New data is hard to get. Will old data will help AI confirm the flat earth theory?

https://apnews.com/article/ai-chatbot-training-data-libraries-idi-e096a81a4fceb2951f232a33ac767f53

AI chatbots need more books to learn from. These libraries are opening their stacks

Everything ever said on the internet was just the start of teaching artificial intelligence about humanity. Tech companies are now tapping into an older repository of knowledge: the library stacks.

Nearly one million books published as early as the 15th century — and in 254 languages — are part of a Harvard University collection being released to AI researchers Thursday. Also coming soon are troves of old newspapers and government documents held by Boston’s public library.

Cracking open the vaults to centuries-old tomes could be a data bonanza for tech companies battling lawsuits from living novelists, visual artists and others whose creative works have been scooped up without their consent to train AI chatbots.

“It is a prudent decision to start with public domain data because that’s less controversial right now than content that’s still under copyright,” said Burton Davis, a deputy general counsel at Microsoft.

Because, why?

https://taskandpurpose.com/military-life/army-reserve-lt-col-tech-execs/

Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant colonels

The Army said the new senior officers, including Meta's Andrew Bosworth and Palantir's Shyam Sankar, will attend a six-week course at Fort Benning and be required to pass Army PT and marksmanship tests.

Four senior executives of tech giants like Meta and Palantir are being sworn into the Army Reserve as direct-commissioned officers at the unusually high rank of lieutenant colonel as part of a new program to recruit private-sector experts to speed up tech adoption.

The Army calls the program to recruit Silicon Valley executives Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps. One of the executives, Andrew Bosworth of Meta (formerly Facebook) posted on X that the “201” monicker was a nod to an HTTP coding command, in which a “201” response indicates the creation of a new programming resource.

… The Detachment 201 program is aimed at bringing in part-time advisors from the private sector to help the service adopt and scale commercial technology like drones and robots into its formations. The idea of incorporating private-sector expertise is right out of Ukraine as soldiers there who are engineers or computer scientists in their day jobs are MacGyvering makeshift drones or 3D printing parts to use on the front lines against Russia.