Some fun new AI threats.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/08/political-milestones-for-ai.html

Political Milestones for AI

… The truth is, the future will be much more interesting. And even some of the most stupendous potential impacts of AI on politics won’t be all bad. We can draw some fairly straight lines between the current capabilities of AI tools and real-world outcomes that, by the standards of current public understanding, seem truly startling.

With this in mind, we propose six milestones that will herald a new era of democratic politics driven by AI. All feel achievable—perhaps not with today’s technology and levels of AI adoption, but very possibly in the near future.

One fifth of states now have a privacy law. Is there enough in common to suggest a workable Federal law?

https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-protection/the-texas-data-privacy-security-act-becomes-law/

The Texas Data Privacy & Security Act Becomes Law

On Sunday, June 18, 2023, Governor Abbot signed the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (“TDPSA”) into law, making Texas the tenth state to enact comprehensive data privacy protections for its residents. The TDPSA was modeled after the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act but contains some updates and Texas-specific provisions. The TDPSA will take effect July 1, 2024, giving Texas businesses a year to prepare for compliance with the new law. In general, the TDPSA regulates the collection, use, processing, and treatment of Texas consumers’ personal data by certain business entities.

Depressing, but then I’m old so I can ignore it.

https://www.bespacific.com/the-busy-workers-handbook-to-the-apocalypse/

The Busy Worker’s Handbook to the Apocalypse

Sam Hall: Revised 11 Jul 2023. This document is also available as a PDF here. Update: Michael Dowd was kind enough to narrate an audio recording of this article.

Abstract – Climate change will cause agricultural failure and subsequent collapse of hyperfragile modern civilization, likely within 10–15 years. By 2050 total human population will likely be under 2 billion. Humans, along with most other animals, will go extinct before the end of this century. These impacts are locked in and cannot be averted. Everything in this article is supporting information for this conclusion. Target audience is the educated but busy / swamped American worker who reads the occasional article on climate change and concludes that everything must be under control or else there would be urgent alarms going off right? That was basically me until a couple years ago when a period of unemployment gave me the opportunity to dive into the science and start evaluating the conclusions for myself. I do not expect anyone to read this entire article from start to finish. My hope is that it can serve as a decision making aid for answering some of the critical questions that we face when trying to make major life decisions and deciding how best to prepare for the future. It is organized like a reference book to make it easy to find a relevant section when a situation arises and you need specific information…”

But does it make ChatGPT more likely to pass the Turing test?

https://decrypt.co/151205/openai-chatgpt-updates-latest-ai-chatbot

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Just Got Smarter: Here’s the Latest on the AI Chatbot

… OpenAI today announced an update to make its chatbot more user-friendly. Firing up a blank ChatGPT window can be daunting, so now users are greeted with suggested prompts to spark ideas and get the creative juices flowing.

The virtual assistant also chimes in with follow-up questions and responses to keep discussions flowing naturally. These new features help emulate the back-and-forth rhythm of human conversation. This feature has already proven useful in the GPT-powered version of Microsoft Bing, so OpenAI adding it now to its own chatbot makes sense. The guardrails could also prevent the bot from giving weird responses while at the same time engaging users into longer conversations.

I don’t know… Perhaps if we made sure it didn’t preempt the important stuff like football or Judge Judy? (Would Coke and Pepsi battle for the commercial rights?)

https://www.bespacific.com/why-the-trump-trial-should-be-televised/

Why the Trump trial should be televised

Washington Post – Opinion – Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, served as acting solicitor general of the United States from 2010 to 2011. “The upcoming trial of United States v. Donald J. Trump will rank with Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education and Dred Scott v. Sandford as a defining moment for our history and our values as a people. And yet, federal law will prevent all but a handful of Americans from actually seeing what is happening in the trial. We will be relegated to perusing cold transcripts and secondhand descriptions. The law must be changed. While many states allow cameras in courtrooms, federal courts generally do not. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53 states: “Except as otherwise provided by a statute or these rules, the court must not permit the taking of photographs in the courtroom during judicial proceedings or the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.” Whatever the virtues of this rule might have been when it was adopted in 1946, it is beyond antiquated today. We live in a digital age, where people think visually and are accustomed to seeing things with their own eyes. A criminal trial is all about witnesses and credibility, and the demeanor of participants plays a big role. A cold transcript cannot convey the emotion on a defendant’s face when a prosecution witness is on the stand, or how he walks into the courtroom each day… This criminal trial is being conducted in the name of the people of the United States. It is our tax dollars at work. We have a right to see it. And we have the right to ensure that rumormongers and conspiracy theorists don’t control the narrative.”