Sasha Akhavi @sakhavi@qoto.org

When your business model relies on theft and you don't like proposed regulations that would expose that theft ... that's a pretty good sign the regulations are on the right track.

#OpenAI #AIAct

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/25/23737116/openai-ai-regulation-eu-ai-act-cease-operating

The most important social media question for academics right now is: how are we going to create networking opportunities for junior scholars as Twitter declines?

That's why I'm so impressed with #AoIR , the Association of Internet Researchers, who are offering scholars a Mastodon account as part of membership at https://aoir.social/about

I think many see comparisons of this moment for trans Americans to genocide as a hyperbolic attempt to reach ppl emotionally, and what I want to describe in this thread is that yes, we're trying you reach you emotionally, but it's also as clear a description as we can give.

In TX, authorities are going after trans children's medical records. Based on that, families are trying to decide whether they should flee because they're worried the state might put them in jail.

***** When Google Doesn't Care *****

Why am I pushing a "Users' Bill of Account Rights" now? While this does not apply only to #Google, I frankly am deeply tired of people coming to me desperate, pleading, for help trying to restore access to locked out Google accounts. Google won't respond to them. They ask who they can talk to? Who can they PAY? Personal and business emails, precious photos, files. They trusted Google. They followed the rules. They did nothing illegal. And they've lost access to everything. To Google, they're just in the noise at Google scale.

It's been this way at Google since the firms' start, but over the years Google has encouraged ordinary, nontechnical people to trust them more and more. And that usually works great, until something goes wrong.

Up to now, I've sometimes been able to informally help in these situations, via contacts at Google. But even that has become much more difficult. This is getting worse, not better.

Google has the resources -- money and smart minds -- to solve these problems. This is not rocket science, or even computer science. There are straightforward ways to make this far better for Google users otherwise locked out and left to swing in the wind. The sad fact is that Google simply don't consider them to rise to the level worth helping.

This must change now. -L

The biggest tech innovations of the last 10 years. 😁

People in security and computing have been saying for years - there's no cloud. There's just someone else's computer.

Right now, there's no AI. There's just someone else's work.

Stop calling generative text and image programs AI. It's inaccurate and insulting. They are just the evolution of corporate creative theft that's been going on as long as media corporations have existed.

I post a fair amount of concerning news about #COVID19, so here's some potential good news. A vaccine developed at Rutgers is showing promise for long-lasting protection from COVID, and it's cheap to produce and distribute without special low-temperature handling. It needs more testing, but perhaps better population-wide protection is on the horizon?

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230508/Novel-Rutgers-vaccine-may-provide-more-durable-protection-against-SARS-CoV-2.aspx

Gotta hand it to the man, the guy delivers

I had to explain to someone today that the blue check is Twitter’s MAGA hat.