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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/30835184

Post by the dev:

https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1cenjeu/glance_a_minimal_dashboard_that_puts_all_the/

The link above is for the petition

Here is the letter:

Our Letter To WhatsApp:

WhatsApp needs to implement these product changes during polling days and in the month before and the month after elections:

• Add friction to forwarding messages: Reduce the ease with which messages can be forwarded on the platform by adding one additional step which nudges users to pause and reflect before they forward content.
• Add disinformation warning labels to viral content: Automatically add clear “Highly forwarded: please verify” warning labels to viral messages, in addition to the “forwarded many times” label currently in use.
• Reduce WhatsApp’s broadcast capabilities: Disable the Communities feature and also limit the size of broadcast lists to 50 people and cap their usage to twice a day.

Without decisive action from WhatsApp, disinformation attacks will likely scale up in 2024, aimed at manipulating and undermining elections affecting half of the world’s population. WhatsApp must act to change its product to protect election integrity.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/post/149917

HN Discussion

I've enjoyed Mark Rober's videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn't sitting right with me

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU

In it, he talks about a few techniques for how to take down "bad guy drones", the problems with each, and then shows off the drone tech by Anduril as a solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril_Industries

Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril's major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.

In the video, the Anduril product is a heavy drone that uses kinetic energy to destroy other drones (by flying into them). Quoting the person in the video:

imagine a children's bowling ball thrown at twice as fast as a major league baseball fastball, that's what it's like getting hit by Anvil

This technology is scary for obvious reasons, especially in the wrong hands. What I also don't like is how Mark Rober's content is aimed at children, and this video includes a large segment advertising the children's products he is selling. Despite that, he is promoting military technology with serious ethical implications.

There's even a section in the video where they show off the Roadrunner, compare it against the patriot missiles, and loosely tie it in to defending against drones. While the Anvil could be used to hurt people, at least it is designed for small flying drones. The Roadrunner is not:

The Roadrunner is a 6 ft (1.8 m)-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft.

Mozilla and a host of other researchers are urging US officials to see value in open-source AI models when considering future regulation.

Mozilla and a cohort of nearly 50 nonprofit organizations, AI firms, and academic researchers have signed and sent a letter to the US Department of Commerce's Secretary Gina Raimondo, advocating for increased transparency and true openness in AI development.

Mozilla and the Center for Democracy and Technology are key signatories, but many others including Creative Commons, EleutherAI, the Computing Research Association, and Accountable Tech are also backing the letter.

Mozilla research found that detection tools aren’t always as reliable as they say. Further, researchers found that large language models like ChatGPT can be successfully prompted to create more ‘human-sounding’ text

The results were as expected, but studies like this are still helpful for official tasks when you need something to cite

deleting post because I now see the other post on this community