Group items tagged

"Do screens destroy kids' executive functioning? In short: no. Some types of screen use (in particular, non-educational, 'fantastical' shows) may have short-term impacts on attention, memory, or inhibition. But these effects don't seem to be long-term, unless screen use is excessive and interfering with other important activities. And some screens (educational apps, certain video games) may actually improve executive functioning skills. "

"This week, a 16-person narrative design studio has found itself at the centre of a conspiracy theory that holds it responsible for the insidious prevalence of "wokery" in modern video games. A group with more than 200,000 followers on PC games storefront Steam, as well as thousands in a Discord chat channel, believes that Sweet Baby Inc is secretly forcing game developers to change the bodies, ethnicities and sexualities of video game characters to conform to "woke" ideology. They think that Sweet Baby has written and controlled almost every popular video game of the past five years, shutting straight white men out. As Trump once again heads out on the campaign trail, this is part of a broader far right panic about diversity and inclusion that has already resulted in proposed regressive anti-women and anti-woke legislation in the US and elsewhere."

"The independent review on equity in medical devices once again highlights the multiple ways in which medical technology development can lead to solutions whereby the benefits are distributed inequitably across society, or can further exacerbate health inequalities (UK report reveals bias within medical tools and devices, 11 March). While the report is welcome, the challenge facing scientists and engineers is how to innovate medical devices differently to respond to longstanding societal biases and inequalities."

"A big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients. The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office."

"The tech giant is partnering with OpenAI to integrate its chatbot, ChatGPT, into the iPhone's operating system, Bloomberg reported. Apple is expected to announce the deal at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference which starts on June 10."

"The tablets are scheduled to be introduced next year, and by 2028, teachers are supposed to be using these AI textbooks for all subjects except music, art, physical education and ethics. The government hasn't shared many details about how it will all work, except that the material is supposed to be customized for different speeds of learning, with teachers using dashboards to monitor how students are doing. In response, more than 50,000 parents have signed a petition demanding that the government focus less on new tech and more on students' overall well-being: "We, as parents, are already encountering many issues at unprecedented levels arising from [our children's] exposure to digital devices." Lee Sun-youn, a mother of two, told FT, "I am worried that too much usage of digital devices could negatively affect their brain development, concentration span and ability to solve problems - they already use smartphones and tablets too much.""

"The research, conducted at Vision and AI Lab of the Department of Computational and Data Sciences, offers a novel approach to mitigating bias in popular image-generative models without the need for additional data or model retraining."

"A new AI-infused classroom management tool with facial recognition capabilities has garnered attention recently with promises to take attendance, assess the emotional states of students, and monitor classes for distraction, boredom and confusion. But the technology and similar developments have raised numerous legal, ethical, and civil liberties questions similar to those surrounding campus safety surveillance programs and test proctoring programs widely adopted during the COVID pandemic."

Instead, affiliate charter schools seek applicants for positions like a "High School Guide." These $50/hr employees will help design "creative, immersive learning experiences that teach students to leverage cutting-edge AI tools and innovative strategies," among other responsibilities. "Think of yourself as a brand consultant for 50 startups simultaneously, guiding diverse branding needs from business to personal expertise positioning," reads one job listing. Apart from students' brand development, the opening also stipulates candidates must possess "demonstrated expertise in social media management, content creation, and audience engagement."

Is it possible there are modes of attention that a younger generation is developing that might be difficult for those of us who are older to value, but which bring new types of benefit? What of the rapid, quick-fire, written exchanges of instant messaging? The art of the pithy, witty expression condensed into 140 or 280 characters? What of the dexterity and reflex-training physical and mental movement of the video game, or the socially dispersed forms of collective attention that are possible in online environments?

"The Google owner, Alphabet, has dropped its promise not to use artificial intelligence for purposes such as developing weapons and surveillance tools. The US technology company said on Tuesday, just before it reported lower-than-forecast earnings, that it had updated its ethical guidelines around AI, and they no longer referred to not pursuing technologies that could "cause or are likely to cause overall harm". Google's AI head, Demis Hassabis, said the guidelines were being overhauled in a changing world and that AI should protect "national security"."

"One company working on that is Denmark's Corti, which has developed AI that can listen to healthcare consultations, either over the phone or in person, and suggest follow-up questions, prompts, treatment options, as well as automating note taking. Corti says its technology processes about 150,000 patient interactions per day across hospitals, GP surgeries and healthcare institutions across Europe and the US, totalling about 100 million encounters per year. "The idea is the physician can spend more time with a patient," says Lars Maaløe, co-founder and chief technology officer at Corti. He says the technology can suggest questions based on previous conversations it has heard in other healthcare situations."

"Our findings show that both model and user behaviors can influence social and emotional outcomes. Effects of AI vary based on how people choose to use the model and their personal circumstances. This research provides a starting point for further studies that can increase transparency, and encourage responsible usage and development of AI platforms across the industry."

"An NHS hospital in west London is pioneering the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help check for skin cancer. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital said its AI technology has been approved to give patients the all-clear without having to see a doctor. Once photos are uploaded to the system, the technology analyses and interprets the images, with 99% accuracy in diagnosing benign cases, the hospital said. Thousands of NHS patients have had urgent cancer checks using the AI tool, freeing up consultants to focus on the most serious cases and bringing down waiting lists. The system conducts the checks in minutes, with medical photographers taking photos of suspicious moles and lesions using an iPhone and the DERM app, developed by UK firm Skin Analytics."

"Many respondents said they used chatbots to help them manage different aspects of their lives, from improving their mental and physical health to advice about existing romantic relationships and experimenting with erotic role play. They can spend between several hours a week to a couple of hours a day interacting with the apps. Worldwide, more than 100 million people use personified chatbots, which include Replika, marketed as "the AI companion who cares" and Nomi, which claims users can "build a meaningful friendship, develop a passionate relationship, or learn from an insightful mentor"."

"When employees at meta started developing their flagship AI model, Llama 3, they faced a simple ethical question. The program would need to be trained on a huge amount of high-quality writing to be competitive with products such as ChatGPT, and acquiring all of that text legally could take time. Should they just pirate it instead?"

"At least 50 separate deadly strikes by armed forces in Africa have been confirmed during the three years up to November 2024, with analysts describing a "striking pattern of civilian harm" with little or no accountability. Although the rapid growth of armed drones deployed by Ukraine and Russia receives significant scrutiny, scant focus is being paid to the escalating use in Africa of a new breed of imported cheaper drones, such as Turkey's Bayraktar TB2, said Cora Morris of campaign group Drone Wars UK, which on Monday published a report on the growth of armed drones in Africa, called Death on Delivery."

"This cycle is particularly painful for non-engineers because they lack the mental models to understand what's actually going wrong. When an experienced developer encounters a bug, they can reason about potential causes and solutions based on years of pattern recognition. Without this background, you're essentially playing whack-a-mole with code you don't fully understand."

"From this fact about language development, Chomsky posited an (abstract) innate module for language learning - not processing. From a neurobiological standpoint, the brain has to be ready to understand language from birth. While there are plenty of examples of language specialization in infants, the precise neural mechanisms are still unknown, but not unknowable. But objects of study become unknowable when scientific terms are misused or misapplied. And this is precisely the danger: conflating AI with human understanding can lead to dangerous consequences."