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Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use

blog post image "The tool's creators are seeking to make it so that AI model developers must pay artists to train on data from them that is uncorrupted." Artists can now use this software to modify their art and influence the big tech owners of AI tools to properly recognise the original works. Growing the poisonous...
Source: venturebeat.com

Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations

"The last 10,000 years have seen some of the most extreme global changes in lifestyle, with the emergence of farming in some regions and pastoralism in others. While 5,000 years ago farmer ancestry predominated across Europe, a relatively diverged genetic ancestry arrived with the steppe migrations around...
Source: nature.com

AI will be deeply disruptive to Higher Education

blog post image Paul LeBlanc and George Siemens are teaming up to explore how AI is going to change higher education. "LeBlanc transformed SNHU from 2500 students in 2003 to over 200,000 students in 20 years by using technology to switch delivery online." Siemens is one of the proposers of connectivism - a theory...

20 Years Later, the Y2K Bug Seems Like a Joke—Because Those Behind the Scenes Took It Seriously

Some of the fixes put in place in 1999 are still used today to keep the world’s computer systems running smoothly
Source: time.com

The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again

The internet seems ripe for change, and millions of people seem poised to connect in new ways, as they reconsider their relationship to technology.
Source: rollingstone.com

NFTs died a slow, painful death in 2023 as most are now worthless

A reminder that early adoption of technology is not without risk. "Non-fungible tokens promised to revolutionise the concept of ownership using the blockchain technology behind bitcoin, but the market seems to have all but collapsed."
Source: newscientist.com

Innovating Pedagogy 2023

blog post image Looking for something innovative to try in 2024? MedEd professionals would benefit by looking through these ideas first. Open University's, Institute of Educational Technology's latest innovating pedagogy report from August 2023. This is the 11th annual report on emerging technologies in education...
Source: open.ac.uk

Machines may be better at assisting, not replacing us.

Journalist Kawandeep Virdee sees if he can be replaced by AI by writing some predictions for 2024. "I gave ChatGPT the last 13 years of Nieman Lab predictions ... [and asked it what I'd write about in 2024]" [ChatGPT suggested] Navigating the infodemic: Strategies for media in the era of misinformation...
Source: niemanlab.org

Large Language Models: Don't Believe the Hype

We've reached the Skynet moment for AI, it would seem. GPT-4, cast in the role of Terminator, has not only achieved consciousness, but it's coming for
Source: datanami.com

AI information retrieval: A search engine researcher explains the promise and peril of letting ChatGPT and its cousins search

A new generation of artificial intelligence-based information access systems, which includes Microsoft’s Bing/ChatGPT, Google/Bard and Meta/LLaMA, is upending the traditional search engine mode of search input and output. These systems are able to take full sentences and even paragraphs as input and...
Source: ampproject.org

Spem in alium nunquam habui (Hope in any other, never did I have)

This piece of music is probably like nothing you have ever heard. Maybe because it is nearly 500 years old it feels like it is from another world. Maybe because it is written for eight choirs with five voices each the forty parts it's so complex you'd be pressed even to hum some of the tune afterwards....
Source: wikipedia.org

France launches hunt for new EDF CEO, sets money aside for full nationalisation

EDF and the French government are seeking a new boss to overhaul the power utility and build more nuclear reactors, they said on Thursday, with billions in public money earmarked to help finance a full nationalisation of the debt-laden company.
Source: reuters.com

House passes $35-a-month insulin cap as Dems seek wider bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday passed a bill capping the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for insured patients, part of an election-year push by Democrats for price curbs on prescription drugs at a time of rising inflation.
Source: apnews.com

The Bluestocking: The Ant Mill

The Ant Mill theory of Discourse. "An orphan take is an opinion expressed in backlash to a marginal, nebulous or anticipated opposing view. If you see angry tweets or opeds about the horror of a viewpoint you’ve never seen expressed in the wild, that’s an orphan take."
Source: substack.com

Biopharma futures

blog post image I've been looking at a few industry reports on the future of biopharma as part of a course I'm on with INSEAD Business School on Business Strategy and Financial Performance. I thought I'd share some of my ramblings on Biopharma Futures. Expectations are high Pharmaceutical companies are operating...
Source: deanjenkins.me

IBM has sold Watson Health. It was a long time coming.

"It's difficult not to see the sale as a failure of IBM's big bet on Watson to usher health care into the AI age." IBM invested over $4B in Watson Health but has sold it for $1B.
Source: protocol.com

Internet user classification

Grampound it seems is classified as 'e-Rational Utilitarian' ... but who is shouting out for more local facilities and better internet infrastructure? Checks notes ... methodological individualist and political liberals with social stratification (i.e. class, status distinctions) playing a relatively...
Source: cdrc.ac.uk

Britishvolt: Electric car battery plant gets government funding

Britishvolt says the money (£100m) unlocks huge private investment for a protect that will create thousands of jobs. See also Britishvolt.com The figure seems to be half of the proposed Government investment which was anticipated to be £200m - £250m in December.
Source: bbc.com

Overturning 'conventional wisdom' with 'natural experiments'

Via Reuters ... "Economists David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens won the 2021 Nobel economics prize on Monday for pioneering "natural experiments" to show real-world economic impacts in areas from minimum wage increases in the U.S. fast-food sector to migration from Castro-era Cuba." "One experiment...
Source: reuters.com

New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines aim to save millions of lives from air pollution

"Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, alongside climate change. New guidelines provide clear evidence of the damage air pollution inflicts on human health, at even lower concentrations than previously understood." "Global assessments of ambient air pollution alone...
Source: who.int