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Category Archives: AI

Mainframes Find New Life in AI Era

WSJ via MSN:  “Banks, insurance providers and airlines still find uses, including artificial intelligence, for the large computers that have been around for decades The industrial-strength mainframe computer, invented decades ago for heavy-duty data processing, is proving its staying power even as next-generation artificial intelligence takes center stage. The two are interconnected: Banks, insurance providers… Continue Reading

The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI

Cooper, A. Feder and Grimmelmann, James and Grimmelmann, James, The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI (April 22, 2024). Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper Forthcoming, Chicago-Kent Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4803118 – “The New York Times’s copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft alleges that OpenAI’s GPT models have… Continue Reading

The mining of the public domain

Jessamyn West, Librarian.net – “Public.work is a search engine for public domain content.” The site claims to have over 100,000 public domain images. This in and of itself is not that special, but the interface is. It’s gorgeous, a fun and engaging discovery layer where every search becomes a URL that can be shared [example]… Continue Reading

Popular flight-tracking app can now predict delays using machine learning

TechCrunch: “Flighty’s popular flight-tracking app can now predict delays using machine learning Popular flight-tracking app Flighty is releasing a new version on Tuesday that uses machine learning and aviation authority data to provide early warnings of delays and give users the exact reason behind delays.  With the launch of Flight 4.0, the app tracks the… Continue Reading

Public records data must be off-limits for AI

The Hill – “Companies are looking for innovative ways to collect data to feed their data-hungry artificial intelligence systems and create innovative applications. Fortunately, some do not have to go too far. Then, there are the companies that collect data from public records to share on the internet and run analytics. There are many compelling… Continue Reading

OpenAI says its latest GPT-4o model is ‘medium’ risk

The Verge: “OpenAI has released its GPT-4o System Card, a research document that outlines the safety measures and risk evaluations the startup conducted before releasing its latest model. GPT-4o was launched publicly in May of this year. Before its debut, OpenAI used an external group of red teamers, or security experts trying to find weaknesses… Continue Reading

Artificial Intelligence Impacts on Privacy Law

Rand Research Published Aug 8, 2024 -“The European Union (EU)’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act is a landmark piece of legislation that lays out a detailed and wide-ranging framework for the comprehensive regulation of AI deployment in the European Union covering the development, testing, and use of AI. This is one of several reports intended to… Continue Reading

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

TechCrunch: “The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024.… Continue Reading

Scientists are falling victim to deepfake AI video scams here’s how to fight back

Nature: “…But lately the attacks have become more sophisticated, and harder to debunk. “With AI, they can make an image look and speak exactly like me, with my mannerisms,” he says. In one video, he is depicted as saying that people could live to 100 years if they take a certain herbal product. Such videos… Continue Reading

My journey into the surreal, infuriating future of homeowners insurance

Business Insider: “I take privacy and surveillance extremely seriously — so seriously that I started one of the leading think tanks on the topic, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. But while I study surveillance threats around the country for a living, I had no idea that my own insurance company was using my premium dollars… Continue Reading

We need to prepare for ‘addictive intelligence’

MIT Technology Review [unpaywalled] The allure of AI companions is hard to resist. Here’s how innovation in regulation can help protect people. “AI concerns overemphasize harms arising from subversion rather than seduction. Worries about AI often imagine doomsday scenarios where systems escape human control or even understanding. Short of those nightmares, there are nearer-term harms… Continue Reading

Google is finally taking action to curb non-consensual deepfakes

MIT Technology Review [unpaywalled]: “…Last week Google said it is taking steps to keep explicit deepfakes from appearing in search results. The tech giant is making it easier for victims to request that nonconsensual fake explicit imagery be removed. It will also filter all explicit results on similar searches and remove duplicate images. This will prevent… Continue Reading