Long story short, I couldn’t agree more. I use Feedly.

https://www.bespacific.com/you-should-be-using-an-rss-reader/

You should be using an RSS reader

Pluralistic: “…RSS (one of those ancient internet acronyms with multiple definitions, including, but not limited to, “Really Simple Syndication”) is an invisible, automatic way for internet-connected systems to public “feeds.” For example, rather than reloading the Wired homepage every day and trying to figure out which stories are new (their layout makes this very hard to do!), you can just sign up for Wired‘s RSS feed, and use an RSS reader to monitor the site and preview new stories the moment they’re published.  Wired pushes about 600 words from each article into that feed, stripped of the usual stuff that makes Wired nearly impossible to read: no 20-second delay subscription pop-up, text in a font and size of your choosing. You can follow Wired‘s feed without any cookies, and Wired gets no information about which of its stories you read.  Wired doesn’t even get to know that you’re monitoring its feed. I don’t mean to pick on Wired here. This goes for every news source I follow – from CNN to the New York Times. But RSS isn’t just good for the news! It’s good for everything. Your friends’ blogs? Every blogging platform emits an RSS feed by default. You can follow every one of them in your reader. Not just blogs. Do you follow a bunch of substackers or other newsletters? They’ve all got RSS feeds. You can read those newsletters without ever registering in the analytics of the platforms that host them. The text shows up in black and white (not the sadistic, 8-point, 80% grey-on-white type these things all default to). It is always delivered, without any risk of your email provider misclassifying an update as spam: https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/10/dead-letters/

Did you know that, by default, your email sends information to mailing list platforms about your reading activity? The platform gets to know if you opened the message, and often how far along you’ve read in it. On top of that, they get all the private information your browser or app leaks about you, including your location. This is unbelievably gross, and you get to bypass all of it, just by reading in RSS…”

Broad implications… How much research is enough? How much information can I withhold?

https://www.bespacific.com/the-illusion-of-information-adequacy/

The illusion of information adequacy

Gehlbach H, Robinson CD, Fletcher A (2024) The illusion of information adequacy. PLoS ONE 19(10): e0310216.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310216: “How individuals navigate perspectives and attitudes that diverge from their own affects an array of interpersonal outcomes from the health of marriages to the unfolding of international conflicts. The finesse with which people negotiate these differing perceptions depends critically upon their tacit assumptions—e.g., in the bias of naïve realism people assume that their subjective construal of a situation represents objective truth. The present study adds an important assumption to this list of biases: the illusion of information adequacy. Specifically, because individuals rarely pause to consider what information they may be missing, they assume that the cross-section of relevant information to which they are privy is sufficient to adequately understand the situation. Participants in our preregistered study (N = 1261) responded to a hypothetical scenario in which control participants received full information and treatment participants received approximately half of that same information. We found that treatment participants assumed that they possessed comparably adequate information and presumed that they were just as competent to make thoughtful decisions based on that information. Participants’ decisions were heavily influenced by which cross-section of information they received. Finally, participants believed that most other people would make a similar decision to the one they made. We discuss the implications in the context of naïve realism and other biases that implicate how people navigate differences of perspective.”

Did I miss this?

https://www.bespacific.com/civil-rights-implications-of-federal-use-of-facial-recognition-technology/

The Civil Rights Implications of Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology

The Civil Rights Implications of the Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology. September 19, 2024. Meaningful federal guidelines and oversight for responsible FRT use have lagged behind the application of this technology in real-world scenarios. With the advent of biometric technology and its widespread use by both private and government entities, the Commission studied how the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are utilizing this technology, in compliance with existing civil rights laws. Currently, there are no laws that expressly regulate the use of FRT or other AI by the federal government, and no constitutional provisions governing its use.

Report

Fact Sheet

Press Release

I knew it!

https://www.bespacific.com/how-social-media-distorts-perceptions-of-norms/

How social media distorts perceptions of norms

Claire E. Robertson, Kareena S. del Rosario, Jay J. Van Bavel, Inside the funhouse mirror factory: How social media distorts perceptions of norms, Current Opinion in Psychology, Volume 60, 2024, 101918, ISSN 2352-250X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101918.  “The current paper explains how modern technology interacts with human psychology to create a funhouse mirror version of social norms. We argue that norms generated on social media often tend to be more extreme than offline norms which can create false perceptions of norms–known as pluralistic ignorance. We integrate research from political science, psychology, and cognitive science to explain how online environments become saturated with false norms, who is misrepresented online, what happens when online norms deviate from offline norms, where people are affected online, and why expressions are more extreme online. We provide a framework for understanding and correcting for the distortions in our perceptions of social norms that are created by social media platforms. We argue the funhouse mirror nature of social media can be pernicious for individuals and society by increasing pluralistic ignorance and false polarization.”

Resource.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/15/1105441/intro-ai-beginners-guide-artificial-intelligence-course/

Intro to AI: a beginner’s guide to artificial intelligence from MIT Technology Review

It feels as though AI is moving a million miles a minute. Every week, it seems, there are product launches, fresh features and other innovations, and new concerns over ethics and privacy. It’s a lot to keep up with. Maybe you wish someone would just take a step back and explain some of the basics.

Look no further. Intro to AI is MIT Technology Review’s first newsletter that also serves as a mini-course. You’ll get one email a week for six weeks, and each edition will walk you through a different topic in AI.

Sign up here to receive it for free. 

Perspective.

https://sifted.eu/articles/state-of-ai-report-2024-air-street

State of AI report 2024: Where is Europe winning?

London-based AI investment firm Air Street Capital has released its latest State of AI report, an annual deep dive into the big themes shaping what has become the VC industry’s favourite sector.

The seventh edition of the report describes how entrepreneurs are starting to get to grips with large language models (LLMs) and other generative technologies in video, image and audio, learning how to get the best out of them, as well as addressing their shortcomings.

And while it’s US tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta — not to mention ChatGPT maker OpenAI — that get the lion’s share of attention in the report (particularly when it comes to research), there are some notable European success stories.

Perspective.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/10/15/escalating-cyber-threats-demand-stronger-global-defense-and-cooperation/

Escalating Cyber Threats Demand Stronger Global Defense and Cooperation

Microsoft customers face more than 600 million cybercriminal and nation-state attacks every day, ranging from ransomware to phishing to identity attacks. Once again, nation-state affiliated threat actors demonstrated that cyber operations—whether for espionage, destruction, or influence—play a persistent supporting role in broader geopolitical conflicts. Also fueling the escalation in cyberattacks, we are seeing increasing evidence of the collusion of cybercrime gangs with nation-state groups sharing tools and techniques.  

We must find a way to stem the tide of this malicious cyber activity. That includes continuing to harden our digital domains to protect our networks, data, and people at all levels. However, this challenge will not be accomplished solely by executing a checklist of cyber hygiene measures but only through a focus on and commitment to the foundations of cyber defense from the individual user to the corporate executive and to government leaders.

These are some of the insights from the fifth annual Microsoft Digital Defense Report, which covers trends between July 2023 and June 2024. 

For your consideration…

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/14/1105249/data-strategies-for-ai-leaders/

Data strategies for AI leaders

… The expectation that generative AI could fundamentally upend business models and product offerings is driven by the technology’s power to unlock vast amounts of data that were previously inaccessible. “Eighty to 90% of the world’s data is unstructured,” says Baris Gultekin, head of AI at AI data cloud company Snowflake. “But what’s exciting is that AI is opening the door for organizations to gain insights from this data that they simply couldn’t before.”

https://www.snowflake.com/resource/data-strategies-for-ai-leaders/?utm_source=mit&utm_medium=web-lp-mit-site&utm_campaign=na-us-en&utm_content=mit-report-data-strategies-for-ai-leaders

I suppose artificial intelligence is better than no intelligence…

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202410.0360/v1

The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Political Decision-Making

The use of artificial intelligence for political decision-making is in an early stage of development; however, there are several questions that arise about its current and hypothetical uses. These questions often come from areas of philosophy such as ethics, political philosophy, and logic. In this article, first, the theoretical approaches from which the current and hypothetical uses of artificial intelligence for political decision-making can be interpreted will be presented. These approaches include realistic politics, bureaucracy theory, and conflict theory. Then, the possible uses that artificial intelligence could have in politics, as well as the attempts that have already been made, will be discussed. Subsequently, the logical, ethical, and political problems that the use of artificial intelligence for political decision-making could cause will be outlined. Next, a basic experiment will be presented on what kind of political decisions artificial intelligence could suggest. Finally, the points previously discussed will be analyzed from the mentioned theories. The conclusion reached was that, at the present time, the use of artificial intelligence for political decision-making could align more with the approaches of Machiavelli, focusing primarily on achieving goals such as maintaining power, while downplaying moral dilemmas.

Avoiding dystopia does not result in utopia.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Douglas-Youvan/publication/384665784_Orwell_Huxley_and_AI_Dystopian_Fiction/links/6701d398b753fa724d5fa84b/Orwell-Huxley-and-AI-Dystopian-Fiction.pdf

Orwell, Huxley, and AI Dystopian Fiction

In the realm of dystopian fiction, few authors have shaped our collective imagination as profoundly as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World present chilling visions of future societies, each shaped by technological control yet distinct in their methods. 1984 illustrates a world dominated by surveillance and truth manipulation, while Brave New World explores the dangers of a comfort-driven society where individuality is sacrificed for convenience. These classic works offer cautionary insights into the ethical implications of technology, surveillance, and control. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into modern life, the themes explored by Orwell and Huxley remain profoundly relevant. Modern AI-driven dystopian fiction builds on these authors' legacies, prompting questions about data privacy, personal autonomy, and social responsibility. By examining the intersection of AI and dystopian themes, we can explore pathways for ethical AI development that respect human dignity and uphold freedom, drawing inspiration from cautionary tales to foster a balanced, conscientious approach to technology.

Another look at the uses of AI.

https://appinventiv.com/blog/machine-learning-in-retail/

How Machine Learning in Retail is Redefining the Sector - Key Business Opportunities and Challenge

… To help you gain a better understanding of how ML is changing the retail industry, here are some of the key applications that make it a game-changing solution for retailers:

Keep AI in perspective.

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/llms-dont-do-formal-reasoning-and

LLMs don’t do formal reasoning - and that is a HUGE problem

A superb new article on LLMs from six AI researchers at Apple who were brave enough to challenge the dominant paradigm has just come out.

Everyone actively working with AI should read it, or at least this terrific X thread by senior author, Mehrdad Farajtabar, that summarizes what they observed. One key passage:

“we found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models …. Their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching—so fragile, in fact, that changing names can alter results by ~10%!”

One particularly damning result was a new task the Apple team developed, called GSM-NoOp

The obvious outcome of self surveillance.

https://gizmodo.com/hacked-robot-vacuums-across-the-us-started-yelling-slurs-2000511013

Hacked Robot Vacuums Across the U.S. Started Yelling Slurs

It’s a tale as old as… the Internet of Things era. Robot vacuums made by Ecovacs have been reported roving around people’s homes, yelling profanities at them through the onboard speakers after the company’s software was found to be vulnerable to intrusion.

… He opened the vacuum’s app to find a stranger was accessing its live camera feed and remote control feature, but assumed it might be an error. After resetting the password and rebooting the robot, the vacuum quickly started moving again:

This time, there was no ambiguity about what was coming out of the speaker. A voice was yelling racist obscenities, loud and clear, right in front of Mr Swenson’s son.

“F*** n******s,” screamed the voice, over and over again.

What would you build?

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/10/11/yale-law-school-introduces-numerous-ai-focused-initiatives/

Yale Law School introduces numerous AI-focused initiatives

… Through the Tsai Leadership Program, Scott Shapiro, professor of law and philosophy, heads an AI lab where students build AI tools for legal use. Currently, Shapiro is supervising a student building and coding a defamation detector. This AI model will be programmed to detect defamatory material and flag it for legal review.

Perspective.

https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace#basic-assumptions-and-framework

Machines of Loving Grace

… In this essay I try to sketch out what that upside might look like—what a world with powerful AI might look like if everything goes right. Of course no one can know the future with any certainty or precision, and the effects of powerful AI are likely to be even more unpredictable than past technological changes, so all of this is unavoidably going to consist of guesses. But I am aiming for at least educated and useful guesses, which capture the flavor of what will happen even if most details end up being wrong. I’m including lots of details mainly because I think a concrete vision does more to advance discussion than a highly hedged and abstract one.

Perspective. (With implications for most businesses.)

https://warontherocks.com/2024/10/ai-and-intelligence-analysis-panacea-or-peril/

AI and Intelligence Analysis: Panacea or Peril?

In today’s chaotic world, professional intelligence analysts must contend with nearly endless data streams, which risk overwhelming them while also exacerbating the impact of cognitive biases. Is AI the answer, or do the flaws that currently afflict AI create yet more risks?

In fact, AI is neither a panacea nor a peril. Like other emerging technologies, AI is not an instant “out of the box” solution but rather a capability that continues to evolve. Today, AI can augment human capabilities and enhance the analysis process by tackling specific challenges. However, AI is not without issues. This means its value lies in serving as a complementary capability to the expertise and judgment of human intelligence analysts.

Before the wholesale adoption of AI in support of intelligence analysis, it is essential to understand the specific problems facing analysts: coping with large volumes of data; the acquisition of data from non-traditional sources; and, perhaps most vexing of all, the impacts of cognitive biases that impact the objectivity of intelligence assessments. AI can play a valuable role in alleviating these challenges, but only if humans are kept in the loop.

Perspective.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/generative-ai-the-american-worker-and-the-future-of-work/

Generative AI, the American worker, and the future of work

The launch of ChatGPT-3.5 at the end of 2022 captured the world’s attention and illustrated the uncanny ability of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to produce a range of seemingly human-generated content, including text, video, audio, images, and code. The release, and the many eye-catching breakthroughs that quickly followed, have raised questions about what these fast-moving generative AI technologies might mean for work, workers, and livelihoods—now and in the future, as new models are released that are potentially much more powerful. Many U.S. workers are worried: According to a Pew Research Center poll, most Americans believe that generative AI will have a major impact on jobs—mainly negative—in the next two decades. 

Despite these widely shared concerns, however, there is little consensus on the nature and scale of generative AI’s potential impacts and how—or even whether—to respond. Fundamental questions remain unanswered: How do we ensure workers can proactively shape generative AI’s design and deployment? What will it take to make sure workers benefit meaningfully from its gains? And what guardrails are needed for workers to avoid harms as much as possible? 

These animating questions are the heart of this report and a new multiyear effort we have launched at Brookings with a wide range of external collaborators

No wonder they rely on AI to read for them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books

… This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

“My jaw dropped,” Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.

Are we slipping down the slope toward fully autonomous drones?

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2024/10/new-ai-powered-strike-drone-shows-how-quickly-battlefield-autonomy-evolving/400179/

New AI-powered strike drone shows how quickly battlefield autonomy is evolving

Small drones have been changing modern warfare at least since 2015, when Russia and Ukraine began to use them to great effect for rapid targeting. The latest addition is a strike-and-intelligence quadcopter that its builder hopes will do more things with a lot less operator attention.

The point of the Bolt-M, revealed by Anduril today, is to make fewer demands on the operator and offer more information than, easy-to-produce first-person-view strike drones, the type that Ukraine is producing by the hundreds of thousands. The U.S. Army, too, is looking at FPV drones for infantry platoons. But they require special training to use and come with a lot of operational limits. The Bolt-M, according to an Anduril statement, works “without requiring specialized operators.” The company has a contract from the U.S. Marine Corps’ Organic Precision Fires – Light, or OPF-L, program to develop a strike variant.