Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Single-use #plastic cutlery and plates to be banned in England - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/08/single-use-plastic-cutlery-and-plates-to-be-banned-in-england no perfect, but a good move by UK gov for a change...

So the people at Koko— an online mental health intervention laminate that licenses itself out to other platforms to make use of (Tumblr, facebook, etc.) have apparently just admitted that they tested gpt-3 assisted mental health interventions on some 4,000 people in mental health crisis, without said people's informed consent.

See here: http://web.archive.org/web/20230107210632/https://twitter.com/RobertRMorris/status/1611450197707464706

And followup "Clarification" thread here: http://web.archive.org/web/20230107191117/https://twitter.com/RobertRMorris/status/1611775514590740480

Now, at this point, I really shouldn't have to explain to people why this is… very very bad on a number of levels, but to those who maybe still don't get it, and to anyone ever even THINKING of doing anything like this, PLEASE read the "Digital Futures in Mind" Report:

https://automatingmentalhealth.cc/recommendations

This report was funded by the @mozilla foundation, and coordinated by Piers Gooding, with further authorship by Jonah Bossewitch, Lydia X. Z. Brown, Leah Harris, James Horton, Simon Katterl, Keris Myrick, Kelechi Ubozoh, and Alberto Vásquez Encalada (and by way of full disclosure, i wrote the foreword).

It covers the promises, pitfalls, and outright depredations of the Existing interventions in the "AI" assisted mental health space, while also examining and interrogating the proposed use cases and laying bare their implications.

There are several things in the references you should take in, too, but if nothing else PLEASE take the time to read the report itself.

This is a mess that didn't need to happen, and definitely doesn't need to be repeated.

Please re-elephant: I'm looking to hire a Research Assistant based in Nairobi! You'll work on lab & field experiments. Good prep for grad school; most previous RAs have ended up as coauthors on papers. Deadline Jan 10, start anytime in 2023, 2-year commitment.

https://www.povertyactionlab.org/careers/research-specialist-johannes-haushofer-nairobi-busara-center-behavioral-economics-job-2

Mythbusters were going to do an episode which highlighted the immense security flaws in most credit cards. But Discovery was threatened by - and eventually gave into - immense legal pressure from the major credit card companies to not air the episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-St_ltH90Oc&ab_channel=mediarchives

Original tweet : https://nitter.privacydev.net/tilbots/status/1611482570381840389

1. Two years ago today, http://popular.info began its reporting on corporate PAC donors to the members of Congress voting to overturn the 2020 election.

Over the course of a few days, hundreds of companies pledged to suspend their giving

What's happened since?

🧵

Please boost this information:

Those who declined to accept an honour (e.g an OBE, MBE, Damehood, Knighthood):

Michael Rosen (poet)
Danny Boyle (director)
Michael Faraday (scientist)
J.B Priestly (playwright)
Amartya Sen (economist)
Stephen Hawking (physicist)
Ken Loach (director)
C.S Lewis (writer)
Virginia Woolf (writer)
Alan Rickman (actor)
Jon Snow (journalist)
L.S Lowry (artist)
Dorothy Hodgkin (scientist)
Howard Gayle (footballer)
Benjamin Zephaniah (poet)
David Bowie (musician)

🏛️ Remember folks, the government is here to serve the people. I mean, not the poor ones, obviously, but you know what I mean.

https://trac.syr.edu/reports/706/

New: Trump is facing a legal challenge to his eligibility to run for president in 2024, only a few weeks after the Jan. 6 congressional committee suggested the 14th Amendment as a path to disqualifying him from ever holding office again
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-06/donald-trump-is-already-facing-a-lawsuit-to-stop-his-2024-campaign

We here in "the West" have A LOT to learn from cooperators in other parts of the world. I think we would probably do well to focus a little less on Mondragon, and a little (or a lot) more on #cooperatives like Cecosesola in Venezuela & SEWA in India. Why don't we hear more about this amazing co-op story in the US?

https://www.equaltimes.org/by-workers-for-workers-in-india

TIL there's a technical name for why ideas happen in the shower: the "default mode network" is a pattern of brain activity, measurable using fMRI, that happens when we're unfocussed. When the brain goes into idle mode (reduced activity), this part of the brain actually becomes *more* active. What does the default mode network do? Research is ongoing, but part of it definitely seems to be making connections, which is associated with curiosity and creativity.

More here: https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2022/08/the-science-of-why-you-have-great-ideas-in-the-shower

My book on facial recognition technology comes out on September 19! Over the last two years, I tracked down the tech's early pioneers, found the people fighting against its worst impulses, and dove into the history of Clearview AI, the start-up that first drew me into the topic with a radical person-finding app that giants in the field, including Google and Facebook, had deemed taboo. It feels real now because there's a release date and a preorder button: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691288/your-face-belongs-to-us-by-kashmir-hill/

WSJ discovers that Phoenix police are not especially interested in First Amendment rights: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/media/wsj-reporter-chase-arrest/index.html

Two thirds of health care organizations in a study said they'd been attacked with ransomware.

This activity isn't just robbery It's assault on people's health, and if some die, outright murder.

https://assets.sophos.com/X24WTUEQ/at/4wxp262kpf84t3bxf32wrctm/sophos-state-of-ransomware-healthcare-2022-wp.pdf

The auto industry needs to up its security testing in a big way as it transitions to web and API to interact with vehicles.

Wow.

"Fully remote lock, unlock, engine start, engine stop, precision locate, flash headlights, and honk vehicles using only the VIN number
Fully remote account takeover and PII disclosure via VIN number (name, phone number, email address, physical address)
Ability to lock users out of remotely managing their vehicle, change ownership
For Kia’s specifically, we could remotely access the 360-view camera and view live images from the car"

https://samcurry.net/web-hackers-vs-the-auto-industry/

Classic NY Times analysis in this "Wave of Job-Switching Has Employers on a Training Treadmill" story: It tangentially notes that the switching is highest in low-pay jobs where workers are going to higher-paying gigs. But no one directly states the obvious, that treating workers better would keep more of them around. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/business/economy/job-turnover-productivity.html

Reminder that journalists who would never consider working for the Murdoch family's Fox "News" -- because they have too much integrity to participate in its relentless poisoning of our civic life -- continue to pour their work into Elon Musk's Twitter.