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"NFTs are created on Ethereum's blockchain, which is immutable, meaning it cannot be altered. No one can undo your ownership of an NFT or re-create that exact same one. They're also "permissionless," so anyone can create, buy, or sell an NFT without asking for permission. Finally, every NFT is unique, and can be viewed by anyone. "

""Even if the data is old, it's never really old because it will always be useful for data brokers," he said. "It helps them correlate related information that is new and dump them into these profiles, which they sell online for as little as 99 cents.""

"It's actually a big myth that search engines need to track your personal search history to make money or deliver quality search results. Almost all of the money search engines make (including Google) is based on the keywords you type in, without knowing anything about you, including your search history or the seemingly endless amounts of additional data points they have collected about registered and non-registered users alike. In fact, search advertisers buy search ads by bidding on keywords, not people….This keyword-based advertising is our primary business model. "

"The point of creating this vast portfolio of digital gun art is to feed an algorithm made to detect a firearm as soon as a security camera catches it being drawn by synthetically creating tens of thousands of ways each gun may appear. Arcarithm is one of several companies developing automated active shooter detection technology in the hopes of selling it to schools, hotels, entertainment venues and the owners of any location that could be the site of one of America's 15,000 annual gun murders and 29,000 gun injuries."

"The battle over algorithms in healthcare has come into full view since last fall. The debate only intensified in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately devastated Black and Latino communities. In October, Science published a study that found one hospital unintentionally directed more white patients than Black patients to a high-risk care management program because it used an algorithm to predict the patients' future healthcare costs as a key indicator of personal health. Optum, the company that sells the software product, told Mashable that the hospital used the tool incorrectly. "

"Launched in 2006, 23andMe sells tests to determine consumers' genetic ancestry and risk of developing certain illnesses, using saliva samples sent in by mail. Privacy advocates and researchers have long raised concerns about a for-profit company owning the genetic data of millions of people, fears that have only intensified with news of the partnership."

"First, lucrative state contracts are given to private corporations to build and deploy policing technologies that surveil and manage target groups. Then, using the vast amounts of biometric and social media data extracted from those groups, the private companies improve their technologies and sell retail versions of them to other states and institutions, such as schools. Finally, all this turns the target groups into a ready source of cheap labor - either through direct coercion or indirectly through stigma."

"But the technology raises important issues of governance, justice and fairness. In recent months, the Black Lives Matter movement has taken action to address what it sees as an abuse of police power and surveillance technology. Facing reputational and financial costs, several major tech companies stopped developing facial recognition or selling it to the police. Microsoft went as far as petitioning the US Congress to legislate against it."

"Some ideas include building mechanisms into devices or platforms that cause them to shut down automatically after two hours, or nudges that make it more difficult to keep spending money in an app. The problem is that tech companies are ruled by a profit model built on capturing more of our attention to sell to advertisers. Designing platforms so they limit the amount of time we spend on social media runs counter to this model."

"One of the problems with The Social Dilemma is that it supposes that tech did what it claims it did - that these are actually such incredible geniuses that they figured out how to use machine learning to control minds. And that's the problem - the mind control thing they designed to sell you fidget spinners got hijacked to make your uncle racist. But there's another possibility, which is that their claims are rubbish. They just overpromised in their sales material, and that what actually happened with that growth of monopolies and corruption in the public sphere made people cynical, angry, bitter and violent. In which case the problem isn't that their tools were misused. The problem is that the structures in which those tools were developed are intrinsically corrupt and corrupting."

"It is high time the Congress and Biden administration placed reasonable democratic constraints on online advocacy of violence and extremism. The choice is clear: we can either protect our democracy from extremism or lose it. In the real world, your postal carrier is prevented by law from reading your mail and selling your information to recruiters who wish to spam you with violent extremist material. Those same protections must be extended to Facebook and other companies."

"Why? Because it has an internal app store that puts its young player base to work making virtual stuff and selling it for scrip or peanuts while the company pockets the profits. It even promotes the far-right personalities and groups using it to recruit. It is a ruthless money machine that embodies the perverse incentives of social media, aimed directly at children and operated by amoral reptiles."

"The role of AI writing systems as drafting buddies is a big departure from how writers typically get help, yet so far it is their biggest selling point and use case. Most writing tools available today will do some drafting for you, either by continuing where you left off or responding to a more specific instruction. SudoWrite, a popular AI writing tool for novelists, does all of these, with options to "write" where you left off, "describe" a highlighted noun, or "brainstorm" ideas based on a situation you describe. Systems like Jasper.ai or Lex will complete your paragraph or draft copy based on instructions, and Laika is similar but more focused on fiction and drama. "

"Staying on the subject of "we live in a dystopian digital hellscape": a Gizmodo investigation identified 32 data brokers selling access to the unique mobile IDs of people pegged as "actively pregnant" or "shopping for maternity products". At least one company was also offering access to a catalogue of people using the same sorts of emergency contraceptives that some Republican's want to outlaw or restrict."

"Artificial Intelligence has the ability to perform illegal financial trades and cover it up, new research suggests. In a demonstration at the UK's AI safety summit, a bot used made-up insider information to make an "illegal" purchase of stocks without telling the firm. When asked if it had used insider trading, it denied the fact. Insider trading refers to when confidential company information is used to make trading decisions. Firms and individuals are only allowed to use publicly-available information when buying or selling stocks. "

"Instagram has been used to promote sexual violence and exploitation by people advertising themselves as "pimps", a Guardian investigation has found. For the past year, the Guardian has been tracking Instagram accounts hosting content that advocates such activity as well as those that encourage violence against the women under the control of a pimp - someone who makes money from selling others for sex. The accounts identified often use hashtags as well as code phrases commonly associated with sex work to make it easier for buyers to locate them."

Apple is slowly becoming a dangerous competitor again Microsoft, but the Windows operating systems still dominate the business world. What does this mean for Apple?

Be careful of articles like these as they are really dealing with business but not in terms of the technology or a social and ethical issue. Equality of access for these businesses is only a by product - unlike for something like the OLPC where it was the main issue...