The first church of artificial intelligence has shut its conceptual doors. From a report: Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who avoided an 18-month prison sentence after receiving a presidential pardon last month, has closed the church he created to understand and accept a godhead based on artificial intelligence. The Way of the Future church, which Levandowski formed in 2015, was…
Tag: black lives matter
Gina Carano, Who Plays Cara Dune On The Mandalorian, Will No Longer Be On the Show
“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” said a Lucasfilm spokesperson. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.” io9 reports: The news comes after a day in which the hashtag #FireGinaCarano trended on Twitter for hours. The…
To the Moon? Dogecoin Leaps 46% in 24 Hours After Tweets From Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg
Friday the 71-year-old former lead singer of the band Kiss tweeted “I bought Dogecoin…six figures,” to his 922,000 followers, along with other supportive tweets. Saturday rap artist Snoop Dogg tweeted an image of “Snoop Doge” to his 19.2 million followers. Later Elon Musk tweeted a picture from the Lion King with Musk’s head appearing on a monkey holding up a monkey…
Together scientists can back Black Lives Matter and boost race justice
This year, scientists took action to support Black Lives Matter. Let 2021 be your year to advance race justice, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833130-600-together-scientists-can-back-black-lives-matter-and-boost-race-justice/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Police in Several US Cities Used Facial Recognition To Hunt Down and Arrest Protesters
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: Law enforcement in several cities, including New York and Miami, have reportedly been using controversial facial recognition software to track down and arrest individuals who allegedly participated in criminal activity during Black Lives Matter protests months after the fact. Miami police used Clearview AI to identify and arrest a woman for allegedly throwing a rock…
San Diego’s Police Are Using Video from ‘Smart’ Streetlights
Slashdot reader Tekla Perry is also senior editor at IEEE Spectrum, and brings a story about San Diego’s 3,300 “smart streetlights,” each one equipped with “an Intel Atom processor, half a terabyte of storage, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios, two 1080p video cameras, two acoustical sensors, and environmental sensors that monitor temperature, pressure, humidity, vibration, and magnetic fields.” San Diego’s smart streetlights…
University of Michigan Study Advocates Ban of Facial Recognition in Schools
University of Michigan researchers recently published a study showing facial recognition technology in schools has limited efficacy and presents a number of serious problems. From a report: The research was led by Shobita Parthasarathy, director of the university’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program, and finds the technology isn’t just ill-suited to security purposes, it can actively promote racial discrimination,…
Social Movements Are Pushing Google Sheets To the Breaking Point
In the past decade, Google’s suite of collaborative tools has steadily gained prominence in social movements and other forms of widespread collaboration. From a report: It was used to organize Occupy Wall Street movements in 2011, disseminate resources for protesting after the U.S. election in 2016, and assemble response to the California wildfires in 2017. During 2020, these tools have earned…
Facebook Must Better Police Online Hate, State Attorneys General Say
Twenty state attorneys general on Wednesday called on Facebook to better prevent messages of hate, bias and disinformation from spreading, and said the company needed to provide more help to users facing online abuse. From a report: In a letter [PDF] to the social media giant, the officials said they regularly encountered people facing online intimidation and harassment on Facebook. They…
Cisco Fires Workers for Racial Comments During Diversity Forum
During a series of Cisco online all-hands meetings on race in early June, some workers posted comments in message channels that other staff and company management said were demeaning to Black people, exposing racial divisions at the Silicon Valley tech giant and leading to the dismissal of a number of people. From a report: During the first videoconference on June 1,…