Mark Mounts @markmounts@qoto.org

Forget security – Google's reCAPTCHA v2 is exploiting users for profit

Web puzzles don't protect against bots, but humans have spent 819 million unpaid hours solving them Google promotes its reCAPTCHA service as a security mechanism for websites, but researchers affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, argue it's harvesting information while extracting human labor worth billi…
#theregister #IT
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/24/googles_recaptchav2_labor/

90 percent data is not used = wasted...(Gerry Macgovern "world wide waste")

Related
‘Weird interaction with a student. They keep coming up with weird “facts” (“Greek is a combination of four other languages”) that left me baffled. I said let’s look this stuff up together, and they said OK, I open a search bar, and they opened … Ch*tGPT. And I was like “this is not a search bar” and they were like “yes it is, you can search for anything in here”.
…
Each individual kid is now hooked into a Nonsense Machine.’
- https://mastodon.social/@Miniver/112742679202304903

Via Norm Ornstein:

#Trump says battery powered planes can’t fly in cloudy weather, inflation is 30%. Revelations about shocking Trump rapes and sexual assaults w J. Epstein. WaPo leads w 2 front page stories on #Biden’s debate meltdown, pressure to withdraw. One on Trump—on his strategy to lie low because of firestorm over Biden. NOTHING on these Trump scandals. Nothing. Journalistic malpractice to the max. Sleepwalking to autocracy. New slogan for the Post: Democracy dies in negligence.

The Supreme Court's recent decision on presidential immunity is complex and, frankly, alarming. Understanding its impact on our democracy can be challenging. Thankfully, The Big Picture has broken it down in their latest article. This essential read explores how the ruling could enable presidential abuses of power and what it means for Trump’s ongoing legal issues. If you care about the future of our Republic, take the time to read and understand what’s at stake. https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/imperial-presidency-scotus-trump-immunity

Welcome to a new browser!

> Ladybird uses a brand new engine based on web standards, without borrowing any code from other browsers. It started as a humble HTML viewer for the SerenityOS hobby project, but since then it's grown into a full cross-platform browser project supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems. — https://ladybird.org/announcement.html

This is good for the Web!

“Knowledge of feelings | A Working Library”

https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/knowledge-of-feelings

It's basically impossible for me to choose which bit to quote. I want to quote the entire thing. It's simpler for you all to just go read this :-)

I always forget about the @CopernicusECMWF #climate data store's pulse application, but I was reminded again this morning of it's existence: for my money the best visualisation tool of the current state of the climate we have, check it out. here:

https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu/

"A slice of the nearly $29 million that Boulder collected during the first six and a half years of a voter-passed soda tax has provided low-income residents with extra money to buy fresh produce from local businesses.

It’s one of many ways the city has directed revenue from that unusual tax to a range of programs focused on improving health equity in the community."

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/15/boulder-soda-tax-fruit-veg-program-low-income/

#PublicHealth #SodaTax #food #nutrition #HealthEquity

Former Snap engineer launches Butterflies, a social network where AIs and humans coexist

'Anyone can create an AI persona, called a Butterfly, in minutes on the app. After that, the Butterfly automatically creates posts on the social network that other AIs and humans can then interact with. Each Butterfly has backstories, opinions and emotions. '

Social media is eating itself.

#SocialMedia #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ML #MachineLearning #LLM

https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/18/former-snap-engineer-launches-butterflies-a-social-network-where-ais-and-humans-coexist/

Florida school board members supported by Moms for Liberty have banned a book which talks about books that they have banned. Reason? because it talks about book banning and how to push back against it.

No Liberty in #BookBans

Author of #BannedBook "Ban This Book", Alan Gratz said, “It feels like they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re somewhat ashamed of what they’re doing and they don’t want a book on the shelves that calls them out.” #books #bookstodon
https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/11/florida-book-bans-book-banned

You have to read a long way into this Axios piece on the rise of "partisan-backed outlets designed to look like impartial news outlets" to learn what should have been shouted right at the top: The overwhelming majority of these "pink slime" sites are engineered by right-wingers.

With that context firmly in your mind, do read it.

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/11/partisan-news-websites-dark-money

“It is beyond time that we stop treating the deep ocean as something to exploit and start treating it for what it really is: A mind blowingly vast, virtually unknown world within our world; one filled with beauty, wonder, and of course, unfuckable ugos that i wouldn’t touch with an octopus’ dick.”

#DeepSeaMining

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jun/10/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-deep-sea-mining

@awhitis

"Senate Bill 216 also puts protections on #library workers. They cannot be retaliated against, disciplined for, or removed from their work for not relocating or removing #books that have not gone through the established review process...

IOW, the state recognizes that library workers are professionals in the field & not subject to the whims of #politicians or the demands of the public"
https://bookriot.com/colorado-passes-anti-book-ban-bill-for-public-libraries/

#Libraries #bookstodon #BookBans #Politics #Colorado #USA #News

Thank you, Colorado!

Colorado Passes Anti-Book Ban Bill for Public Libraries https://bookriot.com/colorado-passes-anti-book-ban-bill-for-public-libraries/

#libraries #bookbans

"In this paper, we formalize the problem and show that it is impossible to eliminate hallucination in LLMs."
Hallucination is Inevitable: An Innate Limitation of Large Language Models
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.11817

@pluralistic I used to want affordable houses, but now that I own a house, I want house prices to go up.
I used to expect salaries to be living wages, but now that I'm management, I try to push workers into poverty.
I used to like shopping around but now that I'm a business owner, I put out mob hits on my competitors.
I used to like the surface of the earth being amenable to human life, but now that I'm one of the select few in a bunker with the nuclear codes, I've bombed everyone.

Well said Joan…

“Reading is more than a utilitarian skill. It exposes us to new ideas, cultures, and experiences. Books allow us to imagine other lives, expanding our worldviews. Deep, thoughtful reading exercises our mental capacities. It develops focus, analytical skills, and abstract thinking. Reading builds empathy and compassion. Through stories, we gain emotional insights into the human condition. An erosion of critical reading hinders cognitive growth and emotional intelligence.”

The Death of Critical Thinking Will Kill Us Long Before AI. | by Joan Westenberg | Medium

https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/the-death-of-critical-thinking-will-kill-us-long-before-ai-781fdd23cc7c