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Consumer Reports: “By now most internet users know their online activity is constantly tracked. No one should be shocked to see ads for items they previously searched for, or to be asked if their data can be shared with an unknown number of “partners.” But what is the scale of this surveillance? Judging from data …
Center for Reproductive Rights: “Since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion in its 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states have become the battlegrounds for abortion rights. State courts are deciding whether and how their own constitutions protect abortion rights, some for the first time. Plus, voters …
Via Data is Plural: “The US CDC’s Respiratory Syncytial Virus Hospitalization Surveillance Network collects data on hospital admissions due to lab-confirmed RSV at acute-care facilities in 58 counties, across 12 states. The CDC uses the data to estimate weekly hospitalization rates — overall as well as by age group, race/ethnicity, and sex. Those rates, which …
Engadget: “Last December the state of New Mexico sued Meta for failing to protect children, claiming that Facebook and Instagram algorithms recommended sexual content to minors. Now, an unredacted internal Meta presentation has been revealed, with the company’s own employees estimating that 100,000 child users were harassed daily, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to …
First Monday. Why do people use ChatGPT? Exploring user motivations for generative conversational AI by Marita Skjuve, Petter Bae Brandtzaeg, and Asbjorn Folstad. “Generative conversational artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, has attracted substantial attention since November 2022. The advent of this technology showcases the vast potential of such AI for generating and processing text …
“Politico Pro paid subscribers will now see “thousands more Federal bill summaries” generated by AI. The new Legislative Compass feature delivers both brief and in-depth bill summaries of federal bills, which Politico says should help public policy professionals respond to legislative changes faster. The news comes after Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer, and OpenAI announced …
Merz JJ, Barnard P, Rees WE, et al. World scientists’ warning: The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot. Science Progress. 2023;106(3). doi:10.1177/00368504231201372 “Previously, anthropogenic ecological overshoot has been identified as a fundamental cause of the myriad symptoms we see around the globe today from biodiversity loss and ocean acidification to the disturbing rise in novel entities …
The New Yorker [free to read]: “Intellectual property accounts for some or all of the wealth of at least half of the world’s fifty richest people, and it has been estimated to account for fifty-two per cent of the value of U.S. merchandise exports. I.P. is the new oil. Nations sitting on a lot of …
Politico: “When I asked the European ambassador to talk to me about America’s deepening partisan divide, I expected a polite brushoff at best. Foreign diplomats are usually loath to discuss domestic U.S. politics. Instead, the ambassador unloaded for an hour, warning that America’s poisonous politics are hurting its security, its economy, its friends and its …
The Washington Post – Some are in your neighborhood…”We know this because of eBird, the crowdsourced database of bird observations managed by the Cornell Lab. eBird is to older bird databases roughly what Wikipedia is to Encyclopaedia Britannica — instead of depending on the observations of a relatively small group of trusted experts, eBird uses …
The Guardian: “Philip Anschutz has hosted rightwing justice at resort and stands to benefit if court strips power from federal regulatory agencies. Two days before oral arguments in a US supreme court case set to have a major impact on federal health and environmental regulation, a leading government watchdog called on Neil Gorsuch to recuse …
