Whatever: The dumpster fire at the end of the tunnel
Quote of the week
"AI-Weekly, the premier, weekly, human-curated news aggregation service, today announced a significant milestone, surpassing 30,000 weekly readers. This achievement highlights the growing demand for high-quality, human-curated content in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence."
Science
- A wooden satellite was launched. At least it'll burn up on reentry, unlike Starlink's.
- Keeping young children from being exposed to allergens has led to the dramatic increase in allergies.
- An archaeologist accidentally discovered a huge Mayan city.
Grand Theft Autocomplete
- The Tony Blair Institute put out a report on what an excellent boost to the economy AI will be, using numbers made up by AI.
- Anthropic is teaming up with Palantir and AWS to sell AI to US intelligence agencies for use in surveillance. But the company's Terms of Service don't allow the software's use in domestic surveillance, so that's OK.
- Nobody wanted to pay for Microsoft's AI Copilot, so they're bundling it into Microsoft 365 whether you want it or not.
- A chatbot was discovered that was based on a teenager who took her life at the age of 14 after viewing suicide material online. Another was based on a murdered 16 year old. The Google-funded chatbot company is being sued over a suicide allegedly encouraged by one of its bots.
- Thousands turned up for a Halloween parade in Dublin — a parade which wasn't happening, and was generated by AI.
- AI candidate screening software overwhelmingly prefers white male job applicants.
- NYC ended its trial of AI weapons detectors: 118 false positives, 12 (apparently legal) knives detected, zero guns detected.
- Hospitals are using AI transcription systems that invent text out of nothing when presented with periods of silence.
- Google, Microsoft and Plexity's AI search engines are promoting "scientific" racism.
- Microsoft and OpenAI are paying news media to use AI.
- A man learned he was being dumped via an AI summary of text messages from his girlfriend.
Environment
- COP29 began in Azerbaijan, a nation where 90% of the exports are fossil fuels and 93% of energy needs are met by fossil fuels. The Chief Executive for the conference was caught using it to push investment in fossil fuels, and the country is planning to increase output by 32% over the next 10 years. Don't expect too many protests, though, critics have been arrested and locked up.
- A report found that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average human does in their entire life.
- BP abandoned plans to cut oil and gas output by 2030, and will increase it instead — but they say they'll totally go net zero by 2050.
Well, fancy that!
- Elon Musk worked illegally on a student visa and didn't even bother to attend classes.
- The new head of the NRA once tortured and killed a cat.
Business
- VPN providers ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, and ZenMate, are all owned by an Israeli company with links to the IDF. They also own VPN review sites vpnMentor and WizCase. Strangely enough, WizCase's top three VPN recommendations are ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access.
- Elon offered "free" Starlink Internet to hurricane victims, for a bargain up-front payment of $400, as long as they signed up for the $120 a month plan.
- Bath and Body Works apologized for a candle resembling a Klan hood.
Bodies of work
- A transgender artist set out to determine exactly when Instagram starts categorizing nipples as the prohibited female kind.
- A doctor refused to harvest organs from a body on the grounds that it was still alive.
Law and order
- Coffee City, east Texas. Population: 249. Police officers: 50. Officers suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous law enforcement jobs: more than half of them. Felony counts against the police chief: 6.
Minnesota
- It's now illegal to munch on beaver in Minnesota.
Irony
- A brand new fire station in Germany had no fire alarms — and burned down.
Sports
- The World Conker Championships were thrown into turmoil after the winner was found to have a steel conker in his pocket.
Self defence
- If you need to go to Planned Parenthood, leave your mobile phone at home. Also, do not sign up for an AI pregnancy-tracking tool.
- If you haven't already, now is a good time to start using Signal for messaging with friends and family. They have a track record of not being able to provide surveillance data to governments. (Ask the EFF.)
And finally, some good news
- A top German neo-Nazi plummeted to his death while hiking on Hitler's favorite mountain.
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