ProPublica – Reporting Highlights Tax Dodge: Most working Americans have to pay Medicare taxes, but some of the richest figures on Wall Street have found a way to opt out, a ProPublica investigation found. Accidental Loophole: Nearly 50 years ago, Congress tried to fix one financial abuse but unwittingly created an obscure loophole that these… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Generative AI Is My Research and Writing Partner. Should I Disclose It?
Wired (unpaywalled) – “If I use an AI tool for research or to help me create something, should I cite it in my completed work as a source? How do you properly give attribution to AI tools when you use them …Distinguishing between research and composition is a crucial first step. If I’m using generative… Continue Reading
Pre-Bunking A Strategy for Fighting BS
The Grassroots Connector – “…Pre-bunking uses videos, social media, even an online game to help people detect the age-old tactics of misinformation. These tactics, familiar to most of us but seemingly undetected among FOX News addicts, include: scapegoating, impersonation, emotional and/or divisive language, gaslighting, red herrings, conspiracy theories, and a dozen other garden variety deceits.… Continue Reading
How AARP Shills for UnitedHealthcare
American Propspect Robert Kuttner: ” Why does the supposed advocate for the elderly steer them to the industry’s worst insurer? We still don’t know quite why the assassin of Brian Thompson targeted the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. But it’s hardly a secret that UnitedHealthcare has the worst record among all large insurers in denying necessary medical… Continue Reading
The Origin of Delay, Deny, Defend
Kottke: “The Origin of Delay, Deny, Defend – In the wake of the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, a book published in 2010 by Rutgers Law professor Jay Feinman has hit the bestseller charts: Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. The book’s title is a reference to… Continue Reading
The short-term impact of AI adoption on firm productivity
Toronto Metropolitan University – The Dais – Waiting For Takeoff, December 2024: “Executive Summary – Artificial intelligence (AI) is the most discussed technology of recent years. Advocates promise that it will help overcome productivity challenges and radically transform the economy through increased wage gains and higher economic output, among other benefits. This conversation about the… Continue Reading
We’re about to enter the Digital Dark Ages
The Business Insider – Online archives are vanishing — and they’re taking our history with them. “The long-promised digital apocalypse has finally arrived, and it was heralded by a blog post. Published on July 18, the post’s headline sounded pretty arcane. “Google URL Shortener links will no longer be available,” it declared. I know, I… Continue Reading
Guide to Abortion Privacy – Digital Defense Fund
Keep Your Abortion Private & Secure – This page is organized into different security-related threats. You can jump to the ones that most concern you. Along with each scenario is a list of digital security tips to neutralize the threats. These are possible concerns you might have: Seeing advertisements related to pregnancy/abortion Tech companies like… Continue Reading
Washington Post Leverages ‘AI’ To Undermine History And Make Search Less Useful
TechDirt: “While “AI” (language learning models) certainly could help journalism, the fail upward brunchlords in charge of most modern media outlets instead see the technology as a way to cut corners, undermine labor, badly automate low-quality, ultra-low effort, SEO-chasing clickbait, and rush undercooked solutions to nonexistent problems to market under the pretense of progress. For example,… Continue Reading
Oceanic Impunity
Cody, Stephen, Oceanic Impunity (July 31, 2024). Southern California Law Review, Vol.97, No.3, p.637, 2024, Suffolk University Law School Research Paper No. 24-10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4912229 – “Ocean protection is essential to avoid climate disaster. Phytoplankton,seaweeds, and sea grasses produce more than half of Earth’s oxygen—exceeding all terrestrial forests and plants combined—and absorb about… Continue Reading
Arctic tundra becoming source of carbon dioxide emissions
NOAA: “After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution. The transition of the Arctic from a carbon sink to a carbon source is one of… Continue Reading
Location data firm helps police find out when suspects visited their doctor
Ars Technica: “A location-tracking company that sells its services to police departments is apparently using addresses and coordinates of doctors’ and lawyers’ offices and other types of locations to help cops compile lists of places visited by suspects, according to a 404 Media report published today. Fog Data Science, which says it “harness[es] the power… Continue Reading
