maddy varner

My colleague points out here that possibly one in seven requests to our library now may be assisted by LLMs.

When those point to fictional documents, that's a huge staff time drain. There's often no quick way to check if an undigitized primary source doc exists beyond physically pulling some boxes.

Screenshot of an X post. US Vice President JD Vance writes, “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.” This is quote-tweeted by Elon Musk, who writes, “Much appreciated”

Also this is kind of a funny backdrop for this to be happening. I wonder whether “do not disseminate private citizens’ home addresses” would be considered censorious.

This seems like a huge issue—notable that this sounds like it’s not a “it’s in the training data” problem but a “it’s really good at searching and summarizing people-finder websites” problem.

Scoop: Louisiana's fish/wildlife agency is detaining people not guilty of any crimes & transferring them to ICE. It's one of 1000+ state + local agencies that started doing so this year.

ICE couldn't provide any info on people the wildlife agency has detained for them:
www.wired.com/story/story/...

thank you!! 🙏🏻

Are you seeing NYS's algorithmic pricing disclosure in surprising places? I now work at @wired.com and you can email me about them at maddy_varner@wired.com or on Signal at mvarner.01

Your Data Might Determine How Much You Pay for Eggs A newly enacted New York law requires retailers to say whether your data influences the price of basic goods like a dozen eggs or toilet paper, but not how.

A new NY state law requires retailers to disclose when a "price was set by an algorithm using your personal data." What personal data?? Why a particular price?? There's a lot of unanswered questions, but the disclosure is attached to eggs and toilet paper: www.wired.com/story/algori...

New IPTC Photo Metadata Standard

New properties for AI-generated content:

✪ AI System Used
AI engine and/or model name. E.g. ChatGPT DALL-E, Google Gemini, ChatGPT

✪ AI System Version Used

✪ AI Prompt Information
Information given to the AI service as “prompt(s)”

✪ AI Prompt Writer Name

I know Part 3 is “ultimately not about sex” but I’m kind of amazed anyone would wiretap the President-elect for texts about felching

main Thanksgiving discussion topic right now is the Vatican’s statement on AI, for some reason

The US Military Wants to Fix Its Own Equipment. Defense Contractors Are Trying to Shoot That Down A push by military contractors could alter pending legislation that would have empowered servicemembers to repair equipment. Lobbyists are pitching a subscription service instead.

Scoop: Provisions of the NDAA that would ensure military members’ right to repair their own equipment are set to be removed from the funding act, replaced by language that will require the military to pay subscription fees to defense contractors via “data-as-a-service.”
www.wired.com/story/subscr...

apparently "just got to your local library" was not enough support.character.ai/hc/en-us/art...

Today is my last day at the FTC. The past 2.5 years have been a whirlwind, and I’m immensely proud of the work my colleagues and I did to protect consumers and understand the impacts of emerging technologies. I’ll miss them greatly but excited for what’s next!

if only blingee was still around

Spain bar with the free tapas

On the federal level Congress can reach out to agencies for “technical assistance” to get feedback on drafts of bills which lets them tap into topic experts, not sure if there’s an analogous version for each state-level legislature www.acus.gov/document/tec...

This is also how you get successful multistate lobbying efforts—legislators don’t have the bandwidth/time to craft their own legislation so they take free language that’s up on offer

Oh — the situation has escalated.

Pope Leo has spoken out: says "spiritual rights" of detainees should be respected and calls on the "authorities" to allow "pastoral workers" in.

"Jesus says very clearly … we're going to be asked, how did you receive the foreigner?" www.youtube.com/watch?v=taCi...

Federal Workers Are Barely Making It Through the Government Shutdown The US government shut down 30 days ago. WIRED spoke with more than a dozen federal workers who have struggled to pay bills, worked side gigs, and relied on free food programs to get by.

Today marks 30 days of the government shutdown and federal workers -- 750,000 were furloughed -- are barely making ends meet.

@telliotter.bsky.social + @makenakelly.bsky.social spoke to federal workers struggling to pay bills, working side gigs, and relying on free food programs to get by:

Screenshot of a terminal. Instead of English, the characters in the terminal have been switched to something incomprehensible.

i tried "vibe coding" once and it did this to my terminal, thanks,

cooking up some good stuff this weekend (black walnut dye)

maybe we need a “guardrail” or perhaps a “rule” or two

The Mystery of the L.A. Mansion Filled With Surrogate Children A couple with ties to China say they wanted a big family. Surrogates who carried the children say they were deceived.

chaser www.wsj.com/us-news/los-...

shot

New Database Helps Labor Unions Navigate AI And Digital Technologies Researchers at the UC Labor Center have created a database to help labor unions navigate the sector's response to AI, surveillance tools, and other digital technologies.

Don't miss this @forbes.com article by @shalinjyotishi.bsky.social on our brand new searchable inventory of contract provisions from over 175 union agreements that address workplace technologies, protect worker rights, and shape technology adoption, use, and oversight.
www.forbes.com/sites/shalin...

I am absolutely loving my new hobby, extracting data from pdfs and shoving it into a sqlite database

I taking continuing ed classes at SVA. It was really struggling financially a few years ago and I’ve heard concerns about how preventing international students from attending will impact the school.

im listening to the NASA livestream and one of the NASA guys opened his monologue about how long the astronauts have been up on the ISS w "for all the statistic freaks out there"

you can currently bid on the United States Postal Inspection Service’s auction lot consisting of one (1) year-long microsoft 365 subscription www.govdeals.com/asset/47/26459