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Category Archives: Microsoft

We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You

Via LLRXWe Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You – If you spend any time online, you probably have some idea that the digital ad industry is constantly collecting data about you, including a lot of personal information, and sorting you into specialized categories so you’re more likely to buy the things they advertise to you. But in a rare look at just how deep—and weird—the rabbit hole of targeted advertising gets, Investigative Data Journalist Jon Keegan and Visualizations Engineer Joel Eastwood, of the The Markup analyzed a database of 650,000 of these audience segments, newly unearthed on the website of Microsoft’s ad platform Xandr. The trove of data indicates that advertisers could also target people based on sensitive information like being “heavy purchasers” of pregnancy test kits, having an interest in brain tumors, being prone to depression, visiting places of worship, or feeling “easily deflated” or that they “get a raw deal out of life.”

Microsoft removed a set of bizarre travel articles made with ‘algorithmic techniques’

Business Insider – But it won’t blame AI: “Microsoft took down a string of embarrassing and offensive travel articles last week. The company said the articles were not published by “unsupervised AI” and blamed “human error.” But the scope of the errors should concern anyone worried about AI’s impact on the news.” See also Tech… Continue Reading

What is Bing Chat? Here’s everything you need to know

ZDNet: “Microsoft is on a hot streak for releasing updates to its AI chatbot, powered by the same technology behind ChatGPT. And anyone can give Bing Chat a try — no waitlist or Microsoft account needed…With the new Bing, you can ask the AI chatbot questions and get detailed, human-like responses with footnotes that link… Continue Reading

Facebook could be tracking your online Plan B or HIV test purchases

Popular Science: “Looking for an at-home HIV test on CVS’ website is not as private an experience as one might think. An investigation by The Markup and KFF Health News found trackers on CVS.com telling some of the biggest social media and advertising platforms the products customers viewed. And CVS is not the only pharmacy… Continue Reading

‘AI Arms Race’: Privacy Class Action Claims ChatGPT Is ‘Catastrophic Risk to Humanity’

Law.com – The lawsuit likens Open AI’s alleged privacy violations to complaints against Clearview AI for scraping photos off the internet for commercial gain: “A proposed class action lawsuit against Open AI and ChatGPT investor Microsoft Corp. is seeking a court order requiring the generative artificial-intelligence platform to stop its alleged secret “harvesting” of personal… Continue Reading

Microsoft Is Bringing OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI model to US Government Agencies

Bloomberg [free link] “Microsoft Corp. will make it possible for users of its Azure Government cloud computing service, which include a variety of US agencies, to access artificial intelligence models from ChatGPT creator OpenAI. Microsoft, which is the largest investor in OpenAI and uses its technology to power its Bing chatbot, plans to announce Wednesday… Continue Reading

Thomson Reuters brings forward vision to redefine the future of professionals with content-driven AI technology

“Thomson Reuters plugin with Microsoft 365 Copilot helps unlock the value of generative AI for legal professionals  a global content and technology company, today brings forward its vision to redefine the future of professionals through generative artificial intelligence (AI). At a time of rapid global innovation, Thomson Reuters is at the forefront, helping its customers… Continue Reading

Upgrade Your Browser With a ChatGPT Sidebar

Lifehacker: “Microsoft Edge, and only Microsoft Edge, employs artificial intelligence as your browser co-pilot, thanks to the integrated Bing sidebar. But nothing is stopping you, or clever developers, from adding a ChatGPT sidebar to any Chrome-based browser—a tool that will help you generate summaries, ask research questions, find similar pages, and more. The ChitChat ChatGPT… Continue Reading

EU names 19 large tech platforms that must follow Europe’s new Internet rules

Ars Technica: “The European Commission will require 19 large online platforms and search engines to comply with new online content regulations starting on August 25, European officials said. The EC specified which companies must comply with the rules for the first time, announcing today that it “adopted the first designation decisions under the Digital Services… Continue Reading