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Tech news
- arstechnica.com Apple’s self-service repairs no longer require a call to Apple when you’re done
System Config tool handles post-repair processes that trip up third-party kits.
Another step towards more repair choices for apple device owners.
- www.techspot.com European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
Among the many changes, the new rules would require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. That's far from the case today...
cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/121003
> cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/tech/t/45222 > > > Among the many changes, the new rules would require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. That's far from the case today...
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Pentagon program hunts those who ‘embarrass’ its generals
www.rt.com Pentagon program hunts those who ‘embarrass’ its generals – InterceptThe US Army Protective Services Battalion has expanded its mandate to neutralize ‘negative sentiment’
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For too long, our government has been subsidizing the manufacturing of critical technologies in China and other countries.
“Taxpayer-funded innovations should benefit American workers and industry, not our foreign adversaries. For far too long, we’ve allowed American breakthroughs to be offshored to nations like China and Russia – this legislation will bring those abuses to an end,” said Senator Vance. “It’s common sense: products developed with American taxpayer dollars should be manufactured by American workers on American soil.”
“When taxpayer dollars are used to fund innovation, American companies and workers are the ones who should be reaping the benefits,” said Senator Baldwin. “By building on the progress we’ve made to manufacture more products in the USA, the Invent Here, Make Here Act ensures cutting-edge American innovation is also American-made, strengthening our manufacturing sector and our domestic supply chains, and supporting American jobs.”
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Imgur is updating their TOS on May 15, 2023: All NSFW content to be banned
cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/89325
> via r/datahoarder
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What’s New in Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster”
www.howtogeek.com What’s New in Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster”, Available NowCanonical’s latest release of its Ubuntu Linux desktop is here and we can hear its claws clacking. Ubuntu 23.04 arrived on April 20, 2023, and we gave the Lunar Lobster a once over ahead of its release.
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MNT Pocket Reform Crowdfunding is Live
www.crowdsupply.com MNT Pocket ReformA newer, smaller, lighter, more-affordable, seven-inch mini Reform laptop that remains fully open source
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How a tiny company with few rules is making fake images go mainstream
The AI image generator Midjourney has quickly become one of the internet’s most eye-catching tools, creating realistic-looking fake visuals of former president Donald Trump being arrested and Pope Francis wearing a stylish coat with the aim of “expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.”
But the year-old company, run out of San Francisco with only a small collection of advisers and engineers, also has unchecked authority to determine how those powers are used. It allows, for example, users to generate images of President Biden, Vladimir Putin of Russia and other world leaders — but not China’s president, Xi Jinping.
“We just want to minimize drama,” the company’s founder and CEO, David Holz, said last year in a post on the chat service Discord. “Political satire in china is pretty not-okay,” he added, and “the ability for people in China to use this tech is more important than your ability to generate satire.”
The inconsistency shows how a powerful early leader in AI art and synthetic media is designing rules for its product on the fly. Without uniform standards, individual companies are deciding what’s permissible — and, in this case, when to bow to authoritarian governments.
Midjourney’s approach echoes the early playbook of major social networks, whose lax moderation rules made them vulnerable to foreign interference, viral misinformation and hate speech. But it could pose unique risks given that some AI tools create fictional scenes involving real people — a scenario ripe for harassment and propaganda.
“There’s been an AI slow burn for quite a while, and now there’s a wildfire,” said Katerina Cizek of the MIT Open Documentary Lab, which studies human-computer interaction and interactive storytelling, among other topics.
Midjourney offers an especially revealing example of how artificial intelligence’s development has outpaced the evolution of rules for its use. In a year, the service has gained more than 13 million members and, thanks to its monthly subscription fees, made Midjourney one of the tech industry’s hottest new businesses.
But Midjourney’s website lists just one executive, Holz, and four advisers; a research and engineering team of eight; and a two-person legal and finance team. It says it has about three dozen “moderators and guides.” Its website says the company is hiring: “Come help us scale, explore, and build humanist infrastructure focused on amplifying the human mind and spirit.”
Many of Midjourney’s fakes, such as recently fabricated paparazzi images of Twitter owner Elon Musk with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), can be created by a skilled artist using image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. But the company’s AI-image tools allow anyone to create them instantly — including, for instance, a fake image of President John F. Kennedy aiming a rifle — simply by typing in text.
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But the tools have starkly different guidelines for what’s acceptable. OpenAI’s rules instruct DALL-E users to stick to “G-rated” content and blocks the creation of images involving politicians as well as “major conspiracies or events related to major ongoing geopolitical events.”
Stable Diffusion, which launched with few restrictions on sexual or violent images, has imposed some rules but allows people to download its open-source software and use it without restriction. Emad Mostaque, the CEO of Stability AI, the start-up behind Stable Diffusion, told the Verge last year that “ultimately, it’s peoples’ responsibility as to whether they are ethical, moral, and legal.”
Midjourney’s guidelines fall in the middle, specifying that users must be at least 13 years old and stating that the company “tries to make its Services PG-13 and family friendly” while warning, “This is new technology and it does not always work as expected.”
The guidelines disallow adult content and gore, as well as text prompts that are “inherently disrespectful, aggressive, or otherwise abusive.” Eliot Higgins, the founder of the open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat, said he was kicked off the platform without explanation last week after a series of images he made on Midjourney fabricating Trump’s arrest in New York went viral on social media.
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And on a Midjourney “office hours” session on Wednesday, Holz told a live audience of about 2,000 on Discord that he was struggling to determine content rules, especially for depicting real people, “as the images get more and more realistic and as the tools get more and more powerful.”
“There’s an argument to go full Disney or go full Wild West, and everything in the middle is kind of painful,” he said. “We’re kind of in the middle right now, and I don’t know how to feel about that.”
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TikTok's US future at stake as boss faces Congress showdown
www.bbc.com Into the ‘lion’s den’: Questions the TikTok CEO will face from Congress today over a possible banThe video-sharing app's chief executive will testify to US lawmakers in a much-anticipated grilling.
On Thursday, TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, will be opening a lion's mouth and placing his own head into it.
He's giving testimony in the US Congress for the first time, a scary thing to do.
And at stake is the future of the phenomenally popular video-sharing app in the US.
"I think that there is a real risk that if this hearing doesn't go well… that could have a massive impact on the future of TikTok," said Chris Stokel-Walker, author of TikTok Boom.
Mr Chew is likely to face a barrage of questions on TikTok's relationship with China, what data it collects, and what it does with it.
He'll also be quizzed on why several journalists were spied on by ByteDance employees - something TikTok has already admitted.
Mr Chew will say user data is safe - away from the reach of the Chinese government.
He knows politicians from all sides want to see the platform either sold - or outright banned in the US.
- finance.yahoo.com Microsoft is bringing ChatGPT-powered Bing to Windows 11 in latest update
Microsoft is bringing its ChatGPT-enhanced Bing to Windows 11.
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National Day of Unplugging (March 3-4, 2023)
A day for raising awareness of the presence of technology in so many people's lives and which encourages people to "unplug" when they can (maybe by going outside and doing something in nature?)
- www.ndtv.com 2024 Mercedes E-Class Will Have TikTok Built In, And A Superscreen
Mercedes said the use of all entertainment apps will be restricted when the vehicle will be in motion.
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Gab Text To Image Limit Upped to 100 / 500
gab.com Gabby: Based AI Artist on Gab: 'If you hit the free user image generation limit w…'Gabby: Based AI Artist on Gab: 'If you hit the free user image generation limit we just reset it for everyone again so you can keep generating now. Please consider going pro so we can buy more GPUs. 🤖 https://pro.gab.com Free limit: 100/ month Pro limit: 500/month'
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Indian CEO Virus Infects YouTube. New CEO: No More ‘Espousing Opinions’ From ‘The Basement’
vdare.com Indian CEO Virus Infects YouTube. New CEO: No More ‘Espousing Opinions’ From ‘The Basement’ | Blog PostsYet again, an Indian is now in control of a majo...
- www.breitbart.com Jordan Subpoenas 5 Big Tech CEOs for Documents to Probe Alleged Collusion with Government
Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan subpoenaed five big tech CEOs for documents related to their companies’ censorship practices.
- www.theguardian.com Google AI chatbot Bard sends shares plummeting after it gives wrong answer
Chatbot Bard incorrectly said James Webb Space Telescope was first to take pictures of planet outside Earth’s solar system
- www.bbc.com Crypto theft: North Korea-linked hackers stole $1.7b in 2022
Experts say the country, facing heavy sanctions, is turning to crypto theft to fund its nuclear arsenal.
- www.bloomberg.com Elon Musk Locks His Twitter Account to Test Engagement Impact
Elon Musk temporarily locked his Twitter account in the early hours of Wednesday morning, in an effort to check whether it would affect engagement on his tweets.