Kind: Reads

Researchers have spent years warning that text-generation algorithms can spew bias and falsehoods. Tech giants are rushing them into products anyway.

As Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk has arbitrarily changed the platform’s rules to benefit himself. Republicans are turning a blind eye to this manipulation even while highlighting censorship of conservative voices.

Back in our day, memes didn't benefit from centralized services like YouTube, Twitter.

Listen now (6 min) | Democrats must reclaim patriotism and affirm its true meaning

Plus: The original startup behind Stable Diffusion has launched a generative AI for video.

In writing and in dispensing my (very dubious, probably shady) writing advice, I am often keen to note that ideas are bullshit. Most writers treat them like precious gems when really, ideas are lik…

For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.

ChatGPT Is Ingesting Corporate Secrets by Bruce Schneier

Interesting:

According to internal Slack messages that were leaked to Insider, an Amazon lawyer told workers that they had “already seen instances” of text generated by ChatGPT that “closely” resembled internal company data.

This issue seems to have come to a head recently because Amazon staffers and other tech workers throughout the industry have begun using ChatGPT as a “coding assistant” of sorts to help them write or improve strings of code, the report notes.

[…]

“This is important because your inputs may be used as training data for a further iteration of ChatGPT,” the lawyer wrote in the Slack messages viewed by Insider, “and we wouldn’t want its output to include or resemble our confidential information.”…

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Extraordinarily Confused Congressional Rep. Thinks Social Media Companies Are Secretly Communicating With Gov’t Censors… Via Jira by Mike Masnick

I wrote last week about the bizarrely bad House Oversight hearing that was supposed to expose how Twitter, the deep state, and the, um “Biden Crime Family” conspired to suppress the NY Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Of course, wishful thinking does not make facts, and we already know that story is totally false. […]

Elon Musk has called an earlier stretch at Tesla the "most difficult" of his career. His employees say his time at Twitter is proving worse.

A network of organizations and far-right lawmakers are on a crusade to promote bills rooted in baseless distortions of science and medicine.

The overturning of Roe V. Wade and the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and laws have made the current state of queer rights unstable. Unfortunately, news coming out of a family law case in Oklahoma has only made it worse.

Engineers Gave Elon’s Tweets Special Treatment Because Elon Freaked Out That A Joe Biden Tweet Got More Engagement by Mike Masnick

What’s the opposite of shadowbanning? Maxboosting? I dunno, but whatever it is, that’s what Twitter’s frustrated and exhausted engineers gave Elon Musk after he whined (for not the first time) that people might like someone more than they like Elon. By now you know the basics: last week it was reported that Elon was getting […]

We Are Too Busy Laughing At Needy Loser Elon Musk To Write A Proper Headline Right Now by Evan Hurst

This is the saddest, most pathetic thing that any person has ever done.

Twitter users can like different versions of an edited tweet, making it seem like it has more likes than it actually does. Experts say the bug could be used to spread false information.

The administration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) opposed a bill to shield menstrual data from subpoena amid post-Roe fears of abortion prosecutions.