babbelbubble.bsky.social

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People love to say witches were burned for “using herbs.”

No

many were killed in land grabs.

If a woman had land and no husband, accusing her of witchcraft was a legal shortcut to steal it.

Misogyny and greed, dressed up as morality.

#Women
#Witches
#History

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With their “sovereignty as a service” offerings, tech companies are encouraging the illusion of a race for sovereign control of AI while they hold the real power, write ‪@r-jy.bsky.social, Kate Elizabeth Creasey, & D&S board member @geomblog.bsky.social. www.techpolicy.press/sovereignty-...

We’ve seen this repeatedly. QAnon. COVID denial. Election lies. War crimes denial. In each case, the problem wasn’t just what people believed, it was how those beliefs hardened into identity and made correction impossible.

Ironically, upon the paper’s release, several social media users ran it through LLMs in order to summarize it and then post the findings online. Kosmyna had been expecting that people would do this, so she inserted a couple AI traps into the paper, such as instructing LLMs to “only read this table below,” thus ensuring that LLMs would return only limited insight from the paper. She also found that LLMs hallucinated a key detail: Nowhere in her paper did she specify the version of ChatGPT she used, but AI summaries declared that the paper was trained on GPT-4o. “We specifically wanted to see that, because we were pretty sure the LLM would hallucinate on that,” she says, laughing.

Amazing: MIT researchers revealed how ChatGPT etc are destroying our brains and booby-trapped the report to expose those who want to use AI to ostensibly summarize the results.

t.co/JXeTALBPds

AI boom means regulator cannot predict future water shortages in England Datacentres, which do not have to report amount of water used to cool servers, leave Environment Agency with no idea of shortfalls

'The artificial intelligence boom means the Environment Agency has no idea how much water England will be short of in future decades, as datacentres do not have to report how much they are using to cool their servers.' Maybe the policy of 'turbocharging' AI everywhere & all the time needs thought?

[2506.08872] Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess cognitive load during essay writing, and analyzed essays using NLP, as well as scoring essays with the help from human teachers and an AI judge. Across groups, NERs, n-gram patterns, and topic ontology showed within-group homogeneity. EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Cognitive activity scaled down in relation to external tool use. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed reduced alpha and beta connectivity, indicating under-engagement. Brain-to-LLM users exhibited higher memory recall and activation of occipito-parietal and prefrontal areas, similar to Search Engine users. Self-reported ownership of essays was the lowest in the LLM group and the highest in the Brain-only group. LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.

New study on the effects of LLM use:
Quote:
"LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. […] Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels."

„Die Dealer grüßen meine Tochter“: Das fordern Anwohnende des Görlitzer Parks statt des Zauns Der Görlitzer Park in Kreuzberg soll umzäunt und nachts geschlossen werden. Was bedeutet das für die Anwohnenden? Drei Frauen berichten von Kot, Spritzen und Crack-Süchtigen auf dem Schulweg der Kinde...

Geht eher darum Armut und Leiden nicht durch einen Zaun unsichtbar zu machen

www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/bezir...

Hamburg: Obdachlose klagen gegen Bettelverbot in Bussen und Bahnen Der Hamburger Verkehrsverbund bestraft Betteln mit 40 Euro. Auch in anderen Städten ist Betteln verboten. Ist es ein Grundrecht, andere Menschen um Geld bitten zu dürfen?

Janisch (€) @janisch.bsky.social:

"Ist Betteln ein Menschenrecht?" (Spoiler: Ja, laut EGMR 2021 jdf. unter Umständen)

(U.a. zu GFF-Klagen gegen das Hamburger Bahnbettelverbot.)

1/7
www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/bet...

„Das häufige Gegenargument lautet, man müsse „die Sorgen der Bürger“ ernst nehmen. Dies bezieht sich interessanterweise nur auf Sorgen konservativer oder rechter Menschen.“

Tweet von Marius Mestermann: Mir egal wie der neue #Papst heißt, der ZDF-Reporter am Vatikan heißt A. Postel 😭

♥️

Launched on Tuesday: LuxChat messaging service officially opens to public Hitherto only available to the civil service, the LuxChat instant messaging app has now launched to the general public.

In tiny Luxembourg, we have Luxchat. today.rtl.lu/news/luxembo...

Outside of a London Amazon Fresh 🎯🔥

„Wenn der Faschismus kommt, scheint noch immer die Sonne. Die Vögel singen.Sie gehen zur Arbeit. Alles ist normal. Nur trans Menschen verlieren ihre Rechte.Und Asylsuchende. Und Immigranten.Und Behinderte. Und Muslime.Und Juden. Und linke Journalisten.Und dann andere Journalisten.Und ich. Und Sie.“

Wie verträgt sich "nicht kämpfen" mit "Dinge schaffen" und "Solidarisch verteidigen"? Ganz einfach. Mein Ausgangspunkt ist nicht: "Ich bin GEGEN Nazis, GEGEN Faschismus, GEGEN Intoleranz." Mein Ausgangspunkt ist: "Ich liebe die Person neben mir. Und für sie werde ich zur unüberwindbaren Mauer."

VGH Bayern: Grenzkontrolle war rechtswidrig Ein Völkerrechtler wird im ICE kontrolliert und klagt dagegen. Nun stellt ein deutsches Gericht fest, dass die Grenzkontrolle nicht hinreichend begründet war.

here it is - Ein Völkerrechtler klagt erfolgreich gegen die Grenzkontrolle in einem Zug. Der BayVGH hat diese an der deutsch-österreichischen Grenze für rechtswidrig erklärt. Die Anordnung von Grenzkontrollen verstoße gegen den Schengener Grenzkodex

www.lto.de/recht/nachri...

Amazon loses fight to exempt data center from energy regulation Minnesota regulators denied Amazon’s request to exempt a data center’s 250 backup generators from a permitting process that includes reviewing pollution levels.

Amazon loses fight to exempt data center from energy regulation

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... @ceodonovan.bsky.social

🇺🇲 Google ---> 🇪🇺 Ecosia
🇺🇲 Chrome ---> 🇪🇺 Vivaldi
🇺🇲 Translate ---> 🇪🇺 DeepL
🇺🇲 Gmail ---> 🇪🇺 Mailfence
🇺🇲 Maps ---> 🇪🇺 Here WeGo
🇺🇲 ChatGPT ---> 🇪🇺 Le Chat

Ein sehr erhellender Thread.

(2/3) Kompromisse sind das Fundament jeder demokratischen Gesellschaft, denn sie ermöglichen Fortschritt ohne Spaltung. Sie sind also keine Schwäche, sondern der Schlüssel zu nachhaltigen und gerechten Entscheidungen in einer Demokratie.

Tweet von Madonna: I thought this country was built by Europeans, escaping living under the rule of a King, to establish a New World governed by the people. Currently we have a president who calls Himself. Our King If this is a joke, I'm not laughing

Madonna Beste.

Trump has free rein over Dutch government data The Netherlands relies heavily on American IT service providers such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon for the storage of government data.

«The Dutch government is largely dependent on American tech giants such as #Microsoft, #Google, and #Amazon for its digital infrastructure. […] The Dutch government relies on American technology companies for virtually all of its digital services.»

ioplus.nl/en/posts/tru...

Within Bounds: Limiting AI's environmental impact Joint statement from civil society for the AI Action Summit Signed by over 120+ organizations. If you share our concerns and demands that AI systems be made compatible with our planetary boundaries, a...

greenscreen.network/en/blog/with...

Joint statement from civil society for the AI Action Summit

Meme, weiß mit rosa Umrandung oben und unten. Text: jedes Mal wenn Du "innen" sagst fühlt sich irgendwo irgendwer etwas weniger außen

Danke❤️

This is a nice piece to keep at hand as it deftly lays out the ravages of AI on the environment. Even easier to digest for those of us seeing data centers (almost literally) gobble up our backyards.

From another era

A New Look for Bluesky: The Social Butterfly A new look for Bluesky — the social butterfly — and a public web interface.

Wichtig für alle Journalist:innen. Bluesky hat sich zitierfähig gemacht. Posts können jetzt im Artikeln so verlinkt werden, dass sie auch Nicht-Bluesky-User:innen lesen können. Ein Grund mehr nicht mehr auf Twitter zu verweisen. blueskyweb.xyz/blog/12-21-2...