Ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Stephen Goforth
Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them. Once the precious moment of falling in love has passed and the boundaries have snapped back in place, the individual is disillusioned. Real love (the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth) is a permanently self enlarging experience. Falling in love is not.
M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
While many academics may scorn the idea of outsourcing article summaries to generative AI, a new investigation by researchers at Ontario’s University of Waterloo found peer reviewers rated abstracts written by humans—but paraphrased using generative AI—far more highly than those authored without algorithmic assistance. -Inside Higher Ed
One of life’s great paradoxes: Happiness requires purpose; purpose requires a sense of direction; a sense of direction requires goal-setting—but happiness cannot be had by realizing those goals. People believe that achieving big objectives will give them a lot of happiness and then are bitterly disappointed to find that doing so is a letdown. After a big achievement, many people experience depression. True satisfaction comes from progress in the struggle toward the goal.
Arthur C. Brooks writing in The Atlantic
Biden ratchets up AI chip war with China - Axios
AI enters Congress: Sexually explicit deepfakes target women lawmakers – 19th News
The case for a Hippocratic Oath for artificial intelligence – Global Government Forum
U.S. Prepares New AI Chip Restrictions to Close China’s Backdoor Access – Wall Street Journal
Trump names Musk ally David Sacks "AI & crypto czar" to coordinate policy – Axios
AI without limits threatens public trust — here are some guidelines for preserving communications integrity – The Conversation
How US AI policy might change under Trump – MIT Tech Review
What the departing White House chief tech advisor has to say on AI – MIT Tech Review
How do you tame AI? Scientist sees a need for regulating bots like drugs or airplanes - Geekwire
A plan to democratize access to powerful AI tools gets a last-ditch push in Congress – Semafor
Western Europe lags behind the United States in Al and IT spending - McKinsey
Canada launches Canadian Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute – Canada
AI didn’t sway the election, but it’s eroding voters’ grip on reality - The Washington Post
Biden Administration Outlines Government ‘Guardrails’ for A.I. Tools – New York Times
Studies Show AI Triggers Delirium in Leading Experts – Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
Biden’s Farewell to China’s Tech Sector: A New Type of Forbidden Chip - Wall Street Journal
What the US can learn from the role of AI in other elections – MIT Tech Review
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoes AI safety bill opposed by Silicon Valley – LA Times
Who Will Win the 2024 US Election? We Asked ChatGPT - Newsweek
White House orders Pentagon and intel agencies to increase use of AI – Washington Post
Cognitive Scientist Gary Marcus Says AI Must Be Regulated. He Has a Plan. - Wall Street Journal
My first book was about a lot of pain and a lot of knee-jerk, reactionary responses to being mistreated and abused [emotionally and physically]. When I look back on it now, I see it wasn’t about craft. It was my release.
As I’ve become older, I’m learning more about what grace really means, and what it means to be able to bring a slice of joy to somebody. At the end of the day, I’d like to think, “What did I do today that was beneficial for somebody?” I know I can’t change the world, save the world, but I believe if all of us scratch hard enough in the same little spots where we occupy time, where we live, play and die, that we can effect change.
Jaki Shelton Green speaking to the Washington Post
Prompt Injection - Like prompt engineering (where a user is good at writing AI prompts), but, in this case, with the goal of working around AI to produce harmful content. Hackers use carefully crafted prompts or text-based instructions to manipulate generative AI systems into sharing sensitive information or perform unintended actions by making the model ignore previous instructions.
More AI definitions here
Many companies have an unspoken command floating through the halls: "Bow to the organization above the rest!" There is a constant re-evaluation as to whether someone is playing their loyal role for the tribe. Talk of employees taking time for family and self-care is just that—talk. In practice, the expectation is that everyone will constantly genuflect toward the hierarchical (and often paternalistic) structure.
Someone who drinks to excess, yells at coworkers, holds racist views, drives away competent employees, has materialistic goals, and so forth will be tolerated, even rewarded, as long as their allegiance is true, helped by bringing in dollars or playing some other role that helps to perpetuate the organization.
On the other hand, someone with none of those vices might be cast aside if they are deemed not adequately sacrificing themselves on the altar of the organizational machinery.
In the children's book "Hope for the Flowers," Trina Paulus tells the story of caterpillars who form a tower with their bodies. They climb over each other in an attempt to reach the top. What reward waits for them? Nothing. Nothing at all. The struggle to rise only serves to stop them from cocooning and becoming the butterflies they were meant to me.
Stephen Goforth
Publishers are selling papers to train AIs — and making millions of dollars – Nature
Can AI fix the peer review bottleneck? Top journals weigh in - News-Medical.Net
Can Google Scholar survive the AI revolution? - Nature
Rethinking Reviewer Fatigue AI’s place in a broader discussion - EON
Writing assistant, workhorse, or accelerator? How academics are using GenAI – London School of Economics
Can AI review the scientific literature — and figure out what it all means? – Nature
The great AI witch hunt: Reviewers’ perception and (Mis)conception of generative AI in research writing – Science Direct
Can AI be used to assess research quality? – Nature
Scholarly Publishing World Slow to Embrace Generative AI – Inside Higher Education
National Academies President on How to Use Generative AI Responsibly in Scientific Research – JAMA
Study of ChatGPT citations makes dismal reading for publishers – Tech Crunch
Experts fail to reliably detect AI-generated histological data – Nature
AI-authored abstracts ‘more authentic’ than human-written ones – Times Higher Ed
AI’s computing gap: academics lack access to powerful chips needed for research – Nature
AI-generated survey responses could make research less accurate – and a lot less interesting – Stanford
The sheriff’s department in a country just southwest of Nashville has deployed AI-powered dashcams despite the limited budget for law enforcement in the sparsely populated county, according to GovTech. Meanwhile, police in a California town are using AI tech “to transcribe video recordings taken on officers' body-worn cameras and create a first draft of a police report,” according to another GovTech report.
Research on why so many incompetent men rise to leadership positions found there’s a lot of antimeritocratic and implicit positive discrimination going on that favors not just men but overconfident, narcissistic, and incompetent men when it comes to leadership roles.
Often, even when women are appointed to very senior leadership roles, it isn’t because people have embraced what they bring to the table in terms of EQ, self-awareness, self-control, integrity, humility, people skills, et cetera. Rather, it’s because they go for a profile of somebody who may be biologically female but out-males males in masculinity. So there’s a queen bee or Margaret Thatcher phenomenon. In fact, there are many countries in the world that are run by women who look more alpha male than their male competitors. The point is not to have more biological women in charge but to have better leaders in charge.
Should You Write with Gen AI – Harvard Business Review
To Use AI or Not to Use AI? A Student’s Burden – Inside Higher Ed
The distinct human writer becomes more essential – Harvard’s Nieman Lab
How Indigenous engineers are using AI to preserve their culture – NBC News
Harvard Is Releasing a Massive Free AI Training Dataset of nearly 1 million public-domain books – Wired
How to identify AI-generated text: 7 ways to tell if content was made by a bot – Mashable
Over half of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are AI-generated – Wired
TV Writers Found 139,000 of Their Scripts Trained AI – The Ankler
Is Grammarly AI? Notre Dame Says Yes – Inside Higher Ed
Stanford Professor Accused of Using AI to Write Expert Testimony Criticizing Deepfakes – Gizmodo
AI Companies Are Trying to Get MIT Press Books – 404Media
There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI – The Atlantic
What genre of writing is AI-generated poetry? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
What Kind of Writer Is ChatGPT? – New Yorker
HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors' Work to AI Company - 404Media
Why Watermarking Text Fails to Stop Misinformation and Plagiarism – Data Innovation
National Novel Writing Month faces backlash over allowing AI: What to know – Washington Post
How to Tell If What You're Reading Was Written By AI - Lifehacker
Can a Start-Up Help Authors Get Paid by A.I. Companies – New York Times
Google unveils invisible ‘watermark’ for AI-generated text – Nature
The Difference Between Editing Human vs AI Writing - Rebecca Dugas on Substack
Writer Ted Chiang on AI and grappling with big ideas – NPR
AI is My Research & Writing Partner. Should I disclose it? – Wired
Writers Guild Calls on Studios to Take “Immediate Legal Action” Against AI Companies – Hollywood Reporter
You can now ask Claude to mimic your writing style – Tech Radar
University of Reading researchers “slipped 63 AI-generated submissions into the school’s examination system. Even with no editing or efforts to hide the AI usage, 94 percent of those went undetected, and nearly 84 percent got better grades than a randomly selected group of students who took the same exam. The issue with such tools is that they usually perform well in a lab, but their performance drops significantly in the real world. ArsTechnica
At some point we all decline the opportunity to discover what really is the case. We willingly give up a shot at learning the truth about the world out of fear that it will expose truths about ourselves, especially our insufficient courage for self-examination. We prefer the illusion of self-reliance and embrace our ignorance for no other reason than it is ours. It doesn’t matter that reliance on false opinion is the worse sort of dependence. It doesn’t matter that through stubbornness we might pass up a chance at happiness. We prefer to go down with the ship rather than have our names scraped off its hull.
Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know
What: This webinar series will help you discover open and hidden sources, refine your investigative skills, and learn how to navigate information challenges in climate journalism.
Who: Iryna Ponedelnik Project Manager
When: 6 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Network for Border Crossing Journalism
What: We'll explore the fascinating neuroscience behind chatbot learning, walk you through the step-by-step process of designing your own chatbot, and equip you with essential dos and don'ts for effective implementation.
Who: Margie Meacham is an expert in adapting AI technology to accelerate learning and support performance. She teaches training organizations around the world how to leverage AI for education and training.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magazine Network
What: This webinar series will help you discover open and hidden sources, refine your investigative skills, and learn how to navigate information challenges in climate journalism.
Who: Iryna Ponedelnik Project Manager
When: 6 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Network for Border Crossing Journalism
What: Share your questions about Bluesky, what you’re thinking about in this space, the successes/challenges of your experimentation on it.
Who: Bluesky’s Emily Liu
When: 4 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Online News Association
The highest thing that one man can do for another is simply to make him restless.
The GPT era is already ending something has shifted at OpenAI – The Atlantic
Harvard Is Releasing a Massive Free AI Training Dataset of nearly 1 million public-domain books – Wired
Their Job Is to Push Computers Toward AI Doom – Wall Street Journal
Google Unveils A.I. Agent That Can Use Websites on Its Own – New York Times
Former OpenAI researcher raises $40 million to build more empathetic audio AI – Reuters
Meta rolls out internal AI tool as it pushes into business market – Financial Times
Perplexity expands its publisher program – Tech Crunch
The UC Berkeley Project That Is the AI Industry’s Obsession – Wall Street Journal
The Furious Contest to Unseat Nvidia as King of A.I. Chips – New York Times
OpenAI looks at chatbot ads – Axios
Amazon Announces Supercomputer, New Server Powered by Homegrown AI Chips – Wall Street Journal
OpenAI explores advertising as it steps up revenue drive – Financial Times
Amazon eyes news partners for revamped AI Alexa voice assistant – Axios
Labelers training AI say they're overworked, underpaid & exploited by big US tech companies - CBS News
Who's winning the AI race – Axios
OpenAI hits pause on video model Sora after artists leak access in protest – Washington Post
The AI War Was Never Just About AI – The Atlantic
Stanford’s AI Center names US the top AI ecosystem, China follows – Semafor
The future of Windows is cloud and AI – The Verge
TV Writers Found 139,000 of Their Scripts Trained AI – The ankler
Five Canadian news media outlets sue OpenAI for copyright breach – Al Jazeera
Biden’s Farewell to China’s Tech Sector: A New Type of Forbidden Chip - Wall Street Journal
When failure becomes invisible, the difference between failure and success may also become invisible. -David McRaney
Creative people who can “think out of the box” are prized in the business world, the arts, and science. But a new study has found that creative thinkers are also more likely to cheat to get ahead, and to rationalize away less-than-ethical behavior. Harvard Business School researchers gave personality quizzes to hundreds of study participants and then asked them to perform quick games or other tasks for cash. Participants who scored high on a creativity test were more likely to falsify their results so they could earn more prize money. People who were merely high in intelligence, however, were not more dishonest. It appears that the same “divergent thinking” and “cognitive flexibility” that enable creative people to come up with innovative ways of looking at things also equip them to circumvent ethical norms—and to justify their cheating to themselves. “When you’re a creative person, you can use that creativity to come up with reasons for why unethical behaviors may be okay,” researcher Francesca Gino tells The Boston Globe. These “self-serving rationalizations,” she said, can include deciding that “other people would cheat under the same circumstances or that a little cheating will not hurt anyone.”
The Week magazine
Researchers Use AI To Turn Sound Recordings Into Accurate Street Images – University of Texas
Samsung has developed an audio eraser feature for smartphones that will allow users to erase unwanted sounds from videos – Data Company
Former OpenAI researcher raises $40 million to build more empathetic audio AI – Reuters
The Most Hyped Bot Since ChatGPT Remember Sora? – The Atlantic
OpenAI’s video generator, Sora, aims to kickstart the AI video era – Washington Post
NVIDIA's new AI model Fugatto can create audio from text prompts & modify existing sound files - Engadget
Randy Travis’s beautiful baritone was lost. AI helped him sing again. - Washington Post
Polish radio station ditches DJs, journalists for AI-generated college kids – The Register
Adobe Firefly Video Model: How AI is Changing the Future of Video Editing - Unite
There’s a New Hit Podcast That Will Blow Your Mind: The hosts aren’t human. – Wall Street Journal
Podcast: AI and Voice Replication - Illusion of More
Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro – The Verge
Talking through AI and the future of music with will.i.am – Semafor
Amazon is allowing Audible narrators to clone themselves with AI - The Verge
This Hit Music Radio Station Is Fully AI-Generated – Radio World
Amazon's AI Generator Tool Can Now Create Audio Ads – AdWeek
How To Create And Customize An AI Podcast With Google’s NotebookLM – Forbes
Zoom will let AI avatars talk to your team for you - The Verge
Mariah Carey Responds to Claims Her Spotify Wrapped Video Was Made With AI – Hollywood Reporter
Happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (born Dec. 11, 1918)
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