Nature has a fascinating piece of research (with great graphics, so please click through) on how exactly public opinions can be molded by a few strategically placed bots on a social media… Read the rest “How a social network can be gerrymandered – and how that can affect our decision-making (and real-life voting).”
The Conversation looks at a way that Fatemeh Torabi Asr, a computational linguistics researcher at Simon Fraser University, has devised to use computers to instantaneously identify … Read the rest “An algorithm to sniff out fake news, linguistically.”
Nature has an essay up by a disinformation researcher, who wants us to know that disinformation is usually partially true, and mostly spread by people who don’t realize it –… Read the rest “Disinformation is not false information, and it’s not manufactured. And it doesn’t want you to believe anything.”
TechCrunch reveals that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE, the agency formed in 2003 as a replacement for the INS – has been quietly analyzing driver’s… Read the rest “ICE is data-mining driver’s license photos.”
The University of Cambridge has studied 15,000 people and determined that playing a quick browser game is effective in getting folks to resist the seductive effects of fake news:
… Read the rest “An inoculation against fake news: a video game in which you create propaganda.”Players
The New York Times pits man against machine in a CT-scan interpretation challenge – and the machine won. An AI got fewer false positives and fewer false negatives than a team of six … Read the rest “A computer beat doctors at diagnosing lung cancer.”
I’m trying to parse this some other way, but Digiday is sure making it seem like this “topic prompter/rough draft creator” software is a step towards programming a machine… Read the rest “Forbes is replacing articles editors with robots now?”
Buzzfeed reports on an unexpected personality clash with an AI on the International Space Station – an incident that could affect how similar synthetic companions are used on missions… Read the rest “It’s not quite “Please open the podbay doors, HAL,” but almost….”
Science News is a leetle late to the game, but that’s the new reality. Researchers have completed some early studies on how fake news gets spread by bots – by acting super fast,… Read the rest “Bots and fake news: how it works”
Nature speculates about the ways quantum computing will change the way the internet works, with unbreakable privacy and more:
… Read the rest “A peek at the quantum internet: secrets and superpositions”The first stages promise virtually unbreakable privacy
The high, whistling hiss you hear rising ever so slightly in volume in the background is the sound of white-collar jobs evaporating. Wired only begins to discuss what it means to have a bot… Read the rest “An AI is writing for Wikipedia.”
Wired has a longer look at researchers who’ve boldly taken on the thankless task of taking on the whole “voter ID” controversy with real data on how the laws work and what… Read the rest “Voter ID laws: the real science.”
Nature explains an artificial-intelligence breakthrough, with a computer that’s learned how to win at the complicated Asian game of go without studying the strategies and past… Read the rest “An AI has learned to play go… without being taught by humans.”
Scientific American takes a cold, calculating look at research into the origins of our behavior. Just like parasites can spur suicidal behavior in certain hosts (all the better to reproduce),… Read the rest “Does kindness come from germs? Are the better angels of our nature really a contagious infection?”
New Scientist takes a hard look at the realities of online harassment – how complicated it is to identify, why it’s increasing, and what can actually be done about it:
… Read the rest “Figuring out cyberbullying and online harassment. It’s harder than you’d think.”For example,
Copyright © 2026 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes
