Tag: Democracy

ECP NetHappenings: Education, Bitcoin, AI, Democracy, Zuckerberg

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ECP NetHappenings: #Education, #Bitcoin, #AI, #Democracy, #Zuckerberg

#EDUCATION

Some of my thoughts about protecting children’s brains; arguably, this is society’s most important mission. Dr. Christopher Giza stresses importance of safeguarding brain development.
Pediatric neurology division chief promotes TBI education for all clinicians.
https://www.uclahealth.org/news/dr-giza-safeguarding-childrens-brains

Pennsylvania will need to spend at least $5.4 billion to close the gap between rich and poor school districts, according to a long-awaited report approved by a divided panel of policymakers Thursday.
https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/pa-needs-to-spend-5-4b-to-close-gap-between-rich-and-poor-schools-report-advanced-by-dems-says/

#BITCOIN

10/19/23US Government Holds Over $5B in Bitcoin, Among Top Hodlers
https://sharedcryptobots.com/us-government-holds-over-5b-in-bitcoin-among-top-hodlers/

1/16/24 Grayscale recently transferred an additional 9,000 $BTC, valued at $385 million, to a presumed Coinbase $COIN Prime deposit address. The Grayscale address currently identified retains 617,000 BTC, equivalent to $26.22 billion

AI

FROM A 1979 IBM PRESENTATION


A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

THEREFORE A COMPUTER
MUST NEVER MAKE A
MANAGEMENT DECISION

 

Meredith Whittaker @mer__edith
MS–Open AI’s ~parent company–already has massive US military contracts. This is the biz model.
It’s also one more alarm re. the current AI paradigm, its reliance on concentrated corp power, & the undemocratic decision making power this gives these (primarily) US-based corps.

Here’s the section of the OpenAI policy on banned usage that was deleted two days ago. In its place is a much more ambiguous general ban on causing “harm” and a very narrow mention of weapons development

The new version, overhauled on Jan 10th, is here:
https://openai.com/policies/usage-policies

@samfbiddle
OpenAI quietly deleted its ban on “military and warfare” applications from its permissible uses policy in a revision this week
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/

Here’s the section of the OpenAI policy on banned usage that was deleted two days ago. In its place is a much more ambiguous general ban on causing “harm” and a very narrow mention of weapons development

• Activity that has high risk of physical harm, including:

Weapons development
Military and warfare
Management or operation of critical infrastructure in energy, transportation, and water
Content that promotes, encourages, or depicts acts of self-harm, such as suicide, cutting, and eating disorders

You can read the previous version of the policy here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240109122522/https:/openai.com/policies/usage-policies

“You can now take a GenAI model and train it to automatically recommend fixes for insecure code, generate training materials for your security teams, and identify mitigation measures in the event of an identified threat, moving beyond just finding vulnerabilities.”

Sam Biddle @samfbiddle
If you work at OpenAI and have concerns or any thoughts at all about the company’s policy change, please feel free to reach out to me via Signal at +1 978 261 7389 (don’t use a work-provided device!) Happy to speak off the record.

Max Lamparth @MLamparth
Thank you for highlighting this important change! We studied potential escalators risks from deploying LLMs in military decision-making scenarios in our new paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03408 and our findings warrant caution to using LLMs for such purposes.
Escalation Risks from Language Models in Military and Diplomatic Decision-Making
https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03408

Tal Broda is Head of Research Platform at @OpenAI which develops ChatGPT.
To express concern, politely contact:

📧 VP of People
di***@****ai.com

📧 VP of Global Affairs
am******@****ai.com

One of the world’s largest AI training datasets is about to get bigger and ‘substantially better’
The Pile was created by all of us. It’s the work of all humans past and present. It therefore belongs to all of us, and when used to train AI, we all deserve a cut of the profits. Universal basic income should be seen as our rightful AI training dividend.
https://venturebeat.com/ai/one-of-the-worlds-largest-ai-training-datasets-is-about-to-get-bigger-and-substantially-better/
Massive AI training datasets, or corpora, have been called “the backbone of large language models.” But EleutherAI, the organization that created one of the world’s largest of these datasets, an 825 GB open-sourced diverse text corpora called the Pile, became a target in 2023 amid a growing uproar focused on the legal and ethical impact of the datasets that trained the most popular LLMs, from OpenAI’s GPT-4 to Meta’s Llama.
EleutherAI, a grassroots nonprofit research group that began as a loose-knit Discord collective in 2020 that sought to understand how OpenAI’s new GPT-3 worked, was named in one of the many generative AI-focused lawsuits last year.

Internet Ethics @IEthics
“The models also suffered from ‘contra-factual bias’: They were likely to believe a false premise embedded in a user’s question, acting in a ‘sycophantic’ way to reinforce the user’s mistake.” #ethics #law #AI #LLMs #tech #research
@StanfordHAI
Popular AI chatbots frequently hallucinate when answering legal questions, new research from Stanford RegLab and HAI finds. This poses special risks for people using the technology because they can’t afford a human lawyer.

Popular AI Chatbots Found to Give Error-Ridden Legal Answers
Researchers measured AI responses to 200,000 legal questions
Frequent ‘hallucinations’ could hurt self-represented litigants
Popular AI chatbots from OpenAI Inc., Google LLC, and Meta Platforms Inc. are prone to “hallucinations” when answering legal questions, posing special risks for people using the technology because they can’t afford a human lawyer, new research from Stanford University said.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/legal-errors-by-top-ai-models-alarmingly-prevalent-study-says

Scammy AI-Generated Book Rewrites Are Flooding Amazon
Authors keep finding what appear to be AI-generated imitations and summaries of their books on Amazon. There’s little they can do to rein in the rip-offs.
https://www.wired.com/story/scammy-ai-generated-books-flooding-amazon/

DEMOCRACY

All #KochNetwork
Republican National Committee 👉 ties to Koch 👉ties to ALEC 👉ties to SPN Koch Wiki
Charles Koch is the right-wing billionaire owner of Koch Industries. As one of the richest people in the world, he is a key funder of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on Charles Koch and his late brother David include: Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, Stand Together, Koch Family Foundations, Koch Universities, and I360.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Talk:Republican_National_Committee

Josh Hawley just wrote a couched screed subtly calling for ‘Seven Mountains’ dominionism: that Christians must capture the 7 ‘mountains’ that constitute society (Education, Religion, Family, Business, Govt, Arts/Ent., & Media). He tweeted it with his government account.

ARREST ROGER STONE Hear the tape that purports to show Roger Stone discussing assassinations
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/exclusive-heres-the-tape-of-roger-stone-discussing-assassination-of-democrats-which-he-denied-ever-doing/
“We’re going to raise money from ‘stop the steal,’” he told an aide. “It will be like falling off a log.”
In late December, [Roger] Stone used a “Stop the Steal” site to falsely claim George Soros was funding violent “attacks on our peaceful patriots” and to request contributions “for private security at every one of our events, as well as funds for permits, staging, transportation, and legal fees.”
#TheBigLieIndustrialComplex

At 4:17 p.m. on January 6, 2021, while rioters battled police inside the Capitol, Kimberly Guilfoyle emailed her banker. Guilfoyle … wanted to know if a $60,000 payment for short speeches that she and Donald Trump Jr., her fiance, gave … had hit her account yet. Meet the Operatives Who Profited From January 6: Charlie Kirk & Co.

Meet the Operatives Who Profited From January 6


“We’re going to raise money from ‘stop the steal,’” he told an aide. “It will be like falling off a log.”
In late December, [Roger] Stone used a “Stop the Steal” site to falsely claim George Soros was funding violent “attacks on our peaceful patriots” and to request contributions…

Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
Watch @AmandaTylerBJC’s full testimony to the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
I testified before Congress this morning that “#ChristianNationalism often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.” Thank you @RepRaskin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3AqNB8OnPg
https://twitter.com/AmandaTylerBJC/status/1602720928739229697

Brian Allen @allenanalysis
Joe Biden is currently leading against Donald Trump in key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Hampshire, not only surpassing Trump but also outdoing his own 2020 victory margins in these areas.
Despite this significant development, it hasn’t been widely reported.
This makes it clear that the media may be selectively focusing on narratives that favor Trump, overshadowing news that could be detrimental to his image.
It’s crucial to stay vigilant and not be swayed by this apparent media strategy.

“A watchdog group is suing Cochise County officials for delays in providing records related to the county’s controversial management of the 2022 election, from its attempt at a hand count of all ballots to the taxpayer cost of hiring outside attorneys.”
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2024/01/10/cochise-county-faces-lawsuit-for-election-records-delay/72176627007/

The charade is over. Evangelical universe is infiltrated by hell bent political hacks disguised as some true faith based messengers from the Lord. Throw in the flock of non critical thinking lemmings and you have not a “church” but a tinderbox.

@richsignorelli Our democracy is under attack from Trump/MAGA. Many are culpable, 4 stand out:
-McConnell deciding v Trump impeachment for 1/6 thinking he would go away.
-CJ Roberts allowing gerrymandering/dark $.
-Garland delaying prosecution of Trump et al.
-Murdoch spreading lies to the gullible.
Garland has now supplanted Newt Gingrich in that foursome because although Newt’s evil impact on the #GOP cannot be denied, our AG was in a position to excise that cancer & instead chose to do nothing. As a result, Newt’s disciples are now openly & fearlessly seditious.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Vice Chairwoman of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol
Liz Cheney: House GOP enabled “white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-semitism”
Which part of the Civil War “could have been negotiated”? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union? Question for members of the GOP—the party of Lincoln—who have endorsed Donald Trump: How can you possibly defend this?

The National Guard WAS prepared to deploy to the Capitol, but were delayed for 3 hours per order of the Department of Defense officials, which included CHARLES FLYNN, brother of “5th Amendment” Trump supporter, Gen. MICHAEL FLYNN.
DOD Took Hours To Approve National Guard Request During Capitol Riot, Commander Says
Walker said that Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt and Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn were concerned about the optics of sending the National Guard to the scene of the uprising.
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s

 

@ConsumerReports analyzed Facebook data files donated by 709 volunteers to identify which companies are sharing the most data and what it means for you.
FACEBOOK helped CR recruit participants. What they discovered was striking:
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-a5824207467/

Mark Zuckerberg’s bunker access code is 2165# lol
Mark Zuckerberg of $META has said he’s raising cattle on beer and macadamia nuts to “create some of the highest quality beef in the world.”
ZUCKERBERG SUCKS
META SUCKS
INSTAGRAM SUCKS

A New Lawsuit Shows How Recklessly Facebook Endangers Kids
BYROB LARSON
Facebook parent company Meta is facing a massive lawsuit alleging the company is knowingly hurting young people, including by accepting underage use. Court documents suggest this is true — and that executives have been egregiously callous about harms to kids.
Metacurse
Another interesting feature of the states’ complaint concerns the decision-making related to these problems, especially the abuse of notifications to keep users leashed to their devices and the platforms. The company’s own chief marketing officer supported a proposal to cut back on the platform’s heavy use of notifications, writing in an email thread, “Fundamentally I believe that we have abused the notifications channel as a company.” The chief of product agreed — only to be overruled by Zuckerberg himself.
“…a 2020 internal Meta presentation…saying Meta should take advantage of…psychological weaknesses of young users…(it) argued that rather than designing its platforms to avoid harming minors, it should take advantage of their vulnerabilities.”
https://jacobin.com/2024/01/lawsuit-kids-meta-facebook-profit

Pennsylvania finally wins against PA Dept. of Ed to educate poor children


Finally a Pennsylvania Victory for the States K12 Children

https://fundourschoolspa.org


Every child in Pennsylvania has the right to a public education that prepares them for college and career.

But our legislative leaders in Harrisburg have created a school funding system where the students who need the most get the least, because of where they live.

It’s wrong. It’s unconstitutional. And now, school districts and parents have taken the state to court and WON.

A four-month trial concluded on March 10.

William Penn School District et al. v. PA Dept. of Education et al., visit FundOurSchoolsPA.org, a joint online project of the Education Law Center-PA and the Public Interest Law Center.
https://www.fundourschoolspa.org/

What the Constitution Requires
In writing the education clause of the Constitution, petitioners have argued, the drafters used the phrase “thorough and efficient” to mean “complete” and “effective,” and their constitutional language from 1874 was aimed at ensuring a right for all children to a quality education that prepares them to meet the demands of the time and to function as active citizens in a democracy.

The language of the court order:

1. The Education Clause, article III, section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, requires that every student receive a meaningful opportunity to succeed academically, socially, and civically, which requires that all students have access to a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education;

2. Respondents have not fulfilled their obligations to all children under the Education Clause in violation of the rights of Petitioners;

3. Education is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution to all school-age children residing in the Commonwealth;

4. Article III, section 32 of the Pennsylvania Constitution imposes upon Respondents an obligation to provide a system of public education that does not discriminate against students based on the level of income and value of taxable property in their school districts;

5. Students who reside in school districts with low property values and incomes are deprived of the same opportunities and resources as students who reside in school districts with high property values and incomes;

6. The disparity among school districts with high property values and incomes and school districts with low property values and incomes is not justified by any compelling government interest nor is it rationally related to any legitimate government objective; and

7. As a result of these disparities, Petitioners and students attending low-wealth districts are being deprived of equal protection of law.

The case William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education et al. was filed in 2014 by six Pennsylvania school districts (William Penn, Greater Johnstown, Lancaster, Panther Valley, Shenandoah Valley, and Wilkes-Barre Area), the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, the NAACP-PA State Conference, and a group of public school parents. They filed suit in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court against state legislative leaders, state education officials, and the governor for failing to uphold the General Assembly’s constitutional obligation to provide a “thorough and efficient” system of public education. Petitioners also assert that the massive inequality this system fuels between poor and wealthy school districts discriminates against students in low-wealth communities, violating their right to equal protection in the state Constitution.

The school districts and other petitioners in the case are represented by the Education Law Center – PA, the Public Interest Law Center, and O’Melveny. During a four-month trial before Judge Cohn Jubelirer that concluded in March, witnesses explained in detail the deficiencies of the current system and the extreme, egregious disparities between school districts in Pennsylvania.

NetHappenings China, Russia, Florida, Antisemitic, Democracy, Bitcoin

CHINA

Airdropped armed robot dog tested in China
The future has arrived and it doesn’t look fun.
https://twitter.com/Galactic_Trader/status/1579336741282275330

Russia Russia Russia

Does the United Nations still exist?
So the UN seems pretty alive. But on the biggest issue on the planet, a war which has entered its eighth month between two countries with a combined population of 200 million—one of which possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and threatens to use it—the UN has been a bystander.

Russia-Ukraine War: EU Completely Forbids Crypto Payments from Russia

Dapper Labs freezes funds in wallets with Russian ties following EU sanctions, users say NFT company Dapper Labs has issued warnings to users who have “connections” to Russia that funds held in their account-based crypto wallets have been frozen as part of a set of fresh EU sanctions against Russia.

Florida

So far, the State of Florida has paid its selected vendor Vertol Systems $1,565,000.00 to transport 48 migrants from San Antonio, Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on 2 flights and one empty flight from San Antonio, Texas to Teterboro making the average flight per person $32,604.17.

Government watchdog Florida Center for Government Accountability sues governor’s office @GovRonDeSantis alleging violation of state sunshine law over request for records related to migrant relocation flights to Martha’s Vineyard.

Antisemite Kanye

Bipolar disorder doesn’t restructure your fundamental values this ugly untalented “entertainer” is a bigot. What I do you give a f*ck about is that the media is still incapable of covering racism or antisemitism without making it seem like it’s something somebody made up.

Trump called Elaine Chao “Coco Chow.” Senator Tuberville said reparations are for “people who do crime.” Kanye West threatened Jews with “dead con 3.” This is NOT normal. We can’t become numb to this. We must call out all of their hateful, racist remarks. Kanye was always a total asshole who was universally despised.

@robreiner
Kanye West is a mentally ill anti-semite. Tommy Tuberville is a racist. Herschel Walker is a moronic liar. Donald Trump is a Fascist Criminal. Welcome to today’s Republican Party.

Please stop using mental illness to explain away Kanye West’s anti-Semitic rants. Millions of people are dealing with mental health issues, and they don’t go on anti-Semitic rants.

AOC
There is absolutely no room in this country or world for antisemitism. It is important to see how harmful + dangerous Kanye’s words are – not only to our Jewish brothers, sisters, & siblings, but also to our collective society at large. We must reject this wherever we see it.

DEMOCRACY

Won’t indict a sitting president. Won’t indict in an election year. Won’t indict during a major campaign. When exactly does the DOJ indict? This is what being above the law looks like. If nothing happens to this man. Laws are useless.

93% of Democrats want to see Trump INDICTED, PROSECUTED, AND THROWN IN JAIL, for the rest of his miserable Godforsaken life!

THIS IS BIG:
Admission of guilt on live TV, what more evidence does DOJ, need?
Trump’s remarks yesterday at his rally were a direct admission of guilt, also known a “summation exhibit,” according to former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann. Now we have Trump admitting to KNOWINGLY keeping the documents in storage. INDICT him already! TRaitor TRump said that he wanted those boxes of Classified Documents to start his “Presidential Library”.

We keep letting the crazy people win, because we are wary of confronting them. Stop. Time to toughen up. If we lose our American democracy, we will also lose our national security. Russia must be removed from the UN Security Council.

Michael Moore, who correctly predicted Trump would win in 2016 says for the midterms, DEMOCRATS will turnout a “tsunami of voters — and nonviolently, legally, and without mercy remove every last stinking traitor to our Democracy.” I hope he’s right!

@marceelias
When you wake up tomorrow morning the team at @DemocracyDocket will be tracking close to 175 lawsuits in nearly every state in the county. That is why we say the future of democracy is on the docket. https://democracydocket.com/cases/

BITCOIN

Sleuth Discovers Satoshi’s Long-Lost Bitcoin Version 0.1 Codebase, Raw Code Contains Bitcoin Inventor’s Never-Before-Seen Personal Notations

Legend of Satoshi Nakamoto:

– Creates bitcoin
– Solves double spend problem
– Releases it open source
– Mines with their own energy
– Maintains software for two years
– First anonymous decabillionaire
– Leaves to do other things
– Donates all their coins
– Never heard from again

Bernanke gets the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Not a joke. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke wins 2022 Nobel Prize for Economics for work on financial crises.
!!!!!!! Bernanke introduced QE and bailed out banks in 2008. !!!!!!!!

Satoshi Nakamoto deserves the Nobel Peace prize and the Nobel prize for Economics. When the Nobel Committee gives Satoshi Nakamoto the prize is when it can even START to get legitimacy. Now that was a breakthrough in computing, finance, mathematics, and economics all in one. Until then it’s just establishment hacks scratching each other’s backs. #Bitcoin

Jimmy Song – Ownership of fiat currency is trust placed in bankers and/or politicians.#Bitcoin is trusting in code, energy and yourself.

Friedrich Hayek explains the problem with money

Electronic Cash Without a Trusted Third Party
“A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the burdens of going through a financial institution.” – Satoshi Nakamoto

K12 Department of Education #BetsyDevos Brother Founder Of Blackwater, Is Setting Up A Private Army For China

The controversial Blackwater founder says he is setting up two bases in China, but his company says “this does not involve armed personnel.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/betsy-devoss-brother-is-setting-up-a-private-army-for-china

Erik Prince — founder of the private military company Blackwater, financial backer of President Donald Trump, brother to the new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and frequent Breitbart radio guest of White House power broker Stephen Bannon — has been offering his military expertise to support Chinese government objectives and setting up two Blackwater-style training camps in China, according to sources and his own company statements.

The move could put him at odds with Trump, who has often taken a hard line against China, and could also risk violating US law, which prohibits the export of military services or equipment to China.

Erik Prince.

Former associates of the 47-year-old Prince told BuzzFeed News that the controversial businessman envisions using the bases to train and deploy an army of Chinese retired soldiers who can protect Chinese corporate and government strategic interests around the world, without having to involve the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

The American mercenary behind Blackwater is helping China establish the new Silk Road

For years, China has groomed landlocked Yunnan province in its southwest to be the country’s strategic bridgehead into Southeast Asia, building highways and rail lines to its borders with Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar to one day weave them into a regional, and eventually, transcontinental transport network.

As China pushes ahead with president Xi Jinping’s ambitious $1 trillion One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative—which reimagines a historic trade network as an overland Silk Road Economic “Belt” and a Maritime Silk “Road”—protecting Chinese business executives and other personnel and their rapidly growing investments in the region is more important than ever.

Mueller evidence shows Blackwater founder held meeting to create Trump-Russia back channel: report

Special counsel Robert Mueller has evidence showing that a meeting in the Seychelles last year between the founder of a private security company and a Russian official was intended to set up a back channel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators that the meeting was set up in advance, apparently contradicting what Erik Prince, the founder of the security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, has told lawmakers about the meeting.

Prince had previously told lawmakers and the press that his meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian official close with Russian President Vladimir Putin, happened by chance and was not set up ahead of time.

But the witness, a Lebanese-American businessman named George Nader, has testified before a grand jury that the meeting, which took place shortly before President Trump’s inauguration, was, in fact, a planned effort.

‘Here’s the system; it sucks’: Meet the Hill staffers hired by Ocasio-Cortez to upend Washington

They will help shape how Ocasio-Cortez works as an activist hoping to refashion the Democratic Party, while she also tries to serve as a more typical member building coalitions and moving legislation.

“It needs to be pointed out how insanely greedy” it is to be a billionaire, Riffle said. “We have to comprehend the scale of $1 billion — just the amount of money we’re talking about. Five million dollars is a lifetime’s fortune; you can live off the interest of that and still be in the top 1 percent. Five million dollars, times 100, is still only halfway to $1 billion.
“It’s a systemic failure on society’s part. On one part of the city, we have people with helipads and yachts that they park inside of yachts, and on the other side we have thousands of people who are homeless and children without health care or food. Those things should not exist simultaneously in a society.”