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SEC is giving companies four days to report cyberattacks

Quartz: “The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants public companies to be more transparent and forthcoming about “material cybersecurity incidents,” the federal agency said yesterday (July 26).  Its new rules, passed by a 3-2 vote, dictate companies must disclose details of incidents and their effect on the bottomline in a section of the Form… Continue Reading

‘A certain danger lurks there’: how the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI

The Guardian: “In 1966, an MIT professor named Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot. He cast it in the role of a psychotherapist. A user would type a message on an electric typewriter connected to a mainframe. After a moment, the “psychotherapist” would reply. User: Men are all alike. Chatbot: IN WHAT WAY User: They’re… Continue Reading

The excellent Arc browser is now available for anyone to download

The Verge: “Arc, the Mac and iOS browser from The Browser Company, is finally ditching its waitlist. The company has been testing the app for more than two years and has, until now, made every interested user sign up for a waitlist. But now, it’s launching for real. Arc’s version number just jumped to 1.0,… Continue Reading

New Tool Shows if Your Car Might Be Tracking You, Selling Your Data

Vice: “A new tool that is free to use for consumers aims to better inform people about the types of data their particular car manufacturer might be collecting and sharing about their identity and driving patterns. The Vehicle Privacy Report tool, made by automotive privacy company Privacy4Cars, is based on a manual and automatic analysis… Continue Reading

People are using Google Maps to cut down tailpipe pollution

The Verge: “Drivers are taking Google Maps’ advice for how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their trips, according to the company. In late 2021, Google debuted a feature in Google Maps that allows users to see the most fuel-efficient routes. The feature has since helped prevent around 1.2 million metric tons of planet-heating carbon… Continue Reading

Absolutist AI

Absolutist AI – Mitchell Barrington, arXiv:2307.10315 [cs.AI]: “This paper argues that training AI systems with absolute constraints — which forbid certain acts irrespective of the amount of value they might produce — may make considerable progress on many AI safety problems in principle. First, it provides a guardrail for avoiding the very worst outcomes of… Continue Reading

Twitter Becomes X – TikTok Talks Text and E-commerce

TikTok Newsroom: “At TikTok, we’re always looking to empower our creators and community with innovative tools that inspire self expression. Today we’re thrilled to announce the expansion of text posts on TikTok, a new format for creating text-based content that broadens options for creators to share their ideas and express their creativity. With text posts,… Continue Reading

Migration Into America’s Most Flood-Prone Areas More Than Doubled Since the Start of the Pandemic

Redfin News: “The most flood-prone U.S. counties saw 384,000 more people move in than out in 2021 and 2022—a 103% increase from the prior two years, when 189,000 more people moved in than out. The same trend took hold in the places most vulnerable to wildfires and heat as the pandemic homebuying boom and a… Continue Reading

COVID Tracking Project Records and Resources Now Available

This announcement is authored by COVID Tracking Project Archive Lead, Alex Duryee: “The UCSF Library Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce that the COVID Tracking Project (CTP) records are available for research. The CTP is a crowdsourced digital archive that was managed by a group of journalists at The Atlantic and approximately 500… Continue Reading