Zak Kolar

Um, hell yes!

A company wants to sell you their output, but doesn't want to be responsible for that output? We'd laugh out loud if it was a physical product. So why should we accept it for a digital product?

#AiIsTheProblem #TLSky #EduSky #SchoolLibrarians

I started a newsletter called Reclaiming Data to help people understand who collects their data, what it's used for, and how to take back control one step at a time.

You can preview the first issue here:
reclaimingdata.party/posts/app-cl...

And sign up here:
reclaimingdata.party

#dataprivacy

🔗 Pluralistic: You can't fight enshittification (31 Jul 2025)

https://zkolar.xyz/links/pluralistic-you-can-t-fight-enshittification-31-jul-2025

🔗 A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors

https://zkolar.xyz/links/a-startup-is-selling-data-hacked-from-peoples-computers-to-debt-collectors

🔗 Republican Budget Bill Signals New Era in Federal Surveillance

https://zkolar.xyz/links/republican-budget-bill-signals-new-era-in-federal-surveillance

🔗 The New Surveillance State: Why Data Privacy Is Now Essential to Democracy

https://zkolar.xyz/links/the-new-surveillance-state-why-data-privacy-is-now-essential-to-democracy

🔗 A Starter Guide to Protecting Your Data From Hackers and Corporations

https://zkolar.xyz/links/a-starter-guide-to-protecting-your-data-from-hackers-and-corporations

23andMe (andMyGeneticData) To prevent the sale of your genetic information to whoever acquires 23andMe, consider deleting your data from the platform.

To prevent the sale of your genetic information to whoever acquires 23andMe, consider deleting your data from the platform.

🔗 Reports of LLMs mastering math have been greatly exaggerated

https://zkolar.xyz/links/reports-of-llms-mastering-math-have-been-greatly-exaggerated

🔗 When Your Threat Model Is Being a Moron

https://zkolar.xyz/links/when-your-threat-model-is-being-a-moron

🔗 How to Delete Your Data From 23andMe

https://zkolar.xyz/links/how-to-delete-your-data-from-23andme

Wants, shoulds, and have-tos Overcoming choice paralysis

Overcoming choice paralysis

But even with a low success rate, feeding hundreds of thousands of social media posts, student essays, or dumps from data brokers to an internet-enabled LLM could be used to identify individuals at unimaginable scale.

Because of limitations in LLMs, this will never work reliably 100% of the time. When I changed a few words in the first instruction, ChatGPT identified some of my colleagues (who did not attend the same college) instead of me.

The image shows a screenshot of a mobile interface displaying a ChatGPT conversation. The user asked ChatGPT to search for information about the person who wrote a specific statement about an internship with Waltham Public Schools. The statement was: "My internship with Waltham Public Schools as a Brandeis student led to my current role as a Digital Learning Teacher" ChatGPT's response indicates that this statement was made by Zak Kolar, who is currently a Digital Learning Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham, MA. According to the information provided, Zak collaborates with students and teachers to integrate digital literacy and computer science into the curriculum. His career path included an internship with Waltham Public Schools while he was a student at Brandeis University, which helped him secure his current position.

As the ability to process massive amounts of data gets easier and more accessible, we need to rethink what constitutes personally identifiable information. #dataprivacy #LLM #civilliberties

🔗 Pluralistic: Gandersauce (08 Mar 2025)

https://zkolar.xyz/links/pluralistic-gandersauce-08-mar-2025

🔗 What You Should Do

https://zkolar.xyz/links/what-you-should-do

Rethinking privacy, safety, and student autonomy Our policies and practices around sharing student photos and information are based in outdated assumptions and must be revisited.

Our policies and practices around sharing student photos and information are based in outdated assumptions and must be revisited. #education #dataprivacy

🔗 Hacked location data broker told Massachusetts lawmakers not to ban the sale of cellphone location data

https://zkolar.xyz/links/hacked-location-data-broker-told-massachusetts-lawmakers-not-to-ban-the-sale-of-cellphone-location-data

🔗 Online Behavioral Ads Fuel the Surveillance Industry—Here’s How

https://zkolar.xyz/links/online-behavioral-ads-fuel-the-surveillance-industry-heres-how

🔗 When Tools Become Culture

https://zkolar.xyz/links/when-tools-become-culture

If we have to anthropomorphize, an #LLM is the person at bookclub who didn't read the book and paraphrases everyone else. They lack their own insight and have no way to know if their statements are accurate.

🔗 Things you're allowed to do

https://zkolar.xyz/links/things-you-re-allowed-to-do

Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does

🔗 Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does

Best Books of 2024 My favorite books this year

My favorite #books from 2024 #booksky

Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech New(ish) technology, same people and problems.

🔗 Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech

New(ish) technology, same people and problems.

https://zkolar.xyz/links/billionaires-influencers-and-ed-tech

AI-Powered Robots Can Be Tricked Into Acts of Violence Researchers hacked several robots infused with large language models, getting them to behave dangerously—and pointing to a bigger problem ahead.

🔗 AI-Powered Robots Can Be Tricked Into Acts of Violence

As LLMs are given control over real-life systems, those systems will only be as secure as the model that controls them.

https://www.wired.com/story/researchers-llm-ai-robot-violence/

Not Just 'David Mayer': ChatGPT Breaks When Asked About Two Law Professors ChatGPT breaks when asked about "Jonathan Zittrain" or "Jonathan Turley."

🔗 Not Just 'David Mayer': ChatGPT Breaks When Asked About Two Law Professors

This design reiterates a limitation of LLMs: they lack the understanding and context to effectively follow granular r... https://www.404media.co/not-just-david-mayer-chatgpt-breaks-when-asked-about-two-law-professors/

Why can't LLMs understand?

Replicating patterns to construct coherent sentences is not the same as understanding meaning.

#AI #LLM #ChatGPT