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Category Archives: Financial System

Chatbot answers are all made up

MIT Technology Review: “This new tool helps you figure out which ones to trust. In many high-stakes situations, large language models are not worth the risk. Knowing which outputs to throw out might fix that. Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk. A new tool created by Cleanlab, an AI startup spun out of a quantum computing lab at MIT, is designed to give high-stakes users a clearer sense of how trustworthy these models really are. Called the Trustworthy Language Model, it gives any output generated by a large language model a score between 0 and 1, according to its reliability. This lets people choose which responses to trust and which to throw out. In other words: a BS-o-meter for chatbots tests. With hopes and fears about the technology running wild, it’s time to agree on what it can and can’t do. Cleanlab hopes that its tool will make large language models more attractive to businesses worried about how much stuff they invent. “I think people know LLMs will change the world, but they’ve just got hung up on the damn hallucinations,” says Cleanlab CEO Curtis Northcutt. Chatbots are quickly becoming the dominant way people look up information on a computer. Search engines are being redesigned around the technology. Office software used by billions of people every day to create everything from school assignments to marketing copy to financial reports now comes with chatbots built in. And yet a study put out in November by Vectara, a startup founded by former Google employees, found that chatbots invent information at least 3% of the time. It might not sound like much, but it’s a potential for error most businesses won’t stomach…”

There’s More to Copyright Than Financial Incentives

ToreentFreak: “The Internet Archive is doubling down on its position that its digital lending library service operates under the bounds of fair use. Major publishers assert that digitizing books without appropriate licensing amounts to infringement but IA counters that the practice is in the public interest. It also fits copyright’s ultimate purpose; to promote the… Continue Reading

The Man Who Killed Google Search

Where’s Your Ed Act via Metafilter – “Edward Zitron has been reading all of google’s internal emails that have been released as evidence in the DOJ’s antitrust case against google.  Zitron concludes that Google Search died on February 5th, 2019. It was on that date at Google’s HQ evil lair an emergency meeting, aka a… Continue Reading

Global Public Procurement Dataset

Data is Plural: “The Global Public Procurement Dataset provides standardized data on 72 million government contracts in 42 countries. The dataset, constructed from official sources by the Budapest-based Government Transparency Institute, represents $17 trillion in total procurement. It begins in the 2000s for most of the countries and concludes in 2021. For each contract, it… Continue Reading

FTC’s Noncompete Rule: What You Should Know

Under the final Noncompete Rule, the FTC adopts a comprehensive ban on new noncompetes with all workers, including senior executives. The final rule provides that it is an unfair method of competition—and therefore a violation of Section 5—for employers to enter into noncompetes with workers. Note: The regulation’s effective date is 120 days after Federal… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 20, 2024

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 20, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the… Continue Reading

It’s the End of the Web as We Know It

The Atlantic [unpaywalled] – A great public resource is at risk of being destroyed. By Judith Donath and Bruce Schneier: “The web has become so interwoven with everyday life that it is easy to forget what an extraordinary accomplishment and treasure it is. In just a few decades, much of human knowledge has been collectively written… Continue Reading

The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”

ProPublica – The complex, contradictory and heartbreaking process of American climate migration is underway –  “This article is an excerpt from the book “On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America,” about climate migration in the U.S. For more, see abrahm.com. “Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by… Continue Reading

Climate crisis: average world incomes to drop by nearly a fifth by 2050

The Guardian: “Average incomes will fall by almost a fifth within the next 26 years as a result of the climate crisis, according to a study that predicts the costs of damage will be six times higher than the price of limiting global heating to 2C. Rising temperatures, heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense… Continue Reading

The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat

The Verge: “…The world’s emails, TikToks, classified memos, bank transfers, satellite surveillance, and FaceTime calls travel on cables that are about as thin as a garden hose. There are about 800,000 miles of these skinny tubes crisscrossing the Earth’s oceans, representing nearly 600 different systems, according to the industry tracking organization TeleGeography. The cables are… Continue Reading

Dow Jones Debuts Its Smart Money Financial Literacy Site

“Dow Jones Smart Money is your resource for creating a better financial future. For any age, any experience level, any goal—start building financial knowledge today with smart insights and trusted experience from Dow Jones money experts. We’ll be adding new topics, more videos, free resources and live events here soon, so watch this page for… Continue Reading