#it's because the ones that do exist are classified as toxic language by the people training the AI

[caraianellisande]

There's a paper being presented at a brazillian symposium about discrimination against AAVE(specifically in automated moderation tools). Which is a very real thing and worthy of studying.

But this study was made by brazillian people. Which is incredibly funny to me. (It's because they wanted to study discrimination in moderation tools and most of the data available was in English).

[dianight]

Tangentially related since I was trying to remember pro players from the sc2 era and Scarlett came to mind, so I decided to check what she was up to nowadays. She'd doing ok it appears. But in my infinite stupidity I checked a reddit thread from a few months ago. While very toxic some of the comments were ultra interesting to me.

[Transphobia TW is in order I suppose]

There's a bunch of them but they can be classified in 4 groups: people who understand, people who think they understand, directly hostile idiots and roundabout hostile idiots.

Only the first group has any sense, the others are different flavors of disgusting.

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Group 2: top comment / second / third

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This is a common one I've heard since forever. It always boils down to "they are not mean because she is [minority], people on the internet are shitty (for no reason)". A complete refusal to acknowledge bigotry even exists.

This is the most numerous type, the most expected one and the least interesting. I'd argue this is most people's position when talking about these instances of bigotry. "People on the internet are mean, get used to it/don't let it get to you" sort of argument.

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Group 1: sixth most upvoted with 53 (compared to 390 on top comment)

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For real I am happy to see this person just being so blunt. Yes, you are completely right. Included some replies and also random Whipping Girl mention.

This comment and some of its replies are the reason of this post.

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Groups 3 and 4 (they are one and the same, indistinguishable as far as practical application concerns): a reply to previous / another / and another

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First one is straight up transphobia, misgendering, "identify as" language, male/female differences (delusional). Probably the worst shit in that thread. But I still want to highlight it because these are all arguments that keep coming up. Like I don't even want to individually point out everything that's wrong with it (I'd do it later if someone asks) but just putting it here as a example.

To the second one I just ask "Is it because she's a woman?" I bet that user would get really mad. Fuhuhu.

Third one is a troll (from my perspective) arguing with the "Because she's trans" comment poster. Again, it's just there to point out that sort of sealioning behavior and attitude that is once again rightly pointed out by the other person who is orders of magnitude more patient than me, and yet the troll ends up with "your answer doesn't FEEL [emphasis mine] neutral" and "both sides" shit.

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This reply to the top comment is group 1(?) I believe and I mention it because the original answer is deleted now but the thread mentioned does exist. I saw this one happen in real time by the way. 10 years ago.

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That's enough for now. I hope Scarlett keeps having fun or whatever, I don't follow sc2 anymore.

[knowlesian]

okay: let’s talk candied melon silk moths, everybody. because holy shit, did i just blow my own fucking mind upon this very night.

full disclosure: i had this shit planned out a little before i sat down to google. i’d start with a little light ‘i’m not a bug-ologist, buuuuut’ joke and then synthesize what i’d read on google into a readable bit of moth fact/history before moving onto Considering The Humble Moth.

but ofmd has ruined that. because here’s the thing: there is no such thing as a candied melon silk moth. 

now, the rosy maple moth? that moth exists, and their habitat stretches well past st. augustine down to nearly the tip of florida. they’re apparently the smallest kind of silk moths, which seems Not An Accident given the way this show is playing with toxic masculinity and expectations surrounding it. 

they were classified in 17-fucking-93, because of course they were. by johan christian fabricius, which is just a really fucking cool name. i don’t make these rules. (i did some light research on him and it ended in Very Interesting/The Kind of Problematic You’d Expect From A Man Named That Doing Science-y Things Around Then places, so i’m gonna do more there later.)

for now, the basics. this level of detail and then a last minute hard swerve into We Do What We Want, Fuck You means they did the work: they didn’t just slap together some latin and make up a name and call it a day to avoid paying... moth copyright???? 

they tracked down an interesting moth, did their research on it, and then cackled with glee as they changed one very important letter and made up their own goddamned moth, because it’s all fuckery here. masks on masks on masks, all of them a little bit real just because we put them on and went about our day.

and because ofmd looks at history, at traditional power structures and the crushing weight they put on every single one of us living under them, and asks: why? and what if it weren’t like that?

in the real world, these were not the men we are watching fall in love; the real ed and stede did horrible fucking things. they were, in colloquial terms, The Bad Guys.

but what if they were these men, instead? what if we stole their names and histories and pasted our stories on their fucking faces. what IF we colonized the colonizers and made them dance to our fucking tunes, this time? 

what if nobody had to define themselves against what they aren’t? what if a rosy maple moth was a candied melon silk moth because fuck you for saying it can’t be different, this time of all times?

so fuckin’ yeah. there’s THAT, which really put a spin on how i planned to organize this meta. i mean: what do i DO with that shit???? that’s fucking insane. i’m gonna fight these people. fight them with my TEARS because they have pushed my love over the borderline. feels like i’m going to lose my mind, & etc.

what the fuuuuuuuck.

that little mental/song break over, onto what i knew i was going to talk about.

first: that they used a moth at all. we have a lot invested in the butterfly as an image/metaphor as a culture. at worst it’s a literal started ugly, ended up beautiful thing, at best it’s about metamorphosis and transition/transformation and the revealing of a true self (things ofmd is also very interested in) but the physical beauty part is always lurking there in the subtext, making things a liiiiittttle bit weird.

this particular moth also happens to be legit cute as fuck, but we don’t attach that kind of beauty baggage to moths. instead, our favorite moth metaphor is about danger. moths to a flame, we say, because we are REAL scared of warmth and pleasure. (and emotional risk, understandably.)

and oh look! ed and stede, moths to each other’s flame; these two are drawn together, the way whole crew is drawn together, by accident and irresistibly until they're a family in ways they couldn’t have planned for or ever anticipated. none of them started out in the same place, some of them didn’t start out speaking the same languages, a lot of them are still on the way to figuring out who they are: but here they are. drawn together in their various states, anyway.

(puts the fire at the heart of stede’s liminal space ship in new context, huh? fuck this stupid show.)

but here’s where it gets real weird: that’s a silk moth.

stede, privileged and still in his cocoon not quite With It stede, holds in his hands the creature responsible for the red handkerchief ed’s mother was tricked into believing god didn’t want people like them to have. and he offers it up to ed, entirely clueless of the resonance he holds in his hands, eager to share it without even knowing the fucking magic he is capable of conjuring for a million reasons fair and unfair, systemic and personal: the means of fuckin’ production.

because god doesn’t decide who gets silk, rich fuckers don’t decide who gets silk.

no silk moths, no silk from those moths.

fuck god and fuck rich people: drill down to the absolute core, the humble moth holds the actual power here.

and that moth gives no shits about these stupid rules. the moth doesn’t give a single solitary fuck if ed has a piece of silk or the king of england has that same exact piece, because of fucking course it doesn’t. ‘deserve’? fuck that. the moth isn’t like oh GOLLY i hope somebody with class puts me on. somebody with a full bank account. those people deserve me: nobody else.

the people who benefit most made up those rules about who gets what and why they get it, and now for some reason a lot of us help enforce it without any hope of feasting on their crumbs.

and if you think about it we made up god, technically, because we invented words and belief structures and intricate rituals to explain this gnawing ache and loneliness inside just as much as the surge of impossible hope or unshakeable, inexplicable sense of Something More. and none of us can prove entirely the others are wrong, even though many of us will kill and die to insist otherwise.

either way, this i know for sure: we definitely fucking made up money.

so stede’s got his cute little metaphor moth perched on his finger, eagerly offering it for inspection. he is literally offering up to ed the means of production for the object that represents his heart. 

and the kicker: he doesn’t even know it’s happening.

(neither of them do. not yet.)

i mean. this fucking show is just ridiculous.

i’m sure there’s a Lot More here, and i want to keep writing about how they use stede’s privilege/wealth in this fascinating way where it informs his character for good and ill and functions as a commentary on the unfortunate reality that sometimes people who will one day show amazing solidarity start from a place of good-hearted Not Having A Clue, and then move and grow from there as they see more of the world and watch the people they love experience pain in ways they never anticipated. but that’s an adjacent lane and another piece of writing!!!

so for now: fuck this show, and let us continue to consider the Humble Silk Moth i guess.

[kairoskrp]

                                            — On the wicked wings of time, thy kingdom comes

Meet [ Kwon Jiyong ]

He is a [ twenty-eight] year old  [ contract killer ] currently residing in [ studio 57, #205 ]. Visit  and greet  him today!

Personality:

to best describe jiyong, one has to picture a ticking time-bomb, one that is always either exploding or on the verge of it. he’s not so much filled with any sort of nervous need to react or burst at the slightest upset, but he is a bundle of rage, coiled carefully beneath his ribs. frustration has been stuffed into the chambers of his heart, but he masks it with discontentment and disdain for those around him, never satisfied, never gleeful. at best he is moody and disconnected, at worst he is coming home with someone else’s blood on his shirt, his hands, his face. it’s the only way he knows to calm down, by answering the bloodlust ares demands of him over and over again. he tears himself to pieces if he has to, but he tries to never let himself seem weak or lesser than by anyone. a soldier through and through, he’d rather fight than love, which is why every type of relationship he has is some sort of toxic. and he likes it that way, or so he tells himself.

Spirit: ares

Power: perfect marksmanship

         +  more likely defined as perfect hand-to-eye coordination, almost anything he throws or shoots hits a bullseye to its target

         +  he is able to gain strength from his anger, sort of like a controlled adrenaline rush- he becomes stronger, faster, and more durable

         +  when he reaches a certain level of fury, his irises glow red

         -  he has to be able to see his target in order to hit it, and of course he can be thwarted by sudden changes in wind direction or interference

         -  like any other adrenaline rush, his enhancement is not very long-lasting, wearing off soon after he’s calmed down

Biography: 

he is the first and only mistake of a child that his mother decides to burden herself with.

it’s not that she is displeased with him, or that he is a bad son—although if we’re being honest here, there are plenty of areas in his personality and conduct that could be improved if he cared enough to attempt it, but she wants for nothing in him, particularly because she barely notices him after the first few months of his life. he is a mistake in that he was born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, to the wrong parents.

no way his mother loved his father, but she understood that some things are more important than love; such as war. both halves of the couple had spent years of their lives dedicated to their military careers in America, and getting pregnant hadn’t exactly been part of the plan. divorce had actually been part of the plan, but then of course, a boy needs both parents, right? and separation looks bad on a family portrait, everyone agrees. the boy is raised believing it is normal for love to be completely absent from one’s face and demeanor. no one really has any time for affection anyway, not in today’s world, so when the nightmares come, (the blood swallowing him down and drenching him, demons screaming in his psyche) his mother never tells him that monsters aren’t real, never comforts him. he wouldn’t believe her even if she did, because obviously they do exist.

every centimeter of him is an army brat, both his mother and father’s workloads taking them to all corners of the globe, to meet new people, new cultures, new languages. school after school, the child fights his way through all of them, quicker to kiss someone with his fists than his lips. it may have seemed strange to a god of war to bestow himself down onto such a small-framed boy, but few others on the whole planet could ever reach his level of absolute fury. he shifts from quiet and focused one moment to wrathful and destructive the next, he is every high school teacher’s worst nightmare.

jiyong hates his hands for a while, but ares can’t stop smiling.

his parents exchange fondness and endearments for rigid standards and non-stop training. he may as well be one of the soldiers who serve under them in whatever missions they deem necessary, and it’s not so surprising that as soon as he hits 18, he enlists. why fight against the curve his life is obviously taking, why fight against his natural (or was it forced?) inclination for combat?

as expected, he thrives. he learns multiple types of fighting styles ranging from close-quarter battle techniques, to long-range weapon precision. he stays in the force for a few years, his skills and special talents earning him a quick succession through the ranks, putting him on black ops classified missions. but he tires of it before too long, and his inability to respect authority, or anyone other than his mother or father, begins spelling his downfall. so he gets out on a high, steps away from the militarized battlezone to enter into a more private sector, where he can better control who he kills and why. not that he cares a whole lot about whoever ends up in his crosshairs, but at least he can control what he charges for each kill.

caution: contents are hot. he rides the wave of freedom, boiling over with too much freezer-burn chemicals; starts changing his hair color, gets his first tattoo (first of many many many). he can feel himself changing, shifting into the kind of guy who manipulates people too easily and lets himself fall into chaos too quickly. he is becoming someone who will smile slowly at you as he sets you on fire, drowns himself in alcohol and cigarettes, walks through the dark streets of seoul, hoping to find his next prey. his one room apartment is littered with weapons, some of them antique, some of them for practicality uses, but everything he owns, he masters first.

oh yes, monsters are real, and in jiyong’s case, it takes one to know one.

[surveys4ever]

12.

Are you excited for Halloween? Ehhh! We don’t really do anything for halloween besides create content for IG and we don’t get any trick or treaters and it’s a sign that winter is coming which is usually miserable for me so...it’s not my fave!

What makes you smile or laugh no matter what? The hubs and our pup!

Do you like coffee, or do you prefer hot cocoa? Hot chocolate foreverrrrr.

What's your favorite kind of candy? I loooove Kinder Buenos. They are so fkn good.

What is a song that brings back a lot of memories? I have a 

What were you doing an hour ago? Playing Sims!

Do you have feelings for anyone? Of course!

Do you have a Snapchat? I have one but I don’t have the app downloaded and haven’t used it in years.

Do you believe in ghosts? I really don’t. There’s a reason that ghosts are all from the 1800′s when technology didn’t exist and you had to take people’s word for things.

Do you look younger or older for your age? I’m 27 but I feel like I could pass for 23-25.

Pick a random word that begins with the first letter of your first name. Jamba Juice!

Put that word in a sentence now. Are Jamba Juices even still a thing?

How long is your hair? Shoulder length but I’m in the process of growing it out.

Are there any movies out you'd like to see? Our local movie theater is playing a bunch of the old horror movies like Dracula and Creature From The Black Lagoon this summer and I’ve never seen them so I’m excited to go!

 What's your favorite sports team? (if you like sports)? I hate sports.

How many parties have you been to this year? Zeroooo.

Are you a jealous person? Not in my marriage. My husband doesn’t give me anything to be jealous over and if there is ever anything that would arise to make me feel that way, he would immediately correct it. But I do get jealous over the way my parents treat my siblings as opposed to the way they treat/treated me. Guess which relationship is really healthy and guess which one is super toxic.

Last thing you ate? Leftover pizza from last night.

What color shirt are you wearing? Blue!

Would you ever get a piercing or tattoo? or do you already have some? I have 6 piercings and no tattoos. I want more piercings and I’m not opposed to getting tattoos, I just don’t know what I want.

What do you miss most from your childhood? I miss a life when I wasn’t so fucking anxious all the time but I wouldn't trade that for having to live the life I was living.

Are you afraid of clowns? Nope!

Who is your hero? My husband. He went through so much as a child and still managed to come out the other end as a genuinely kind, good person. Those are rare as fuck but even more so if you take into account what he’s been through.

If you had to change your name, what would you change it to? I’m happy the way it is!

Do you like romance movies? Depends on the movie but sure!

Do you like thunderstorms? Ugh yes. We always go out on the front step or pull the sofa up to the window to watch it.

Have you ever been to a football game? When I was in high school, sure.

What's the battery percentage on your cell phone? 88%!

Do you like to sing or dance? I mean...I like to do it but I don’t do it well.

Do you like country music? It depends on the song!

How old are you? 27!

What's the closest object to you that is blue? My water tumbler!

Do you have or want kids? No and no.

Are you shy? Sadly, yeah.

How much did your favorite pair of shoes cost? I think like $25? They’re white Converse and I got them off Mercari for cheap.

Do you take a lot of selfies? It’s kind of my job, so yeah.

Do you prefer strawberries or cherries? Strawbs!

How many hours of sleep did you get last night? 8ish.

Are you allergic to bees? I don’t believe so? I was stung by either a bee or a wasp as a kid and it hurt like hell but I didn’t have any extra reaction.

Do you resemble a celebrity? I get told like I look like a plus size Scarlett Johansson all the time but like...no I don’t?

Is telling the truth really that hard to do? I mean, it depends on the situation.

Is there anyone who seems to dislike you for no reason? You mean my mother?

Do you wear leggings? I do!

Have you ever been to another country? Yup!

Do you listen to music daily? For sure!

How is the weather? It’s pretty hot! It’s supposed to be hella windy this week too.

Biggest insecurity? No comment :)

Do you play video games? I have a select few I like but I wouldn’t classify myself as a gamer or anything like that.

Are you a morning or night person? Morning!

Do you like Demi Lovato? Not really, tbh! They’ve had some bops over the years but I’ve never been a fan.

How many twitter followers do you have? (if you have twitter) Almost 500 I think. I just don’t see the point of Twitter so I always forget to use it.

What are 3 things you want for Christmas? I collect vintage Coach bags so those are really all that's on my list.

Who was the last person to message you? My husband.

Have you ever had braces? I had an appliance and then an Invisalign for a while! I lucked out and didn’t need braces.

Do you consider yourself lazy? Yeah.

What recently made you laugh? My husband referred to sex as ‘McDick’s with extra mayo’ and that made me laugh for some stupid reason.

Do you like gummy bears? They’re alright!

Are you excited for anything? We’re going on a mini road trip in a couple of weeks! That’s pretty exciting.

What season does your birthday fall in? Winter.

What was the last thing you purchased online? A pair of Vans that sadly didn’t fit and I have to send back.

What was the last song you listened to? Currently listening to Glorious by Macklemore!

Do you feel awkward using public transportation? I’ve never had to!

Describe your mom with one word. I don’t even know if I could do that, man.

What's your favorite snack? Ruffles sour cream & cheddar baybeeee.

Do you like art? It depends on the artwork, tbh. I don’t get the random smears of paint that sell for millions of dollars but I do love the pieces that you can tell the artist sunk their heart and soul into and/or spent yearssss refining their skills to create.

Would you rather bake a cake or cookies? It depends! I enjoy eating the cookies more but I really enjoy the process of assembling the cake.

How long does it take you to shower? Like 10 minutes, if that.

Do you wear black lipstick? I mean, I have in the past but it’s not my favorite shade or anything like that. I’ve noticed that whenever I wear dark shades of lipstick, men come out of the woodworks to tell me I look like a femenazi. I am a feminist, but it’s just something interesting I’ve noticed!

Are you taller than 5'5? Yup, 5′11!

What's your guilty pleasure? I don’t feel guilty about pleasure.

What relieves you when you're stressed? The issue I’m stressed about being resolved.

What time is it? 12:56 pm!

Do you still watch cartoons? Usually more adult geared cartoons, but yeah!

What curse word do you use most? Fuck, goddammit, and jesus fucking christ are my go-tos.

What's your favorite thing about each season? Winter: Christmas Spring: That first day where it’s above freezing and the sun comes out and you realize that you’ve been walking around like a zombie for three months because of seasonal depression. Summer: Not having to worry about winter. Fall: Fall fashion is the best in my opinion.

Do you like dressing up? I do! It makes me feel the best about myself.

Do you like hiking? Never been but I can tell you for a fact that I would not enjoy it.

Does it snow a lot where you live? Yes, sadly.

If you were famous. what would you want to be famous for? I mean...I’m kind of internet famous. I’m a beauty/fashion/lifestyle influencer. Never ever ever thought that’s what I’d be known for.

Have you ever seen a shooting star? ...I don’t actually think so, now that I think about it.

Can you do a cartwheel? Noooo.

What's the most rebellious thing you've done? Left my parents’ religion and became a staunch, anti-religion atheist who fucks around with tarot and witchcraft.

Do you make wishes at 11:11? Every time.

Is your hair dyed? Yup, purple!

What color is your room? White!

If you could switch places with anyone, who would it be and why? Someone rich so I could wire myself some money for when we switched back, haha.

What's your dream job? I’m kinda doing it, tbh. You wouldn’t think so considering how miserable I am but this is what I always dreamed about.

Do you have a lot of freckles? Moles/beauty spots, yes!

Have you ever had stitches? Yep!

What's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you? One time when I was like 11 or 12, I was at the grocery store with my mom and she forgot to get a box of cereal so she asked me to run and grab it. I got it and as I turned to run away, I heard a box hit the floor but I didn’t bother to stop and pick it up. When I got to the end of the aisle, I looked back and there was this decrepit old man sloooowly bending down to pick the box of cereal I’d dropped up off the floor. That truly humbled me and taught me such an important lesson that I still think about now, 15ish years later.

What shoe size do you wear? 10!

What's a language you wish you knew how to speak? Spanish or French!

What's the biggest turn-off? Being a religious Republican.

What is the last picture you took of? A screenshot of something I wanted to remember later!

What annoys you the most? People who use a fake deity to justify their shitty behavior.

Do you sleep with noise or complete silence? Well it’s summer so we have a fan on but I hate having it on. The noise is super chaotic to me.

Do you procrastinate a lot? Yeah. I’m an anxious perfectionist and so I procrastinate doing things constantly, to avoid the chance of failure.

Tell me a joke. My mental health, HA.

Do you sleep with any stuffed animals? Nope!

Are you scared of any animals? I mean, wild ones that would want to eat me, yeah.

Do you like the beach? I loooove it. We live so far from any type of water tho.

What's your favorite pastime? Sewing!

Do you use emojis? Oooooh yeah.

Who is the most attractive male celebrity in your opinion? Tom Selleck when he was young.

Are you an only child? Noooope. 5 siblings total.

Apple or Android? Apple, no contest.

Have you ever been on an airplane? Yep!

Do you ever wish you lived somewhere else? Sometimes!

Have you ever met a celebrity? A few follow me on IG but I’ve never met them in person.

What's the craziest thing you've done? Packed up and flew like 2000 miles to meet a guy I met on the internet when I was 18 hahaha.

What's your favorite memory of 2015? We moved into our current apartment building!

Tea or Lemonade? Lemonade.

What's the longest you've gone without sleep? Almost 48 hours.

Say something you really want to tell someone. I just really wish my family kept me up to date on what was happening with them. I’m constantly forgotten about and it kills me every time.

What's a fashion trend you don't understand? These new all neutral matching ‘streetwear’ sets that just look like prison or gym uniforms.

What year were you born? 1994.

 What's your opinion on One Direction, or boybands in general? They get a much worse rap than they deserve. Sometimes they make good music! Who cares? Let people enjoy things.

Do you like roller coasters? Absolutely not.

Confess something. I’m terrified of the concept of getting older and dying.

What's your lucky number? 32!

When was the last time you had fast food? On Sunday I believe.

Do you get along with your parents? We tolerate each other but we don’t like each other.

Worst habit? Procrastinating.

What's your favorite word? Brobdingnagian.

[jamesstegall]

Inside the fight to reclaim AI from Big Tech’s control

Timnit Gebru never thought a scientific paper would cause her so much trouble. 

In 2020, as the co-lead of Google’s ethical AI team, Gebru had reached out to Emily Bender, a linguistics professor at the University of Washington, and asked to collaborate on research about the troubling direction of artificial intelligence. Gebru wanted to identify the risks posed by large language models, one of the most stunning recent breakthroughs in AI research. The models are algorithms trained on staggering amounts of text. Under the right conditions, they can compose what look like convincing passages of prose.

For a few years, tech companies had been racing to build bigger versions and integrate them into consumer products. Google, which invented the technique, was already using one to improve the relevance of search results. OpenAI announced the largest one, called GPT-3, in June 2020 and licensed it exclusively to Microsoft a few months later.

Gebru worried about how fast the technology was being deployed. In the paper she wound up writing with Bender and five others, she detailed the possible dangers. The models were enormously costly to create—both environmentally (they require huge amounts of computational power) and financially; they were often trained on the toxic and abusive language of the internet; and they’d come to dominate research in language AI, elbowing out promising alternatives. 

Like other existing AI techniques, the models don’t actually understand language. But because they can manipulate it to retrieve text-based information for users or generate natural conversation, they can be packaged into products and services that make tech companies lots of money.

That November, Gebru submitted the paper to a conference. Soon after, Google executives asked her to retract it, and when she refused, they fired her. Two months later, they also fired her coauthor Margaret Mitchell, the other leader of the ethical AI team.

The dismantling of that team sparked one of the largest controversies within the AI world in recent memory. Defenders of Google argued that the company has the right to supervise its own researchers. But for many others, it solidified fears about the degree of control that tech giants now have over the field. Big Tech is now the primary employer and funder of AI researchers, including, somewhat ironically, many of those who assess its social impacts.

Among the world’s richest and most powerful companies, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple have made AI core parts of their business. Advances over the last decade, particularly in an AI technique called deep learning, have allowed them to monitor users’ behavior; recommend news, information, and products to them; and most of all, target them with ads. Last year Google’s advertising apparatus generated over $140 billion in revenue. Facebook’s generated $84 billion.

The companies have invested heavily in the technology that has brought them such vast wealth. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, acquired the London-based AI lab DeepMind for $600 million in 2014 and spends hundreds of millions a year to support its research. Microsoft signed a $1 billion deal with OpenAI in 2019 for commercialization rights to its algorithms.

At the same time, tech giants have become large investors in university-based AI research, heavily influencing its scientific priorities. Over the years, more and more ambitious scientists have transitioned to working for tech giants full time or adopted a dual affiliation. From 2018 to 2019, 58% of the most cited papers at the top two AI conferences had at least one author affiliated with a tech giant, compared with only 11% a decade earlier, according to a study by researchers in the Radical AI Network, a group that seeks to challenge power dynamics in AI.

The problem is that the corporate agenda for AI has focused on techniques with commercial potential, largely ignoring research that could help address challenges like economic inequality and climate change. In fact, it has made these challenges worse. The drive to automate tasks has cost jobs and led to the rise of tedious labor like data cleaning and content moderation. The push to create ever larger models has caused AI’s energy consumption to explode. Deep learning has also created a culture in which our data is constantly scraped, often without consent, to train products like facial recognition systems. And recommendation algorithms have exacerbated political polarization, while large language models have failed to clean up misinformation. 

It’s this situation that Gebru and a growing movement of like-minded scholars want to change. Over the last five years, they’ve sought to shift the field’s priorities away from simply enriching tech companies, by expanding who gets to participate in developing the technology. Their goal is not only to mitigate the harms caused by existing systems but to create a new, more equitable and democratic AI. 

“Hello from Timnit”

In December 2015, Gebru sat down to pen an open letter. Halfway through her PhD at Stanford, she’d attended the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, the largest annual AI research gathering. Of the more than 3,700 researchers there, Gebru counted only five who were Black.

Once a small meeting about a niche academic subject, NeurIPS (as it’s now known) was quickly becoming the biggest annual AI job bonanza. The world’s wealthiest companies were coming to show off demos, throw extravagant parties, and write hefty checks for the rarest people in Silicon Valley: skillful AI researchers.

That year Elon Musk arrived to announce the nonprofit venture OpenAI. He, Y Combinator’s then president Sam Altman, and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel had put up $1 billion to solve what they believed to be an existential problem: the prospect that a superintelligence could one day take over the world. Their solution: build an even better superintelligence. Of the 14 advisors or technical team members he anointed, 11 were white men.

RICARDO SANTOS | COURTESY PHOTO

While Musk was being lionized, Gebru was dealing with humiliation and harassment. At a conference party, a group of drunk guys in Google Research T-shirts circled her and subjected her to unwanted hugs, a kiss on the cheek, and a photo.

Gebru typed out a scathing critique of what she had observed: the spectacle, the cult-like worship of AI celebrities, and most of all, the overwhelming homogeneity. This boy’s club culture, she wrote, had already pushed talented women out of the field. It was also leading the entire community toward a dangerously narrow conception of artificial intelligence and its impact on the world.

Google had already deployed a computer-vision algorithm that classified Black people as gorillas, she noted. And the increasing sophistication of unmanned drones was putting the US military on a path toward lethal autonomous weapons. But there was no mention of these issues in Musk’s grand plan to stop AI from taking over the world in some theoretical future scenario. “We don’t have to project into the future to see AI’s potential adverse effects,” Gebru wrote. “It is already happening.”

Gebru never published her reflection. But she realized that something needed to change. On January 28, 2016, she sent an email with the subject line “Hello from Timnit” to five other Black AI researchers. “I’ve always been sad by the lack of color in AI,” she wrote. “But now I have seen 5 of you

and thought that it would be cool if we started a black in AI group or at least know of each other.”

The email prompted a discussion. What was it about being Black that informed their research? For Gebru, her work was very much a product of her identity; for others, it was not. But after meeting they agreed: If AI was going to play a bigger role in society, they needed more Black researchers. Otherwise, the field would produce weaker science—and its adverse consequences could get far worse.

A profit-driven agenda

As Black in AI was just beginning to coalesce, AI was hitting its commercial stride. That year, 2016, tech giants spent an estimated $20 to $30 billion on developing the technology, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Heated by corporate investment, the field warped. Thousands more researchers began studying AI, but they mostly wanted to work on deep-learning algorithms, such as the ones behind large language models. “As a young PhD student who wants to get a job at a tech company, you realize that tech companies are all about deep learning,” says Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a computer science professor who now serves at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “So you shift all your research to deep learning. Then the next PhD student coming in looks around and says, ‘Everyone’s doing deep learning. I should probably do it too.’”

But deep learning isn’t the only technique in the field. Before its boom, there was a different AI approach known as symbolic reasoning. Whereas deep learning uses massive amounts of data to teach algorithms about meaningful relationships in information, symbolic reasoning focuses on explicitly encoding knowledge and logic based on human expertise. 

Some researchers now believe those techniques should be combined. The hybrid approach would make AI more efficient in its use of data and energy, and give it the knowledge and reasoning abilities of an expert as well as the capacity to update itself with new information. But companies have little incentive to explore alternative approaches when the surest way to maximize their profits is to build ever bigger models. 

In their paper, Gebru and Bender alluded to a basic cost of this tendency to stick with deep learning: the more advanced AI systems we need are not being developed, and similar problems keep recurring. Facebook, for example, relies heavily on large language models for automated content moderation. But without really understanding the meaning behind text, those models often fail. They regularly take down innocuous posts while giving hate speech and misinformation a pass.

AI-based facial recognition systems suffer from the same issue. They’re trained on massive amounts of data but see only pixel patterns—they do not have a grasp of visual concepts like eyes, mouths, and noses. That can trip these systems up when they’re used on individuals with a different skin tone from the people they were shown during training. Nonetheless, Amazon and other companies have sold these systems to law enforcement. In the US, they have caused three known cases of police jailing the wrong person—all Black men—in the last year.

For years, many in the AI community largely acquiesced to Big Tech’s role in shaping the development and impact of these technologies. While some expressed discomfort with the corporate takeover, many more welcomed the industry’s deep well of funding. 

But as the shortcomings of today’s AI have become more evident—both its failure to solve social problems and the mounting examples that it can exacerbate them—faith in Big Tech has weakened. Google’s ousting of Gebru and Mitchell further stoked the discussion by revealing just how much companies will prioritize profit over self-policing.

In the immediate aftermath, over 2,600 Google employees and 4,300 others signed a petition denouncing Gebru’s dismissal as “unprecedented research censorship.” Half a year later, research groups are still rejecting the company’s funding, researchers refuse to participate in its conference workshops, and employees are leaving in protest.

Unlike five years ago, when Gebru began raising these questions, there’s now a well-established movement questioning what AI should be and who it should serve. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s very much a product of Gebru’s own initiative, which began with the simple act of inviting more Black researchers into the field.

It takes a conference

In December 2017, the new Black in AI group hosted its first workshop at NeurIPS. While organizing the workshop, Gebru approached Joy Buolamwini, an MIT Media Lab researcher who was studying commercial facial recognition systems for possible bias. Buolamwini had begun testing these systems after one failed to detect her own face unless she donned a white mask. She submitted her preliminary results to the workshop.

Deborah Raji, then an undergraduate researcher, was another early participant. Raji was appalled by the culture she’d observed at NeurIPS. The workshop became her respite. “To go from four or five days of that to a full day of people that look like me talking about succeeding in this space—it was such important encouragement for me,” she says.

Buolamwini, Raji, and Gebru would go on to work together on a pair of groundbreaking studies about discriminatory computer-vision systems. Buolamwini and Gebru coauthored Gender Shades, which showed that the facial recognition systems sold by Microsoft, IBM, and Chinese tech giant Megvii had remarkably high failure rates on Black women despite near-perfect performance on white men. Raji and Buolamwini then collaborated on a follow-up called Actionable Auditing, which found the same to be true for Amazon’s Rekognition. In 2020, Amazon would agree to a one-year moratorium on police sales of its product, in part because of that work.

At the very first Black in AI workshop, though, these successes were distant possibilities. There was no agenda other than to build community and produce research based on their sorely lacking perspectives. Many onlookers didn’t understand why such a group needed to exist. Gebru remembers dismissive comments from some in the AI community. But for others, Black in AI pointed a new way forward.

This was true for William Agnew and Raphael Gontijo Lopes, both queer men conducting research in computer science, who realized they could form a Queer in AI group. (Other groups that took shape include Latinx in AI, {Dis}Ability in AI, and Muslim in ML.) For Agnew, in particular, having such a community felt like an urgent need. “It was hard to even imagine myself having a happy life,” he says, reflecting on the lack of queer role models in the field. “There’s Turing, but he committed suicide. So that’s depressing. And the queer part of him is just ignored.”

Not all affinity group members see a connection between their identity and their research. Still, each group has established particular expertise. Black in AI has become the intellectual center for exposing algorithmic discrimination, critiquing surveillance, and developing data-efficient AI techniques. Queer in AI has become a center for contesting the ways algorithms infringe on people’s privacy and classify them into bounded categories by default.

Venkatasubramanian and Gebru also helped create the Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) conference to create a forum for research on the social and political implications of AI. Ideas and draft papers discussed at NeurIPS affinity group workshops often become the basis for papers published at FAccT, which then showcases that research to broader audiences.

It was after Buolamwini presented at the first Black in AI workshop, for example, that FAccT published Gender Shades. Along with Actionable Auditing, it then fueled several major education and advocacy campaigns to limit government use of facial recognition. When Amazon attempted to undermine the legitimacy of Buolamwini’s and Raji’s research, dozens of AI researchers and civil society organizations banded together to defend them, foreshadowing what they would later do for Gebru. Those efforts eventually contributed to Amazon’s moratorium, which in May the company announced it would extend indefinitely.

The research also set off a cascade of regulation. More than a dozen cities have banned police use of facial recognition, and Massachusetts now requires police to get a judge’s permission to use it. Both the US and the European Commission have proposed additional regulation.

“First we had to just be there,” says Gebru. “And at some point, what Black in AI says starts to become important. And what all of these groups together say becomes important. You have to listen to us now.”

Follow the money

After Gebru and Mitchell’s firing, the field is grappling anew with an age-old question: Is it possible to change the status quo while working from within? Gebru still believes working with tech giants is the best way to identify the problems. But she also believes that corporate researchers need stronger legal protections. If they see risky practices, they should be able to publicly share their observations without jeopardizing their careers.

Then there’s the question of funding. Many researchers want more investment from the US government to support work that is critical of commercial AI development and advances the public welfare. Last year, it committed a measly $1 billion to non-defense-related AI research. The Biden administration is now asking Congress to invest an additional $180 billion in emerging technologies, with AI as a top priority.

Such funding could help people like Rediet Abebe, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Abebe came into AI with ideas of using it to advance social equity. But when she started her PhD at Cornell, no one was focused on doing such research. 

In the fall of 2016, as a PhD student, she began a small Cornell reading group with a fellow graduate student to study topics like housing instability, health-care access, and inequality. She then embarked on a new project to see whether her computational skills could support efforts to alleviate poverty.

Eventually, she found the Poverty Tracker study, a detailed data set on the financial shocks—unexpected expenses like medical bills or parking tickets—experienced by more than 2,000 New York families. Over many conversations with the study’s authors, social workers, and nonprofits serving marginalized communities, she learned about their needs and told them how she could help. Abebe then developed a model that showed how the frequency and type of shocks affected a family’s economic status. 

Five years later, the project is still ongoing. She’s now collaborating with nonprofits to improve her model and working with policymakers through the California Policy Lab to use it as a tool for preventing homelessness. Her reading group has also since grown into a 2,000-person community and is holding its inaugural conference later this year. 

Abebe sees it as a way to incentivize more researchers to flip the norms of AI. While traditional computer science conferences emphasize advancing computational techniques for the sake of doing so, the new one will publish work that first seeks to deeply understand a social issue. The work is no less technical, but it builds the foundation for more socially meaningful AI to emerge. 

“These changes that we’re fighting for—it’s not just for marginalized groups,” she says. “It’s actually for everyone.”

from MIT Technology Review https://ift.tt/3vgRXl2 via IFTTT

[thisdaynews]

Breaking News: Launch abort? Trump tries to get his 'Space Force' off the ground, but not everyone is on board

New Post has been published on https://www.thisdaynews.net/2018/05/22/breaking-news-launch-abort-trump-tries-to-get-his-space-force-off-the-ground-but-not-everyone-is-on-board/

Breaking News: Launch abort? Trump tries to get his 'Space Force' off the ground, but not everyone is on board

In a ceremony earlier this month honoring the Army football team, President Trump took a rhetorical detour to the military’s potential future in outer space.

“You will be part of the five proud branches of the United States Armed Forces: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and the Coast Guard,” Trump said. “And we’re actually thinking of a sixth, and that would be the Space Force. Does that make sense? Because we’re getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons. And we are seriously thinking of the Space Force.”

It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned the idea, which he first broached while speaking to Marines in California in March.

“You know, I was saying the other day because we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space, maybe we need a new force,” Trump said. “We’ll call it the Space Force. And I was not really serious, and then I thought, ‘Maybe that’s a great idea. Maybe we’ll have to do that.’ ”

As Trump’s offhand comments implied, there is no official plan for something called “Space Force,” and there is opposition within the administration itself, including from Defense Secretary James Mattis. But the idea is popular with some in Congress. While the Air Force has had a Space Command division since 1982, some legislators and analysts believe the military needs a new branch devoted to warfare beyond the atmosphere.

The immediate future of space combat will almost certainly be less romantic than it sounds, less about X-wing vs. TIE fighter dogfights between rocket-jockey pilots than about protecting America’s military satellites in orbit and incapacitating an enemy’s. Satellites are expensive but critical to the U.S. effort, providing GPS, reconnaissance, communications and early detection of missile launches. But they’re also difficult to maneuver, almost impossible to repair and would likely become key targets in any future war. A 2000 report assessing the country’s space capabilities warned of the danger of a potential “Pearl Harbor in space.”

The race to find a technology to destroy satellites started shortly after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I in 1957, raising fears of a nuclear attack from space. Over the ensuing decades the military researched various approaches, including a 1985 test in which the Air Force shot an American satellite out of the sky with a missile from an F-15 fighter plane.

The USS Lake Erie launches a missile at a nonfunctioning satellite as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph over the Pacific Ocean in February 2008. (Photo: U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

The anti-satellite arms race hasn’t slowed since. In 2007, the Chinese successfully tested a surface-to-space guided missile, destroying one of their own weather satellites, alarming the Pentagon. The following year the American military showed a similar capability, modifying a missile from the USS Lake Erie to take out an inoperable spy satellite in a decaying orbit. Officials said they were concerned that the toxic chemicals in the satellite’s fuel tank could survive reentry and present a danger on the ground.

These tests leave debris in space, making it more difficult to find room for additional satellites and occasionally threatening the International Space Station. If a number of satellites were destroyed in a conflict, the resulting debris would make space difficult for anyone to use for any purpose, be it government or commercial.

But a missile strike isn’t the only way to take out a potential adversary’s space capabilities. Intelligence officials have raised the possibility of jamming transmissions or using a laser to temporarily dazzle or permanently blind reconnaissance satellites, burning out sensitive optical sensors. Earlier this year an anonymous Russian official said the country had developed a plane with a laser system on top capable of blinding enemy satellites, a potential danger described by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats in 2017 Senate testimony.

What are some potential counters? One suggestion is simply to put up more and smaller satellites, decentralizing the network and making it more likely that a country’s imaging capabilities would slowly fade rather than go blind. Other possibilities include a movable shutter on the satellite lens to protect it from a laser attack, and additional shielding and maneuverability.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. (Photos: Zach Gibson/AP,  Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the battle is taking place in Congress. The most recent skirmish was over last year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., senior members of the House Armed Services Committee, included language that would have mandated the Air Force to create a United States Space Corps. It would constitute a separate wing of the military that would function the way the Marines operate within the Navy but with its own seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The congressmen believe the Air Force has been negligent in modernizing its space capability, raiding funds allocated to Space Command to pay for cost overruns in other projects.

Analysts said the new focus is needed because America’s rivals in space are catching up.

“It’s easy to just delay space programs and not give them the funding increases that were planned in future years,” said Todd Harrison, a director and aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “and the military’s been able to do that for many years because we haven’t really been matched in space. There weren’t a lot of countries that could put our systems at risk, and now that’s changed. There are an increasing number of countries that can hold our space systems at risk, so we’ve got to change the culture and mindset within the military [so] that this needs to be a higher priority.”

Rogers and Cooper’s amendment passed the House but failed in the Senate. It was opposed by Mattis, who said he shared concerns about the Department of Defense’s space capabilities but wanted to maintain the current structure. In a letter to Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, provided by Turner’s office, Mattis wrote: “At a time when we are trying to integrate the Department’s joint warfighting functions, I do not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations.”

Air Force brass Heather Wilson, center, and Gen. David L. Goldfein, right, prepare for a hearing on on the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2018 and the Future Years Defense Program in June 2017. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

At the urging of Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson and others at the Pentagon, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., stripped the Space Corps language from the NDAA. Brian Weeden, a former officer in Space Command who is now a director at the Secure World Foundation, told Yahoo News the Air Force was engaging in some old-fashioned bureaucratic maneuvering.

“If the space mission goes somewhere else, that means the Air Force loses X billion of dollars from their budget and presumably somewhere around 40,000 people from their personnel list,” said Weeden. “And in bureaucracies, budget and people are power.”

The final version of the NDAA did include a few concessions to those pushing for the creation of a Space Corps. There were management and procedural changes meant to streamline the existing space programs and language calling for a study on the creation of a separate branch, which an official recently said would be done by August.

“The Air Force will no longer be able to treat space as a third-order priority after fighter jets and bombers,” said Rogers and Cooper in a joint statement after the NDAA passed in December with the revised language.

Thisday News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty

The United Nations attempted to address some space war concerns in 1967 when it urged members to sign on to an agreement known as the Outer Space Treaty. The treaty addressed a wide array of issues, including everything from classifying astronauts as “envoys of mankind” to banning the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit, on the moon or other “celestial bodies.” The treaty states that space should be used for “peaceful purposes,” but peaceful doesn’t necessarily mean nonmilitary; in terms of the treaty, it means nonaggressive in space. Satellites collecting intelligence, handling communications and guiding terrestrial weapons with their GPS have come to be allowed, but under the treaty no country can fire satellite-to-satellite or engage in space-to-surface warfare.

As legislators and administrators debate the space division’s structure and budget, preparations for a future space conflict continue. Space Command officials have set up virtual reality simulations for satellite technicians to practice their response if there were attacks on the U.S. network, an attempt by the Air Force to instill a “war fighting mentality” in veteran space operators. There are also the annual Schriever War Games, an exercise set a decade in the future that attempts to predict the evolution of space-based combat. And while the technological focus is mainly based around satellites, there are a few more fantastical advances, such as a potential new fighter-based laser weapon system, like the one Lockheed Martin was contracted to develop last year, and the X-37B, an unmanned spaceplane capable of flights lasting two years that has been partaking in a series of classified missions and experiments.

Whether under the rubric of a “Space Force” or the existing Air Force Space Command, it seems certain that the militarization of space will continue.

[l-in-c-future]

Some interesting observations:

1. Research on American’s changing religious identity and landscape focus on white Christians. But from a Christianity’s perspective of the Bible, the Lord’s kingdom is NOT and NEVER to be white only. 

1a. Even some researches extend to non-white population, they only sub-classify black, Hispanic and treat the rest as “others”, including Asians and Pacific Islanders. The problem is the “others” is the rising trend of migration, so a narrowly divided subcategories may miss out the whole picture in America as well as in the world because the fastest growing Christianity population is for long NOT in the West.

2. How “de-Christianization” is America?

It is more on the white Christians. Having a closer look of the generation shift chart, I re-group all Christians affiliations other than Mormon (I don’t want to go into length of debating theologically why Mormon is NOT part of Christianity and some argue that it is a cult of Christianity here), the whole picture of ALL Christianity affiliation including Catholics in America is:

18-30: 51% 

30-49: 63%

50-64  74%

65+     77%

Overall, it is not really that much “de-Christianization” in America as one normally takes a surface view! The most rapid de-Christianization is happening  among the White Americans, true, as the findings of this article was consistent with other researches. But other than that, the overall Christianity population is still very stable across all age groups.

While the under 30 group shows more non-religious affiliation, likely cause by decreasing birth rates but the faster drop in fertility rate among the more highly educated and high income White households is the driving force of decline in White population of Christianity, if one correlates the findings in this article.

3. How ‘evangelical’ is really evangelical? 

The definition adopted in the article is a Christian identified himself/herself as evangelical or born again. 

The former is meaningless in practical sense from a evangelism perspective because the Command of the Great Commission of Christ is to ALL His disciples regardless of denominations. In practical sense, evangelism comes in many forms. From the Bible’s narratives, a believer of Christ who shares and testifies Jesus is already sharing the gospel, whether in actions, words and deeds. (Full of examples in the 4 gospels and NT illustrating how different people testified Christ, as simple as telling everyone what Jesus did to him, her, them from a healing miracle or as sophisticated as the Apostle Paul’s sermons and the other Apostles detail teachings documented the NT letters to various churches.) Therefore, evangelism is NOT about evangelical denomination and the various doctrines and dogmas within each evangelical sub-branches. 

The second definition embraces EVERYBODY who receives Jesus because HE said that whoever believes Him is a new born person through the baptism of the Holy Spirit and water. How does one know whether a person is reborn? The Bible said the fruits of the Holy Spirit can be seen in a believer’s life. 

Therefore, the definition is totally unhelpful in the sense that it added no further value to discern ‘evangelical’ Christians. 

I believe the authors meant to refer to the Evangelical Churches, may be specifically those evangelical churches having a large percentage of white Americans in mind (judging from the context of the article) but as said, Evangelical churches are not to be mixed up with the basic biblical concepts. They are one of the Christianity affiliations only. Just like one can’t label and equal all Buddhism, Muslim and Hindus under as homogeneous because they are NOT other than broadly speaking ALL Buddhists broadly believe the Buddha; ALL Muslims believe in Allah and the Prophet; and ALL Hindus will have Siva as one of the most highest supreme deities above other  poly deities but they are NEVER just one branch. The complexity is the mother languages of many Christianity churches sit in places where “Allah” means the Almighty God and the Almighty God is the God who identifies Himself in the Bible. At least I have sung numerous hymns with these Christians when clearly the lyrics word “Allah” is referring to the God of the Holy Bible. Sadly, prejudice and ignorance of many other Christians (white or not; religious or not) just demonize the name “Allah”. If you read any non English translation of Bible, there are similarities. Such as the Chinese Bibles refers God as the “Heaven King” (Shuangdi); “Heavenly Father” (similar to English versions) but all refer to Jesus as Yehsua (strict adoption of the pronunciation from the Jewish name of Christ).

From an evangelism perspective, increase in non-White Christian population, not just in America, is a MUST out of the Great Commission, it should be viewed as positive fruit.

4. The toxic marriage of the white Evangelical churches and GOP, though dwarfing in population percentage, they are the key political and religious constituent for GOP and many of them are the most powerful and the richest few percentage of the American society. 

The danger is they are getting more and more out of touch with the main social, economic and demographic reality of America. This is the most threatening aspect for the future of American society. A branch of church being disconnection to the real world risks spiritually death from a Church Reformation perspective. (Just like the Catholic Church in Martin Luther’s era). Disconnection to the reality will create a political cliff because GOP is on the losing track and majority support in an increasing diversify America. As the analysis of the article suggested that Democrat Party is more appealing to voters from a much broader base: age groups, religious or no religion belief, high and low education, income and ethnic backgrounds. Sound governments that gain majority support of their policies never come from disconnection with the society.

For many White evangelical churches in America, they become the rule of gerontocracy, lethally exacerbated when politically married to the GOP.  These toxic impacts fully manifested through Trump’s administration.

Think about the D Trump, despite whatever he holds out himself rhetorically citing “God”, he is one of the out of touch groups and he appeals to the most conservative religious groups (old but rich Jews and white conservative Evangelicals) for his controversial policies that often makes the rest of the world hair splits.

 5. How reform is a ‘reformed’ believer? The article mentioned an interesting aspect of the Jewish identity. Older generation associates the Jewish identity as both culturally and religiously but the young generation is more likely to associate their Jewish blood as cultural only. For those younger Jews who identify themselves with religious context, they associate with reform. 

In the history of  Christianity, ALL churches other than the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are fruits of Martin Luther’s Church Reformation despite whether they are the Reform Church denominations. How about Judaism? Does the ‘reform’ identity seen by the younger Jews imply there has been (or should be) some reform in Judaism as well?  What is the ‘reform’? Or they just mean they affiliate themselves with any of the Christianity Protestant Church denominations? Or they means political reform to the view of Zionism (that read by me is the higher chance of differences between the older generation who recognize their Jewish identity both religiously and culturally)? Not within the scope of the article to explore deeper.

6. Why lower income and older White people have higher tendency to have religious belief? 

Helplessness is a good pulling factor to seek salvation from a higher source when the existing social institutions do not give poor, marginalized and disadvantaged citizens hope and fair chance for upward social mobility.

 As a person ages and walks closer end of journey of life, they often find themselves living in various form of isolation whether it is caused by the passing of spouses, partners, peer group friends and decline in health. The need of hope, love, caring, comfort, joy and strength to live and the desire to explore life after death becomes a key motivator for seeking out religion. 

[thedeadshotnetwork]

Major Tech Companies Have Stopped Fighting an Internet Sex Trafficking Bill On Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation approved the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) after weeks of back and forth with major tech companies like Google and Facebook over the language used in the bill. SESTA will now head to the Senate for consideration. The passage of SESTA would overhaul Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a piece of legislation from the 90s that protects web service providers from legal culpability for what users post on their site. The new legislation adds an exception to Section 230 that would hold platforms liable for ads and content that facilitate sex trafficking. SESTA’s introduction to the Senate in August caused a fracas in the tech world: Digital rights advocates claimed it promotes censorship, but lawmakers see it as a way to hold internet companies accountable for what occurs on their platforms. “The original meaning of Section 230 has been turned on its head,” David Golumbia, an associate professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of The Cultural Logic of Computation , told me in an email. “Google, Facebook, and its digital rights advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) objected so strongly to this effort because they rely on Section 230 to make these companies unlike any companies that have ever existed before: media companies in every way, but unaccountable as media companies always have been.” The issue of whether a web platform is legally responsible for user-generated content has risen to prominence in US politics following a string of lawsuits alleging that backpage.com, a site for classified ads, plays a prominent role in facilitating the sex trafficking of minors. Backpage.com was protected in these cases by freedom-of-speech appeals and by Section 230. In each of these cases, judges ruled that categorically outlawing escort ads violated the First Amendment or placed an “ impossible burden ” on websites like backpage.com to review their millions of postings. SESTA aims to add an exception for sex trafficking to Section 230 protections for websites that host user-generated content. This would effectively require online service providers to self-police their platforms for content and advertisements that facilitate sex with minors. In this respect it is less extreme than other sex trafficking prevention legislation, such as a number of state bills floated last year that aimed to classify all internet connected devices as “ porn vending machines .” Since its introduction to the Senate committee in early August, SESTA drew the ire of major Silicon Valley companies like Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and Google , as well as digital rights groups like the EFF. Until recently, these tech companies fought the bill under the umbrella of the Internet Association , a lobbying organization formed in 2012. They argued that the bill would significantly hurt their business models by requiring these new policing measures, as well as expose them to far more legal actions. According to Axios , Google lobbied especially hard for changes to the bill, including a provision that would have required the Justice Department to sign off on legal actions brought against sites that violated the law. This proposed change was rejected by the bill’s sponsors on the grounds that it would significantly weaken its effectiveness. Earlier this month, however, the Internet Association reached a “ compromise ” with lawmakers after they made what the association’s president Michael Beckerman called “ important changes ” to the bill. In the days leading up to the Senate commerce committee’s vote on the bill, the Internet Association reversed its position and threw its support behind the legislation . According to an Internet Association spokesperson, one of the key changes that swayed the association was a clause that determined whether or not a company knowingly facilitated sex trafficking on its site. The change made it so that the development of bots and other automated tools to look for sex traffickers on a web platform wouldn’t be seen as the platform owner knowing that its platform is used for sex trafficking. This would’ve made the development of these automated tools punishable for facilitating sex trafficking on the site, even though they were made for the exact opposite purpose. Despite the Internet Association’s recent support for SESTA and the Senate commerce committee’s adoption of the bill, digital rights groups are far from satisfied. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said SESTA was “ still an awful bill ” and signed a letter to the Senate commerce committee along with other digital rights groups like Engine and the Center for Technology and Democracy. Due to the scale of many web platforms like Google, Facebook or Twitter, compliance with SESTA would almost certainly require automation to filter out content that facilitates sex trafficking. According to Elliot Harmon, a staff activist at the EFF, technology that can do this perfectly, or even efficiently, doesn’t exist, and given the high stakes involved it is unlikely that a company would trust its filters to work perfectly every time. He pointed to the recent “ sentiment analyzer ” released by Google, which would flag phrases like 'I'm a homosexual' as toxic, as an example of how far web filtering technology has to go. “It’s not to say that automated filters are useless,” Harmon told me on the phone. “They are useful as an aid to human moderation, but they are not effective as a replacement for that human moderation element.” Read More: Google’s Sentiment Analyzer Thinks Being Gay is Bad This means that these web companies are more likely to err on the side of caution and over-police their platforms and censor content that has nothing to do with facilitating sex trafficking, he said. Harmon said that one of the most likely causalities of these less-than-perfect automated systems are likely to be sex trafficking victims themselves, whose voices will be silenced if they try to tell their story or seek help. “Lawmakers believe they can generate advancements in technology by passing laws that require those advancements in technology, like they’ll come about if only the nerds worked harder,” Harmon said. The EFF claims SESTA will especially harm smaller web companies and nonprofit organizations like Wikipedia or the Internet Archive, which don’t have the resources to effectively police their platforms like Google and other tech giants. They claim this will result in a disproportionate amount of censorship on smaller platforms in an effort to comply with the law. Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal at +19284875164, OTR chat at doberhaus@jabber.ccc.de , or email daniel.oberhaus@vice.com The EFF and many other digital rights groups argue that the protections afforded to web platforms by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are a major part of what has allowed the internet to grow and innovate over the years . “Section 230 was introduced in the first place because courts were treating platforms that tried to moderate their users differently and held them responsible for the bad content that slips through,” Harmon said. “What you lose when you weaken 230 is the safety and incentive to create a filter that both loses bad content and keeps legitimate content.” Golumbia and other supporters of SESTA, on the other hand, think the Communications Decency Act has strayed far from its original purpose and is ready for an update. “We are not talking censorship, we are talking the prosecution of people for abetting the vicious crime of human trafficking,” Golumbia, who advocates against code as a form of speech , told me. “Every other kind of media is held liable for participating in crimes like this, and we don't call it "censorship." [But] the EFF has redefined "speech" so that it now means the total operation of digital tech companies.” SESTA comes at a time when the influence of tech companies on public life is felt stronger than ever and the debate over the limits of free speech are at the forefront of American politics. The bill must now pass a vote in the Senate and House of Representatives before it becomes law, but regardless of whether it is adopted, it will be a landmark event in the history of the internet. November 10, 2017 at 09:03AM