How Generative AI Content Could Influence the U.S. Election

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Valerie Wirtschafter: “…The contested nature of the presidential race means such efforts will undoubtedly continue, but they likely will remain discoverable, and their reach and ability to shape election outcomes will be minimal. Instead, the most meaningful uses of generative AI content could occur in highly targeted scenarios just prior to the election and/or in a contentious post-election environment where experience has demonstrated that potential “evidence” of malfeasance need not be true to mobilize a small subset of believers to act.

Because U.S. elections are managed at the state and county levels, low-level actors in some swing precincts or counties are catapulted to the national spotlight every four years. Since these actors are not well known to the public, targeted and personal AI-generated content can cause significant harm. Before the election, this type of fabricated content could take the form of a last-minute phone call by someone claiming to be election worker alerting voters to an issue at their polling place.

After the election, it could become harassment of election officials or “evidence” of foul play. Due to the localized and personalized nature of this type of effort, it could be less rapidly discoverable for unknown figures not regularly in the public eye, difficult to debunk or prevent with existing tools and guardrails, and damaging to reputations. This tailored approach need not be driven by domestic actors—in fact, in the lead up to the 2020 elections, Iranian actors pretended to be members of the Proud Boys and sent threatening emails to Democratic voters in select states demanding they vote for Donald Trump. Although election officials have worked tirelessly to brace for this possibility, they are correct to be on guard…(More)”

Science Diplomacy and the Rise of Technopoles

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman: “…Science diplomacy has an important, even existential imperative to help the world reconsider the necessity of working together toward big global goals. Climate change may be the most obvious example of where global action is needed, but many other issues have similar characteristics—deep ocean resources, space, and other ungoverned areas, to name a few.

However, taking up this mantle requires acknowledging why past efforts have failed to meet their goals. The global commitment to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is an example. Weaknesses in the UN system, compounded by varied commitments from member states, will prevent the achievement of the SDGs by 2030. This year’s UN Summit of the Future is intended to reboot the global commitment to the sustainability agenda. Regardless of what type of agreement is signed at the summit, its impact may be limited.  

Science diplomacy has an important, even existential imperative to help the world reconsider the necessity of working together toward big global goals.

The science community must play an active part in ensuring progress is in fact made, but that will require an expansion of the community’s current role. To understand what this might mean, consider that the Pact for the Future agreed in New York City in September 2024 places “science, technology, and innovation” as one of its five themes. But that becomes actionable either in the narrow sense that technology will provide “answers” to global problems or in the platitudinous sense that science provides advice that is not acted upon. This dichotomy of unacceptable approaches has long bedeviled science’s influence.

For the world to make better use of science, science must take on an expanded responsibility in solving problems at both global and local scales. And science itself must become part of a toolkit—both at the practical and the diplomatic level—to address the sorts of challenges the world will face in the future. To make this happen, more countries must make science diplomacy a core part of their agenda by embedding science advisors within foreign ministries, connecting diplomats to science communities.

As the pace of technological change generates both existential risk and economic, environmental, and social opportunities, science diplomacy has a vital task in balancing outcomes for the benefit of more people. It can also bring the science community (including the social sciences and humanities) to play a critical role alongside nation states. And, as new technological developments enable nonstate actors, and especially the private sector, science diplomacy has an important role to play in helping nation states develop policy that can identify common solutions and engage key partners…(More)”.

As AI-powered health care expands, experts warn of biases

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Marta Biino: “Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence research laboratory and German pharma company BioNTech are both building AI-powered lab assistants to help scientists conduct experiments and perform tasks, the Financial Times reported.

It’s the latest example of how developments in artificial intelligence are revolutionizing a number of fields, including medicine. While AI has long been used in radiology, for image analysis, or oncology to classify skin lesions for example, as the technology continues to advance its applications are growing.

OpenAI’s GPT models have outperformed humans in making cancer diagnoses based on MRI reports and beat PhD-holders in standardized science tests, to name a few.

However, as AI’s use in health care expands, some fear the notoriously biased technology could carry negative repercussions for patients…(More)”.

How The New York Times incorporates editorial judgment in algorithms to curate its home page

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Zhen Yang: “Whether on the web or the app, the home page of The New York Times is a crucial gateway, setting the stage for readers’ experiences and guiding them to the most important news of the day. The Times publishes over 250 stories daily, far more than the 50 to 60 stories that can be featured on the home page at a given time. Traditionally, editors have manually selected and programmed which stories appear, when and where, multiple times daily. This manual process presents challenges:

  • How can we provide readers a relevant, useful, and fresh experience each time they visit the home page?
  • How can we make our editorial curation process more efficient and scalable?
  • How do we maximize the reach of each story and expose more stories to our readers?

To address these challenges, the Times has been actively developing and testing editorially driven algorithms to assist in curating home page content. These algorithms are editorially driven in that a human editor’s judgment or input is incorporated into every aspect of the algorithm — including deciding where on the home page the stories are placed, informing the rankings, and potentially influencing and overriding algorithmic outputs when necessary. From the get-go, we’ve designed algorithmic programming to elevate human curation, not to replace it…

The Times began using algorithms for content recommendations in 2011 but only recently started applying them to home page modules. For years, we only had one algorithmically-powered module, “Smarter Living,” on the home page, and later, “Popular in The Times.” Both were positioned relatively low on the page.

Three years ago, the formation of a cross-functional team — including newsroom editors, product managers, data scientists, data analysts, and engineers — brought the momentum needed to advance our responsible use of algorithms. Today, nearly half of the home page is programmed with assistance from algorithms that help promote news, features, and sub-brand content, such as The Athletic and Wirecutter. Some of these modules, such as the features module located at the top right of the home page on the web version, are in highly visible locations. During major news moments, editors can also deploy algorithmic modules to display additional coverage to complement a main module of stories near the top of the page. (The topmost news package of Figure 1 is an example of this in action.)…(More)”

How is editorial judgment incorporated into algorithmic programming?

Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta’s Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Joseph Cox: “A pair of students at Harvard have built what big tech companies refused to release publicly due to the overwhelming risks and danger involved: smart glasses with facial recognition technology that automatically looks up someone’s face and identifies them. The students have gone a step further too. Their customized glasses also pull other information about their subject from around the web, including their home address, phone number, and family members. 

The project is designed to raise awareness of what is possible with this technology, and the pair are not releasing their code, AnhPhu Nguyen, one of the creators, told 404 Media. But the experiment, tested in some cases on unsuspecting people in the real world according to a demo video, still shows the razor thin line between a world in which people can move around with relative anonymity, to one where your identity and personal information can be pulled up in an instant by strangers.

Nguyen and co-creator Caine Ardayfio call the project I-XRAY. It uses a pair of Meta’s commercially available Ray Ban smart glasses, and allows a user to “just go from face to name,” Nguyen said…(More)”.

From Bits to Biology: A New Era of Biological Renaissance powered by AI

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Milad Alucozai: “…A new wave of platforms is emerging to address these limitations. Designed with the modern scientist in mind, these platforms prioritize intuitive interfaces, enabling researchers with diverse computational backgrounds to easily navigate and analyze data. They emphasize collaboration, allowing teams to share data and insights seamlessly. And they increasingly incorporate artificial intelligence, offering powerful tools for accelerating analysis and discovery. This shift marks a move towards more user-centric, efficient, and collaborative computational biology, empowering researchers to tackle increasingly complex biological questions. 

Emerging Platforms: 

  • Seqera Labs: Spearheading a movement towards efficient and reproducible research, Seqera Labs provides a suite of tools, including the popular open-source workflow language Nextflow. Their platform empowers researchers to design scalable and reproducible data analysis pipelines, particularly for cloud environments. Seqera streamlines complex computational workflows across diverse biological disciplines by emphasizing automation and flexibility, making data-intensive research scalable, flexible, and collaborative. 
  • Form Bio: Aimed at democratizing access to computational biology, Form Bio provides a comprehensive tech suite built to enable accelerated cell and gene therapy development and computational biology at scale. Its emphasis on collaboration and intuitive design fosters a more inclusive research environment to help organizations streamline therapeutic development and reduce time-to-market.  
  • Code Ocean: Addressing the critical need for reproducibility in research, Code Ocean provides a unique platform for sharing and executing research code, data, and computational environments. By encapsulating these elements in a portable and reproducible format, Code Ocean promotes transparency and facilitates the reuse of research methods, ultimately accelerating scientific discovery. 
  • Pluto Biosciences: Championing a collaborative approach to biological discovery, Pluto Biosciences offers an interactive platform for visualizing and analyzing complex biological data. Its intuitive tools empower researchers to explore data, generate insights, and seamlessly share findings with collaborators. This fosters a more dynamic and interactive research process, facilitating knowledge sharing and accelerating breakthroughs. 

 Open Source Platform: 

  • Galaxy: A widely used open-source platform for bioinformatics analysis. It provides a user-friendly web interface and a vast collection of tools for various tasks, from sequence analysis to data visualization. Its open-source nature fosters community development and customization, making it a versatile tool for diverse research needs. 
  • Bioconductor is a prominent open-source platform for bioinformatics analysis, akin to Galaxy’s commitment to accessibility and community-driven development. It leverages the power of the R programming language, providing a wealth of packages for tasks ranging from genomic data analysis to statistical modeling. Its open-source nature fosters a collaborative environment where researchers can freely access, utilize, and contribute to a growing collection of tools…(More)”

‘Evidence banks’ can drive better decisions in public life

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Anjana Ahuja: “Modern life is full of urgent questions to which governments should be seeking answers. Does working from home — WFH — damage productivity? Do LTNs (low-traffic neighbourhoods) cut air pollution? Are policy ideas that can be summed up in three-letter acronyms more palatable to the public than those, say Ulez, requiring four? 

That last one is tongue-in-cheek — but the point stands. While clinical trials can tell us reasonably confidently whether a drug or treatment works, a similar culture of evaluation is generally lacking for other types of intervention, such as crime prevention. Now research funders are stepping into the gap to build “evidence banks” or evidence syntheses: globally accessible one-stop shops for assessing the weight of evidence on a particular topic.

Last month, the Economic and Social Research Council, together with the Wellcome Trust, pledged a total of around £54mn to develop a database and tools that can collate and make sense of evidence in complex areas like climate change and healthy ageing. The announcement, Nature reports, was timed to coincide with the UN Summit of the Future, a conference in New York geared to improving the world for future generations.

Go-to repositories of good quality information that can feed the policy machine are essential. They normalise the role of robust evidence in public life. This matters: the policy pipeline has too often lacked due diligence. That can mean public money being squandered on ineffective wheezes, or worse.

Take Scared Straight, a crime prevention scheme originating in the US around 40 years ago and adopted in the UK. It was designed to keep teens on the straight and narrow by introducing them to prisoners. Those dalliances with delinquents were counterproductive. A review showed that children taking part were more likely to end up committing crimes than those who did not participate in the scheme…(More)”.

Challenging the neutrality myth in climate science and activism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Christel W. van Eck, Lydia Messling & Katharine Hayhoe: “The myth of a scientist as a purely rational thinker, a “brain in a jar” devoid of emotions and values, still exists in some scientific circles. However, philosophers of science have long shown that it is a fundamental misconception to believe that science can be entirely free of social, political, and ethical values, and function as a neutral entity. As Lynda Walsh explains compellingly in “Scientists as Prophets,” the question of how scientists ought to engage with society is a value judgement itself3. This is particularly true in complex crises like climate change where traditional democratic debate alone cannot ascertain the optimal course of action. Scientists often play a crucial role in such crises, not only through conducting rigorous research, but also through engaging in dialogue with society by framing their research in terms of societal values – which includes rejecting the notion of morally neutral engagement.

This school of thought was recently challenged in a comment in Nature Climate Action titled “The importance of distinguishing climate science from climate activism” In it, Ulf Büntgen, a Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis at Cambridge University, communicated his personal concerns about climate scientists engaging in activism. The comment sparked considerable debate on social media, particularly among climate scientists, many of whom reject the views presented by Büntgen.

We believe a response is necessary, as many of Büntgen’s assumptions are unnuanced or unjustified. It is difficult to provide a full critique when Büntgen has not clearly defined what he means by ‘climate activism’, ‘quasi-religious belief’, or ‘a priori interests’, nor explicit examples evidencing what sort of interaction he finds to be objectionable. However, whether scientists consider certain activities to be activism, and their opinions on colleagues who engage in such activities, along with the general public’s perception of these activities, has been the subject of multiple research studies. While the opinion of an individual scientist is interesting, we argue it is not representative of the broader community’s views nor does it reflect the efficacy of such actions. Furthermore, by making unilateral value-based judgements, we propose that Büntgen is engaging in precisely the activity he deprecates…(More)”

How to rebuild democracy to truly harness the power of the people

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Kyle Ellingson: “Many of us entered this so-called super-election year with a sense of foreboding. So far, not much has happened to allay those fears. Russia’s war on Ukraine is exacerbating a perception that democracy is threatened in Europe and beyond. In the US, Donald Trump, a presidential candidate with self-professed autocratic tendencies, has faced two assassination attempts. And more broadly, people seem to be losing faith in politics. “Most people from a diverse array of countries around the world lack confidence in the performance of their political institutions,” says a 2024 report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

On many objective measures, too, democracy isn’t functioning as it should. The systems we call democracies tend to favour the rich. Political violence is growing, as is legislative gridlock, and worldwide, elections are becoming less free and fair. Some 30 years after commentators crowed about the triumph of Western liberal democracy, their prediction seems further than ever from being realised. What happened?

According to Lex Paulson at the University Mohammed VI Polytechnic in Rabat, Morocco, we have lost sight of what democracy is. “We have made a terrible confusion between the system known as a republic – which relies on elections, parties and a permanent governing class – and the system known as a democracy, in which citizens directly participate in decisions and rotate power.” …(More)”.

Rethinking ‘Checks and Balances’ for the A.I. Age

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Steve Lohr: “A new project, orchestrated by Stanford University and published on Tuesday, is inspired by the Federalist Papers and contends that today is a broadly similar historical moment of economic and political upheaval that calls for a rethinking of society’s institutional arrangements.

In an introduction to its collection of 12 essays, called the Digitalist Papers, the editors overseeing the project, including Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration and director of the Hoover Institution, identify their overarching concern.

“A powerful new technology, artificial intelligence,” they write, “explodes onto the scene and threatens to transform, for better or worse, all legacy social institutions.”

The most common theme in the diverse collection of essays: Citizens need to be more involved in determining how to regulate and incorporate A.I. into their lives. “To build A.I. for the people, with the people,” as one essay summed it up.

The project is being published as the technology is racing ahead. A.I. enthusiasts see a future of higher economic growth, increased prosperity and a faster pace of scientific discovery. But the technology is also raising fears of a dystopian alternative — A.I. chatbots and automated software not only replacing millions of workers, but also generating limitless misinformation and worsening political polarization. How to govern and guide A.I. in the public interest remains an open question…(More)”.