Notices by Linda McIver (lindamciver@aus.social)

It is astonishing to me that "Nazis didn't like it so we stopped" isn't self evidently a statement of your character that you might not want to make...

Reminder that chatbots do not return facts, they return statistically plausible, pattern matching text. Asking them questions and believing the answers is a mistake, even though it's what the tech industry tells you, and in some cases forces you, to do.

https://adsei.org/2024/06/27/the-little-chatbot-that-couldnt/?amp=1

Apparently I-Med has been shipping people's chest x-ray images off to an AI startup for training purposes, without permission.
When I think of the hoops I had to jump through to manage people's data carefully & ethically when I was an academic (and rightly so)... it appears commercial entities can do whatever they like with it, without any consequences.
Or... we could say FUCK NO and legislate against it!!!

There is a difference between not being able to guarantee flights, and selling seats on flights that you can guarantee will not fly.

What kind of science do you wish people understood? What science do people need to understand in order to make the world a better place?

Obviously Epidemiology & the spread of infectious diseases, ecology, and climate science are right up there.

I'd add food science - by which I mean how food cooks, how/when bacteria grow in food, what happens to different foods when you refrigerate or freeze them, or expose them to oxygen, and nutritrion,

as well as health - what does your body need to be healthy, how do you know when you're getting sick, what do we know and not know about how the body works.

I'd add the psychology of marketing, of sleep, and of learning.

Also the physics of motion - stopping distance, friction, water, etc.

And the nature of science itself.

What would you have in that list?

@thomasfuchs interesting!

Apparently I am failing to meet expectations in unspecified but significant ways