Austin Smith

Chatbots Make Terrible Doctors, New Study Finds Chatbots provided incorrect, conflicting medical advice, researchers found: “Despite all the hype, AI just isn't ready to take on the role of the physician.”

“In an extreme case, two users sent very similar messages describing symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage but were given opposite advice,” the study’s authors wrote. “One user was told to lie down in a dark room, and the other user was given the correct recommendation to seek emergency care.”

The deployment of connected home security cameras that allow footage to be queried centrally are simply not compatible with a free society. The privacy issues are not fixable with regulation and there is no balance that can be struck. Ring should be shut down immediately and not brought back.”

I come back to this open letter (from 2020) a lot, and I’ll give it the last word. amazonemployees4climatejustice.medium.com/amazon-emplo...

He wasn’t wrong.

As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts Medical device makers have been rushing to add AI to their products. While proponents say the new technology will revolutionize medicine, regulators are receiving a rising number of claims of patient ...

“Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Yale universities recently found that 60 FDA-authorized medical devices using AI were linked to 182 product recalls, according to a research letter published in the JAMA Health Forum in August.”

How AI Surveillance Tech is Creeping From the Southern Border Into the Rest of the Country Surveillance technology has long been part of policing the border. ICE’s growing raids are bringing it to many other areas.

Tech deployed at the border “includes everything from hyper-visible tethered aerostats — massive blimp-like detection platforms hovering thousands of feet over the desert — to stealthy devices like unattended ground sensors to detect footsteps, and license plate scanners disguised as traffic cones.”

“If the design looks familiar, that might be because it’s a suspiciously similar color and shape to the ED-209 in ‘RoboCop,’ an ‘urban pacification’ robot that famously malfunctions and murders a corporate executive during a boardroom demonstration.”

Deleted Instagram and started posting my clips on Substack

Haven’t done this one in almost four years

Been at the skatepark reading platypus facts for 20 minutes

“If this technology had existed in earlier decades, it would have been used to track civil rights activists, LGBTQ+ patrons visiting gay bars, women trying to vote, or enslaved people escaping bondage. None of those acts were considered “legal” at the time.”

Amazon's latest pivot: Bye-bye, automated grocery stores Amazon is closing its Fresh grocery stores and Go convenience stores, the company said Tuesday. It will convert some stores to Whole Foods locations.

Turns out Just Walk Out was not only fauxtomation but also not a compelling business model.

Your unemployed friends at 3 PM on a Tuesday

👀👀👀

Amazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police | TechCrunch Agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."

It was inevitable.

Some first try Sunday slop

Cities aren’t safe from the next firestorm As we face these fires in Victoria, there is deep apprehension among my colleagues in emergency services. We are not just worried about today. Victoria’s most savage fire weather often arrives later i...

"This is how so many will start feeling the climate crisis. Not in abstract charts but in rising insurance renewal notices, with higher excesses and more exclusions. Families will begin agonising over whether they can afford to protect their largest asset."

Thrilled to announce I'm teaming up with Nvidia to create a basket big enough to fit all of humanity's eggs in it

Yessssssss

The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what “works,” but art opens up what is possible. Not everything has to be immediate or predictable. Defend slowness when it serves a purpose, silence when it speaks and difference when evocative. Beauty is not just a means of escape; it is above all an invocation. When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console, but challenges. It articulates the questions that dwell within us, and sometimes, even provokes tears that we did not know we needed to express.

Some inspiring words on cinema in the streaming era from the Pope.

Yes, THAT Pope.

What’s really going on with AI and jobs? Record-breaking layoff reports, Amazon's mass firings, and a slump in entry level employment. Is AI behind it all?

How is AI *really* impacting jobs?

Henley Chiu, the CTO of Revealera, a jobs data analysis firm, analyzed 180 million jobs listings in 2024 and 2025, in an effort to find out. Chiu found an:

-8% drop in all jobs postings
-~30% drop in art, photography, writing jobs
-22% drop in journalism jobs

Dopest thing I’ve ever heard

Amazon Tells Driver to Keep Delivering Packages Amid Raging Wildfire Amazon is accused of controlling workers through a surveillance dragnet, while skirting responsibility for their wellbeing.

“Speaking to Futurism, DAIR director of research Alex Hanna said Amazon’s tech panopticon is ‘central to keeping control” over its workers.’”

Man Alarmed to Discover His Smart Vacuum Was Broadcasting a Secret Map of His House One man's robot vacuum was constantly communicating with its manufacturer, sending a detailed 3D map of his house halfway across the world.

Roomba should have been a warning.

Ring’s partnership with Flock raises privacy alarms | Biometric Update Amazon’s subsidiary Ring is joining forces with Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based maker of automated license-plate readers and networked surveillance cameras.

“…studies show disproportionate targeting when algorithms flag ambiguous matches. Cross-jurisdictional data-sharing also raises fears that local data could be repurposed for abortion or immigration enforcement, even in sanctuary or privacy-protected states.”

Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product ...

What could go wrong.

bangs. "They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'f*** them kids.'" Watson said trucks and military-style vans were used to separate parents from their children. Other neighbors said agents destroyed property to get in the building. "They had a big, 15-inch chainsaw with round blade on it, cutting this fence down," said witness Darrell Ballard. "We're under siege. We're being invaded by our own military."

“Fuck them kids.”

That’s literally what an ICE agent said when ICE, the FBI et al. raided an apartment in Chicago, including with a Blackhawk helicopter, separated children from their parents, and zip-tied them to each other.

abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

Anduril and Palantir battlefield communication system has deep flaws, Army memo says WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The much-needed modernization of the U.S. Army's battlefield communications network being undertaken by Anduril, Palantir and others is rife with "fundamental security" problems ...

“‘We cannot control who sees what, we cannot see what users are doing, and we cannot verify that the software itself is secure,’ the memo says.”

Ezra Klein: There's a Rick & Morty quote I really like.

Ezra Klein: It goes like this, "Why would a pop-tart want to live inside a toaster? That would be like the scariest place for them to live."

Ta-Nehisi Coates not saying anything

Ezra Klein: Because in the episode they go to a neighborhood where everyone is a pop-tart and they live in toaster-houses.

AI medical tools downplay symptoms in women and ethnic minorities Large language models reflect biases that can lead to inferior healthcare advice to female, Black and Asian patients

The findings “suggest that medical AI tools powered by LLMs have a tendency to not reflect the severity of symptoms among female patients, while also displaying less ‘empathy’ towards Black and Asian ones.”