Ars Technica: “US judicial panel debates new AI evidence rules Panel of eight judges confronts deep-faking AI tech that may undermine legal trials. On Friday, a federal judicial panel convened in Washington, DC, to discuss the challenges of policing AI-generated evidence in court trials, according to a Reuters report. The US Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, an eight-member panel responsible for drafting evidence-related amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence, heard from computer scientists and academics about the potential risks of AI being used to manipulate im ..read more

TechCrunch – Not yet, but you should explore alternatives: “As a TikTok ban gets closer to becoming a reality in the United States, it might be time to start thinking about other platforms to adopt early in case you need to fill the void left by the popular app at some point in the future. On Wednesday, President Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fails to sell the app within a year, bringing the possibility of TikTok ban closer than ever before. However, given the one-year timeline, TikTok isn’t going to vanish immediately, especially since the ..read more

MIT Technology Review: “This new tool helps you figure out which ones to trust. In many high-stakes situations, large language models are not worth the risk. Knowing which outputs to throw out might fix that. Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk. A new tool created by Cleanlab, an AI startup spun out of a quantum computing lab at MIT, is designed to give high-stakes users a clearer sense of how trustworthy these mod ..read more

ZDNET, Sabrina Ortiz: “OpenAI launching ChatGPT not only kicked off the generative AI craze, but the tool has remained the most popular AI chatbot. Yet Microsoft Copilot boasts features that make it, dare I say, better than ChatGPT. After using ChatGPT and Copilot for over a year, I keep coming to the same conclusion — Microsoft’s Copilot is the better option and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Don’t believe me? I rounded up the best features that make Copilot a staple in my daily life and might convert you, too. Before we get started, it is worth noting that all the features listed b ..read more

ToreentFreak: “The Internet Archive is doubling down on its position that its digital lending library service operates under the bounds of fair use. Major publishers assert that digitizing books without appropriate licensing amounts to infringement but IA counters that the practice is in the public interest. It also fits copyright’s ultimate purpose; to promote the broad public availability of literature and other arts. The non-profit Internet Archive (IA) aims to preserve digital history for generations to come. The organization literally archives key parts of the Internet, copying older vers ..read more

Perlman, Andrew, The Legal Ethics of Generative AI (February 22, 2024). Suffolk University Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4735389 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4735389 The legal profession is notoriously conservative when it comes to change. From email to outsourcing, lawyers have been slow to embrace new methods and quick to point out potential problems, especially ethics-related concerns. The legal profession’s approach to generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) is following a similar pattern. Many lawyers have readily identified the lega ..read more

AP: “…Heat is by far the No. 1 weather cause of death in the United States, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Rick Spinrad, citing CDC data of 1,200 deaths per year. Last year was the hottest year on record globally. Both the weather service and CDC will put versions of the tool on their websites. Enter a ZIP code on the CDC dashboard to get more focus on health risks and air quality and zoom in on the weather service map online for more detailed forecasts and explanations. Both versions include heat risk for the next seven days and there is a Spanish edition. The CDC ..read more

Gizmodo: “A study recently published in the peer-reviewed American Psychologist journal claims that a combination of facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology can accurately assess a person’s political orientation by simply looking at that person’s blank, expressionless face. The study was authored by researchers at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Researchers write that, prior to the experiment, they had 591 participants answer a political questionnaire that provided insights into their political beliefs. Those same participants were then scanned by rese ..read more

Nieman Lab: “…Our team of researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory and Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology investigated over 100 Facebook pages that posted high volumes of AI-generated content. We published the results in March 2024 as a preprint paper, meaning the findings have not yet gone through peer review. We explored patterns of images, unearthed evidence of coordination between some of the pages, and tried to discern the likely goals of the posters. Page operators seemed to be posting pictures of AI-generated babies, kitchens, or ..read more

“This searchable AI database maps intersections between the key social justice and human rights areas of our time and documented AI impacts and their manifestations in society. Further, the database catalogs civil society organizations, social movement actors, researchers, and other entities that are either actively doing work at these intersections, or are well suited for engagement on these issues via partnerships ..read more