on the innovation, ingenuity, and hard work of talented people who sculpt a beautiful, creative game. That isn’t changing,” a new statement shared by Wizards of the Coast on Daily MTG begins. “Our internal guidelines remain the same with regard to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes Magic great.”
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Simon Willison ☛ Recommendations to help mitigate prompt injection: limit the blast radius
I’m in the latest episode of RedMonk’s Conversation series, talking with Kate Holterhoff about the prompt injection class of security vulnerabilities: what it is, why it’s so dangerous and why the industry response to it so far has been pretty disappointing.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Amazon sellers warn misleading AI product reviews threaten sales
The technology’s tendency to overplay negative sentiment in some reviews is less obvious. The US$70 Brass Birmingham board game, for instance, boasts a 4.7-star rating based on feedback from more than 500 shoppers. A three-sentence AI summary of reviews ends with: “However, some customer have mixed opinions on ease of use.” Only four reviews mention ease of use in a way that could be interpreted as critical. That’s fewer than 1% of the overall ratings, yet the negative sentiment accounts for about a third of the AI-generated blurb.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Techdirt ☛ GOP Wants To Prevent The FCC From Protecting Broadband Consumer Privacy
Back in 2017 the FCC tried to pass some very basic privacy protections for broadband access. The rules simply demanded transparency as to what kind of data your ISP collects and sells. They also mandated that the trafficking of sensitive financial data by telecoms require the opt in consent of consumers.
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EDRI ☛ 2023: A good year for privacy, a bad year for chat control
With 2023 coming to a close, where does that leave the draft EU Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Regulation?
The post 2023: A good year for privacy, a bad year for chat control appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).
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Patrick Breyer ☛ Chat control evaluation report: EU Commission fails to demonstrate effectiveness of mass surveillance of intimate personal photos and videos
The report fails to mention what Commissioner Johansson recently admitted to the EU interior ministers: Only one in four of the personal photos or videos that are disclosed to moderators and police are of any use for law enforcement; thus 75% of the leaked private and intimate images and videos are entirely criminally irrelevant but end up in the hands of staff where they don‘t belong and aren‘t safe. In 2022, the error-prone chat control incrimination machines disclosed no less than 750,000 European private messages without any relevance for law enforcement. The confidentiality of our communications is systematically being violated.
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BBC ☛ Porn viewers in EU may have to prove their age
The spokesperson said one "potential" solution for a person proving their age would be the upcoming European Digital Identity wallet.
"Once it enters into force, it will offer solutions for all EU citizens, residents, and businesses in the EU," they said.
"Citizens will be able to prove their identity and share electronic documents from their European Digital Identity wallets with the click of a button on their phone."
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NYPost ☛ Woman claims Tesla’s technology enabled abusive husband to stalk her
The SUV allows owners to remotely access its location and control other features through a smartphone app.
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Site36 ☛ Digital police problem: German authorities pool millions of dubious data records at the BKA
The BKA also stores ” person-related hints” (PHW) in INPOL. Collections of this kind are kept in each federal state, but many of the entries there are also transferred to the nationwide database in Wiesbaden. Officially, the PHW are used to protect police officers in their day-to-day work: for every personal INPOL query – i.e. during a traffic stop, before a search or when applying for ID documents – a “warning” appears if the person concerned is stored in the database with a PHW. Possible categories include “escapee”, “armed”, “narcotics user”, “suicide risk” or “violent”. Several PHWs can be assigned to one person.
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Futurism ☛ Microsoft’s Stuffing Talking Generative AI Into Your Car
Remember those talking GPS monitors from the early-to-mid-2000s? They're back with a vengeance and will soon be AI-enabled, even though it's unclear who asked for that.
In a press release, the GPS company TomTom announced that it's teaming up with Microsoft to equip cars with a generative AI assistant named "Tommy" that will, for some reason, let people converse with their cars.
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India Times ☛ EU targets Pornhub, XVideos, Stripchat under new content rules
The European Union on Wednesday added three adult content companies - Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos - to its list of firms subject to stringent regulations under new online content rules.
The new rules, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), require companies to conduct risk management, undergo external and independent auditing, and share dat a with authorities and researchers.
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France24 ☛ Three major porn sites, including Pornhub, to face tougher EU safety regulations
The "very large online platforms" or VLOPs are deemed by Brussels to have "systemic importance" by virtue of their sheer scale and must demonstrate what they are doing to comply with the DSA.
In their first reaction to the news, Pornhub protested that the site had only 33 million average monthly viewers in the European Union over the six months to July 31 this year, fewer than the 45 million that would be needed to designate them a very large platform.
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International Business Times ☛ Google Rolls Out AI-Powered Features For Maps In India
This is the latest addition to a slew of previously announced AI-powered features. After unveiling a new Assistant with Bard in October, the search giant is reportedly on the verge of launching an AI chatbot with Google Maps as well.
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Defence/Aggression
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The Nation ☛ Why the 14th Amendment Is the Constitutional Remedy for Trump’s Assault on Democracy
Foner’s proposal was practical, but it never gained traction in Washington. Vice President Mike Pence, despite being targeted by Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, chose not to invoke the 25th Amendment. The House did vote to impeach Trump, and, after a Senate trial, members of the upper chamber voted 57-43 to hold the former president to account. That was a majority, but it was not enough to reach the two-thirds threshold required for a conviction. So that constitutional remedy also came off the table.
Meanwhile, a dedicated group of lawyers and constitutional scholars pursued the final remedy—a 14th Amendment strategy—in the courts.
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Colorado ☛ 2023 CO 63 : No. 23SA300, Anderson v. Griswold - Election Law - Fourteenth Amendment - First Amendement Politicl Questions - Hearsay
In this appeal from a district court proceeding under Colorado Election Code, the supreme court considers whether former President Donald J. Trump may appear on the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot in 2024. A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United Sates Constitution. Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candiate on the presidential primaryu ballot. The court stays its ruling until January 4, 2024, subject to any further appellate proceedings.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Denies Offering Leniency to ‘Top Creator’ Accounts—Including Musicians
Some of the accounts that allegedly have the designation ‘top creator’ include the controversial comedian Russell Brand, pop star Sam Smith, and YouTuber Ethan Payne. Meanwhile, TikTok denies that these internal tags are used to influence moderation decisions at all.
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Nikkei ☛ Nepal mourns mercenaries who died for Russia, faces tough questions
The reported deaths of six Nepalis serving in the Russian military have rattled the Himalayan nation and cast a harsh spotlight on the reasons young citizens are joining the Ukraine war.
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ American military aid to Ukraine is faltering -Can Europe pick up the slack?
“European countries are trying to manage an increasingly dangerous situation from an unsustainable peacetime defense and industrial posture,” Justin Bronk wrote for the Royal United Services Institute, a U.K. think tank. NATO is “heavily dependent” on the United States for everything from ammunition to satellite capabilities. If America withdraws its aid, or is forced to divert its resources to the Pacific, “Europe will be left vulnerable.” With the exception of Poland, though, most European democracies have failed to keep their promises of increased military spending: That’s left the continent’s stockpiles “badly depleted.” Urgent investment is needed, but it will also take time. “It takes years for investment in defense to bear fruit.”
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New York Times ☛ Live from the Jungle: Migrants Become Influencers on Social Media
He eventually made it to the United States. But to his surprise, his videos began attracting so many views and earning enough money from YouTube that he decided he no longer needed to live in America at all.
So, Mr. Monterrosa, a 35-year-old from Venezuela, returned to South America and now has a new plan altogether: trekking the Darién route again, this time in search of content and clicks, having learned how to make a living as a perpetual migrant.
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[Repeat] The Hill ☛ OpenAI unveils framework to protect against ‘catastrophic’ AI risks
The framework aims to track the catastrophic risk levels of OpenAI’s models on several fronts — cybersecurity; chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological threats; persuasion; and model autonomy — and score them accordingly.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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RFERL ☛ Putin Orders Seizure Of OMV And Wintershall Dea Stakes In Russian Ventures
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that Germany's Wintershall Dea and Austria's OMV be stripped of multibillion-dollar stakes in gas extraction projects in Russia's Arctic.
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Meduza ☛ Two-thirds of Russians oppose abortion ban, independent survey finds — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Russian Investigative Committee agents search publishing house connected with writer Boris Akunin — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘Why are we publishing enemies?’ Censorship of Boris Akunin’s work could signal a new wave of persecution against cultural figures displeasing to Russian authorities — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Wives of Russian draftees say the FSB is harassing their husbands on the front line — Meduza
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Pro Publica ☛ NYPD Will Share Bodycam Footage of Shootings With Civilian Investigators
The New York Police Department has agreed to end its practice of withholding body-camera footage of police shootings from civilian investigators, a practice that sometimes derailed independent inquiries into deaths at the hands of police.
The change came weeks after ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine asked the NYPD about the practice as part of their investigation into the use of body cameras.
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Environment
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The Atlantic ☛ Our Forests Need More Fire, Not Less
These conditions—the fire deficit and our susceptibility to megafires—are connected. A principal reason megafires have become common and destructive is that the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies have quelled minor fires for a century, thus allowing fuel—brush, shrubs, dense clusters of skinny saplings—to accumulate on the landscape. By routinely stamping out smaller, beneficial fires, land managers have inadvertently spawned gargantuan infernos that threaten lives and property, a disastrous loop that climate change only exacerbates. This, O’Connor writes, is the fire paradox: “Putting out fires contributes to the creation of even bigger blazes.”
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Energy/Transportation
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Tennessee Tech's research will impact hundreds of businesses
A $10 million research grant for technology will reduce strain on rural electric grids
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Futurism ☛ Teslas Crash More Than Any Other Brand, Analysis Finds
The news comes as two million Tesla vehicles recently had to be recalled over safety concerns related to the company's infamous driver assistance software called Autopilot. The feature has already been under scrutiny by regulators for years with critics pointing out that Tesla's misleading marketing may give drivers a false sense of security and fool them into thinking their vehicles can drive by themselves.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Marshall touts creation of smartphone version of federal migratory bird hunting stamp
The reform signed by President Joe Biden meant hunters buying a digital version of the $25 annual permit online would have immediate, phone-tap access to the e-stamp to prove compliance with the federal requirements. They would no longer be expected to carry the physical adhesive-backed paper stamp while hunting migratory birds such as geese and ducks. The law says those choosing the electronic version would receive by mail the traditional physical stamp after close of duck hunting season.
The change wouldn’t interfere with hunters or stamp collectors interested in buying the physical duck stamp from the U.S. Post Office and other retailers. Also preserved under the law was the annual art competition conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine design of the stamp each year.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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NYPost ☛ Biden calls Trump an ‘old pal’ of Putin’s, says ‘Moscow and Mar-a-Lago’ aligned
“This weekend Trump was embracing his old pal Putin. Trump even quoted him this weekend. That’s no surprise. After all, there’s a lot of agreement between Moscow and Mar-a-Lago," Biden said.
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CS Monitor ☛ Meet the post-Evangelical Christians. They’re just getting started.
Since the pandemic, the new Post-Evangelical Collective has established hubs in 14 major cities, with about 50 congregations. They seek to chart a path of faith divorced from right-wing politics.
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Reason ☛ G.M. To Lay Off 1,300 Michigan Workers Despite $824 Million in State Incentives
In January 2022, G.M. announced that it would spend $7 billion on four Michigan-based projects, including $4 billion to convert its existing Orion Township factory to make electric pickup trucks like the GMC Sierra E.V. In return, the state agreed to as much as $824 million in incentives for G.M., including $600 million in grants, $66.1 million for infrastructure improvements, and a tax break valued at $158 million. Orion Township also approved a property tax abatement on the facility for 12 years, plus three years for construction.
A press release from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's office bragged that G.M.'s investment would "create 4,000 and retain 1,000 jobs," with the Orion Township overhaul expected to "create 2,300 jobs" and "retain 1,000 jobs" by itself.
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International Business Times ☛ Secure by design: A blueprint for the future of cybersecurity
Organizations must work collaboratively to promote transparency, reduce the costs of secrecy and collectively defend against the evolving threat landscape. By adopting “secure-by-design” principles and leveraging automation, organizations can stay ahead of the curve in an environment where cybersecurity challenges continue to grow in complexity and frequency, according to Suzanne Spaulding (pictured, left), former Undersecretary for cyber and infrastructure at the Department of Homeland Security.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Fact check: Video does not depict Israeli war crimes
The footage was not from the Gaza Strip, nor was it taken recently. No Israeli soldiers were involved. A reverse image search, for example, using Google Lens or TinEye, confirms that the video is over 10 years old and originated in Syria.
Reverse image searches of individual scenes from the video led to identical videos published in 2013. Accordingly, the video in the UAE user's social media post does not depict scenes from Gaza but rather atrocities from the Syrian conflict. According to media reports, the video is said to show the execution of civilians by the Shabiha militia, a group loyal to the regime of Syrian leader Bashar Assad that gained notoriety for its extreme brutality in the Syrian war.
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Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Anti-misinfo site: Russian propaganda twisted former NATO commander's words
Russian misinformation and propaganda efforts remain in full flow in relation to the Ukraine war, as evidence by the recent twisting of words of a former high-level NATO commander, anti-misinfo site Propastop reports.
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Truthdig ☛ Big Oil Is Gaslighting the World
The hosting of the recent COP28 climate summit by the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s leading petroleum exporters, exemplified exactly this puffery and, sadly enough, it’s just one instance of this greenwashing world of ours. Everywhere you look, you’ll note other versions, but it certainly was a classic example. Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber served as president of the Dubai-based 28th Conference of Parties — countries that had signed onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. While his green bona fides include his role as chairman of the board of the UAE’s green energy firm Masdar, controversy swirled around him because he’s also the CEO of ADNOC, the UAE’s national petroleum company. Worse yet, he’s committed to expanding the oil and gas production of his postage-stamp-sized nation of one million citizens (and eight million guest workers) in a big-time fashion. He wants ADNOC to increase its daily oil production from its present four million barrels a day to five million by 2027, even though climate scientists stress that global fossil-fuel production must be reduced by 3% annually through 2050 if the world is to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.
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Axios ☛ China is winning online allies in Okinawa’s independence movement
A growing number of non-Chinese social media users with online followers both in China and abroad promote content that often praises the Chinese government, defends it against criticism and aligns with its foreign policy goals.
The rise of pro-Beijing influencers, some of whom have received undisclosed support from the Chinese state, makes it more difficult to distinguish genuine sentiment from state-backed content — potentially compromising the integrity of online information and debate, analysts say.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Techdirt ☛ Techdirt Podcast Episode 374: Content Moderation Games
Many of you might know Andrew “K’Tetch” Norton as a Techdirt commenter, or from his work at TorrentFreak or for the Pirate Party, and some of you might know that he also runs his own podcast, Tetch Talk. Recently, Andrew asked Mike and I to join him on the podcast for a discussion about our content moderation games Moderator Mayhem and Trust & Safety Tycoon, and today we’re posting a mirror of the full discussion for our last podcast of the year. See you in 2024!
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Reason ☛ Free Speech and "Harassment Restraining Orders"
I was on the California Appellate Law Podcast discussing this, though my analysis isn't limited to California. An excerpt from the podcast summary: Prof. Eugene Volokh joined us to discuss restraining orders, how many of them violate the First Amendment as unlawful prior restraints, and how you can spot the First Amendment problems.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Press Gazette ☛ Mail Online confirms plan for subscription service with 10-15 paid stories per day [Ed: Terrible tabloid]
The Mail said it will also invest in podcasts and video.
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[Old] Neritam ☛ Journalists in El Salvador Targeted With Spyware Intended for Criminals
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Civil Rights/Policing
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BIA Net ☛ DEM Party MP urges urgent inquiry into hunger-striking prisoner's plight
Due to the hunger strike, Hüseyin Karaoğlan's weight has dropped from 70 kilograms to 45 kilograms, MP Serhat Eren has emphasized.
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El País ☛ Musk and Tesla are battling unions across Scandinavia. What comes next in the labor dispute?
None of Tesla’s workers anywhere in the world are unionized, raising questions about whether strikes could spread to other parts of Europe where employees commonly have collective bargaining rights — notably in Germany, Tesla’s most important European market.
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CS Monitor ☛ Tesla strike: Elon Musk butts heads with Scandinavian worker ideals
Tesla has found itself locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with union workers in Sweden and neighboring countries. The showdown pits the electric car maker’s CEO Elon Musk, who’s staunchly anti-union, against the strongly held labor ideals of Scandinavian countries.
None of Tesla’s workers anywhere in the world are unionized, raising questions about whether strikes could spread to other parts of Europe where employees commonly have collective bargaining rights – notably in Germany, Tesla’s most important market.
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Reason ☛ This Innocent Woman Is on the Hook for Thousands After a SWAT Team Destroyed Her Home
In June of 2022, law enforcement arrived at a modest home on East Calvert Street in South Bend, Indiana. They threw dozens of tear gas grenades into the house, launched flash-bangs through the front door, smashed windows, destroyed the security cameras, punched holes in the walls, ripped a panel and fan from the bathroom wall and ceiling, ransacked and tossed furniture, snatched curtains down, and broke a mirror and various storage containers. The tear gas bombs left openings in the walls, floors, and ceiling. Shattered glass lay strewn across the interior, and a litany of personal belongings—from clothing, beds, and electronics to childhood drawings and family photos—were ruined.
Police had their sights set on a man named John Parnell Thomas, then a fugitive, who is now behind bars. But law enforcement didn't apprehend Thomas at the residence on East Calvert, as he did not own the home, did not have any relationship with its owners, and had never been there.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Bandcamp’s New Owner Has Gone After the Company’s Unionized Workforce
Following the September layoffs, Bandcamp United’s immediate concern necessarily shifted from bargaining for better conditions to a fight for the dignity of the workers who’d suddenly lost their jobs. This was a long, time-consuming, and labor-intensive process, but on December 8, the union announced that it had reached and ratified its severance agreement with Epic Games — Songtradr has yet to recognize Bandcamp United.
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India Times ☛ Uber to raise minimum wage for drivers in France
Uber Technologies will raise the minimum wage it pays drivers in France as part of a wider agreement between ride-hailing companies and driver representatives in the country, the company said on Wednesday.
Drivers will earn a minimum income 9 euros ($9.85) per trip, up from 7.65 euros they were earning previously, and will have a guaranteed income of 30 euros per hour and 1 euro per kilometer.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Afghanistan: Calls for ending Taliban's 'gender apartheid'
"The Taliban's edicts are systematically erasing millions of women and girls in Afghanistan from public life — and we all must do more to hold the Taliban to account," Yousafzai told DW, adding: "First and foremost, I am calling on all governments to make gender apartheid a crime against humanity."
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is discussing on Wednesday the increasingly dire situation in Afghanistan.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Digital Music News ☛ Google Confirms $700 Million Payment, Multiple Play Store Changes in Class-Action Settlement — With Possible Implications for Spotify’s War Against Apple
Google has officially finalized a massive settlement agreement in connection with a lawsuit involving its Play Store – a development that could prove significant amid a high-stakes legal battle between Spotify and Apple.
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IT Wire ☛ Google agrees to settle anti-trust action brought by US states
...Google's Wilson White, vice-president for Government Affairs and Public Policy, said the company would increase the choice of app stores that consumers could use.
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Digital Music News ☛ Google Confirms $700 Million Payment, Multiple Play Store Changes in Class-Action Settlement — With Possible Implications for Spotify’s War Against Apple
Google has officially finalized a massive settlement agreement in connection with a lawsuit involving its Play Store – a development that could prove significant amid a high-stakes legal battle between Spotify and Apple.
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Patents
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India Times ☛ AI systems can't be named as the inventor of patents, UK's top court rules
An artificial intelligence system can't be registered as the inventor of a patent, Britain's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a decision that denies machines the same status as humans. [...] The decision was the culmination of American technologist Stephen Thaler's long-running British legal battle to get his AI, dubbed DABUS, listed as the inventor of two patents.
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Silicon Angle ☛ UK Supreme Court rules AI systems can’t patent their inventions
The judgment concludes a legal case launched in 2019 by Stephen Thaler, a Missouri-based computer scientist. Thaler has filed similar AI patent applications in the U.S., European Union and Australia that were likewise rejected.
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Software Patents
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The Verge ☛ Apple Watch ban: everything you need to know
After 3PM ET on December 21st, you won’t be able to buy the Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2. The last day for pickup or delivery of these models from Apple’s retail stores is December 24th. The reason? The company says it’s to preemptively comply with an ITC import ban following a patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo over its SpO2 sensor.
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[Old] PR Newswire ☛ AliveCor Announces the ITC's Limited Exclusion Order Against Apple Clears Presidential Review
AliveCor, the global leader in FDA-cleared personal electrocardiogram (ECG) technology, today announced that the Final Determination ruling issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which imposed a Limited Exclusion Order (LEO) and a cease and desist order on Apple Watches infringing on AliveCor patents, has cleared Presidential review. This is the Commission's first LEO against Apple to clear Presidential review, and sends a strong signal to innovative companies that their IP is protected within the legal framework.
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[Old] Masimo ☛ United States International Trade Commission Issues Exclusion Order for Infringing Apple Watches, Finding that Apple Violated U.S. Trade Laws
Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) today announced that the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) has recommended a limited exclusion order for infringing Apple Watches with light-based pulse oximetry functionality. The USITC found that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) violated U.S. laws by incorporating Masimo’s patented light-based pulse oximetry technology in its products. The exclusion is scheduled to go into effect after a 60-day Presidential review period.
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Hindustan Times ☛ Apple ‘caught with its hands in cookie jar,’ says CEO whose company took on tech giant
“After a thorough multi-year legal investigation, the ITC found that Apple infringed certain of Masimo's patented innovations for measuring blood oxygen. The decision to exclude certain foreign-made models of the Apple Watch demonstrates that even the world's most powerful company must abide by the law,” an ITC statement to the Business Insider read.
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Reuters ☛ Apple to halt US sales of Series 9, Ultra 2 smartwatches over patent dispute
If not vetoed, the ban would go into effect on Dec. 26.
The company said it would pause sales of the watches from its website starting on Dec. 21 and from Apple retail locations after Dec. 24. Other models that do not contain the blood oxygen sensor, like Apple's lower-priced Apple Watch SE model, are unaffected by the dispute.
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MacRumors ☛ Masimo CEO on Looming Apple Watch Ban: 'These Guys Have Been Caught With Their Hands in the Cookie Jar'
While Apple will not be able to continue selling the Apple Watch in the U.S. without a veto, third-party retailers like Best Buy and Target can continue to offer it as long as supplies are available. The import ban will prevent Apple from importing components and assembled devices from countries like China.
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iDownloadBlog ☛ Apple hopes software changes will help it avoid the ITC’s Apple Watch ban
Masimo argues that no software changes could avoid the patent violations. If Apple cannot work around Masimo’s patents by updating the watchOS software, the company would be wise to license Masimo’s technology.
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Bloomberg ☛ Apple Races to Tweak Software Ahead of Looming US Watch Ban
Engineers at the company are racing to make changes to algorithms on the device that measure a user’s blood oxygen level — a feature that Masimo Corp. has argued infringes its patents. They’re adjusting how the technology determines oxygen saturation and presents the data to customers, according to people familiar with the work.
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Cult Of Mac ☛ Apple scrambles to find software fix to prevent Apple Watch import ban
Apple engineers reportedly are racing to create a software workaround ahead of a potential Apple Watch import ban in the United States over a patent claim. Apple reportedly hopes to make changes to the algorithm that measures a user’s blood oxygen saturation.
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Copyrights
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CoryDoctorow ☛ 2024's public domain is a banger
First in 1976, and then again in 1998, Congress retroactively extended copyright's duration by 20 years, for all works, including works whose authors were unknown and long dead, whose proper successors could not be located. Many of these authors were permanently erased from history as every known copy of their works disappeared before they could be brought back into our culture through reproduction, adaptation and re-use (copyright is "strict liability," meaning that even if you pay to clear the rights to a work from someone who has good reason to believe they control those rights, if they're wrong, you are on the hook as an infringer, and the statutory damages run to six figures).
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Techdirt ☛ Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal: And Generative AI Does The Marketing For Both
Generative AI finds subtle patterns in the works it analyzes, which it then uses to create new material, guided by the prompts that are provided by users. Some want to call that “theft”, but it’s a key element of all human creativity too. A fine post by Mike Loukides on the O’Reilly site acknowledges this, and goes on to make an important point: [...]
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Creative Commons ☛ Celebrate Public Domain Day 2024 with us: Weird Tales from the Public Domain
Join us for a virtual celebration at 10am PT / 1pm ET on 25 January, 2024, with an amazing lineup of academics, librarians, musicians, artists and advocates coming together to help illuminate the significance of this new class of works entering the public domain!
Of course our program wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of Generative AI, which to some has become a new kind of Eldritch God unleashed upon humanity—a Chtulhu of sorts—out to alter or control human reality. New AI technologies have raised all kinds of questions about human creativity, and the various monsters we must vanquish in order to preserve it. We’ll get into all that and more in our panel discussion of AI, Creativity and the Public Domain.
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India Times ☛ Pulitzer-winning authors join OpenAI, Microsoft copyright lawsuit
Writer and Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton first filed the proposed class-action lawsuit last month. The case is one of several that have been brought by groups of copyright owners including authors John Grisham, George R.R. Martin and Jonathan Franzen against OpenAI and other tech companies over the alleged misuse of their work in AI training.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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21 December 2023
The weather is... something. Now, like most years when approaching christmas the snow is gone now and rain set in. This year, its not only rain but heavy storms are approaching. A year that ends with heavy storms... could there be a better metaphor for the year 2023? With the still raging war in ukraine, the growing pressure in the middle east and dark clouds forming over taiwan and china i think it is fitting.
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Baking!
Did some baking today, some choc chip cookies and lemon butter cake. all gluten free! I'm very proud of it because i struggle with such stuff (and my body isn't all too happy with me afterwards).
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🔤SpellBinding: EINXSVP Wordo: LOVER
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Aloha!
My SO and I are here in Hawaii for some sun, surf and general R&R.
Aloha from the middle of the Pacific.
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New Yorkers Reject Electric Cars
Because they are not idiots.
But it's not just New Yorkers. Everyone with even a small bundle of nerves is beginning to realize that electric cars are, if not a complete scam, not ready for prime time.
In NYC the practical considerations of not being able to charge your electric car make it an easy decision. Those in suburbia are not so lucky as they can charge their cars in garages and driveways; this makes it harder to understand just how stupid their purchase decision was.
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Technology and Free Software
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24 OpenAI Chat GPT, Google Bard, etc … are not AI
But for what ? Are they really what we expect from an artificial intelligence. And what is intelligence vs culture ? For me, it's the buzz of the year but above all , a big marketing hoax !
[...]
Do the generative AI learn something ? To do it, it's necessary to have a tutor, someone able to correct the answer. But you missed something in the equation. AI are the child of a programmation team with its opinion, its knowledge in some science, language, culture but not everything. Nobody in the world is able to understand every data on every subject. The mistake in those kind of pseudo-AI is to believe that intelligence is only a mass of data and an engine to interpret a language. It's much more than that and those generative AI are not such a huge progress in the science of human intelligence modeling. I could compare it to the win of Deep Blue against Gary Kasparov in chess. It was not a victory of intelligence, it was a victory of the speed of calculation of every hypothesis with a some good test to guide the program to good choices. For such games, mathematics and CPU can do it. But to generate something new, it's not only intelligence.
Those type of AI are not creating, they are copying. I tried many subjects for paintings, architecture, photography and it was very bad. They have a mass of culture in their datas but not a good knowledge of very specific subjects or styles. For example, they don't know specific painting styles if the author is not mainstream, even with their big data collection. It gives the impression of someone just discovering the broad outlines of a subject, a poor student who didn't delve into his subject. Perhaps AI are good for programming, because their programmers love that subject. But they are not good for what programming team are bad. And in many examples, we could see that AI are racist, misogynist, and full of clichés. They are copying the opinions of their creators. But why are they lying in most of the answers ?
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Programming
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Boxed In
So how does one go about drawing such a room on a computer? The above is from rogue, a game that for better or worse spawned the roguelike genre. One way simply bangs out the walls and whatnot.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.