After a year of weathering criticism from tech workers, politicians, and activists over its oil industry contracts, Google has stated that it will not create new custom A.I. or machine learning algorithms that would help the oil and gas industry enhance its ability to extract fossil fuels. From a report: “We will not … build custom A.I./ML algorithms to facilitate upstream…
Tag: politicians
Bill Gates Regrets Not Calling More Attention to the Danger of Pandemics
Digital Trends reports:
Bill Gates has been warning government leaders about a global pandemic for years, but the coronavirus still caught nations off guard — and the philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder said that’s one of his biggest regrets. “I wish I had done more to call attention to the danger,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal. “I feel terrible. The whole point…
The focus on coronavirus is essential, but we can’t forget the climate
The coronavirus pandemic may be the biggest crisis most of us have faced, but we can’t afford to tackle our crises one at a time and let politicians off the hook on climate change Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632823-000-the-focus-on-coronavirus-is-essential-but-we-cant-forget-the-climate/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Amazon Extends Bonus Pay For Front-line Workers But Says it Ends in June
Amazon plans to extend hazard pay for warehouse workers through the end of May, but it will return to normal pay rates in June, the company’s top operations executive told Recode in an interview on Tuesday. From a report: The decision comes as Amazon faces intense scrutiny from progressive politicians, activist groups, and its own workforce over its treatment of its…
How to sniff out the good coronavirus studies from the bad
With social media, newspapers and politicians all espousing unverified covid-19 findings, use these seven signs to tell if a study should be treated with caution Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242835-how-to-sniff-out-the-good-coronavirus-studies-from-the-bad/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
After the Pandemic, Will Big Tech Companies Be Unstoppable?
After the pandemic is over, “The tech giants could have all the power,” warns Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, ” and absolutely none of the accountability — at least all the power that will truly matter.” This is the conclusion that many are coming to as the post-pandemic future begins to come into focus. Wall Street sure is signaling that the power…
Can New Zealand and Australia Eliminate All Coronavirus Infections?
“What Australia and New Zealand have already accomplished is a remarkable cause for hope,” reports the New York Times, in an inspiring article shared by Slashdot reader tflf (also republished here and here):
The results are undeniable: Australia and New Zealand have squashed the curve. Australia, a nation of 25 million people that had been on track for 153,000 cases by Easter,…
Some ‘Reopen’ Domains Could Be Phishing and Malware Campaigns
CNET reports on new research from a threat-intelligence company into the more than 540 domain names registered this month with the word “reopen” in their URL. While hundreds of them are “designed to lend credibility to anti-lockdown protests,” and 98 more were purchased to thwart that effort, there’s still many other domains that “come from suspicious sources or resellers looking to…
Thank God for the Internet
Everything is so dark, but the internet — for all its bad and broken parts — is helping to keep us together in a way that has never happened before, writes Joshua Topolsky in an essay on Input Mag. Two excerpts from the essay: What the hell would we do right now without the internet? How would so many of us…
Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Is Making Its Software Open Source
gavron writes: While most politicians are pro copyright maximalism and patent exclusivity, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign just open-sourced a bunch of software and are proud of having used open source to save money, and build upon the shoulders of other giants. Way to go! “Our tech team worked hard to make getting involved with @ewarren’s campaign as easy as possible,” reads a…