Kickoff For November 4, 2024
It's November already? I'm still trying to figure our where March went ... I guess time does pass by faster as you get older. Which is unfair. Very unfair.
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
Video Games Are a Key Battleground in the Propaganda War — Wherein Marijam Did examines how militaries have been adopting video game, their aesthetics, and gamification to train and indoctrinate troops, and how that's making some game studios a lot of money.
From the article:
Games companies represent governmental organizations and boost their own public image in the process. An image of being close to the state allows studios to receive lucrative tax breaks, too. And the military outsources the building of cumbersome training simulators and attracts new recruits in the process.
The economics of free lunch — Wherein we explore the minefield that's the politics and economics of providing free lunches to students in American schools, why (in spite of their costs) free meal programs makes sense.
From the article:
While studying middle schoolers at New York public schools with universal free lunch and breakfast through a Community Eligibility Program, Schwartz and Michah Rothbart, a public administration and international affairs professor at Syracuse University, discovered what might be the biggest benefit for universal meals. They found that universal free meals led to higher test scores.
We deserve better than an AI-powered future — Wherein Jane Ruffino goes counter to all the hype about large language models and highlights what, at their very cores, is wrong with AI.
From the article:
Yes, AI is different—it’s more pervasive and more destructive—but it’s another hype cycle, (each of which provides much evidence and learning so we don’t repeat it, even though we always do), and there are decades of AI hype criticism to learn from.
Empty Vessels of Time — Wherein Heidi Lasher examines the need that many of us have to fill our every moment with something, an endeavour that might signal our industriousness and productivity but which, in the end, really signifies nothing.
From the article:
[I]t's a problem when we find ourselves making to-do lists of fun stuff and attacking them like a contestant in a hot-dog eating contest. Several studies confirm that more than half of American workers don't use all their paid vacation days, and those that do tend to work while on vacation. Why? Are we really that afraid of rest?
What is Privacy For? — Wherein Ben Tarnoff looks at the ideology of information, the seemingly flawed assumption upon which that idea is based, and ponders what privacy actually is and what it's for.
From the article:
When we trust someone, we do so in the absence of information: parents who track their children’s whereabouts via G.P.S. do not, by definition, trust them. And, without trust, not only do our relationships go hollow; so, too, do our social and civic institutions.
Why You Might Soon Be Paid Like an Uber Driver—Even If You’re Not One — Wherein we explore the (intrusive) model tech companies use to pay gig workers, how algorithms for determining pay are moving from the so-called gig economy into the wider working world, and how that could depress wages across the board.
A.I. can calculate the lowest possible pay that workers across sectors will tolerate and suggest incentives like bonuses to control their behavior. While bosses have always offered so-called variable pay—for instance, paying more for night shifts or offering performance-based salary boosts—high-tech surveillance coupled with A.I. is taking real-time tailored wages to new extremes.