Notices by Pratik Patel (ppatel@mstdn.social)

"Your body, my choice" == "My fist, your face."

What in the hells is corporate media smoking?

Have we reached peak #AI?

SocialAI, a new iOS app that looks like a microblogging social network, is filled with bots and lets users populate their network with up to 32 types of bots. Only bots and no humans.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/17/socialai-offers-a-twitter-like-diary-where-ai-bots-respond-to-your-posts/

#Tech

Facebook's useless #AI based photo descriptions have made it to Threads; and, because they have, #blind people have to suffer for it. People think that posting photos on Threads without alt text is ok because of the utterly useless auto-generated descriptions. I thought I was rid of it when I abandoned Facebook in 2017. Please ask your friends, followers, and acquaintances to describe #photos on Threads.

#accessibility #a11y

Is it weird that I use Whatsapp as a scratchpad for myself? I send notes to myself on desktop and on mobile especially if I need a cross-platform copy/paste solution.

YouTube takes down Tenet Media and four other channels after the DOJ alleged that Russia was paying right-wing influencers in the US to produce content.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/05/youtube-takes-down-tenet-lauren-chen-tenet-russia-doj/

#Tech #USPol #USPolitics

The Atlantic Council researchers detail how spyware vendors are skirting restrictions by renaming, starting new companies, or by changing legal jurisdictions.

https://wapo.st/3ZaJMcI

How “personhood credentials” could help prove you’re a human online

A system proposed by researchers from MIT, OpenAI, Microsoft and others could curb the use of deceptive AI by exploiting the technology’s weaknesses

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/02/1103466/how-personhood-credentials-could-help-prove-youre-a-human-online/

Trump Calls Out Arlington National Cemetery For Hazard-Filled Fairways.

https://theonion.com/trump-calls-out-arlington-national-cemetery-for-hazard-filled-fairways/

#USPolitics #USPol

@WarnerCrocker What took them so long?

Well then.

“we demonstrate that language models embody covert racism in the form of dialect prejudice, exhibiting raciolinguistic stereotypes about speakers of African American English (AAE) that are more negative than any human stereotypes about African Americans ever experimentally recorded”

#Linguistics #AI #Tech

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5

I suppose this explains Zuck's letter to Jordan.

In his upcoming book, Trump says Mark Zuckerberg plotted against him during the 2020 election and he'd "spend the rest of his life in prison" if he did it again (Alex Isenstadt/Politico)

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/28/trump-zuckerberg-election-book-00176639

I'm just going to leave this here.

Pavel Durov's lawyer says it is "totally absurd to think that the head of a social network could be involved in criminal acts that do not concern him".

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lawyer-telegram-boss-durov-dismisses-allegations-absurd-french-media-reports-2024-08-29/

This column by Will Bunch. ...

"Fifty years ago this summer, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency because people believed what they read about him in the Washington Post. Today, Harris feels she doesn’t need journalists at all, and a lot of the public is cheering her on. And a vainglorious elite news media with severe tunnel vision has no one to blame but themselves."

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/media-elections-dnc-kamala-harris-military-20240827.html

#USPol #USPolitics

Are there any accessible apps on Windows that allow you to create text macros? I'm finding myself typing a particular phrase or two while doing something. I'd like to avoid typing all this.

#accessibility #a11y

Well, duh!

State-linked Chinese entities are using cloud services from AWS or its rivals to access advanced US chips and #AI models they cannot acquire otherwise.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinese-entities-turn-amazon-cloud-its-rivals-access-high-end-us-chips-ai-2024-08-23/

But, #AI, democratizeing photography, something something!

Google’s AI ‘Reimagine’ tool helped us add wrecks, disasters, and corpses to our photos

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/21/24224084/google-pixel-9-reimagine-ai-photos

As someone interested in speeches--in how they're written--how they're delivered, I find that that the Obamas are perfection in how they write and deliver speeches. I realize that they don't always write the speeches themselves ( at least not all), but the delivery is their own. Michelle Obama's speech from yesterday was a perfection in making. Barak and Michelle had different jobs, and they delivered.

Oh and I find that Black speakers are doing far better delivering

#USPol #USPolitics.

Oh, bloody hell!

A US district judge in Texas strikes down the FTC's ban on worker noncompete agreements, due to start September 4, after her temporary block of the rule in July (Daniel Wiessner/Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-strikes-down-biden-administration-ban-worker-noncompete-agreements-2024-08-20/

The Inflation Reduction Act has sparked a manufacturing and clean energy boom in the U.S.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/20/inflation-reduction-act-sparked-a-manufacturing-clean-energy-boom.html