Monthly archives: October, 2024

What If Google’s Biggest Problem Isn’t AI?

New York – Intelligencer [unpaywalled]: “Let’s say you represent the most powerful government on Earth and would like to convey some information to the citizens of your country in a moment of crisis. We’re talking pretty basic stuff: How to apply for federal assistance after a series of massive natural disasters, the general state of …

Subjects: AI, E-Government, Internet, Search Engines, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 12, 2024

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 12, 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 …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Health Care, ID Theft, Internet, Privacy

‘Alarming’ decline of seed-dispersing animals threatens Europe’s plants

Science: “When hunters wiped out most fruiteating birds in the tropical forest of Lambir Hills National Park on western Borneo by the 1990s, the skies grew duller—and in a few years so did the forest. Without birds to spread their seeds, the diversity of fruit-producing plants declined, illuminating the critical importance of seed dispersal for …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

What Do Climate Risk Indices Measure?

Liberty Street Economics, New York Fed, October 7, 2024: “As interest in understanding the economic impacts of climate change grows, the climate economics and finance literature has developed a number of indices to quantify climate risks. Various approaches have been employed, utilizing firm-level emissions data, financial market data (from equity and derivatives markets), or textual …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Environmental Law, Financial System

What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.

The Atlantic [no paywall]: ” I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis. By Charlie Warzel. The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. As Hurricane Milton …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

LLMs don’t do formal reasoning and that is a HUGE problem

Marcus on AI: “A superb new article on LLMs from six AI researchers at Apple who were brave enough to challenge the dominant paradigm has just come out. Everyone actively working with AI should read it, or at least this terrific X thread by senior author, Mehrdad Farajtabar, that summarizes what they observed. One key …

Subjects: AI, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

FTC Findings on Commercial Surveillance Can Lead to Better Alternatives

EFF: “On September 19, the FTC published a staff report following a multi-year investigation of nine social media and video streaming companies. The report found a myriad of privacy violations to consumers stemming largely from the ad-revenue based business models of companies including Facebook, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter) which prompted unbridled consumer surveillance practices. …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Records, Economy, Privacy, Social Media

Google Tests Quick View Button For Recipes That Keep You On Google

Search Engine Roundtable: “Google is testing placing a “quick view” button overlayed on the images on recipes within Google Search. The crazy part is that clicking on “Quick view” keeps you on Google while giving you a snapshot of the content from the publisher, without sending that traffic to the publisher. Looking at this “Quick …

Subjects: Food and Nutrition, Search Engines

Microplatics in Salt and Sugar

“A new study by Indian environmental and research organization Toxics Link has found that all salt and sugar brands from the country contain microplastics, concerning scientists as a growing body of analysis suggests the particles are harmful to humans.  As detailed by English language channel Times Now, researchers discovered microplastics (particles no more than five …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Food and Nutrition, Health Care