Good news for students?

https://www.bespacific.com/ai-text-detection-tools-are-really-easy-to-fool/

AI-Text Detection Tools are Really Easy to Fool

MIT Technology Review [free link ]: “Debora Weber-Wulff, a professor of media and computing at the University of Applied Sciences, HTW Berlin, worked with a group of researchers from a variety of universities to assess the ability of 14 tools, including Turnitin, GPT Zero, and Compilatio, to detect text written by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Most of these tools work by looking for hallmarks of AI-generated text, including repetition, and then calculating the likelihood that the text was generated by AI. But the team found that all those tested struggled to pick up ChatGPT-generated text that had been slightly rearranged by humans and obfuscated by a paraphrasing tool, suggesting that all students need to do is slightly adapt the essays the AI generates to get past the detectors.

These tools don’t work,” says Weber-Wulff. “They don’t do what they say they do. They’re not detectors of AI.” The researchers assessed the tools by writing short undergraduate-level essays on a variety of subjects, including civil engineering, computer science, economics, history, linguistics, and literature. They wrote the essays themselves to be certain the text wasn’t already online, which would have meant it might already have been used to train ChatGPT…”

(Related) For writing right?

https://www.bespacific.com/journaliststoolbox-ai/

JournalistsToolbox.ai

Created by Mike Reilley, Founder and Editor of Journalist’s Toolbox A: “A few years ago, I was doing a digital tools training for a group of journalists in Phoenix. One of the attendees took me to task for saying that a surge of AI tools would be coming in the next few years. “Google uses AI all the time,” he said. “This is nothing new.” He was partly right: Google and other companies have used AI components for many years. But he was clueless about the gold rush of AI tools and resources that were to come. So when the gold rush hit in late 2022 and early 2023, I began to think about a stand-alone website dedicated only to AI tools, ethics and best practices. Journalists would need help navigating the complex, often troubled waters of artificial intelligence tools. Where could they turn? So in June, I built JournalistsToolbox.ai. The site includes links to hundreds of AI tools for writing, editing, image and video creation, data visualization tools, productivity, and, most importantly, ethics and best practices. I’ll be adding more resources – at least five a day – in the coming weeks and months. I also have been publishing this free, twice-monthly Substack newsletter.… It features new tools, exercises and training videos that also appear on our free YouTube channel.”

Confusion. Who accessed what and how? Should complicate discovery a bit.

https://www.bespacific.com/shadow-libraries-at-heart-of-mounting-copyright-lawsuits-against-openai/

“Shadow libraries” at heart of mounting copyright lawsuits against OpenAI

Quartz: “…Shadow libraries are online databases that provide access to millions of books and articles that are out of print, hard to obtain, and paywalled. Many of these databases, which began appearing online around 2008, originated in Russia, which has a long tradition of sharing forbidden books, according to the magazine Reason. Soon enough, these libraries became popular with cash-strapped academics around the world thanks to the high cost of accessing scholarly journals—with some reportedly going for as much as $500 for an entirely open-access article. These shadow libraries are also called “pirate libraries” because they often infringe on copyrighted work and cut into the publishing industry’s profits. A 2017 Nielsen and Digimarc study (pdf) found that pirated books were “depressing legitimate book sales by as much as 14%.”…

Could be useful as I look for ‘things to do in retirement.’ (They don’t list skydiving yet.)

https://www.bespacific.com/the-hive-index/

The Hive Index

The Hive Index – A directory of online communities: “We believe that all who want to surround themselves with community should be able to do so. This website is a free resource for professionals, creatives, students, teachers, entrepreneurs, and those that are just looking for some likeminded souls to hang out with. With your help, this list of communities & topics can keep growing. If you know of a good community that’s not listed, submit it. If you’d like a new topic curated, let us know. Thanks, and welcome to the Hive Index.”

Perspective. Be afraid?

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sentiment-towards-ai-in-workplace/

Charted: Changing Sentiments Towards AI in the Workplace

… Amidst all this uncertainty, opinions on how we use AI in the workplace have evolved. Recent survey data from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reveals how the labor force feels about AI in the workplace today, compared to how they felt five years ago.

The consultancy surveyed 13,000 people (C-suite leaders, managers, and frontline employees) in 18 different countries for the results, and divided their top two responses into five categories: Curiosity, Optimism, Concern, Confidence, and Indifference.