Wednesday, July 05, 2023

Plutus: How Plastics Are Poisoning Us The New Yorker

Suppose I am wrong and I can trust all my leaders …All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others Stories lull. Stories entice. Stories seduce. Stories mislead. But stories are inescapable. . . but taxing stories are inescapable 







Stop talking about tomorrow’s AI doomsday when AI poses risks today


Uncrop is a new tool optimized to edit image aspect ratio. It is based on a foundation model created by stability.ai. 
 1) Upload the images you want to Uncrop.
 2) Select the new aspect ratio.
 3) Uncrop will generate the image that match the new aspect ratio.”



Dropbox’s AI tools can help you find your stuff — from everywhere on the internet

Universal personal search is an old idea, but Dropbox thinks it has the tech — and the docs — to make it work.


A.I.’s Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails Gaps  in campaign rules allow politicians to spread images and messaging generated by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology…

What began a few months ago as a slow drip of fund-raising emails and promotional images composed by A.I. for political campaigns has turned into a steady stream of campaign materials created by the technology, rewriting the political playbook for democratic elections around the world. Increasingly, political consultants, election researchers and lawmakers say setting up new guardrails, such as legislation reining in synthetically generated ads, should be an urgent priority. Existing defenses, such as social media rules and services that claim to detect A.I. content, have failed to do much to slow the tide. As the 2024 U.S. presidential race starts to heat up, some of the campaigns are already testing the technology.

 The Republican National Committee released a video with artificially generated images of doomsday scenarios after President Biden announced his re-election bid, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posted fake images of former President Donald J. Trump with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former health official. The Democratic Party experimented with fund-raising messages drafted by artificial intelligence in the spring — and found that they were often more effective at encouraging engagement and donations than copy written entirely by humans…”


The US Is Spying on the UN Secretary GeneralBruce Schneier


Colorado, Connecticut Data Privacy Laws Go Into Effect July 1 Axios


FBI Forms National Database To Track and Prevent ‘Swatting’ NBC


Pedestrian deaths reach 40-year high Axio


Why The French Military Hires Science Fiction Writers

The job? "To imagine future threats to national security. So far, sci-fi novelists from the Red Team Defense project have written more than a dozen stories and published two books dealing with warfare based on mass disinformation, bioterrorism and a pirate nation. Even President Macron is reading them." - France 24