Scientific American: “Artists and writers are up in arms about generative artificial intelligence systems—understandably so. These machine learning models are only capable of pumping out images and text because they’ve been trained on mountains of real people’s creative work, much of it copyrighted. Major AI developers including OpenAI, Meta and Stability AI now face multiple… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: October 2023
WastewaterSCAN Dashboard
“Participants in WastewaterSCAN are municipal treatment plants in the United States that serve >10,000 people, with some plants serving up to around 4 million people. The goal of analyzing wastewater at this level is to get a picture of infectious disease occurrence at a community population scale. Sampling at this scale covers a population large… Continue Reading
E-Bike Environment and Economics Impact Assessment Calculator
“RMI’s E-Bike Environment and Economics Impact Assessment Calculator for Cities simplifies the process of assessing the impact of mode-shift from electric bikes (e-bikes) for policymakers, transportation officials, advocates, and other interested stakeholders. The tool estimates the impact of e-bikes as a substitute for short vehicle trips, based on a city-wide mode-shift to e-bikes goal; it… Continue Reading
Misinformation Is Soaring Online. Don’t Fall for It
Wired via PodMust: “Misinformation lives everywhere. False accounts of events, doctored photos, and purposely misleading news stories are quickly shared and passed around on social media, usually by well-meaning people who don’t know they’re sharing incorrect information. It’s a big problem in the best of times, but the stakes become much higher during a heated… Continue Reading
Google Brings Generative AI to Search: Here’s What SGE Can Do
Tech Republic: “…SGE allows Google users to generate AI images and text by typing a prompt into the Google Search bar, working much in the same way as AI-powered text-to-image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E 2 and acting as a rival to Microsoft’s GPT-4 powered Bing Chat. Google said SGE could help in situations where… Continue Reading
How Americans View Data Privacy
Pew Research Center – “In an era where every click, tap or keystroke leaves a digital trail, Americans remain uneasy and uncertain about their personal data and feel they have little control over how it’s used. This wariness is even ticking up in some areas like government data collection, according to a new Pew Research… Continue Reading
Longer Commutes, Shorter Lives
The New York Times Magazine – The Costs of Not Investing in America [read free] “For decades, spending on the future put the nation ahead of all others. What would it take to revive that spirit?…The lack of recent progress is not a result of any physical or technological limits. In other parts of the… Continue Reading
How to Get Past a Paywall to Read Some Articles for Free
Lifehacker: “Over the past several years, countless websites have added paywalls: If you want to read their articles, you have to sign up and pay a monthly fee. Some sites have a “metered” paywall—meaning you can read a certain number of articles for free before they ask for money—and others have a hard paywall, where… Continue Reading
Climate-exacerbated wildfires cost the U.S. between $394 to $893 billion each year in economic costs, damages
Joint Economic Committee, Democrats – Report [PDF]: “Wildfires represent a growing threat to the health and well-being of communities across the country. The United States has already seen a devastating string of catastrophic wildfires this year in places like Maui, the western United States, and Louisiana as these disasters become more and more damaging due… Continue Reading
Americans’ Dismal Views of the Nation’s Politics
65% say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics: “Americans have long been critical of politicians and skeptical of the federal government. But today, Americans’ views of politics and elected officials are unrelentingly negative, with little hope of improvement on the horizon. Majorities say the political process is dominated by special interests,… Continue Reading
How standards editors are sorting through graphic images from Israel and Gaza
Via Poynter: How to avoid misinformation about the war in Gaza When journalists find demonstrators’ views personally offensive Amid images and news of actual war, false and misleading claims about Israel-Hamas thrive How standards editors are sorting through graphic images from Israel and Gaza The basics on Israel, Gaza, Palestine and Hamas for local journalists… Continue Reading
Supreme Court’s very brief, very revealing new decision about guns, explaine
Vox: “Late Monday afternoon [October 16, 2023], the Supreme Court handed down a very brief order establishing that sellers of “ghost guns,” weapons that are sold dismantled in ready-to-assemble kits, must comply with the same gun safety laws and anti-crime laws as any other gun seller. At this point you may be experiencing déjà vu,… Continue Reading
