Lori McGlinchey

Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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Some news many years in the making: My book EMPIRE OF AI, out May 20, is ready for pre-order at empireofai.com. It tells the inside story of OpenAI as a lens for understanding the moment we’re in: the tech elite's extraordinary seizure of power and its threat to democracy. 1/

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

This is what it looks like when FTC staff has full freedom to stop fraudsters and monopolists. When there are no free passes for the powerful. When the word of a consumer or a worker or a small business owner is just as important as that of any billionaire. Remember this.

February 5, 2025 Dear Chairman Ferguson: The day he was sworn into office, the President declared the cost of living to be an emergency. It’s been over two weeks since then. Here’s ten things you could do immediately to help people stay afloat—and to make sure our staff stays informed about the most urgent problems people face. You’d have my support for all of them, immediately. • Egg prices are exorbitant. A lot of people can’t even find them on the shelves. There’s a public request from Farm Action for us to investigate potential price-gouging and anticompetitive coordination in the egg industry. You could open an investigation into egg production and marketing practices. • People who need cash are going online to get loans and advances. Many of them don’t get the funding they’re promised or are charged illegal hidden fees. You could direct agency staff to conduct a sweep of financial services to identify companies that seek to illegally profit from people in crisis. • Rent is too high. Some corporate landlords and property management companies have used deceptive ads, hidden junk fees, and other illegal tactics to trick people into higher rents. You could direct agency staff to investigate if the nation’s largest landlords and management companies are deceiving tenants into paying higher rents. • Not enough new homes are coming to market. Research suggests that homebuilding markets are highly concentrated and may result in billions of dollars of new inventory not coming to market. You could announce plans to study the effect of concentration in the housing supply chain on home prices. • Misclassification lets lawbreakers steal thousands of dollars from workers. It also lets some companies effectively rig contract competitions. You could act on the public request from a group of contractors to investigate how misclassification affects contract competitions in the commercial construction industry. • Drug shortages drive up drug prices and delay cr…

• Commercial trucking is the backbone of the country. Some companies run training programs for new drivers that force those drivers to repay exorbitant sums if they have to quit trucking early. You could ask staff to investigate Commercial Drivers’ License training programs to ensure that those programs aren’t unfair or deceptive. • Many older Americans lack companionship. So-called “pig-butchering” scams send them seemingly innocent texts, engage them in conversation, and then defraud them of their life savings. Some of the scammers are often victims of trafficking. You could work with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to join their initiative to crack down on these scams. • As you know, a lot of these ideas have come up during our open commission meetings where members of the public tell us about their problems, what we’re doing right, and what we’re doing wrong. I urge you to schedule the next open commission meeting ASAP so the American people can tell us what we should focus on. None of this is partisan. I don’t think any of it is controversial, either. I urge you to help people with the cost of living. Sincerely, Alvaro M. Bedoya Commissioner

Egg prices. Cash advance apps that rip you off. Landlords who trick you into higher rent. Housing prices. Wage theft. Drug shortages. Sports betting. CDL schools. Pig-butchering scams. Here's 10 things FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson could do today to help people with the cost of living.

Public Library Ebook Service to Cull AI Slop After 404 Media Investigation Hoopla has emailed librarians saying it’s removing AI-generated books from the platform people use to borrow ebooks from public libraries.

New: a public library ebook service is removing AI-generated books from its platform after a 404 Media investigation. We found public libraries were being swarmed with low quality AI-generated books. Now going to change.

www.404media.co/public-libra...

‘AI can’t just be overlaid on a failing health service’ Hetan Shah, chief executive of The British Academy, said that the NHS "can't just overlay tech on a failing service”.

Hetan Shah, chief executive of The British Academy, said that the NHS and UK government “can’t just overlay tech on a failing service”.

Full story 👉 ow.ly/iQxl50V054A

Three Fallacies: Alondra Nelson's Remarks at the Elysée Palace on the Occasion of the AI Action Summit | TechPolicy.Press Dr. Nelson was an invited speaker at a dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palais de l'Élysée on February 10, 2025.

I was pleased to attend a State Dinner, hosted by Pres. Macron, for participants of the AI Action Summit. It was an honor to be invited to deliver remarks at Elysee Palace on Three Fallacies in how we think about AI, now published @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/three-fallac...

Always appreciate the deep and wide and knowledge that @karenhao.bsky.social brings to any discussion of all the things called “AI” and their social and environmental impacts.

There’s so much slop out there now that this is gonna happen. This is the way on two fronts here: Union contract that protects against using AI art in the first place, and disclosing when it slips in to highlight the issue and build a culture of accountability. It’s tough out there. Well done.

Security risk assessment as a mental health tool Let’s talk about protecting your well-being by prioritizing what security risks you want to address.

📩 We’re in a moment that is changing quickly, so it's important to ground ourselves with a risk assessment.

Learn how to steel yourself with a framework for prioritizing the most likely risks in our digital security newsletter (and subscribe):

We are excited to announce that we are once again running our infamous mini-course, No, We Don’t Live in A F%#*ing Simulation, and this time it’s in person!
www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

Fearing AI will take their jobs, California workers plan a long battle against tech Workers and advocates gathered in Sacramento to prepare defenses against tech they say threatens their jobs and dignity.

“A key takeaway from the proceedings: Workers of all stripes are determined to fight — during contract negotiations and amid day to day operations — for the right to negotiate more control over how AI is deployed within companies.”

Celebs and tech luminaries including Mark Ruffalo want to create a fully open social media ecosystem A cadre of celebrities and former Twitter users are trying to create a vast social network that is freed from profit motive. This would take the form of various apps on top of Bluesky’s pre-existing p...

"The plan involves building new social media apps on top of the pre-existing AT Protocol, which is a decentralized framework that Bluesky runs on. This would ostensibly give users significant control over their data, algorithms and the entire online experience."

www.engadget.com/social-media...

Hello! 👋

Here to connect and share our work on resisting digital era mass surveillance.

We’ve been watching the Watch Duty team do absolutely *unbelievable* technical work all week (they’re members of our Fast Forward open source program), handling a surge of millions of people trying to see where the fires are in real time. There are still people who do such good on the internet.

Important #netneutrality news: Last week a federal court struck down the FCC's 2024 #netneutrality protections. I spoke with @npr.org's @jsummers.bsky.social about what this means & what may be next: npr.org/2025/01/06/n... (audio & transcript)

Court order text. Link to follow

Court order text. Link to follow

Court order text. Link to follow

Court order text. Link to follow

BREAKING: court finds NSO Group liable for #Pegasus hacking of #WhatsApp users.

Big win for spyware victims.

Big loss for NSO.

Bad time to be a spyware company.

Landmark case. Huge implications. 1/ 🧵

The Mortality Implications of a Unionized Career An emerging literature has documented a wide range of protections and benefits that union membership provides for health and wellbeing. However, this …

Over lifetime, each additional year of union membership reduces the odds of mortality by 1.5%. Effects primarily occur between ages of 41 and 67.

Nice work @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Two Very Different Manhattan Murder Investigations The NYPD spent countless hours and resources searching for a CEO’s killer, but has made little evident progress on the fatal stabbing of a migrant teen.

As NYPD officials boasted of the resources expended finding the killer of a corporate CEO, another sidewalk murder the same week, of a migrant teen, has not received the same treatment. hellgatenyc.com/two-manhatta...

1. For decades, local grocery stores thrived. Then in the 1980s, the government stopped enforcing a key antitrust law. Rapid consolidation followed, which gave rise to food deserts and a spike in grocery prices. Our new graph shows the dramatic impact of this policy shift.
ilsr.org/articles/pol...

The Mystery of Food Deserts They didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened.

1. The conventional explanation for food deserts—that these places are too poor or too rural to generate enough spending on groceries, or too Black to overcome racist corporate redlining — fail to grapple with a key fact: food deserts didn’t used to exist. My new piece in The Atlantic.

For me, the point of AI criticism is not to undermine market valuations or win online arguments. It’s to understand how technology changes things, influences us in ways we may not observe, and to point and them and ask “is that what we wanted?” And then working with people to change direction.

Today OpenAI and Anduril announced a partnership on building a military counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS). I got to speak to MIT's Tech Review about OpenAI's pivot to defense and the harms generative AI pose in military systems.
www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1...

Why We Don’t Know AI's True Water Footprint | TechPolicy.Press Miranda Gabbott asks, by choosing AI industry-driven growth today, will urban planners in Spain jeopardize their water tomorrow?

In a climate crisis, the consumption of water required by data centers must be scrutinized closely, writes Miranda Gabbott. Looking at a development near her home in Barcelona, she asks: by choosing AI industry-driven growth today, will urban planners in Spain jeopardize their water tomorrow?

If you're interested in learning more about the spyware boom, how this tech is being abused even by democracies, and what you can do to protect yourself, check out my documentary "Surveilled" on @streamonmax.bsky.social starting tonight.

Is anyone tallying the $$ settlements coming out of these failed systems? ie $20m Michigan Midas settlement.
wondering how much public $$ has been spent on faulty systems & how much on lawsuits/remediation. I prob already know this but just had a root canal and have replaced my memory with anger.

Analysis | Flawed AI denies benefits to low-income Americans, report warns As Trump prepares to slash spending, a new nonprofit emerges to fight automation in government benefit programs

The Washington Post covered TechTonic Justice's launch! As our founder, @kevindeliban.bsky.social, noted, “The accountability measures around [AI, algorithms, etc.] are so broken that low-income people almost always end up with the short end of the stick.”

wapo.st/3CwrtVW

New paper where Mel Andrews, Andrew Smart, and I outline how machine learning is laundering long discredited harmful pseudoscience and offer resources for research best practices to developers/practitioners

www.cell.com/patterns/ful...