If you’re new around here, every Tuesday is trash day. We clean out our bookmarks folder, ridding ourselves once and for all from all the news articles we meant to read, but never got around to. This has a salutary effect. On me, I mean. My readers end up having to read them for me, and I get off scot free.
Cyber Criminals Impersonating Brands Using Search Engine Advertisement Services to Defraud Users
The FBI is warning the public that cyber criminals are using search engine advertisement services to impersonate brands and direct users to malicious sites that host ransomware and steal login credentials and other financial information.
The FBI recommends that people install ad-blocking extensions on their browsers. Well, 2005 called, and they’d like their advice back. Unfortunately, I have no advice on how to install FBI-blocking extensions on your browser
The world’s largest wind-powered cargo ship just made its first delivery across the Atlantic
The company’s first vessel, called Anemos, is very different from a traditional sailing ship. It takes some inspiration from sailboats used in racing. First, the masts are made from carbon fiber. That makes them so lightweight that they can be much taller than the traditional version made from wood. The extra height means that they can hold up sails that are around twice as large, and catch more wind.
The Cutty Sark called, and they’d like their propulsion idea back.
A Word, Please: Coffee-shop prompt stirs ChatGPT to brew up bland copy
Recently I was hired to write a 200-word article based on an 800-word press release about a new coffee shop. I finished and turned it in, then it hit me: It’s just a matter of time before the client who hired me realizes AI programs can write these things for free.
To size up my competition, I pasted the original press release into ChatGPT and asked it to create its own 200-word article, then I compared our work.
The writer is complaining about the quality of the Chat GPT output compared to hers. I’ve read both. I’ve probably written and edited more online text by others than just about anyone. The Chat GPT output is better than hers. And using Chat GPT has another benefit. No whining.
As a thinker and mystic whose life work entirely centred on the transformation of the human mind, Krishnamurti worried that an insufficiently cultivated mind that had been employed merely for material and mechanical purposes would be perfectly imitable and thus replaceable by computers and other machines. Thus, our main concern should not be machines attaining humanlike minds, but people having machinelike minds.
Chat GPT’s output is just an amalgam of existing online writing, which is almost uniformly bad. Ol’ Jiddu was a wag to point that out, and in advance, too.
Generative AI backlash hits annual writing event, prompting resignations
NaNoWriMo, known for its annual challenge where participants write a 50,000-word manuscript in November, argued in its post that condemning AI would ignore issues of class and ability, suggesting the technology could benefit those who might otherwise need to hire human writing assistants or have differing cognitive abilities.
Got that? If you banned AI from a writing contest, only people who know how to write stuff would be able to write stuff.
North Carolina Musician Accused of $10M Streaming Fraud With AI-Generated Songs
A North Carolina musician has been indicted by federal prosecutors over allegations that he used AI to help create “hundreds of thousands” of songs and then used the AI tracks to earn more than $10 million in fraudulent streaming royalty payments since 2017.
He used bots to compose songs, and then used bots to listen to the songs over and over, and then got paid by the bots that lord over streaming music sites. I’m not sure if he should be prosecuted, or given a medal.
What happens when you touch a Pickle to an AM radio tower?
A few months ago, our AM radio hot dog experiment went mildly viral. That was a result of me asking my Dad ‘what would happen if you ground a hot dog to one of your AM radio towers?’ He didn’t know, so one night on the way to my son’s volleyball practice, we tested it. And it was awesome.
I wasn’t really wondering about what happens. I was too busy wondering why he capitalized “Pickle.”
Welcome to the Battlestar Galactica: Tech-Manual
Scientific inaccuracies plagued many of the science fiction movies/series during the late 70’s and early 80’s. It was not until the mid-80’s that Hollywood began to really tap NASA and other aerospace scientists for assistance in fine tuning the technobable [sic] being used in science fiction films and TV shows.
When EV startups shut down, will their cars still work?
Other WM Motor owners reported that the smartphone app was unusable, and the built-in car stereo, which required an internet connection, had stopped working. Multiple WM Motor owners filed complaints on 12365auto, a Chinese automobile review site. “The car system is paralyzed and I can’t log in. The entire entertainment system is unusable, and the vehicle status cannot be checked,” one owner wrote. “The car has become a huge safety hazard!”
The word “still” in the headline is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Avis alerts nearly 300k car renters that crooks stole their info
Avis Rent A Car System has alerted 299,006 customers across multiple US states that their personal information was stolen in an August data breach.
The digital break-in occurred between August 3 and August 6, according to the car rental giant in filings with the Maine and California attorneys general.
Avis’ slogan used to be “We Try Harder.” Apparently, they should try harderer.
Have a great Tuesday, everyone. If that’s even possible.
One Response
I’m not that concerned about AI and it’s applications.
I’m still waiting for NI (natural intelligence) to prove out. Too soon to tell.
The whole concept of ‘tech manuals’ for fictional SF subjects strikes me as being like someone who has got comfortably zipped up in their sleeping bag, had a dream, woke up and needs to go pee.
And can’t find the zipper.
Frantically trying to get back to reality before reality gets to them first. Lotta praying involved.