Los Angeles Times owner says articles will use AI meter to show sources’ ‘bias’; The Guardian, December 6, 2024

Anna Betts, The Guardian; Los Angeles Times owner says articles will use AI meter to show sources’ ‘bias’

"Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, has announced plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” into the newspaper’s coverage.

Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, made the comments on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Scott Jennings, who is soon joining the LA Times editorial board.

The proposed move is the latest controversy to rock the newspaper which has suffered a wave of resignations and layoffs under Soon-Shiong’s ownership. Most recently, Soon-Shiong blocked the paper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in last month’s presidential election, sparking outrage from many staff.

The “bias meter”, Soon-Shiong said, will be integrated into articles so that “somebody could understand, as they read it, that the source of the article has some level of bias”.

“And what we need to do is not have what we call confirmation bias, and then that story automatically, the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story and then give comments,” he added.

Soon-Shiong told Jennings that he had been “quietly building” the AI tool “behind the scenes” and expressed his hope to launch it by this coming January."

In Wisconsin, Professors Worry AI Could Replace Them; Inside Higher Ed, December 6, 2024

Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed; In Wisconsin, Professors Worry AI Could Replace Them

"Faculty at the cash-strapped Universities of Wisconsin System are pushing back against a proposed copyright policy they believe would cheapen the relationship between students and their professors and potentially allow artificial intelligence bots to replace faculty members...

The policy proposal is not yet final and is open for public comment through Dec. 13. ..

Natalia Taft, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside who signed the open letter, told Inside Higher Ed that she believes the policy proposal “is part of the trend of the corporatization of academia.”...

Jane Ginsburg, a professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia University School of Law, said the university has the law on its side. 

Under the 1976 Copyright Act, “course material prepared by employees, including professors, as part of their jobs comes within the definition of a ‘work made for hire,’ whose copyright vests initially in the employer (the University), not the employee (the professor).”"

Can You Copyright a Vibe?; The New York Times, December 5, 2024

 Sandra E. Garcia , The New York Times; Can You Copyright a Vibe?

"Ms. Gifford claims that Ms. Sheil, 21, not only started to mimic her online persona but also appropriated her entire look. And now she is suing.

Ms. Gifford had copyrighted several of her social media posts in January, after noticing the similarity between Ms. Sheil’s posts and her own. Several photos were submitted as evidence in the lawsuit Ms. Gifford filed this year in a federal court in Texas accusing Ms. Sheil of copyright infringement. But in the carefully curated world of social media, Ms. Gifford has leveled a perhaps more severe charge against her: stealing her vibe...

In several interviews beginning in August, experts said influencers have to navigate a blurry landscape in which assigning credit to who created what can be daunting and, in some cases, impossible.

“There really is a sense that you’re both a creator and a borrower,” said Jeanne Fromer, a professor of intellectual property law at New York University. “Fashion is built on that. All the creative industries — painting, music, movies — they’re all built on borrowing in certain ways from the past and also ideally trying to bring your own spin to something. I don’t know that anyone wants to go too far as a result.""

There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI; The Atlantic, November 18, 2024

 Alex Reisner , The Atlantic; There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI

"Editor’s note: This analysis is part of The Atlantic’s investigation into the OpenSubtitles data set. You can access the search tool directly here. Find The Atlantic's search tool for books used to train AI here.

For as long as generative-AI chatbots have been on the internet, Hollywood writers have wondered if their work has been used to train them. The chatbots are remarkably fluent with movie references, and companies seem to be training them on all available sources. One screenwriter recently told me he’s seen generative AI reproduce close imitations of The Godfather and the 1980s TV show Alf, but he had no way to prove that a program had been trained on such material.

I can now say with absolute confidence that many AI systems have been trained on TV and film writers’ work. Not just on The Godfather and Alf, but on more than 53,000 other movies and 85,000 other TV episodes: Dialogue from all of it is included in an AI-training data set that has been used by Apple, Anthropic, Meta, Nvidia, Salesforce, Bloomberg, and other companies. I recently downloaded this data set, which I saw referenced in papers about the development of various large language models (or LLMs). It includes writing from every film nominated for Best Picture from 1950 to 2016, at least 616 episodes of The Simpsons, 170 episodes of Seinfeld, 45 episodes of Twin Peaks, and every episode of The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad. It even includes prewritten “live” dialogue from Golden Globes and Academy Awards broadcasts."

The Copyrighted Material Being Used to Train AI; The Bulwark, December 7, 2024

SONNY BUNCH, The Bulwark; The Copyrighted Material Being Used to Train AI

"On this week’s episode, I talked to Alex Reisner about his pieces in the Atlantic highlighting the copyrighted material being hoovered into large language models to help AI chatbots simulate human speech. If you’re a screenwriter and would like to see which of your work has been appropriated to aid in the effort, click here; he has assembled a searchable database of nearly 140,000 movie and TV scripts that have been used without permission. (And you should read his other stories about copyright law reaching its breaking point and “the memorization problem.”) In this episode, we also got into the metaphysics of art and asked what sort of questions need to be asked as we hurtle toward the future. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!"

Smashed Ebenezer Scrooge gravestone swiftly repaired free of charge; The Guardian, December 7, 2024

 Jem Bartholomew, The Guardian; Smashed Ebenezer Scrooge gravestone swiftly repaired free of charge

"“The message in the book is all about generosity, isn’t it,’” Mann said. “Actually, in a strange way, this whole episode ties into what Christmas is all about … It’s just really heartwarming that it’s been repaired so quickly and for free.”"

Rekindling Indigenous Knowledge; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, November 29, 2024

 Jalyn Williams, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; Rekindling Indigenous Knowledge

"Following a painful period of westward removals, the Delaware Tribe and Delaware Nation resettled in Oklahoma, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community resettled in Wisconsin. They are the three federally recognized Lenape Tribal Nations in the United States. 

Partnering to find solutions

Together, the three Tribes resolved to create a fellowship program to provide opportunities for Tribal citizens, particularly young adults, to discover new facets of their heritage by visiting the places their ancestors lived and taking part in immersive educational programming focusing on the ecology and cultural resource management of the Lënapehòkink."

At a routine meeting with agency staff in 2022, Lenape representatives remarked on the difficulty of providing Traditional Ecological Knowledge about land they were removed from generations ago. While a grant from the National Park Service had funded trips for Lenape to visit their ancestral homeland in the Delaware Watershed, that program had been discontinued. 

The Tribes would have to seek a different route to Lënapehòkink...

Fortunately, Ryder directed the Tribes to a new funding source that could help – the America the Beautiful Challenge grant. Administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in conjunction with the U.S. Department of the Interior and other agency partners, the program encourages applicants to develop diverse, landscape-level projects that showcase cumulative benefits to fish and wildlife, engage with and benefit underserved communities, and connect people with nature.

Ryder and her team provided technical assistance to help the Tribes apply for the grant and in November 2022, they received $723,200 in funding. The grant’s match requirement was covered by a contribution from Native Americans in Philanthropy, a network of Native and non-Native nonprofits, Tribal communities, foundations and community leaders committed to sharing resources in the Native tradition of reciprocity.

Together, the three Tribes resolved to create a fellowship program to provide opportunities for Tribal citizens, particularly young adults, to discover new facets of their heritage by visiting the places their ancestors lived and taking part in immersive educational programming focusing on the ecology and cultural resource management of the Lënapehòkink."

BREAKING THE GLASS; Science, December 5, 2024

 SOFIA MOUTINHO , Science; BREAKING THE GLASS

In the end he got the waiver, but the experience turned him away from commercial journals published in the Global North and toward a model that has flourished in Latin America: nonprofit open-access journals. These publications, usually run by academic institutions or scientific societies, charge relatively low APCs, in what’s known as the gold model, or nothing at all, known as the diamond model. Science analyzed nearly 20,000 journals listed in a repository of open-access journals between 2019 and 2023, and found that one in four diamond model journals is published in Latin America. Most—83%—are noncommercial, based at universities.

Latin America is also a global pioneer in trying to overcome a long-standing challenge for noncommercial journals in the Global South: invisibility. Most are published in languages other than English, the lingua franca of science, and only a small fraction of them are indexed in international citation and index systems. “I know that my papers will probably not be read on the same scale as if I published in a high-impact journal,” says Oliveira, whose first published paper appeared in Nature. That lack of visibility adds to the inequities facing scientists in the Global South who seek alternatives to commercial publishers, with their high fees or subscription paywalls.

So Latin American academics have developed platforms that gather in one place papers that would otherwise be scattered across individual journal websites and university libraries, boosting their visibility. The upstart platforms are a model for the rest of the world, says Johan Rooryck, executive director of Coalition S. The United Nations, for instance, highlighted the Latin American model during a summit last year aimed at expanding the diamond model of publishing. By continually promoting affordable open access, Latin American platforms “show us the way on how to achieve an equitable publishing model at a larger scale than just a local scale,” Rooryck says."

What's in a Name Anyway? Trademark Basics for Community Associations; The National Law Review, December 6, 2024

 Erica B. E. Rogers of Ward and Smith, P.A. , The National Law Review; What's in a Name Anyway? Trademark Basics for Community Associations

"This article explores the essentials of trademark rights, their relevance for community associations, and the balance between protecting these trademarks versus respecting the free speech of homeowners...

IV. VALUE PROPOSITION FOR COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

Trademark rights are crucial for protecting the identity and reputation of a community association. They help prevent confusion among property owners and prospective residents by ensuring that the association's name and symbols remain distinct. However, while trademarks are valuable tools for community associations to deter unauthorized use, they cannot be used to silence opinions or criticisms. Understanding this balance is essential for effectively managing and enforcing trademark rights in a manner that respects both legal protections and fundamental freedoms of the property owners."

Rochester library faces ethics complaint after allegedly advocating for failed tax rate referendum; WCIA.com, December 6, 2024

Danny Connolly, Theodora Koulouvaris, WCIA.com; 

Rochester library faces ethics complaint after allegedly advocating for failed tax rate referendum

"A public library district in Sangamon and Christian Counties faces dozens of ethics complaints accusing officials of using their government office to promote a referendum."

Malawi is First to Ratify WIPO Treaty on IP, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge; WIPO, December 5, 2024

WIPO; Malawi is First to Ratify WIPO Treaty on IP, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge

"Malawi has become the first nation to ratify the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, the first WIPO Treaty to address the interface between intellectual property, genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

So far, 38 WIPO member states have signed the Treaty , which was adopted on May 24, 2024 at a diplomatic conference organized by WIPO in Geneva. Signing a treaty shows the intent to pursue ratification. Signing alone does not make the treaty legally binding. Ratification is the process by which a country formally consents to be bound by the Treaty. Upon ratification, the treaty becomes legally binding for the country that ratifies it, provided that it has entered into force.

The Treaty will take effect after 15 instruments of ratification or accession are presented to WIPO. Following a decision to become bound by a treaty, a State deposits an instrument of ratification or accession with the depositary (in this case the Director General of WIPO) and, if necessary, takes steps to enact legislation to implement the Treaty. Malawi was first to ratify the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge through the deposit of an instrument of ratification."

Internet Archive Copyright Case Ends Without Supreme Court Review; Publishers Weekly, December 5, 2024

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Internet Archive Copyright Case Ends Without Supreme Court Review

"After more than four years of litigation, a closely watched copyright case over the Internet Archive’s scanning and lending of library books is finally over after Internet Archive officials decided against exercising their last option, an appeal to the Supreme Court. The deadline to file an appeal was December 3.

With a consent judgment already entered to settle claims in the case, the official end of the litigation now triggers an undisclosed monetary payment to the plaintiff publishers, which, according to the Association of American Publishers, will “substantially” cover the publishers’ attorney fees and costs in the litigation."

Trump's controversial Cabinet picks raise questions about lower ethical standards; ABC News, December 4, 2024

 Ivan Pereira, ABC News; Trump's controversial Cabinet picks raise questions about lower ethical standards

"Queen said there is a possibility that some Republican senators may put ethics before partisanship when all is said and done.

"It's not unreasonable to assume that there are a number of senators who realize there will be consequences of their choices and their decisions that it will be bad for the country as a whole," he said.

In the long term, Hanson said it is unclear if Trump's selections will usher in a new norm of presidential picks who buck ethics and experience standards.

He noted that American history has shown several cycles of reform brought on by demand of a public frustrated with dysfunction and improper behavior, such as in the aftermath of the Nixon administration in the 1970s.

"Now that they see what is happening, they may be reminded what the Trump presidency was like the first time around," he said of Americans who supported him. "There may be a bunch of people who say this is not what I voted for, and that could affect things tremendously."

Spinner-Halev said the future will depend on how informed the public is over the next four years.

"There is a lot that happens in Washington that's not in the public eye, and I think it's important that the public keeps an eye on the bureaucratic ongoings," he said."

David Frum Accuses MSNBC Of Giving Into Fear Of Trump After Mika Brzezinski Apologizes On-Air For His Comment; Mediate, December 4, 2024

Alex Griffing , Mediate; David Frum Accuses MSNBC Of Giving Into Fear Of Trump After Mika Brzezinski Apologizes On-Air For His Comment

[Kip Currier: Mika Brzezinski's on-air apology yesterday is what self-censorship looks and sounds like.

Since last month's election of Donald Trump, MSNBC's Morning Joe program has been periodically engaging in what Yale University authoritarianism expert Dr. Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience", due to fear of potential retribution from an incoming Trump administration.

When media personalities like Brzezinski kowtow to perceived risks of reporting and engaging in constitutionally-protected free speech, we the public are well-advised to be skeptical of their integrity and commitment to showing and telling the truth. Brzezinski's servile appeasement is more about saving her own skin than having skin in the game of speaking truth to power.

Look for free and independent presses and journalists who don't surrender to fear to curry favor.]

[Excerpt]

"Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, apologized on-air Wednesday for David Frum making a comment that “was a little too flippant” about Fox News earlier in the show. Frum then took to The Atlantic and accused MSNBC of capitulating to the fear felt in the media of President-elect Donald Trump’s promised retribution.

Frum’s article later elicited a response from MSNBC...

Frum’s article on the incident was titled, “The Sound of Fear on Air,” and ran with the subhead, “It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.”

MSNBC comms exec Richard Hudock responded to Frum in a statement, saying, “Joe and Mika have consistently expressed their strong reservations and perspectives regarding Pete Hegseth’s nomination from the very beginning, and that stance remains unchanged. We would have responded in the same manner regardless of when these comments were made or what news organization was referenced.” Hudock also invited Frum back to discuss the topic on-air tomorrow.

In the piece, he recapped what had happened and commented on the current environment MSNBC finds itself in as viewers continue to tune out following Trump’s win...

“I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all. The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too,” he concluded.
Watch the clips above via MSNBC."

The Sound of Fear on Air: It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.; The Atlantic, December 4, 2024

David Frum, The Atlantic; The Sound of Fear on Air: It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.

"This morning, I had an unsettling experience."

The imaginary justifications for Biden’s pardon of his son; The Washington Post, December 4, 2024

 Philip Bump, The Washington Post; The imaginary justifications for Biden’s pardon of his son

"There is robust documentation of known grants of clemency, a database created by a former college professor who built his career on being the foremost expert on presidential pardons. (He later killed his children and himself.) But that database is not accessible to the general public. You can’t just search “what presidents had relatives that they pardoned” and get a clear, detailed answer that draws from the public record.

What you can do, though, is ask an artificial intelligence trained to generate clear, detailed answers to questions — but not necessarily ones that include accurate information. That’s what Navarro-Cárdenas did, according to a follow-up post: she asked ChatGPT which presidents had pardoned relatives. And it reached into its database of phrases and snippets and pulled out the words “Roger Clinton” and “Charles Kushner” and “Hunter deButts.”

Former White House ethics lawyer reacts to Hunter Biden pardon; December 2, 2024

Here & Now Newsroom, wbur; Former White House ethics lawyer reacts to Hunter Biden pardon

"President Biden announced on Sunday that he is pardoning his son Hunter Biden, saying, "I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this. I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice." Hunter Biden was convicted of federal gun charges in June and later pleaded guilty to tax evasion.

Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd looks at the implications of the pardon with Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, and now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School."

'No consequences' for violating human rights in privately funded research in Canada, says ethics expert; CBC, December 2, 2024

Geoff Leo , CBC; 'No consequences' for violating human rights in privately funded research in Canada, says ethics expert

"Knowing that PASS had been approved by two Canadian universities, Parente thought, "I could write a book just on this." Instead, she is adding a chapter on it in her forthcoming book, tentatively titled Ethics on Trial: Protecting Humans in Canada's Broken Research System.

But through her interactions with CBC, Parente made another discovery: the federal government body that oversees research ethics, the Secretariat on the Responsible Conduct of Research, does not have jurisdiction over privately funded clinical trials — which make up about 85 per cent of all such research in this country.

"I was shocked at this revelation," she said. "Everyone I have spoken to were just as shocked." 

Martin Letendre, a Quebec-based lawyer and research ethicist, said this fact demonstrates that Canada's research ethics system is the "wild West." 

"Clearly, it makes absolutely no sense," said Letendre, who is president of Veritas IRB, a private research ethics board founded by Parente. "It's going to come as a total shock to anyone in academia who is studying or experts on the governance of research in the country.""

Inside the Supreme Court Ethics Debate: Who Judges the Justices?; The New York Times, December 3, 2024

 Jodi Kantor and Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times; Inside the Supreme Court Ethics Debate: Who Judges the Justices?

"As the summer of 2023 ended, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court began trading even-more-confidential-than-usual memos, avoiding their standard email list and instead passing paper documents in envelopes to each chambers. Faced with ethics controversies and a plunge in public trust, they were debating rules for their own conduct, according to people familiar with the process.

Weeks later, as a united front, they announced the results: the court’s first-ever ethics code. “It’s remarkable that we were able to agree unanimously,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said in a television interview this year.

But a New York Times examination found that behind the scenes, the court had divided over whether the justices’ new rules could — or should — ever be enforced."

Pardon who? Hunter Biden case renews ethical debate over use and limits of peculiar presidential power; The Conversation, December 2, 2024

Scott Davidson, Professor of Philosophy, West Virginia University , The Conversation; Pardon who? Hunter Biden case renews ethical debate over use and limits of peculiar presidential power

"The decision by President Joe Biden to pardon his son, Hunter, despite previously suggesting he would not do so, has reopened debate over the use of the presidential pardon."

‘This Is the Land of Wolves Now’: Two Columnists Get to the Heart of Biden’s Pardon; The New York Times, December 3, 2024

ROSS DOUTHAT AND DAVID FRENCH, The New York Times; ‘This Is the Land of Wolves Now’: Two Columnists Get to the Heart of Biden’s Pardon

"Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists Ross Douthat and David French about President Biden’s decision to issue a broad pardon to his son Hunter Biden.

Patrick Healy: Ross and David, you both have written extensively about the rule of law and presidential power. You both have a good sense of what American voters care about. And you both are fathers. So I’m curious what struck you most about President Biden’s statement that he was pardoning his son Hunter Biden.

David French: As a father, I think it would be very, very hard to watch your son go to prison — especially if you have the power to set him free. I can’t imagine the pain of watching Hunter’s long battle with substance abuse and then watching his conviction in court. But in his role as president, Biden’s primary responsibility is to the country and the Constitution, not his family.

As president, this pardon represents a profound failure. Biden was dishonest — he told us that he wouldn’t pardon Hunter — and this use of the pardon power reeks of the kind of royal privilege that is antithetical to America’s republican values...

Ross Douthat: I think it’s important to stress that Biden always kept Hunter close, within the larger aura of his own power, in ways that likely helped his son trade on his dad’s name even as his own life was completely out of control. This pardon is a continuation or completion of that closeness: It’s a moral failure, as David says, a dereliction, but one that’s of a piece with the president’s larger inability to create a sustained separation between his own position and his troubled son’s lifestyle and business dealings and place in the family’s inner circle. A clearer separation would have been better not just for the president and the country, but also for Hunter himself — even if he’s benefiting from it now, at the last."

Toronto Public Library apologizes after refusing to let a lost girl use their phone; City News, December 2, 2024

 Rhianne Campbell, City News ; Toronto Public Library apologizes after refusing to let a lost girl use their phone

"The Toronto Public Library has apologized after refusing to let a lost girl use a phone at one of their branches.

Megan Kinch posted on social media Friday evening after her lost 11-year-old daughter went to the library looking for help."

Getty Images CEO Calls AI Training Models ‘Pure Theft’; PetaPixel, December 3, 2024

 MATT GROWCOOT , PetaPixel; Getty Images CEO Calls AI Training Models ‘Pure Theft’

"The CEO of Getty Images has penned a column in which he calls the practice of scraping photos and other content from the open web by AI companies “pure theft”.

Writing for Fortune, Craig Peters argues that fair use rules must be respected and that AI training practices are in contravention of those rules...

“I am responsible for an organization that employs over 1,700 individuals and represents the work of more than 600,000 journalists and creators worldwide,” writes Peters. “Copyright is at the very core of our business and the livelihood of those we employ and represent.”"

UW System's copyright policy: What it means for professors; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 2, 2024

 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; UW System's copyright policy: What it means for professors

"The University of Wisconsin System's proposed copyright policy aims to transfer ownership of faculty teaching materials to the university."

Broad Pardon for Hunter Biden Troubles Experts; The New York Times, December 2, 2024

Kenneth P. Vogel, The New York Times; Broad Pardon for Hunter Biden Troubles Experts

"Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor of politics at American University who studies clemency, drew a distinction between what presidents can do, and what they should do.

“Legally, the president can pardon pretty much whomever they want,” he said in an email. “Morally, it does raise some questions.”

AI and the Public; Library Journal, November 11, 2024

 Matt Enis, Library Journal; AI and the Public

"In a recent leadership brief, the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) explains that “technology has always played a role in spreading misinformation and disinformation, but the advancement of artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, has ushered in an era of unprecedented expansion in the volume, sophistication, and believability of falsified information.” Citing a report by NewsGuard, the brief notes that websites with AI-generated false articles have increased by more than 1,000 percent since May 2023. Separately, the brief cites a testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum by Jessica Brandt, a policy director at the Brookings Institution, which describes AI “deepfake” technologies—which generate replica audio or video of a person’s voice or likeness—as a significant misinformation threat.

“We’re really in an unprecedented era,” Brooks Rainwater, president and CEO of ULC, tells LJ. Misinformation “is just going to be even more and more pervasive. And this is where public libraries come in as that trusted resource for community members, being able to talk with those community members…. As people have those conversations about what’s real and what’s not real, I do feel that [libraries] hold a unique position moving forward.”

The brief also connects the problem of misinformation with the rise in social isolation—when real-life social connections erode and people spend more time online, they often become more vulnerable to misinformation and extreme viewpoints.

“One of the ways to counter that is humanizing those conversations,” Femi Adelakun, director of research and data for ULC, tells LJ. “Public libraries are well positioned to do that. You’re more likely to argue over a topic online and never get to a resolution. When you come together in person, [you can] actually have a discussion.”"

Confucius vs. Aristotle: What the two philosophers teach us about ethics; Big Think, November 28, 2024

 Scotty Hendricks, Big Think; Confucius vs. Aristotle: What the two philosophers teach us about ethics

"If you’ve always wanted to explore Aristotle’s virtue ethics, the contrast with Confucius reminds you that you are not an island; you must recognize what virtuous habits look like both in practice and in theory. Similarly, if you’re drawn to Confucianism, Aristotle’s emphasis on the inner aspects of virtue highlights that li is more than just ritual. Rather than contradicting each other, these philosophies can complement each other, providing a richer understanding of ethical practice."

From exploitation to empowerment: how researchers can protect Indigenous peoples’ rights to own and control their data; Nature, November 27, 2024

 Cassandra Sedran-Price, Nature; From exploitation to empowerment: how researchers can protect Indigenous peoples’ rights to own and control their data

"So, what can be done? Indigenous Data Sovereignty, which refers to Indigenous peoples’ rights to own and control Indigenous data, can and should be protected through research practices, including how contracts are written and teams are structured. This right, supported by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), emphasizes the fact that Indigenous peoples should be in the driver’s seat for research that affects us. We should be the decision-makers from the point of conceptualization — from setting the research priorities through to dissemination of the data and ongoing data management, including how they are stored, accessed and used. It is through Indigenous peoples’ involvement that systemic injustices can be broken down, and equity, shared benefits and data protection can be realized.

Researchers and institutions must take the lead in understanding how to develop and implement mechanisms to enact Indigenous data sovereignty, known as Indigenous data governance. An important first step is aligning policies and practices with national and international frameworks and treaties for the protection of Indigenous knowledge and data. The CARE Principles for Indigenous data governance (the acronym stands for Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility and Ethics) for example, were designed to strengthen and uphold Indigenous rights to data, while refocusing data governance to prioritize value-based relationships5.

In Western society, intellectual property (IP) laws offer a means of protection for knowledge and data. These laws can establish ownership and authorship of IP in the form of copyright, trademarks and patents. But they do not fully recognize our lore and experiences as Indigenous peoples, nor the specific forms of Indigenous knowledge and data that may be accessed and shared. This is where research-related agreements, such as contracts and data-sharing agreements, can create greater equity and opportunities to prioritize and support shared power, shared resources, mutual understanding and respect for our cultural protocols."

5 Underrated Films About AI Ethics Every Tech Leader Should Watch; Forbes, November 26, 2024

Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D., Forbes ; 5 Underrated Films About AI Ethics Every Tech Leader Should Watch

"If you’’re a tech leader—and even if you’re not—you owe it to yourself to watch at least a couple of the films on this list. Each raises profound ethical questions and are gripping to boot.

So here are 5 lesser-known works of cinema waiting for you online or on old-fashioned DVD or Blu-Ray discs. For each film I’m including:

• a reference to an ethical question raised by the film
• a reference for digging more deeply into the film’s ethical issues
• The Rotten Tomatoes rating at the time of this article’s publication
• where to watch"