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ChatGPT is bullshit
Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persistent inaccuracies in their output; these are often called “AI hallucinations”. Dr. Michael Townsen Hicks, Dr. James Humphries and Dr. Joe Slater argue that these falsehoods, and the overall activity of large language models, is better understood as bullshit in the sense explored by Frankfurt (On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005): the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. They distinguish two ways in which the models can be said to be bullshitters, and argue that they clearly meet at least one of these definitions. They further argue that describing AI misrepresentations as bullshit is both a more useful and more accurate way of predicting and discussing the behaviour of these systems.
Is Your Firm Disclosing the Risks Associated to Using AI?
Patrick Mckenna calls out the importance to the legal community of a new public database, the AI Risk Repository, that lists ALL the ways AI could go wrong. Its creators hope their work could lead to further research to determine which risks to take more seriously.Its creators hope their work could lead to further research to determine which risks to take more seriously.
Rejecting Dogmas Around AI, User Privacy, and Tech Policy
The Markup’s Ross Teixeira had a virtual discussion with Jonathan Frankle, Chief Scientist at DataBricks, about the the ethics of companies using customer data to train models, the growing trend of integrating AI models into our personal devices and lives, and how people can get involved in policy conversations from national to local level.
Complicated app settings are a threat to user privacy
Default privacy settings in popular mobile apps seem like a convenience, allowing you to use a single setting to control the level of privacy – who can see which actions you take – across all of the app’s functions. Prof. Joseph K. Nwankpa specifies how default privacy settings are also a potential risk to your privacy.
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 17, 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 increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Six highlights from this week: How to stop the government from deleting itself; Six ransomware gangs behind over 50% of 2024 attacks; Thousands of Corporate Secrets Were Left Exposed. This Guy Found Them All; The California Journalism Preservation Act takes a step forward; Microsoft Tweaks Fine Print To Warn Everyone Not To Take Its AI Seriously; Study finds 94% of business spreadsheets have critical errors.
Power-hungry AI is driving a surge in tech giant carbon emissions. Nobody knows what to do about it
Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the world has seen an incredible surge in investment, development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. According to one estimate, the amount of computational power used for AI is doubling roughly every 100 days. Researchers Gordon Noble and Fiona Berry turn our attention to the environmental impacts which have been largely overlooked. A single query to an AI-powered chatbot can use up to ten times as much energy as an old-fashioned Google search.
AI in Banking and Finance, August 15, 2015
This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Six highlights from this post: How Conversational and Generative AI is shaking up the banking industry; IMF AI Preparedness Index; Deep Learning for Economists; Crisis Amplifier? How to Prevent AI from Worsening the Next Economic Downturn; Generative artificial intelligence and cyber security in central banking; and Financial agencies’ AI tests could get reprieve from enforcement.
LLRX July 2024 Issue
Articles and Columns for July 2024 Unlocking History: How a Small Group of Researchers Dominates the Declassification Appeals Process – Attorney and FOIA expert Michael Ravnitzky shines a spotlight on people, process and procedural challenges with his illuminating article. A small core group of researchers and historians have filed most of the declassification appeals being …
AI in Finance and Banking, July 31, 2024
This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Six highlights from this post: Hearing Entitled: AI Innovation Explored: Insights into AI Applications in Financial Services and Housing; How Banks Can Combat Fraud, Cybercrime With Advanced Technology, AI; AI in banking risk management: exploring latest trends and use cases; JPMorgan Chase has begun rolling out a generative artificial intelligence product; How Banks Can Combat Fraud, Cybercrime With Advanced Technology, AI; and Gen AI takes over finance: The leading applications and their challenges.
Unlocking History: How a Small Group of Researchers Dominates the Declassification Appeals Process
Attorney and FOIA expert Michael Ravnitzky shines a spotlight on people, process and procedural challenges with his illuminating article. A small core group of researchers and historians have filed most of the declassification appeals being reviewed by the responsible appellate body. While these individuals are working diligently to facilitate public access to long-classified records that shed light on our nation’s history, their efforts also highlight weaknesses in the declassification framework.
Slide Show Formatting Basics
Legal tech expert and frequent speaker Jerry Lawson affirms that the best substantive presentation material looks even better if packaged well. Formatting slide shows is an art. Compliance with some basic slide show formatting principles won’t make you Monet, but will put you on the road to being a passable PowerPoint artist. Lawson shares his presentation tips and techniques.
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 27, 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 increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: New Hack Threat: Thieves Take Over Your Phone Number; AT&T failed to test disastrous update that kicked all devices off network; How Russia-Linked Malware Cut Heat to 600 Ukrainian Buildings in Deep Winter; and Ransomware attack closes LA County Superior Court buildings.
The race against time to reinvent lawyers
Jordan Furlong is a leading analyst of the global legal market and forecaster of its future development. In this insightful article he contends that our legal education and licensing systems produce one kind of lawyer. The legal market of the near future will need another kind. If we can’t close this gap fast, we’ll have a very serious problem.
When scientific citations go rogue: Uncovering ‘sneaked references’
Reading and writing articles published in academic journals and presented at conferences is a central part of being a researcher. When researchers write a scholarly article, they must cite the work of peers to provide context, detail sources of inspiration and explain differences in approaches and results. A positive citation by other researchers is a key measure of visibility for a researcher’s own work. But what happens when this citation system is manipulated? A recent Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology article by Lonni Besançon and Guillaume Cabanac and their team of academic sleuths – which includes information scientists, a computer scientist and a mathematician – has revealed an insidious method to artificially inflate citation counts through metadata manipulations: sneaked references.
Long COVID puzzle pieces are falling into place – the picture is unsettling
Long COVID is a term that describes the constellation of long-term health effects caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These range from persistent respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath, to debilitating fatigue or brain fog that limits people’s ability to work, and conditions such as heart failure and diabetes, which are known to last a lifetime. New research and reports conclude that long COVID is a complex chronic condition that can result in more than 200 health effects across multiple body systems. Physician scientist, subject matter expert and author Ziyad Al-Aly helps us understand the science and the real world implications of suffering from Long Covid.
Donald Trump wants to reinstate a spoils system in federal government by hiring political loyalists regardless of competence
If elected to serve a second term, Donald Trump says he supports a spoils system, a plan that would give him the authority to fire as many as 50,000 civil servants and replace them with members of his political party loyal to him. Under this plan, if he eventually deemed those new employees disloyal, he claims he could fire them too. Law professors Sidney Shapiro and Joseph P. Tomain write in their new book How Government Built America about how newly elected President Andrew Jackson, after he took office in 1828, fired about half the country’s civil servants and replaced them with loyal members of his political party. The result was not only an utterly incompetent administration, but widespread corruption.
How to Get a Discount on Your Car Insurance
As part of the reporting process for The Markup’s investigation into inequitable insurance pricing, they dug through more than 52,000 pages of documents that insurance companies filed with government regulators detailing their pricing algorithms. Aaron Sankin reports on the many different ways you can save some money on your car insurance, including built-in discounts that you could be taking advantage of. These discounts reward customers who could save insurers money in the long run by, say, taking steps to reduce their risk of getting in costly crashes or opting into features that lower companies’ administrative costs.
Massive IT outage spotlights major vulnerabilities in the global information ecosystem
Professor Richard Forno highlights the fragility of our enterprise IT systems against the backdrop of the global information technology outage on July 19, 2024 that paralyzed organizations ranging from airlines to hospitals and the delivery of uniforms for the Olympic Games, representing a growing concern for cybersecurity professionals, businesses and governments.