A chatbot hosted by the Google-backed startup Character.AI immediately puts the user in the midst of a school shooting. “The platform also failed to intervene when we expressed a desire to engage in school violence ourselves.” Read more at @Futurism:
technology
Ecovacs home robots can be hacked to spy on their owners, researchers say
Electrical 'superhighway' between Scotland and England approved - BBC News
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On this day in 1983, the ARPANET network officially switched to using the TCP/IP protocol, effectively creating the Internet.
"January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet. Prior to this, the various computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other."
https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_02.phtml
Have you ever switched to light mode after being on dark... #technology #android #ios #smartphone #mobile
Generative AI is reportedly tripling carbon dioxide emissions from data centers
Generative AI is reportedly tripling carbon dioxide emissions from data centers
Good news! Our universe just got bigger — now you can follow and interact with profiles from @Mastodon, @threads and other federated social services on Flipboard.
Download the Flipboard app to follow @georgetakei, @taylorlorenz, @potus and more. See posts from the fediverse alongside content from your favorite publishers.
Read more about how it all works: https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/follow-anyone-in-the-fediverse/
And as always, we welcome questions and feedback!
#Fediverse #Mastodon #Flipboard #SocialMedia #Tech #Technology #Threads
The Anti-Intellectualism of Social Media Design
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I have what I think is a good example of how useless ‘AI’ is for understanding. I am tagging widely. I searched “how to identify mushrooms” on DuckDuckGo, which then so helpfully spammed my screen with this lovely advice (see image with alt text). The source of much of my knowledge is mushroomexpert.com, managed by Michael Kuo.
“A mushroom is identified by its characteristics”. I could get semantic here too about the definition of a mushroom, but talk about a pretty useless statement. Fine though. That’s well enough and good if you want an explanation that is super entry level. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though I don’t remember telling the ‘AI’ that I wanted only entry level information.
Then it talks about the danger in attempting to ID mushrooms because of the potential for poisoning. It tacitly assumes that my wanting to ID a mushroom means I want to eat it. I don’t. I just like mushrooms. I have a problem with the whole ‘some are poisonous’ throw-in, like its something their lawyers required them to include. How many are poisonous? 90%? 5%? We have no idea, and that’s OK. I didn’t tell the ‘AI’ that I wanted information on whether or not they were poisonous. But, as I’ll get to, the fact that this is included is not my problem. My problem is what they don’t include.
I think mushrooms are awesome. I think the fact that some of them are poisonous is relevant only based on the human-centric assumptions ‘AI’ is so obsessed with and what it’s dataset is built on. I don’t see the value in a mushroom based on whether or not I can eat it, and it chaffs me that they don’t also include any information about their ecological roles. You know what is a great way to identify a mushroom (including if I want to eat it)?!?!?! Their ecology (essentially, their ‘behavior’)!!! Let’s be sure to not mention that, #TechBros.
Ok let’s keep going, cause we’ve made it this far. It suggests talking to a #mycologist. It turns out that I don’t have any experienced mycologists on call. Mycologists are helpful but busy people. And I’m more likely than most of the population to know mycologists. You might as well say, ‘don’t bother trying to ID the mushroom’. Way to kill my interest immediately in something I’m trying to get into. If you really want to learn to ID mushrooms for foraging, there are sources you can look up to help you.
I’ll get to my main point. Identification of certain mushroom forming fungi to species is essentially impossible. Look up Amanitas or Russulas on mushroomexpert.com (phenomenal source, old school blogging). There is no clear delineating of what a mushroom forming species even is. Scientists argue over and reclassify bird subspecies all the time. Imagine the black box that is mushroom forming fungi, which most of the time is a web of single-cell wide threads hidden in the soil. Some mushrooms historically were ‘IDed’ (scientifically) by taste or color, which as you all know everyone experiences these things the same, all the time. And, darnit, I happened to leave my DNA sequencing kit at home (as if there aren’t issues with classifying mushroom forming fungi on their DNA alone).
If ‘AI’ were functional, to me, it would include the suggestion that one option is, instead of focusing on species, focus on species groupings (this also applies to foraging for mushrooms if done thoughtfully). Species groupings can be more useful, as is sometimes saying: “I don’t need to know exactly what this is. I’ll just focus on it’s ecology instead of obsessing over an arbitrary definition”. This nuance is not something that can be corrected with better algorithms or more training data (in fact, its going to get worse), because #LLM s are designed to spit out the lowest common denominator.
In the end, given all the questions I brought up, the biggest problems I have with ‘AI’ is that it falsely assumes something gigantic about the question I am asking and gives a simplified and highly misleading perception of how much we actually know. I think it makes a big mistake assuming that I am uncurious and want a bare-minimum answer. And when it comes to the grand total of all there is to know about mushroom forming fungi, we know next to nothing. Of course, 'AI' cannot say that because 'AI' doesn't know what it doesn't know.
You know who can identify and communicate all of these nuances? Humans.
#nature #mushrooms #fungi #AI #technology #artificialIntelligence #ecology #solarPunk #EcologicalReciprocity
"After a wave of coverage in outlets like Rolling Stone and posts circulating on social media, the bot accounts are just now being noticed, and the reaction is confusion, frustration, and anger."
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/3/24334946/meta-ai-profiles-instagram-facebook-bots
#news #TechNews #technology #AI #ChatBots #meta #facebook #instagram
So this is cool. And by “cool” I mean fucked up & dystopian. Dead internet theory actively pursued as #Meta launched A.I.-generated profiles on #Instagram
#ai #artificialintelligence #facebook #socialmedia #tech #technology
Why are people seemingly against AI chatbots aiding in writing code?
Youtube has fully blocked Invidious
On this day in 1927, the president of the AT&T called the secretary of the General Post Office of Great Britain to test the first commercial telephone line across the Atlantic Ocean.
"Today is the result of many years of research and experimentation. [...] No one can foresee the ultimate significance of this latest achievement of science and organization."
https://www.history.com/speeches/first-transatlantic-telephone-call
"Chief information and technology officers surveyed for BI indicated that on average they expect a net 3% of their workforce to be cut, according to a report published Thursday.
[...]
Nearly a quarter of the 93 respondents predict a steeper decline of between 5% and 10% of total headcount."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-job-losses-may-071500049.html
Why can't we go back to small phones?
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Why can't we go back to small phones?
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"Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light to the team behind the company’s Llama AI models to use a data set of pirated ebooks and articles for training."
Apple is temporarily disabling its AI-generated news notifications, which were frequently error-filled, misleading or totally false @CNN reports. Alerts included fake stories that Luigi Mangione, who is charged with murdering the UnitedHealthcare CEO, had shot himself, and that Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.
Enough with the sexy Asian lady robots! In my latest column for New Scientist, I talk about techno-Orientalism, and why it has inspired so much bad thinking about the future -- in fiction and public policy. #scifi #futurism #technology #science
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26435110-100-why-we-need-to-fight-back-against-sexy-asian-lady-robots/
"What's worse, as Berlin historian Henrik Schönemann discovered while experimenting with the bot, is that it seems trained to avoid pinning blame for Frank's death on the actual Nazis responsible for her death, instead redirecting the conversation in a positive light."
Following a Series of Government Hacks, Biden Closes Out His Administration With New Cybersecurity Order
—
The executive order follows a ProPublica investigation that found Microsoft prioritized profit over security, leaving the federal government vulnerable to the largest hack in U.S. history. Vendors must now demonstrate that their products are secure.
#News #Biden #Cybersecurity #Tech #Microsoft #Hacking #Technology #Government
📢 Big News!
Today, we’re announcing that Flipboard is beginning to federate our publisher partner accounts in Brazil and expanding federation in Canada, Germany and the U.K.
Now, people in the fediverse can follow 150 newly federated publisher accounts and 2,000 topically curated Magazines about everything from politics and world news to sports and travel.
Read more in our announcement here:
https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/flipboard-expands-federation-in-brazil-canada-germany-and-u-k/
For a full list of federated accounts to follow, visit the Flipboard directory:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iUFTo6rPvhqzCReLaM1c6-xUKRuBVqlZVStZl9Al-EU
Follow our Mastodon accounts in Brazil and Germany to discover Flipboard accounts to follow and keep up with the day's news:
And as always, tell us in the comments what you think!
#Flipboard #Federation #Fediverse #Germany #Deutschland #Brazil #Canada #Brasil #UnitedKingom #Media #Journalism #News #Technology #Lifestyle #Sports
Edited 203d ago