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Daily Archives: February 1, 2023

Can ChatGPT help me at the office? We put the AI chatbot to the test.

Washington Post: “If ChatGPT, the buzzy new chatbot from Open AI, wrote this story, it would say: “As companies look to streamline their operations and increase productivity, many are turning to artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT to assist their employees in completing tasks. But can workers truly rely on these AI programs to take on more and more responsibilities, or will they ultimately fall short of expectations? Not great, but not bad, right? Workers are experimenting with ChatGPT for tasks like writing emails, producing code or even completing a year-end review. The bot uses data from the internet, books and Wikipedia to produce conversational responses. But the technology isn’t perfect. Our tests found that it sometimes offers responses that potentially include plagiarism, contradict itself, are factually incorrect or have grammatical errors, to name a few — all of which could be problematic at work. ChatGPT is basically a predictive-text system, similar but better than those built into text-messaging apps on your phone, says Jacob Andreas, assistant professor at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory who studies natural language processing. While that often produces responses that sound good, the content may have some problems, he said. “If you look at some of these really long ChatGPT-generated essays, it’s very easy to see places where it contradicts itself,” he said. “When you ask it to generate code, it’s mostly correct, but often there are bugs.” We wanted to know how well ChatGPT could handle everyday office tasks. Here’s what we found after tests in five categories…”

Society isn’t changing fast enough to stop climate change: study

The Hill: “A new report has found that significant social change is needed to halt catastrophic climate change — and society isn’t changing fast enough. Keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius — the limit set in the Paris Agreement — is implausible for social reasons, not technical ones, according to the Hamburg Climate Outlook, published… Continue Reading

Iffy Index of Unreliable Sources

“The Iffy Index of Unreliable Sources compiles credibility ratings by Media Bias/Fact Check. MBFC has substantial experience, comprehensiveness, transparency, accountability, and currency in reviewing news sites (details in methodology). Peer-reviewed studies, health/media guides, and mis/disinfo tools all use the Iffy Index. Political leaning is not a factor. The Iffy Index includes only sites that MBFC rates as Low Credibility rating… Continue Reading

NASA partners with IBM to build AI foundation models to advance climate science

VentureBeat: U.S. space agency NASA isn’t just concerned about exploring outer space, it’s also concerned about helping humanity to learn more about the planet Earth and the impacts of climate change. Today, NASA and IBM announced a partnership that will see the development of new artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models to help analyze geospatial satellite… Continue Reading

At the Supreme Court, ethics questions over a spouse’s business ties

The New York Times: “After Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court, his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, gave up her career as a law firm partner to become a high-end legal recruiter in an effort to alleviate potential conflicts of interest. Jane Roberts later recalled in an interview that her husband’s job made it… Continue Reading

New GPO Sponsored Webinars

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): A New Window to the Infrared Universe; Dr. Louis Barbier (National Aeronautics and Space Administration); Wednesday, February 1, 2023; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. (EST) Role of Regulations.gov in the Federal Rulemaking Process; Tobias Schroeder (General Services Administration); Wednesday, February 8, 2023; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. (EST): Prices and Wages… Continue Reading

Elon Musk and the new EU rules for transparency for platforms

Tech Policy Press: “Billionaire Twitter CEO Elon Musk continues to face a wave of criticism for his capricious decisions, especially from Brussels and Berlin. Yet, the EU owes Musk a debt of gratitude, says Julian Jaursch, a project director at the not-for-profit think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV) in Berlin Germany. Musk is involuntarily proving… Continue Reading

Records Released In Response to Presidential Records Act (PRA) questions under the Trump Administration

NARA: “NARA officials are often consulted about the management of presidential and federal records. The Presidential Records Act governs access to records after the end of an administration. The National Archives received records from the Trump Administration, which ended on January 20, 2021. We are in the process of preserving and providing access to these records, including all… Continue Reading