MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris; The New Republic, October 31, 2024

Malcolm Ferguson , The New Republic; MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris

"Over the last couple of months, there have been growing reports of grassroots campaigns reminding women that no one has to know how they voted. Post-it notes have been left in women’s bathrooms reading, “Woman to woman, your vote is private.” And a new pro-Harris ad from Vote Common Good this week featuring a voiceover from Julia Roberts shows two women at the polls sharing an understanding gaze as they cast their ballots for Harris while their pro-Trump husbands cluelessly egg them on.

This development has deeply disturbed MAGA husbands everywhere. 

Perhaps no one better portrayed the MAGA meltdown than Fox News anchor Jesse Waters on Wednesday evening.

“If I found out [my wife] Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as an affair,” yelled Watters, who cheated on his first wife with Emma, then his 25-year-old employee. “That violates the sanctity of our marriage. What else is she keeping from me? What else has she been lying about?"

Teacher's Post About Students Using ChatGPT Sparks Debate; Business Insider, September 8, 2024

Jaures Yip, Business Insider; Teacher's Post About Students Using ChatGPT Sparks Debate

"Fritts said that technology addiction has affected students' general agency when interacting with information."

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION ON AI & THE COMMONS; Creative Commons, July 24, 2024

Anna Tumadóttir , Creative Commons; QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION ON AI & THE COMMONS

"The intersection of AI, copyright, creativity, and the commons has been a focal point of conversations within our community for the past couple of years. We’ve hosted intimate roundtables, organized workshops at conferences, and run public events, digging into the challenging topics of credit, consent, compensation, transparency, and beyond. All the while, we’ve been asking ourselves:  what can we do to foster a vibrant and healthy commons in the face of rapid technological development? And how can we ensure that creators and knowledge-producing communities still have agency?...

We recognize that there is a perceived tension between openness and creator choice. Namely, if we  give creators choice over how to manage their works in the face of generative AI, we may run the risk of shrinking the commons. To potentially overcome, or at least better understand the effect of generative AI on the commons, we believe  that finding a way for creators to indicate “no, unless…” would be positive for the commons. Our consultations over the course of the last two years have confirmed that:

• Folks want more choice over how their work is used.
• If they have no choice, they might not share their work at all (under a CC license or strict copyright).

If these views are as wide ranging as we perceive, we feel it is imperative that we explore an intervention, and bring far more nuance into how this ecosystem works.

Generative AI is here to stay, and we’d like to do what we can to ensure it benefits the public interest. We are well-positioned with the experience, expertise, and tools to investigate the potential of preference signals.

Our starting point is to identify what types of preference signals might be useful. How do these vary or overlap in the cultural heritage, journalism, research, and education sectors? How do needs vary by region? We’ll also explore exactly how we might structure a preference signal framework so it’s useful and respected, asking, too: does it have to be legally enforceable, or is the power of social norms enough?

Research matters. It takes time, effort, and most importantly, people. We’ll need help as we do this. We’re seeking support from funders to move this work forward. We also look forward to continuing to engage our community in this process. More to come soon."

Want to Get Along With Robots? Pretend They’re Animals; Wired, April 19, 2021

 MATT SIMON, Wired; Want to Get Along With Robots? Pretend They’re Animals

Robotics ethicist Kate Darling surveys our history with animals—in work, war, and companionship—to show how we might develop similar relationships with robots.

"WIRED: That brings us nicely to the idea of agency. One of my favorite moments in human history was when animals were put on trial—like regularly.

KD: Wait. You liked this?

WIRED: I mean, it's horrifying. But I just think that it's a fascinating period in legal history. So why do we ascribe this agency to animals that have no such thing? And why might we do the same with robots?

KD: It's so bizarre and fascinating—and seems so ridiculous to us now—but for hundreds of years of human history in the Middle Ages, we put animals on trial for the crimes they committed. So whether that was a pig that chewed a child's ear off, or whether that was a plague of locusts or rats that destroyed crops, there were actual trials that progressed the same way that a trial for a human would progress, with defense attorneys and a jury and summoning the animals to court. Some were not found guilty, and some were sentenced to death. It’s this idea that animals should be held accountable, or be expected to abide by our morals or rules. Now we don't believe that that makes any sense, the same way that we wouldn't hold a small child accountable for everything.

In a lot of the early legal conversation around responsibility in robotics, it seems that we're doing something a little bit similar. And, this is a little tongue in cheek—but also not really—because the solutions that people are proposing for robots causing harm are getting a little bit too close to assigning too much agency to the robots. There's this idea that, “Oh, because nobody could anticipate this harm, how are we going to hold people accountable? We have to hold the robot itself accountable.” Whether that's by creating some sort of legal entity, like a corporation, where the robot has its own rights and responsibilities, or whether that's by programming the robot to obey our rules and morals—which we kind of know from the field of machine ethics is not really possible or feasible, at least not any anytime soon."

Is the Internet evil? We will decide.; The Washington Post, August 22, 2018

Christine Emba, The Washington Post; Is the Internet evil? We will decide.

"Has the Internet been good or bad for humanity?

I stumbled upon a new way to think about the question (on the Internet, naturally), in the form of a quietly radical 1998 talk given by the author and cultural critic Neil Postman. The title, “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change ,” is a snoozer, but the contents are eye-opening."