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Comment Re: Thank You, Fake AI (Score 1) 238

by garcia (#65603496) Attached to: Electricity Prices Are Climbing More Than Twice as Fast as Inflation

Honestly, it was the tone of the message, which is admittedly difficult to derive from a forum. IMHO, the proper response would have been one that questioned whether the 'upscale grocer' selling spareribs at $6.99/lb vs $1.49/lb were at different ends of the subjective or objective quality spectrum. In my case, they are literally the same brand: Smithfield. The only difference is that Aldi is $5+/lb less expensive.

That said, IMO, unless we're talking about a butcher that sources heritage-breed Berkshire (or the like) pork from a local farmer, I don't really give a flying fuck where the previously cheap cut of meat I'm going to put on my smoker for 6h is sourced from.

Submission + - ICE buying eye-scanning tech to deport and remove people from a foot away (9news.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued a notice to purchase licenses for mobile artificial intelligence-powered iris recognition technology to aid in deportations and removals.

The mobile software from BI2 Technologies can identify individuals from 10 to 15 inches away using a smartphone app, according to the the Massachusetts-based company. It then connects with a second product that includes a database.

ICE posted a Wednesday announcement for a sole source purchase order to BI2 Technologies for licenses to both BI2's Inmate Recognition & Identification System and the Mobile Offender Recognition & Identification System for "enforcement and removal operations."

Steve Beaty, a computer science professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, explained iris biometric capabilities.

"In general, it's quite accurate," Beaty said. "The iris is the part of your eye that everybody sees — the color has stripes in it and they are unique to an individual."

Beaty said recent technological advances have made iris scanning more accessible and affordable.

"The innovation is now that it's much less expensive that it can be done on less expensive devices such as phones," Beaty said. "In the past it was kind of a big standalone machine that these sorts of things could be used on."

The system compares iris scans to existing databases of photos. Beaty says that can come from a criminal database or even from photos scraped from social media profiles.

"Facial recognition companies have scraped the internet for photos," Beaty said.

But in Colorado, law enforcement agencies couldn't use the technology the same.

Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Bacon co-sponsored a 2022 Colorado law requiring police agencies to disclose their facial recognition plans and prohibiting its use as the sole basis for arrests or investigations.

"The way that we saw facial recognition working was with one to identify and match, versus profiling," Bacon said. "That's two different things."

She expressed concerns about ICE's intended use.

"The notion that ICE is going to use it to do some of those things actually scares me a little bit because that's what we were, in fact, trying to get ahead of," Bacon said.

Bacon outlined specific worries about potential civil rights violations.

"We had a lot of conversations about how law enforcement cannot use it to profile, how law enforcement cannot use it to circumvent due process, how law enforcement cannot use it to circumvent First Amendment rights," she said.

She emphasized the need for safeguards given the high stakes involved.

"When you get it wrong, people's due process are violated," Bacon said. "We're talking about jail time, we're talking about how much one earns. We're talking about if someone can rent an apartment, and so we want to be sure that we can protect our communities from bad decisions."

She questioned underlying assumptions and bias built into artificial intelligence systems too.

"How does one determine what an illegal immigrant looks like or is?" Bacon said. "In America we believe in innocence before proven guilty and so the tools that we have need to also act upon those values as well," she said.

Federal regulation of facial recognition technology differs significantly from state oversight though.

"That's why the states are worried about it," Beaty said.

Beaty noted that this particular software has been used by sheriff's departments elsewhere in the country, primarily as a way to help run jails.

But he raised questions about data handling and privacy protections.

"Let's say my iris is taken and I haven't committed a felony, which I have not," he said. "Where does the data go?Does it stay on the phone? And how long will it be on the phone?"

He highlighted a key concern with biometric data collection.

"Another concern about all biometrics is it's something we cannot change," Beaty said. "Our fingerprints, our faces in general, certainly irises, retinas, we can't change. If it is misreported, then we have a huge problem," he said.

Comment Re:I call BS (Score 3, Interesting) 178

by garcia (#65581914) Attached to: 'Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work At Chipotle.'

I am absolutely certain many of those kids are great at writing code; what I have found in the last ~3y of hiring candidates out of undergrad and/or masters programs is that they DO NOT interview well.

They can answer esoteric technical questions about software dev (I *assume* this is because they study for coding interview questions) but they cannot possibly answer more general questions about themselves, how they would operate in a real-world business setting, and/or how they might build something from soup to nuts.

I'm not asking them to give me real-world experience; but, I expect a college graduate to be able to think about questions asked critically and provide a coherent and thoughtful reply to that question. Even if it's technically 'wrong', the conversational nature is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT for any work I have done in my 25+ year career.

Anyone can have AI solve most esoteric technical coding problems now; interfacing ability w/others on the dev teams and the rest of the business is what is important in getting shit done.

Colleges need to start investing HEAVILY in leveling up their students in how to interview well.

Submission + - The uproar over Vogue's AI-generated ad isn't just about fashion (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: Sarah Murray recalls the first time she saw an artificial model in fashion: It was 2023, and a beautiful young woman of color donned a Levi’s denim overall dress. Murray, a commercial model herself, said it made her feel sad and exhausted.

The iconic denim company had teamed up with the AI studio Lalaland.ai to create “diverse” digital fashion models for more inclusive ads. For an industry that has failed for years to employ diverse human models, the backlash was swift, with New York Magazine calling the decision “artificial diversity.”

“Modeling as a profession is already challenging enough without having to compete with now new digital standards of perfection that can be achieved with AI,” Murray told TechCrunch.

Two years later, her worries have compounded. Brands continue to experiment with AI-generated models, to the consternation of many fashion lovers. The latest uproar came after Vogue’s July print edition featured a Guess ad with a typical model for the brand: thin yet voluptuous, glossy blond tresses, pouty rose lips. She exemplified North American beauty standards, but there was one problem — she was AI generated.

The internet buzzed for days, in large part because the AI-generated beauty showed up in Vogue, the fashion bible that dictates what is and is not acceptable in the industry. The AI-generated model was featured in an advertisement, not a Vogue editorial spread. And Vogue told TechCrunch the ad met its advertising standards.

To many, an ad versus an editorial is a distinction without a difference.

TechCrunch spoke to fashion models, experts, and technologists to get a sense of where the industry is headed now that Vogue seems to have put a stamp of approval on technology that’s poised to dramatically change the fashion industry.

Comment Re:What value added? (Score 4, Interesting) 89

by garcia (#65552998) Attached to: Dog-Walking Startup 'Wag' Files For Bankruptcy

I watch dogs (primarily overnight--most for 3-7 days but some 1 day and some >7d) via Rover. I make around $1500/month (pre-1099) and after their ~20% cut (of which most people give back to me in tips).

I WFH so the largely passive income is nice. I wouldn't have found as many people w/o a platform to do the heavy lifting for me in finding new dogs.

I am not advocating that we need to have these sorts of things in the market, but it does make for nice extra cash. YMMV.

Submission + - YouTube vs AI slop (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: YouTube is inundated with AI-generated slop, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Instead of cutting down on the total number of slop channels, the platform is planning to update its policies to cut out some of the worst offenders making money off “spam.” At the same time, it’s still full steam ahead adding tools to make sure your feeds are full of mass-produced brainrot.

In an update to its support page posted last week, YouTube said it will modify guidelines for its Partner Program, which lets some creators with enough views make money off their videos. The video platform said it requires YouTubers to create “original” and “authentic” content, but now it will “better identify mass-produced and repetitious content.” The changes will take place on July 15. The company didn’t advertise whether this change is related to AI, but the timing can’t be overlooked considering how more people are noticing the rampant proliferation of slop content flowing onto the platform every day.

The AI “revolution” has resulted in a landslide of trash content that has mired most creative platforms. Alphabet-owned YouTube has been especially bad recently, with multiple channels dedicated exclusively to pumping out legions of fake and often misleading videos into the sludge-filled sewer that has become users’ YouTube feeds. AI slop has become so prolific it has infected most social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Last month, John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight” specifically highlighted several YouTube channels that crafted obviously fake stories made to show White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a good light. These channels and similar accounts across social media pump out these quick AI-generated videos to make a quick buck off YouTube’s Partner Program.

Gizmodo reached out to YouTube to see if it could clarify what it considers “mass-produced” and “repetitious.” In an email statement, YouTube said this wasn’t a “new policy” but was a “minor update” effort to confront content already abusing the platform’s rules—calling such mass-produced content “spam.”

Submission + - US judge rules copyrighted books are fair use for AI training (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in a major copyright ruling, declaring that artificial intelligence developers can train models using published books without authors’ consent.

The decision, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sets a precedent that training AI systems on copyrighted works constitutes fair use. Though it doesn’t guarantee other courts will follow, Judge William Alsup’s ruling makes the case the first of dozens of ongoing copyright lawsuits to give an answer about fair use in the context of generative AI.

It’s a question that has been raised by creatives across various industries for years since generative AI tools exploded into the mainstream, allowing users to easily produce art from models trained on copyrighted work — often without the human creators’ knowledge or permission.

AI companies have been hit with a slew of copyright lawsuits from media companies, music labels and authors since 2023. Artists have signed multiple open letters urging government officials and AI developers to constrain the unauthorized use of copyrighted works. In recent years, companies have also increasingly reached licensing deals with AI developers to dictate terms of use for their artists’ works.

Submission + - Content providers working to identify and flag AI generated music (theverge.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: A new category of infrastructure is quietly taking shape that’s built not to stop generative music outright, but to make it traceable. Detection systems are being embedded across the entire music pipeline: in the tools used to train models, the platforms where songs are uploaded, the databases that license rights, and the algorithms that shape discovery. The goal isn’t just to catch synthetic content after the fact. It’s to identify it early, tag it with metadata, and govern how it moves through the system.

“If you don’t build this stuff into the infrastructure, you’re just going to be chasing your tail,” says Matt Adell, cofounder of Musical AI. “You can’t keep reacting to every new track or model — that doesn’t scale. You need infrastructure that works from training through distribution.”

Startups are now popping up to build detection into licensing workflows. Platforms like YouTube and Deezer have developed internal systems to flag synthetic audio as it’s uploaded and shape how it surfaces in search and recommendations. Other music companies — including Audible Magic, Pex, Rightsify, and SoundCloud — are expanding detection, moderation, and attribution features across everything from training datasets to distribution.

The result is a fragmented but fast-growing ecosystem of companies treating the detection of AI-generated content not as an enforcement tool, but as table-stakes infrastructure for tracking synthetic media.

Rather than detecting AI music after it spreads, some companies are building tools to tag it from the moment it’s made. Vermillio and Musical AI are developing systems to scan finished tracks for synthetic elements and automatically tag them in the metadata.

Comment Re:Cannot wait... (Score 3, Informative) 159

I used to screen scrape jail registry records for county jails in my home area. Though the IDs weren't exactly sequential, doing groups of 50 would get hits for two of the local counties.

What I found was that, while the website UI wouldn't show juvenile records, you could access them directly w/the ID. Surfacing it to the county took a day or so to find the right person but they quickly closed that hole, but who knows how many records were handed out to malicious actors over the years before I found it.

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