Library of Congress, Twitter, American Journalism Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023

Library of Congress, Twitter, American Journalism Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: Celebrating 5 Years of By the People. “By the People (BtP), the Library of Congress crowdsourced transcription program, is taking a moment this winter to look back on how we’ve grown and celebrate our 5th year! As we’ve shared in earlier birthday celebrations, BtP was originally incubated in 2018 by the LC Labs team and was designed to engage volunteers by inviting them to explore and transcribe documents from the Library’s digital collections.”

Washington Post: Elon Musk promised an anti-‘woke’ chatbot. It’s not going as planned.. “Two weeks after the Dec. 8 launch of Grok to paid subscribers of X, formerly Twitter, Musk is fielding complaints from the political right that the chatbot gives liberal responses to questions about diversity programs, transgender rights and inequality.”

Medium: Exploring emerging technologies: an update on our Product & AI Studio. “This summer, the American Journalism Project launched our new Product & AI Studio, a new program to explore the smart application of emerging technologies in local journalism…. Today, we’re excited to share an update on the progress the Product & AI Studio has made so far.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Journal: Santa Tracker 2023: Google Vs. Microsoft, Bing, AWS, And NORAD. “Are you looking for examples of interactive content for brands? Or festive content that creatively promotes logistics and call center management? Say hello to Santa Tracker 2023. This article explores Google’s approach to interactive content experiences vs. the official 2023 NORAD Santa Tracker powered by Microsoft, Bing, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Zillow.”

Malta Today: Electoral Office to scan all Malta buildings in Google-type mapping. “The electoral office is to carry out a €900,000 geo-mapping of Malta’s building units, in a Google-type photographic survey using low-emission cars. The Electoral Office said it wants to consolidate its records of addresses with spatially accurate points that also reflect the rapidly changing streetscapes of Malta.”

The Verge: Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content. “This latest clash over moderation comes after The Atlantic reported on Substack publications with ‘overt Nazi symbols’ in their logos, several from prominent white nationalists, and other posts on Substack supporting those views. McKenzie’s response explains that absent an incitement to violence, Substack’s ‘decentralized approach to content moderation’ response to that material is to publish it, monetize it, and continue to take a cut of the profits.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Europol: Action against digital skimming reveals 443 compromised online merchants. “Europol, law enforcement authorities from 17 countries and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) have joined forces with the private sector partners, including Group-IB and Sansec, to fight digital skimming attacks. With the support of national Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT), the two-month action has enabled Europol and its partners to notify 443 online merchants that their customers’ credit card or payment card data had been compromised.”

Association of Health Care Journalists: Court rules California can share firearm owner data with researchers. “A California appeals court in November overturned a ruling that barred the state from sharing the personal information of registered gun owners for research purposes. The ruling, which overturned a San Diego Superior Court decision that such data-sharing violates privacy, was a win for the state’s firearm researchers, particularly the Firearm Violence Research Center based at UC Davis.”

Techdirt: Utah’s Top Court Says Government Can’t Portray Refusals To Unlock Phones As Incriminatory. “There’s been plenty of courtroom discussion about Fifth Amendment rights surrounding compelled decryption in recent years. Encryption is on by default on most devices these days. Law enforcement seems to believe all it needs is a warrant to compel decryption. Courts aren’t so sure.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

XDA Developers: Why LLMs like ChatGPT and Google Bard are bad at math. “When it comes to large language models (LLM), you might think they’re a silver bullet to most of your problems. You can have it plan your day or ask it almost anything, knowing it will do its utmost best to give you a comprehensive answer. However, there’s one thing you should never rely on an LLM for, and that’s math. To be clear, LLMs can be trained on large mathematical datasets to recognize patterns and, with smaller numbers, get close to real answers. Even then, though, you’re better off just using a calculator.”

Ethan Zuckerman: How Big is YouTube?. “I’ll write at some length in the future about what we can learn from a true random sample of YouTube videos. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the idea of ‘the quotidian web’, learning from the bottom half of the long tail of user-generated media so we can understand what most creators are doing with these tools, not just from the most successful influencers. But I’m going to limit myself to the question that started this blog post: how big is YouTube?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

GamesRadar: After 23 years, developer reveals he snuck a cheat code past Sony that turns a cult-classic horror game into a godsend for retro enthusiasts. “Argonaut Games’ cult classic survival horror FPS Alien Resurrection has been hiding a secret for 23 years: it contains a cheat code that lets you play backup disks on PS1 without having to mod the hardware at all.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 25, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Kukla Fran and Ollie, Guyana Animation Network, Online Safety, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023

Kukla Fran and Ollie, Guyana Animation Network, Online Safety, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me and discovered via a circuitous route it would take far too long to explain: an ongoing project/fundraising effort to digitize existing episodes of the 1950s television program “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” and make them available on YouTube. The channel has been around for at least 13 years but it looks like the uploading really took off in the last three years.

Guyana Chronicle: First screenwriters’ database launched. “THE Guyana Animation Network Inc (GAN) is inviting talented screenwriters and scriptwriters from Guyana and the Caribbean to register and be a part of its first screenwriters’ database which is geared at enabling these writers in animation, film and television to gain access to screenwriting opportunities, locally and internationally.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Spot the Real Download Button on Websites. “One of the most annoying types of ads on the internet is fake download buttons. You think you’re downloading something, but instead, you end up with malware, junkware, or phishing sites. Here are some tips to help you spot and avoid fake download buttons.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: A song of hype and fire: The 10 biggest AI stories of 2023. “‘Here, There, and Everywhere’ isn’t just a Beatles song. It’s also a phrase that recalls the spread of generative AI into the tech industry during 2023. Whether you think AI is just a fad or the dawn of a new tech revolution, it’s been impossible to deny that AI news has dominated the tech space for the past year.”

DefenseScoop: Air Force Academy moves to monitor social media for potential cadet misconduct. “The U.S. Air Force Academy aims to hire a contractor that can closely monitor popular social media platforms for posts and content that violate national laws and its official policies — or display potential hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, or harassment of or by its cadets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Crypto scammers abuse Twitter ‘feature’ to impersonate high-profile accounts. “Cryptocurrency scammers are abusing a legitimate Twitter ‘feature’ to promote scams, fake giveaways, and fraudulent Telegram channels used to steal your crypto and NFTs.”

HathiTrust: HathiTrust Files Brief to Support Libraries’ Fair Use Rights. “HathiTrust has filed an amicus brief in Hachette Book Group et al vs Internet Archive, a US federal lawsuit addressing ‘controlled digital lending’ (CDL).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

US Government Accountability Office: Artificial Intelligence in Natural Hazard Modeling: Severe Storms, Hurricanes, Floods, and Wildfires. “GAO found that machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses algorithms to identify patterns in information, is being applied to forecasting models for natural hazards such as severe storms, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, which can lead to natural disasters. A few machine learning models are used operationally—in routine forecasting—such as one that may improve the warning time for severe storms. Some uses of machine learning are considered close to operational, while others require years of development and testing.”

The Next Web: AI beats humans for the first time in physical skill game. “AI’s ability to beat human players in games like chess and GO is no longer surprising. After all, artificial intelligence has proved it can outperform its animate creators in certain tasks, especially when it comes to processing and analysing information. But physical skill has remained a human prerogative — until now.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Make: Here Are The Winners Of The Build2Gether Accessibility Challenge. “Back in July, the Build2Gether Accessibility challenge launched, calling on members of the maker community to design and build solutions to a few specific topics. The time has come to share the winners! There were 3 main categories, each with a grand prize winner and runners up.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 25, 2023 at 01:11AM
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Company of Merchant Adventurers of York, Public Domain, Maze Generator, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023

Company of Merchant Adventurers of York, Public Domain, Maze Generator, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of York: New archive reveals snapshot of a wartime Christmas in York. “The records, which date back to the 12th century, consist of nearly 300 boxes of material which have now been fully catalogued and published online. The archive documents the rich history of the [Company of Merchant Adventurers of York] and their Hall, which have been central to the commercial life of the City of York for over 655 years.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Public Domain Review: What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2024? . “At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain and become free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose. Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain — and here we focus on three of the most prominent.”

USEFUL STUFF

Useful for a given value of useful, but I think it’s neat. Boing Boing: A simple maze generator . “Alance AB’s Maze Generator exemplifies the simple, get-what’s-promised web. Choose several different shapes of maze, set the desired size, click and amaze yourself.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Houston Chronicle: Houston Public Library’s Latino archive is a trove of Hispanic history. Critics say it’s neglected. . “The library’s Latino archives, documenting one of the largest Hispanic populations in the country, are languishing, critics said, due to decades of underfunding and disregard from Houston Public Library leadership — even after recent efforts to revamp the collections.”

Gothamist: Some TikTok users go viral by complaining about the city. New Yorkers have had enough. . “People in videos rant about how there isn’t much to do in the city but go out for drinks and dinner. Another transplant complained about the lack of a Whole Foods in the Bronx – and wound up getting fired after accusations of racism. In early December, TikTok user Sliimkim found herself in the center of a viral storm, after posting a video about being unable to dress in her expensive clothing on the subway out of a fear that she’ll get robbed.”

Mint (India): Fake AI-generated Amul cheese doing rounds on social media, Amul says…. “Milk and dairy products major Amul has dismissed social media rumours about the launch of a new cheese brand. The fake claims are being circulated online via social media and WhatsApp.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: NY Proposes Mandated Open Access To Social Media APIs. “NY state senator Brad Holyman-Sigal has introduced a bill to require social media websites to provide an openly accessible API for others to build on top of.”

CBS New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul signs bill granting government access to previously hidden LLC records. “Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill Saturday that was intended to make it easier to find out who owns a building in New York state. Many companies are registered to Limited Liability Corporations, and shell companies. The sponsors of the bill Hochul signed released a statement however critiquing the elimination of a key part of the bill – the creation of a public database that would’ve listed the names of those who benefit from those LLCs.”

Court News Ohio: Amusement Park Police Must Provide Records Requested by TV Stations. “The Cedar Point Police Department must turn over records requested by three Ohio television stations, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today. The Supreme Court unanimously concluded the amusement park’s police department is the ‘functional equivalent’ of a public office, noting that park officers report to the Sandusky city manager by city ordinance and carry out the core functions of government.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Copenhagen: AI can spot suicidal tendencies among young people. “An increasing number of young people are attempting suicide. While old methods of assessing risk factors have limited effect, artificial intelligence can help spot the most important warning signs. This is according to a new research project from the University of Copenhagen.”

Clemson University: Clemson Media Forensics Hub digs into Russian ‘narrative laundering’. “‘Olena Zelenska spends $1,000,000 on Cartier jewelry, gets sales employee fired’ — readers in Nigeria may have seen this headline on the news website The Nation in early October. The story about Ukraine’s first lady was also carried on other news sites in African nations and spread on social media. But according to researchers with Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, the story is a complete fabrication, created and spread by Russian influencers through a process called ‘narrative laundering.'”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Max Planck Society: New computational tool detects up to second to third degree cousins using ancient genomes. “Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Harvard in the USA have developed a new tool which enables them to identify prehistoric and historic individuals’ relatives up to the sixth degree. Previous methods worked only up to the third degree. This innovation will help scientists identify yet unknown ties between ancient individuals and cultures.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 24, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Ukraine Christmas Cards, Alaska Spending Transparency, Local LLMs, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 23, 2023

Ukraine Christmas Cards, Alaska Spending Transparency, Local LLMs, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New Voice of Ukraine: Digital archive captures charms of Ukraine’s cultural heritage through collation of historic Xmas cards. “The team of snig.digital design bureau has created a project that has collected dozens of old postcards from Ukrainian illustrators of the past.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Anchorage Daily News: One year and $250,000 later, Alaska’s new spending database has not been launched. “Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration has missed a legal deadline to expand Alaska’s public spending database to some of its most heavily scrutinized state corporations, prompting a written complaint from the state senator who pushed the overhaul.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: You Can Run a Generative AI Locally on Your Computer. “You may have already tested out generative AI engines such as ChatGPT and Google Bard. But while it’s popular to accesses these tools in the cloud, you can also install them locally on your own computer. There are some real benefits to doing so: It’s more private, of course, and you won’t get hit by any warnings about the AI being over capacity or unavailable. Also, it’s just kind of cool.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: No Oversight: Inside a Boom-Time Start-Up Fraud and Its Unraveling. “After Manish Lachwani founded the Silicon Valley software start-up HeadSpin in 2015, he inflated the company’s revenue numbers by nearly fourfold and falsely claimed that firms including Apple and American Express were customers. He showed a profit where there were losses. He used HeadSpin’s cash to make risky trades on tech stocks. And he created fake invoices to cover it all up. What was especially breathtaking was how easily Mr. Lachwani, now 48, pulled all that off.”

Sul Ross State University: Archives of the Big Bend welcomes three new collections. “The Archives of the Big Bend is proud to share the news of three new collections available for viewing and research starting in the Spring of 2024. Over the last several months, the Archives acquired three sizeable donations, including Fort Davis National Historic Site’s entire microfilm collection, the John Gage Ketzle Collection and the Don Burgess Collection.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

US Government Accountability Office: Protecting American Research from Foreign Theft . “The United States is a global leader in science and technology. Part of our strength comes from the open exchange of ideas and collaboration among researchers, including across international borders. But some foreign governments are exploiting that openness to acquire U.S. research and technology, both legally and illegally. One of many potential targets is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which employs about 1,400 researchers.”

The Hindu: City Police issue advisory on Google Map Scam. “The Greater Chennai City Police have issued an advisory on Google Map Scam to which a few people have already fallen prey and lost their money.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Public health agencies are using AI chatbots to ease workloads. Is it a good idea?. “Public health agencies may lose 130,000 workers by 2025. Low salaries, burnout, and other factors are driving employees away. Better funding, aligned to deal with the real risk of future pandemics, would help to keep programs running smoothly, but government investment in public health has historically followed a boom-and-bust cycle—and it looks like that will continue for the foreseeable future. As a result, health departments are looking for ways to do more with less. Increasingly they may be looking toward a problematic but perhaps effective solution: artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

University of Southern California: AI could help in the early diagnosis of autism, USC study finds. “Previous studies have shown it is possible to use technology to categorize autism from typically developing individuals, but it can be difficult to distinguish autism from other similar developmental disorders. For example, developmental coordination disorder — primarily a motor skills disorder — has features that overlap with autism. Children with autism spectrum disorder often have both motor and sensory deficits in addition to the social deficits that are the hallmark of the disorder.”

Washington Post: To get the public’s trust, open the database. “The article quoted Attorney General Merrick Garland as saying, ‘No law enforcement agency — including the Justice Department — can effectively do its work without the trust of the public.’ But the new database will be secret and not open to the public. So how can it help build public trust if the public can’t identify and see the records of law enforcement officers who have been reprimanded for misconduct? The database should be open to the public.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 24, 2023 at 02:31AM
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Colonial-Era Philippines Photography, arXiv, Google, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 23, 2023

Colonial-Era Philippines Photography, arXiv, Google, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cornell Chronicle: Digitized images illuminate U.S. colonial period in the Philippines. “A scientific explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture, Gerow D. Brill (Class of 1888) traveled across the Philippines in 1902 and photographed placid scenes of rice fields, coconut groves, sugar mills, duck farms, and thatch-roofed villages. But his idyllic images also illuminate the tumultuous U.S. annexation of the archipelago in the aftermath of the Philippine-American War, according to Claire Cororaton, a Ph.D. student in history at Cornell.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

arXiv: Accessibility update: arXiv now offers papers in HTML format. “arXiv’s goal is equitable access to scientific research for all – and to achieve this, we have been working to make research papers more accessible for arXiv users with disabilities. We are happy to announce that as of Monday, December 18th, arXiv is now generating an HTML formatted version of all papers submitted in TeX/LaTeX (as long as papers were submitted on or after December 1st, 2023 and HTML conversion is successful – more on this below).”

9to5Google: Google rolling out ‘AI support assistant’ chatbot to provide product help. “Over the past year, Google has been working to add generative AI to its products. The latest application of that is a new ‘AI support assistant’ live on some Google Help pages.”

Engadget: Google tweaks Memory Saver and tab group features in latest Chrome update. “Google Chrome is getting new security and performance features. The web browser’s latest version (M12) upgrades Safety Check and Memory Saver while adding the ability to save tab groups.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Journal: Google Search Overwhelmed By Massive Spam Attack. “Google’s search results have been hit by a spam attack for the past few days in what can only be described as completely out of control. Many domains are ranking for hundreds of thousands of keywords each, an indication that the scale of this attack could easily reach into the millions of keyword phrases.”

openDemocracy: Digital giants are profiting from harmful ‘vaginal detox’ products in Kenya. “Some ‘vaginal detox’ products, which doctors warn are ‘associated with injuries, bleeding, and infections’, have been banned in Canada. In the US, a class action lawsuit was filed against Goddess Detox, the company whose ‘pearls’ were barred from sale by Health Canada. Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle company Goop was also sued and fined $145,000 in 2018 by a US court for false advertising of ‘jade eggs’. Goop had claimed the product, different from yoni pearls but similarly intended for vaginal insertion, had a range of health benefits.”

ZDNet: What developers trying out Google Gemini should know about their data. “Developers who have jumped in to try out Google Gemini for free should know their data might be used to train its generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, including those that power Google AI Studio and Gemini Pro.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google play deal frustrates critics of steep app developer fees. “For all the incremental changes that the Google settlement offers, it won’t dismantle the fee structure. Google will still rake in profits because the settlement extends to all developers a program that calls for a service fee of as much as 26 per cent — not much less than the current 30 per cent commission rate charged to developers that make more than US$1 million in sales each year.”

Reuters: EU targets Pornhub, XVideos under new content rules. “The European Union added three adult content companies ― Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos ― to its list of firms subject to stringent regulations under new online content rules, the bloc’s industry chief Thierry Breton said on Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Social media posts may be viewed differently by others to how users perceive themselves. “In a new study, viewers of Facebook users’ posts came away with perceptions of the users that differed from the users’ own self-perceptions. Qi Wang and colleagues at Cornell University, New York, US, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 20, 2023.”

MuckRock: MuckRock survey of FOIA fees points to uneven picture across the U.S.: From $2 in Washington state to $431 per request in Idaho. “MuckRock surveyed nonprofit Freedom of Information and press clubs in all 50 states and three U.S. territories to gauge the relative strength and limitations of their open-records laws and associated fees. Some groups pointed to egregious examples where governments charged exorbitant fees for records, like one state agency in Georgia that estimated that one of its datasets would cost a newsroom $17 million. At least 25 states and territories allowed for some type of fee waiver or exemption but just 10 of those specifically referenced media requestors in those decisions.”

Search Engine Land: Google’s shifting approach to AI content: An in-depth look. “A deep dive into the proliferation of AI-generated content, its impact on search quality, and the future of combating spam.” Great read. Good morning, Internet…

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December 23, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Soviet-Era Ukrainian Newspapers, ChatGPT, British Library, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 22, 2023

Soviet-Era Ukrainian Newspapers, ChatGPT, British Library, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Center for Research Libraries: Global Press Archive CRL Alliance Launches Second Ukrainian Collection. “East View Information Services and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) have launched Soviet-Era Ukrainian Newspapers (SEUN), the sixth in-copyright collection of titles produced under the Global Press Archive (GPA) CRL Alliance, available now to all CRL member institutions.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Lifehacker: You Can Now Hide Your ChatGPT Chats (Without Deleting Them). “If you use it often, your ChatGPT sidebar is probably filled with old and unnecessary conversations you barely use. There might even be some sensitive conversations you don’t want anyone to see. (What’s happens on ChatGPT stays on ChatGPT.) Until now, the only way to get rid of a conversation from the sidebar was to delete it, which meant you’d need to export the chat itself to another place if you had any interest in preservation. But now, ChatGPT has added an option to archive chats without actually deleting them.”

British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog: Interim information sources for British Library manuscripts. “We are extremely grateful to everyone for their kind words since the recent cyber-attack. We’ve now expanded our temporary website where you can find more information about our available services…. we would like to share with you a list of freely available printed and online resources that provide information about our ancient, medieval and early modern manuscripts.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 10 Alternatives to Google Analytics to Consider. “There are other tools available that might offer a more tailored approach to understanding your site’s visitor data. These alternatives can provide insights that allow you to optimize your website based on user preferences. If you’re exploring other possibilities, here are 10 tools you might consider as alternatives to Google Analytics.”

Larry Ferlazzo: This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom. “At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM. Here are the latest.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

VICE: At Leading Anti-Hate Group, Boss’s Embrace of Elon Musk Raises Tensions. “Late last year, Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, joined CNBC to discuss Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and said something that shocked his rank-and-file employees. ‘Elon Musk is an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator,’ he said. ‘He is the Henry Ford of our time.'”

TechCrunch: The first annual VTuber Awards was a win for VR. “Filian, a streamer with over 766,000 Twitch followers, hosted the first annual VTuber Awards last weekend. Like many VTubers — a portmanteau of ‘virtual YouTuber’ — Filian keeps her identity secret, and instead of showing her real face, streams using a digital model. Filian was physically hosting the ceremony from an enclosed green box in WePlay’s Los Angeles studio, a space typically used for esports events.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: FTC suggests new rules to shift parents’ burden of protecting kids to websites. “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently seeking comments on new rules that would further restrict platforms’ efforts to monetize children’s data.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

LiveScience: Biased AI can make doctors’ diagnoses less accurate. “The research, published Tuesday (Dec. 19) in the JAMA, tested a specific AI system designed to help doctors reach a diagnosis. They found that it did indeed help clinicians more accurately diagnose patients, and if the AI ‘explained’ how it made its decision, their accuracy increased even more. But when the researchers tested an AI that was programmed to be intentionally biased toward giving specific diagnoses to patients with certain attributes, its use decreased the clinicians’ accuracy.”

Newswise: Who wrote it? The AI ghostwriter effect. “Large language models (LLMs) radically speed up text production in a variety of use cases. When they are fed with samples of our individual writing style, they are even able to produce texts that sound as though we ourselves wrote them. In other words, they act as AI ghostwriters creating texts on our behalf. As with human ghostwriting, this raises a number of questions on authorship and ownership.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 23, 2023 at 01:41AM
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Malta Political Funding, Community Connections, Daniel Johnston, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 22, 2023

Malta Political Funding, Community Connections, Daniel Johnston, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Lovin Malta: Millions In Unattributed Donations: New Database Of Malta’s Political Party Funds Launched. “The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation has launched an impressive database providing a unique overview of political party donations as well as MPs’ declarations of wealth and deposits in Malta.”

DigitalNC: Community Connections, LGBTQ+ Publication from the 1980s-2000s, Encouraged and Mobilized Community . “Issues of CLOSER and it’s successor, Community Connections, have been shared online thanks to Buncombe County Public Libraries and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The issues date from 1987-2002.”

The Line of Best Fit: Daniel Johnston’s 20th century discography is available in full on Bandcamp. “Daniel Johnston in the 20th Century is the first phase of an ongoing project to create a permanent archive for Johnston’s complete recorded output, available to the public on Bandcamp. This ambitious series will continue in 2024 with Daniel Johnston in the 21st Century, which promises a monthly release of 12 titles throughout the year, featuring a subscription option for dedicated fans.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Genealogy’s Star: Welcome to the Brand New MyHeritage Wiki. “During this past year, it was my honor and privilege to assist in developing the new MyHeritage Wiki, along with other talented writers and software developers. As with all wikis, you have to start with a concept and a design. The new MyHeritage wiki has both an outstanding concept and clean and uncluttered design.”

Google Blog: Our favorite Chrome extensions of 2023. “Every year, developers build unique and creative Chrome extensions to help with everything from productivity to accessibility on the web. And 2023 was certainly no exception. From saving money while online shopping to quickly translating websites, here are some of our favorite extensions from the year.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: It’s easy to trick Chevrolet’s AI chatbot into selling you a car for a dollar—but don’t expect them to honor the deal. “Enjoy today’s example of prompt injection, courtesy of the mindless corporate thirst for replacing expensive humans with cheap machines. The links in this post go to Twitter, where rare joy is at hand. Chris Bakke is having AI’s cake and eating Chevrolet’s too.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google fixes 8th Chrome zero-day exploited in attacks this year. “Google has released emergency updates to fix another Chrome zero-day vulnerability exploited in the wild, the eighth patched since the start of the year.”

BBC: How pro-Russian ‘yacht’ propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid. “A website founded by a former US Marine who now lives in Russia has fuelled a rumour that Volodymyr Zelensky purchased two luxury yachts with American aid money. Despite the false claim, the disinformation plot was successful. It took off online and was echoed by members of the US Congress making crucial decisions about military spending.”

NBC News: Jan. 6 rioter nabbed in Bumble dating app sting pleads guilty to assaulting officers . “Nearly three years ago, a young professional in the nation’s capital was sitting in her apartment after the Jan. 6 attack and saw that the FBI was looking for help identifying the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. So she opened up the Bumble dating app, changed her political beliefs to conservative and got to swiping…. On Wednesday, one of the Bumble users she turned in to the FBI pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers with chemical spray and a metal whip.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Carnegie Mellon University: CMU-Designed Artificially Intelligent Coscientist Automates Scientific Discovery. “The system, called Coscientist, was designed by Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Gabe Gomes and chemical engineering doctoral students Daniil Boiko and Robert MacKnight. It uses large language models (LLMs), including OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude, to execute the full range of the experimental process with a simple, plain language prompt.”

US Department of Health and Human Services: HHS Releases New Data Strategy to Enhance Data Capabilities and Accelerate Progress on Cancer Moonshot Goals. “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released its Data Strategy, which seeks to further realize the Department’s mission by advancing its management and use of data to improve human health outcomes. It envisions data that is available, accessible, timely, equitable, meaningfully usable, and protected–and can be effectively used by HHS, its partners, and the public.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: Microsoft releases downloadable tool to fix phantom HP printer installations. “The December 2023 Microsoft Printer Metadata Troubleshooter Tool is available for all affected Windows versions, and it will remove all references to the phantom HP LaserJet model (as long as you don’t have one installed, anyway). The tool will also remove the HP Smart app as long as you don’t have an HP printer attached and the app was installed after November 25, presumably the date that the bug began affecting systems.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 22, 2023 at 06:31PM
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