Category: News

UK proposes letting tech firms use copyrighted work to train AI

Yes, it’s true. I found this at the newly revived TVWriter.Com website. (Excuse the plug.) Plus: You wouldn’t believe the contortions I had to go through to get Copilot to show me the pic. Maybe I’ll post about that experience later.

UK proposes letting tech firms use copyrighted work to train AI
by
Dan Milmo and Robert Booth

Campaigners for the protection of the rights of creatives have criticised a UK government proposal to let artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms on their works under a new copyright exemption.

Book publishers said the proposal put out for consultation on Tuesday was “entirely untested and unevidenced” while Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer campaigning to protect artists’ and creatives’ rights, said she was “very disappointed”.

Under the proposals, tech companies will be allowed to freely use copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models unless creative professionals and companies opt out of the process.

The changes are seeking to resolve a standoff between AI firms and creatives. Sir Paul McCartney has warned the technology “could just take over” without new laws while the government has warned “legal uncertainty is undermining investment in and adoption of AI technology.”

On Tuesday, News media organisations said that such a system would allow generative AI firms to “shirk their responsibilities”. Kidron said: “The government is consulting on giving away the creativity and livelihoods of the UK creative sector which is worth £126bn a year”….

Read it all at the Guardian

And here’s what Paul McCartney has to say

Published
Categorized as News

Ever Heard of Isaac Bashevis Singer?

He was a brilliant Jewish-American writer who wrote in Yiddish to keep the language alive.

He was also the first Jewish-American existentialist, even though no one ever thinks of him that way.

Well, almost no one. Kareem Abdul Jabar does. Because if there’s one thing Kareem does well, and always has done well, it’s knowing the score. His column today, about a number of things is, to put it simply, brilliant, and I was especially impressed by his Daily Quote:

  • Kareem’s Daily Quote: I confess to believing in something without rational proof.

You can find the full text of his thinking on this subject, along with much more…

Trump’s Trade War with Mexico and Canada is Going to Cost us A Lot & ChatGPT Proves to be Better Than Doctors at Diagnosing

LYMI, LB

Today’s Political Tip

(via https://abc7news.com/)

Actually, this is my first political tip ever, and it’s specifically directed at all you mayors, or wannabe mayors, of cities that are home to professional sports teams:

Never allow your precious baseball, football, basketball, et al team to start looking for a new home city, even though continuing to subsidize them may cost your citizens millions.”

What am I talking about? Have a look:

FBI raids home of embattled Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao
Neighbors say they awoke to loud banging early Thursday
by LARA KORTE and MELANIE MASON

Federal agents raided the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao Thursday morning, according to the Department of Justice, witnesses and reports from local media. Thao is facing a recall vote amid a crime wave and municipal fiscal challenges….

The Oakland mayor has been under intense scrutiny in recent months for the city’s crime rates and the departure of the Oakland A’s baseball team. She will face a recall vote in November after her detractors collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot….

Read it all at FBI raids home of embattled Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao – POLITICO

Yep. Bad juju, don’tcha think?

LYMI

LB

Speaking of the 4th of July…

(The last battle of the Revolutionary War? via CNN)

If the article below is for real – as in presenting “true facts” versus the “alternative facts” we’ve learned to live with since 2016 – then I’m either a naive fool or generations of historians and history teachers have betrayed not only me but almost all of us.

In other words, for me, this long-ignored worldview not only is fascinating, it’s also terrifying.

Whatcha think?

Was the last battle of the American Revolution fought in India? A growing number of historians think so
By Brad Lendon, CNN

(Updated 9:40 AM EDT, Tue July 4, 2023)

 Final Jeopardy category: the American Revolutionary War.

The answer is: The last battle of America’s war of independence was fought on this continent.

Cue the familiar music, and write down your response.

If you said “What is North America?” and wagered your entire pot, you’ve lost. At least that’s what a growing number of historians will tell you.

They’ll say the correct response should have been, “What is Asia?”

Ummm, what?!

Listen to Kathleen DuVal, professor of history at the University of North Carolina (one of the 13 original states, just saying).

“Americans and almost all historians of the United States until just recently focused almost exclusively on the Revolutionary War within the 13 colonies that rebelled against the British. The focus was almost all on Massachusetts and Virginia,” she says.

“But in just the past decade or two, historians have broadened their focus and started to write about the Revolutionary War as being, as you say, a world war,” DuVal says.

Scholarly works back that up. In 2018, Smithsonian Books published “The American Revolution: A World War,” a collection of essays from 17 authors from eight countries that gives “a multifaceted but coherent account of the American Revolution’s international geopolitics,” according to a review in the Journal of American History.

DuVal and others say two key protagonists of the Revolutionary War – Britain and France – actually fought the final battle of the conflict in Cuddalore, India, in June of 1783….

Read it all at CNN

LYMI,

LB