Rose-Graceling Moore, ScreenRant; This Latest AI Book Debacle Is A Disturbing Part Of A Growing Trend
Issues and developments related to IP, AI, and OM, examined in the IP and tech ethics graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" will be published in January 2026 and includes chapters on IP, AI, OM, and other emerging technologies (IoT, drones, robots, autonomous vehicles, VR/AR). Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Friday, May 30, 2025
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Biden bids farewell with dark warning for America: the oligarchs are coming; The Guardian, January 15, 2025
David Smith in Washington , The Guardian; Biden bids farewell with dark warning for America: the oligarchs are coming
"The primetime speech did not mention Donald Trump by name. Instead it will be remembered for its dark, ominous warning about something wider and deeper of which Trump is a symptom.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.
The word “oligarchy” comes from the Greek words meaning rule (arche) by the few (oligos). Some have argued that the dominant political divide in America is no longer between left and right, but between democracy and oligarchy, as power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. The wealthiest 1% of Americans now has more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.
The trend did not start with Trump but he is set to accelerate it. The self-styled working-class hero has picked the richest cabinet in history, including 13 billionaires, surrounding himself with the very elite he claims to oppose. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has become a key adviser. Tech titans Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – collectively worth a trillion dollars – will be sitting at his inauguration on Monday.
Invoking former president Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address in January 1961 that warned against the rise of a military-industrial complex, Biden said: “Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex. It could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power.”
In an acknowledgement of news deserts and layoffs at venerable institutions such as the Washington Post, Biden added starkly: “The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. Truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable, to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.”
Zuckerberg’s recent decision to abandon factcheckers on Facebook, and Musk’s weaponisation of X in favour of far-right movements including Maga, was surely uppermost in Biden’s mind. Trust in the old media is breaking down as people turn to a fragmented new ecosystem. It has all happened with disorienting speed."
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Overcoming AI’s Nagging Trust And Ethics Issues; Forbes, December 28, 2024
Joe McKendrick, Forbes ; Overcoming AI’s Nagging Trust And Ethics Issues
"Trust and ethics in AI is what is making business leaders nervous. For example, at least 72% of executives responding to a recent surveyfrom the IBM Institute for Business Value say they “are willing to forgo generative AI benefits due to ethical concerns.” In addition, more than half (56%) indicate they are delaying major investments in generative AI until there is clarity on AI standards and regulations...
"Today, guardrails are a growing area of practice for the AI community given the stochastic nature of these models,” said Ross. “Guardrails can be employed for virtually any area of decisioning, from examining bias to preventing the leakage of sensitive data."...
The situation is not likely to change soon, Jeremy Rambarran, professor at Touro University Graduate School, pointed out. “Although the output that's being generated may be unique, depending on how the output is being presented, there's always a chance that part of the results may not be entirely accurate. This will eventually change down the road as algorithms are enhanced and could eventually be updated in an automated manner.”...
How can AI be best directed to be ethical and trustworthy? Compliance requirements, of course, will be a major driver of AI trust in the future, said Rambarran. “We need to ensure that AI-driven processes comply with ethical guidelines, legal regulations, and industry standards. Humans should be aware of the ethical implications of AI decisions and be ready to intervene when ethical concerns arise.”
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
NEH Awards $2.72 Million to Create Research Centers Examining the Cultural Implications of Artificial Intelligence; National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), August 27, 2024
Press Release, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); NEH Awards $2.72 Million to Create Research Centers Examining the Cultural Implications of Artificial Intelligence
"The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced grant awards totaling $2.72 million for five colleges and universities to create new humanities-led research centers that will serve as hubs for interdisciplinary collaborative research on the human and social impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
As part of NEH’s third and final round of grant awards for FY2024, the Endowment made its inaugural awards under the new Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence program, which aims to foster a more holistic understanding of AI in the modern world by creating scholarship and learning centers across the country that spearhead research exploring the societal, ethical, and legal implications of AI.
Institutions in California, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia were awarded NEH grants to establish the first AI research centers and pilot two or more collaborative research projects that examine AI through a multidisciplinary humanities lens.
The new Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence grant program is part of NEH’s agencywide Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence initiative, which supports humanities projects that explore the impacts of AI-related technologies on truth, trust, and democracy; safety and security; and privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The initiative responds to President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, which establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, and advances equity and civil rights."
Friday, May 6, 2022
What Is Happening to the People Falling for Crypto and NFTs; The New York Times, May 5, 2020
Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times; What Is Happening to the People Falling for Crypto and NFTs
"In the past year Yuga Labs, the well-funded start-up that makes Bored Apes, has embarked on a parade of new and even farther-out digital spinoffs of its simians. Its latest ventures have highlighted the head-scratching, money-burning, broken-casino vibe of what’s being called the internet’s next big thing. Cryptocurrencies, blockchains, NFTs and the constellation of hyped-up technologies known as “web3” have been celebrated as a way to liberate the internet from the tech giants who control it now. Instead what’s happening with Bored Apes suggests they’re doing the opposite: polluting the digital world in a thick haze of errors, swindles and expensive, largely unregulated financial speculation that ruins whatever scrap of trust still remains online...
But how many people have to lose their shirts before we realize that web3 isn’t a solution to any of our problems?"
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Putting China in charge of the world’s intellectual property is a bad idea; The Washington Post, Janaury 30, 2020
Monday, April 22, 2019
Wary of Chinese Espionage, Houston Cancer Center Chose to Fire 3 Scientists; The New York Times, April 22, 2019
"“A small but significant number of individuals are working with government sponsorship to exfiltrate intellectual property that has been created with the support of U.S. taxpayers, private donors and industry collaborators,” Dr. Peter Pisters, the center’s president, said in a statement on Sunday.
“At risk is America’s internationally acclaimed system of funding biomedical research, which is based on the principles of trust, integrity and merit.”
The N.I.H. had also flagged two other researchers at MD Anderson. One investigation is proceeding, the center said, and the evidence did not warrant firing the other researcher.
The news of the firings was first reported by The Houston Chronicle and Science magazine.
The investigations began after Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, sent a letter in August to more than 10,000 institutions the agency funds, warning of “threats to the integrity of U.S. biomedical research.”"
Friday, March 15, 2019
Review: 'The Inventor' is a coolly appalling portrait of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal; The Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2019
Review: 'The Inventor' is a coolly appalling portrait of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal
"As a quick glance at this week’s headlines will remind you — a staggering college admissions scandal, a wave of indictments in the cases of Paul Manafort and Jussie Smollett — we are living in deeply fraudulent times. But if there are few people or institutions worthy of our trust anymore, perhaps we can still trust that, eventually, Alex Gibney will get around to making sense of it all. Over the course of his unflagging, indispensable career he has churned out documentaries on Scientology and Enron, Lance Armstrong and Casino Jack — individual case studies in a rich and fascinating investigation of the American hustler at work.
Full disclosure: As the son of a retired medical technologist who spent more than 30 years testing blood the traditional way, I approached “The Inventor” with great fascination and more than a little schadenfreude. The movie, for its part, seems both magnetized and repelled by its subject, a reaction that it will likely share with its audience. Gibney is perhaps overly fond of deploying intense, lingering close-ups of Holmes’ face and peering deep into her unnerving blue eyes (“She didn’t blink,” a former employee recalls). If the eyes are the windows to the soul, “The Inventor” just keeps looking and looking, as though uncertain whether or not its subject has one."
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
National Geographic Traveler Used My Photo for a Cover and Never Paid Me; PetaPixel, June 12, 2017
"After a couple of months of receiving no payment, I emailed them again asking them when they would be paying for the use of my photo on their cover.
They never responded to my email, and they have not responded to any contact attempt since then.
Frustrated, I began emailing the global National Geographic headquarters with my story. Although I have tried contacting headquarters over and over, I have yet to receive a single response.
I then began posting on National Geographic social media pages in 2013, but all of my posts were deleted shortly after I wrote them."