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looorg writes:

https://mashable.com/article/penguin-random-house-ai-protections-copyright-page
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273895/penguin-random-house-books-copyright-ai

PRH's changing of its copyright wording to combat AI training makes it the first of the Big Five publishers to take such an action against AI, at least publicly.

The clause also notes that Penguin Random House "expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception" in line with the European Union's laws.

In August, Penguin Random House published a statement saying that the publisher will "vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists."

Penguin Random House will amend their copyright notice with "no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.".

Will it work? Have they just created more job for themselves trying to litigate to all the LLM trainers? How much is to much or enough for it to be distinct from their books or just not words other people have expressed to?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The experiment involved participants utilizing specialized equipment including sensors and earbuds. On September 24, one participant sleeping at home induced lucid dreaming, a state in which you are aware that you are dreaming. It is apparently a trainable skill, although I have only ever personally experienced it a handful of times throughout my life.

On the night of the 24th when the REMspace participant entered this state, the connected hardware they were wearing pinged a remote server that generated a random Remmyo word (Remmyo is a type of dream language that is detectable using sensors). The word was sent to the earbuds the person was wearing, and they repeated it in their dream.

The dreamer's response – the Remmyo word – was then captured and stored on the server. Eight minutes later, another participant entered a lucid dream and received the stored message from the first user. When she woke, she confirmed the word – successfully demonstrating the first-ever "chat" exchange between two dreaming participants.

REMspace said two other participants were also able to communicate with its server while dreaming.

The startup's founder and CEO, Michael Raduga, said communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction yesterday. "Tomorrow, it will be so common we won't be able to imagine our lives without this technology," the executive added.

Raduga said the capability opens the door to countless commercial applications, but stopped short of giving any specific examples. "We believe that REM sleep and related phenomena, like lucid dreams, will become the next big industry after AI," he noted.

While no doubt fascinating, it is also a bit frightening. The idea of commercializing dreams sounds ripe for misuse and if we're being force-fed content even while we are sleeping, when will we ever be able to truly unplug and get any actual rest?

Original Submission

It is a long time since we issued a Meta regarding the situation of the site. Much has been happening, but nowhere near as quickly as we had imagined or had hoped. But we are now almost there.

The handover of assets is taking place. The new Board has been instrumental in this and, when the transfer is finally complete, I know that NCommander wishes to write his own Meta to you, the community. Details of who is in which seat will happen once the handover is complete because, until that point, the current site is the one that has existed since 2014, and it is still headed by NCommander.

New hardware is being set up which will allow us to drastically reduce the running costs of the site. Two people, fliptop and kolie, have donated the use of servers and internet connections free of charge to SoylentNews. This is an extremely generous donation on their part and one for which the new Board is extremely grateful. Contracts, where requested, are being actioned as I write this Meta. There will still be annual costs for domains etc.

The new hardware will have a new software structure installed on it, based on Docker containers. These will provide a significantly easier system to manage and, hopefully, will also take care automatically with many of the disruptive issues that we have seen in recent months. I do not claim that there will not be any initial hiccups but the site will still be running on Rehash and will look and behave exactly as it does today. There will be issues regarding updates to software for which new procedures will have to be produced and documented, but that is a task for the future and it need not delay the transfer.

Regarding changes to software, there is an incident that took place last weekend. A community member informed us that the moderation system, under certain usages, could compromise the identity of both the moderator and the moderatee. I passed the information to NCommander and kolie who, despite it being a weekend, identified and confirmed the problem, and subsequently identified a potential fix. The software change was made by kolie first thing on (his) Monday morning, which means that a serious problem was identified and the fix implemented in a fraction over 24 hours. I don't think anyone could have done it any faster bearing in mind that this is an all-volunteer site and considering that it occurred at a time when most people would rather be having some private time with their families. The team we have at the moment is much smaller than we have ever had before but it is still capable of managing the site and keeping the stories flowing. It is only right that I acknowledge on your behalf the contribution made by, and offer my thanks to, the community member who reported the issue (who may identify themself if they wish), NCommander and in particular kolie, who is very much involved in the new site just as he has been for the last 18 months or so.

However, not all problems are under our control. The current issues with IRC have resulted in a ticket being raised by NCommander for support action to be taken by Akamai/Linode. The problem occurred immediately after some routine maintenance, and it appears to be related to DNS and IPv6 as a result of changes that have been introduced by that maintenance. I do not have all the details to hand but it is being actioned.

For this site to remain active and interesting we rely on community support. Whether that be by making submissions (you should know the sort of topics that we are looking for, and we can always put some things under the 'random' topic), or by offering to assist with one of the teams, or just by commenting as many of you are doing now. I realise that this is an important time in the run-up to an election but please discuss TFA and not bring politics into every discussion. You can discuss politics as much as you wish in your journals. In fact, there is no 'politics' topic, nor has there ever been one.

I have been asked numerous times when will ACs be allowed back onto the front pages? There is only one person stopping that from happening now, and it is not me. There will always be occasional spamming and that can be managed quite effectively by community moderation. When the excessive spamming and abuse stops for good then ACs can return to full discussions. But spamming will not result in closing down this site.

Frosty Piss writes:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/philip-zimbardo-stanford-death/index.html

Philip G. Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the controversial "Stanford Prison Experiment" that was intended to examine the psychological experiences of imprisonment, has died. In the 1971 prison study funded by the US Office of Naval Research, Zimbardo and a team of graduate students recruited male college students to spend two weeks in a mock prison in the basement of a building on the Stanford campus. The United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps wanted to understand anti-social behavior and investigate conflict between military guards and prisoners. After psychologist Christina Maslach (later to become his wife) visited to evaluate the conditions, she was troubled to see how study participants were behaving and she confronted Zimbardo. He ended the experiment on the sixth day.

Selected student participants were assigned randomly to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford. Prisoners were confined to a 6 by 9 feet cell with black steel-barred doors. The only furniture in each cell was a cot. Solitary confinement was a small unlit closet. In his book Humankind - a hopeful history (2020) historian Rutger Bregman discusses charges that the whole experiment was faked and fraudulent; Bregman argued this experiment is often used as an example to show that people succumb easily to evil behavior, but Zimbardo was less than candid about the fact that he told the guards to act the way they did.

Zimbardo's primary reason for conducting the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. "I had been conducting research for some years on deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization that illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," said Zimbardo.

Original Submission

Indonesia Bans Chinese E-Commerce App Temu

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Indonesia's government last week ordered Apple and Google to remove Chinese e-commerce app Temu from their app stores.

A government announcement quotes minister of communication and information Budi Arie Setiadi explaining that Temu has not registered to operate in Indonesia. He's also concerned about competition issues.

"Local MSME products need government protection from foreign marketplaces that sell foreign products directly from their factories so that the prices are very cheap. This is unhealthy competition and threatens the sustainability of local MSME businesses," the minister is quoted as saying.

The government statement also observes that "Based on experience in several countries, the application from China is detrimental to local MSMEs as well as consumers. The quality of products sold by Temu also does not meet quality standards, thus harming consumers or buyers."

The minister has also made remarks suggesting another Chinese e-commerce app – Shein – is in his sights.

EU Asks Temu For Information About Illegal Trading On Its Platform Under DSA

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The European Commission has requested Chinese online retailer Temu to provide details and internal documents about how it tackles the presence of traders selling illegal products in its online marketplace.

Temu, with a monthly user base of 75m, was designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) earlier this year, which means that the company is now subject to the “most stringent rules” under the Act.

The Commission has asked the online retailer about its mitigation efforts against illegal product trading, as well as information on risks relating to consumer protection, public health and users’ wellbeing. It also asked Temu for information on its recommender systems and the risk to the protection of users’ personal data.

[...] Temu told the Business Post that it has taken “significant measures” since being designated a VLOP.

“Consumer safety is a top priority, and we welcome feedback from all stakeholders as we work to provide access to quality, affordable products for our consumers.”

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A newly formed group of UK electronics companies is advocating for the removal of VAT (value-added tax) on electronic spare parts, repairs, and labor in the government's upcoming autumn budget, claiming this would encourage consumers to get kit repaired instead of replacing it.

The group, which calls itself CLEAR (Circular Leadership for Electronics and Recycling), says it aims to address the growing issue of electronic waste and the barriers preventing consumers from repairing rather than replacing electrical items.

Members of the group include consumer brands such as ProCook, Positec Power Tools Europe, Glen Dimplex Home Appliances, and Melitta, while the group is chaired by James Rigg, chief exec of Trojan Electronics, which provides repair, refurbishment, and resell services as well as contract manufacturing.

According to Rigg, getting rid of VAT charges on electronic repairs is a "crucial step" in creating a more circular economy. However, CLEAR is going further and also lobbying for the British government to follow the example of countries like Austria and France, which have introduced subsidies for electrical repairs. 

Original Submission

owl writes:

The Terminator: How James Cameron's 'science-fiction slasher film' predicted AI fears, 40 years ago

[...] With its killer robots and its rogue AI system, Skynet, The Terminator has become synonymous with the spectre of a machine intelligence that turns against its human creators. Picture editors routinely illustrate articles about AI with the chrome death's head of the film's T-800 "hunter-killer" robot. The roboticist Ronald Arkin used clips from the film in a cautionary 2013 talk called How NOT to build a Terminator.

[...] The layperson is likely to imagine unaligned AI as rebellious and malevolent. But the likes of Nick Bostrom insist that the real danger is from careless programming. Think of the sorcerer's broom in Disney's Fantasia: a device that obediently follows its instructions to ruinous extremes. The second type of AI is not human enough it lacks common sense and moral judgement. The first is too human - selfish, resentful, power-hungry. Both could in theory be genocidal.

The Terminator therefore both helps and hinders our understanding of AI: what it means for a machine to "think", and how it could go horrifically wrong. Many AI researchers resent the Terminator obsession altogether for exaggerating the existential risk of AI at the expense of more immediate dangers such as mass unemployment, disinformation and autonomous weapons. "First, it makes us worry about things that we probably don't need to fret about," writes Michael Woolridge. "But secondly, it draws attention away from those issues raised by AI that we should be concerned about."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

It has been claimed that fish farming is a sustainable source of food that will help us feed the growing global human population while protecting wild fish populations – but this isn’t true.

“Fish farming is not a substitute for catching wild fish out of the ocean,” says Matthew Hayek at New York University. “In fact, it relies on catching wild fish out of the ocean.”

Hayek and his colleagues have shown that the amount of wild fish killed in order to feed farmed fish is between 27 and 307 per cent higher than previous estimates.

Farmed carnivorous fish eat multiple times more weight in wild fish caught from the ocean than is obtained by farming them, says Hayek. For instance, producing a kilogram of salmon may require 4 or 5 kilograms of wild fish.

Original Submission

Why Hurricanes Like Milton In The Us And Cyclones In Australia Are Becoming More Intense And Harder

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes and typhoons in other parts of the world, have caused huge damage in many places recently. The United States has just been hit by Hurricane Milton, within two weeks of Hurricane Helene. Climate change likely made their impacts worse.

[...] The bureau's forecast is consistent with scientific evidence suggesting climate change is likely to result in fewer but more severe tropical cyclones. They are now more likely to bring stronger winds and more intense rain and flooding.

Our knowledge of tropical cyclones and climate change is based on multiple lines of evidence globally and for the Australian region. This work includes our studies based on observations and modeling.

[...] Many ocean heat records have been set recently. This means we have been in "uncharted waters" from a temperature perspective. It adds further uncertainty if relying on what occurred in the past when making predictions for the current climate.

The science makes it clear we need to plan for tropical cyclone impacts in a different way from what might have worked in the past. This includes being prepared for potentially fewer tropical cyclones overall, but with those that do occur being more likely to cause more damage. This means there are higher risks of damaging winds, flooding and coastal erosion.

Eyeing The Damage Of Hurricane Season

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In the aftermath of hurricanes like Helene and Milton, the damaging effects of these natural disasters are the center of national conversations, including questions about the long-term impact to infrastructure. However, current methods for damage assessment don't offer clear and timely answers to these questions.

That's where AI and engineering can help. Researchers from Texas A&M University are pioneering the use of AI and machine learning to create faster methods to assess damages caused by hurricanes.

[...] Using this dataset, Manzini and fellow graduate student Priya Perali trained an AI system to recognize building and road damage caused by disasters. Learning these models took hours of high-performance computing but have resulted in a damage assessment system that can sort through the building and road damages of a large neighborhood after a disaster in only four minutes using a laptop.

"AI offers tremendous value for rural counties which do not have the budget or workforce to conduct physical damage assessments but do have inexpensive drones," said Murphy, a Raytheon Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

owl writes:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/17/meta-staff-sacked-for-using-25-takeaway-vouchers-wine-glass/

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has sacked a number of staff after they abused the company's $25 (£19) meal scheme to order household goods such as toothpaste and washing powder.

Almost 30 staff in the company's Los Angeles office were dismissed after they were found to be routinely using takeaway credits to order groceries and cosmetics, employees said.

The sackings included high-paid engineers earning six-figure salaries, according to posts on the anonymous chat app Blind.

Meta, which is currently worth $1.5 trillion, provides staff with free breakfast, lunch and dinner at its larger offices.

Those in smaller offices without staff canteens instead receive vouchers for delivery apps such as Grubhub, which they can use to order food when working at the office.

However, Meta recently discovered that some employees were using the $25 vouchers to order household items from stores that feature on the apps.

In some cases, staff were using the scheme to buy wine glasses and laundry detergent, according to the Financial Times.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The parents of a Massachusetts child are taking his school to court after the student was punished for using AI in a class project.

The individual, named only as RNH, admitted to teachers that they had used AI when writing a Social Studies project in December, but claimed it was only for research and not to write the whole paper. The student was given a Saturday detention and marked down on the project, something his parents are now suing to rectify.

"The Plaintiff Student will suffer irreparable harm that far outweighs any harm that may befall the Defendants," their filing reads [PDF].

"He is applying to elite colleges and universities given his high level of academic and personal achievement. Early decision and early action applications in a highly competitive admissions process are imminent and start in earnest on October 1, 2024. Absent the grant of an injunction by this Court, the Student will suffer irreparable harm that is imminent."

RNH was temporarily held back from joining the National Honor Society and parents want their offspring's academic records cleared of any mention of the incident. In addition, they want the student to receive a B grade for the project and the removal of any indication that cheating was involved.

The school, however, is fighting back with a motion to dismiss [PDF] the case. The school argues that RNH, along with his classmates, was given a copy of the student handbook in the Fall of last year, which specifically called out the use of AI by students. The class was also shown a presentation about the school's policy.

Students should "not use AI tools during in-class examinations, processed writing assignments, homework or classwork unless explicitly permitted and instructed," the policy states.

"RNH unequivocally used another author’s language and thoughts, be it a digital and artificial author, without express permission to do so," the school argues.

"Furthermore, he did not cite to his use of AI in his notes, scripts or in the project he submitted. Importantly, RNH’s peers were not allowed to cut corners by using AI to craft their projects; thus, RNH acted 'unfairly in order to gain an advantage.'"

Unless the school and parents reach a settlement, the case will go to court later this month.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The US government's probe into the necessity of ISP data caps has escalated with the launch of a formal inquiry and the publication of hundreds of testimonials from those affected to drum up support for potential regulatory action.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) yesterday announced the launch of its inquiry into ISPs, both terrestrial and mobile, for their use of artificial data caps and speed throttling to limit internet access for subscribers on lower-cost tiers. These limits, said FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, are indefensible in the post-pandemic era.

"During the pandemic, many fixed and mobile internet service providers refrained from enforcing or imposing data caps, suggesting that our networks have the capacity to meet consumer demand without these restrictions," Rosenworcel said.

But as the pandemic wound down, the caps returned, triggering an initial look into how consumers were affected by data caps in 2023. That effort centered on getting consumer feedback on how they were bilked by their ISPs through reinstated caps and subscription price hikes, the results of which were released yesterday alongside the formal notice of inquiry.

In one case, a family reported having to take their children to use public Wi-Fi because the only unlimited option in their area is $190. In an another instance, a telemedicine provider said that it was forced to pay for higher-priced services due to their need for bandwidth, while a disabled individual said an ISP had more than doubled the cost of their plan since the pandemic and added a data cap.

"For most people in the United States, rationing their internet usage would be unthinkable and impractical," Rosenworcel said of the comments. "But, for millions, limitations on how much data they can use online is a constant concern."

To that end, the FCC is seeking more comments from the public and the broadband industry on why, among other things, caps persist despite the demonstrated technical ability of companies to offer unlimited data plans without harming their networks.

Most crucial to the notice of inquiry, at least for those looking to the FCC for regulatory cues, is the Commission's question about whether it has the legal authority to take action on data caps. In 2023, when the FCC was first looking into the matter, it said it was exploring its legal authority to address the issue of caps without needing to pass new laws, and has seemingly identified a few possible avenues to do so.

looorg writes:

https://torrentfreak.com/sony-defeated-as-cjeu-finds-datels-ram-data-cheat-non-copyright-infringing-241018/

The Directive on the legal protection of computer programs does not allow the holder of that protection to prohibit the marketing by a third party of software which merely changes variables transferred temporarily to game console's RAM.

[...] The CJEU judgment clarifies the limits of copyright protection in respect of source/object code, while highlighting an area of freedom (subject to boundaries and conditions) in which data generated by software can be modified without triggering a lawsuit.

While in this case it's specifically about DATEL selling their various cheating devices. But it also kind of seems like the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) just made some versions of cracking software protections legal. As long as you leave the code alone in the executables and only do changes in RAM then it's all fine and dandy. So for example having another program that just patches part of the RAM while running or executing the code in RAM. It's not really harder to patch in more lives, infinite gold or just not checking for various protection mechanisms. Either removing them or just flipping some bits to everything is alright. Protection check passed. No copyright there.

Original Submission

Booga1 writes:

Wales Online reports: James Howells has spent more than a decade trying to get back a dumped hard drive. Now he has assembled a team of top lawyers to sue the council he claims has 'ignored' him "I'm suing the council for £495m because they won't give me back my bin bag."

A man has filed a court claim against Newport council in a "last resort" to get back almost half a billion pounds' worth of Bitcoin. A mix-up saw James Howells' hard drive dumped at a recycling centre in 2013 causing him to lose access to cryptocurrency coins which have since rocketed in value.

WalesOnline has seen a court document that says Mr Howells, 39, is suing the council for £495,314,800 in damages, which was the peak valuation of his 8,000 Bitcoins from earlier this year. But he told us this is not a reflection of "what is really going on" and the point is to "leverage" the council into agreeing to an excavation of its landfill to avoid a legal battle. Mr Howells says he has assembled a team of experts who would carry out the £10million dig at no cost to the council. He is also offering the council 10% of the coins' value if recovered.

...

The hard drive disaster unfolded after a miscommunication between the IT engineer and his then-partner. Mr Howells, who learned about Bitcoin in 2009 by spending time on IT forums, believes he was one of the very first miners of the cryptocurrency. In basic terms he created the 8,000 coins himself and they cost him nothing beyond pennies' worth of electricity to run his laptop. He stored the private key needed to access the coins on a 2.5in hard drive which he put in a drawer at his home office.

In August 2013 he had a clearout of equipment. Looking through his drawers he came across two hard drives of the same size. One contained the Bitcoin data while the other was blank. Mistakenly he put the Bitcoin one into a black bin liner. When he went to bed that evening he asked his then-partner if after the school run the next morning she would take that bin bag and another one to Newport household waste recycling centre. "His partner refused and stated that she did not wish to do that," write Mr Howells' team of barristers in the claim.

The claim says Mr Howells was "not overly concerned" by her refusal because he had made a mental note to double-check if he had put the right hard drive in the bin bag. But when he woke at 9am his partner had already returned from the school run and had taken the bin bags to the tip. Mr Howells' lost Bitcoins were worth less than £1m at the time but within three months they had soared to a value of £9m. One day they could be worth billions, Mr Howells believes, citing predictions from asset management firm VanEck.

...

Newport council sent us a statement hitting back at the "weak" court claim and the criticism over its environmental breaches. Its spokesman said: "The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. The council is the only body authorised to carry out operations on the site.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

There's good earnings news for U.S. members: Salaries are rising. Base salaries increased by about 5 percent from 2022 to 2023, according to the IEEE-USA 2024 Salary and Benefits Survey Report.

Last year's report showed that inflation had outpaced earnings growth but that's not the case this year.

In current dollars, the median income of U.S. engineers and other tech professionals who are IEEE members was US $174,161 last year, up about 5 percent from $169,000 in 2022, excluding overtime pay, profit sharing, and other supplemental earnings. Unemployment fell to 1.2 percent in this year's survey, down from 1.4 percent in the previous year.

As with prior surveys, earned income is measured for the year preceding the survey's date of record—so the 2024 survey reports income earned in 2023.

To calculate the median salary, IEEE-USA considered only respondents who were tech professionals working full time in their primary area of competence—a sample of 4,192 people.

I suppose it is good news for many of our members. Interesting analysis of salary trends ...

[Source]: IEEE SPECTRUM

Original Submission