Author archives

Election Worker Safety and Privacy

CRS Insight – Election Worker Safety and Privacy, June 21, 2023: “Concerns about election workers’ safety and privacy have been reported since the 2020 election, in news reports and testimony before House and Senate committees. Some election workers have raised concerns about their physical safety while performing official duties, as well as threats to their …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

Download Your Photos and Videos from Google Album Archive Before They’re Gone Forever

CNET – “You might not be aware of Google Album Archive, but if you’ve used some Google app or service tied to a Google account that’s a few years old, you probably have some photos or videos stashed in the Album Archive — it’s a catchall destination for older media you’ve shared on Google services. …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Search Engines

Why Johnny Can’t Prompt: How Non-AI Experts Try (and Fail) to Design LLM Prompts

Why Johnny Can’t Prompt: How Non-AI Experts Try (and Fail) to Design LLM Prompts – J.D. Zamfirescu-Pereira, Richmond Y. Wong, Bjoern Hartmann, Qian Yang Pre-trained large language models (“LLMs”) like GPT-3 can engage in fluent, multi-turn instruction-taking out-of-the-box, making them attractive materials for designing natural language interactions. Using natural language to steer LLM outputs (“prompting”) …

Subjects: AI, Education, Knowledge Management

Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2022 Preliminary Data

Download Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2022 Preliminary Data News Release: Drivers Hit and Killed More Than 7,500 Pedestrians Last Year, Most in 41 Years, New Projection Shows GHSA Pedestrian, Bike and Micromobility Safety Issue Toolkit “GHSA’s annual Spotlight report, Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2022 Preliminary Data, offers a comprehensive look at state and national …

Subjects: Health Care, Legal Research, Transportation

An Aggressive Supreme Court Reshapes the US as Its Standing Erodes

Bloomberg – free link: “A conservative supermajority is remaking US laws on the environment, health and firearms, even as public confidence declines and ethical questions grow. The Supreme Court, in the midst of a run of decisions that have stress-tested the core principles of US democracy, has rarely been so aggressive in using its powers — …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Courts, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?

The New York Times: Book bans, chatbots, pedagogical warfare: What it means to read has become a minefield. “Everyone loves reading. In principle, anyway. Nobody is against it, right? Surely, in the midst of our many quarrels, we can agree that people should learn to read, should learn to enjoy it and should do a …

Subjects: AI, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation, Libraries, Privacy

Chamber of Secrets

Washington Monthly: “…The Supreme Court’s habit of deciding hugely important cases without briefings, arguments, or even a word of explanation threatens democracy. Some progressive legal scholars have coined the term demosprudence to underline that the opinion announcements are the only time that the Court’s members directly address the public. Clearly, however, the justices do not …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The Presidential Records Act, Clinton’s Socks, and Trump’s Boxes

Lawfare: “…In 1950, Congress passed the Federal Records Act, which requires federal agencies—but not the president—to preserve their records. Five years later, Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act, which encouraged (but did not require) former presidents to donate their records to private, federally maintained libraries.  Then came Richard Nixon. Four months after Nixon resigned in …

Subjects: Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Suicide Hotlines Promise Anonymity. Dozens of Their Websites Send Sensitive Data to Facebook

Via LLRX – Suicide Hotlines Promise Anonymity. Dozens of Their Websites Send Sensitive Data to Facebook – Reporter Colin Lecher and Data Journalist Jon Kreeger discuss how websites for mental health crisis resources across the country—which promise anonymity for visitors, many of whom are at a desperate moment in their lives—have been quietly sending sensitive visitor …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Records, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Marketing, Medicine, Privacy, Social Media

How AI could take over elections and undermine democracy

Via LLRX – How AI could take over elections and undermine democracy – Archon Fung, Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, Harvard Kennedy School, and Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard University, pose the question: “Could organizations use artificial intelligence language models such as ChatGPT to induce voters to behave in specific ways? Sen. Josh …

Subjects: AI, Congress, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

What Makes News Sharable on Social Media?

What Makes News Sharable on Social Media?Chen, X., Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. (2023). Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, 3. https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.007   – “With the rise of social media, everyone has the potential to be both a consumer and producer of online content. Although one might assume that people share news because they believe it …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

The Modernized ClinicalTrials.gov Website is Here

“Today, ClinicalTrials.gov Beta, the modernized version of ClinicalTrials.gov, becomes the primary ClinicalTrials.gov. The modernized website has an updated design that is visually appealing and easy to read. This new design includes simple web components, such as left-side menus and expandable accordions, that improve navigation and make information readily findable. In addition, the modernized website is …

Subjects: E-Government, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Medicine, Search Engines