Login
Big Brother News Watch
The Future of AI Is Finally Here — and a Lot of People Are Going to Be Out of a Job + More
The Future of AI Is Finally Here — and a Lot of People Are Going to Be Out of a Job
For years, folks have been talking about the coming AI revolution, about how it’s going to change everything and about how it is going to cost a lot of people their jobs. Well, the future is now — and if you are a business leader, you need to start dealing with it today.
Last week, marketeer Zain Kahn asked the AI to perform the same series of tasks that an employee at a marketing firm might be asked to undertake for a client: create an SEO strategy for a website, develop a list of target keywords, write a content strategy for the website, develop 10 blog ideas, then write one of those blogs itself. He even asked the AI to create metadata and simple code for the website to optimize it for bilingual search. Then he rated its performance.
“I’d rank it as a 5/10. The equivalent of an SEO marketer with 1-2 years of experience earning around $50k/year. Not excellent, but definitely more competent than an SEO intern,” Kahn wrote on Twitter. “All of this took me 5 minutes. In the real world, all of this would probably take at least 5-10 hours.”
Is it any wonder then that more than a million people signed up to use this experimental AI last week? Every leader should be asking themselves what this means for the future of their business.
Army Captain Separated From Service for Refusing Vaccine as House Passes Bill That Rescinds Military’s Vaccine Mandate
An Army captain was separated from the service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine as the GOP attempts to roll back Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s military vaccine mandate.
Capt. Stephen Rogerson (a pseudonym) has served in the Army for 17 years, and on Dec. 6, a three-person administrative board voted to separate him from service. On the same day, the House passed an $858 billion defense funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2023, that included a provision to rescind the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
But soldiers like Rogerson are “falling through the cracks of a failed policy at precisely the wrong time,” according to R. Davis Younts, an Air Force Reserve Judge Advocate General (JAG) and civilian attorney.
In October 2021, Rogerson received a temporary medical exemption through his primary care manager. Within two hours of submitting his request for exemption to the vaccine to his command, it was denied.
Fauci Acknowledges Americans Have Mandate ‘Fatigue’: ‘People Don’t Like to Be Told What to Do’
Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged Friday that there is a “fatigue” about COVID-19 mandates as respiratory viruses surge across the U.S.
In an interview with Fox 5 New York, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert said that while he believes future decisions about implementing restrictions should be left up to the discretion of local health authorities, he knows that people “don’t like being told what to do.”
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director also told the station that he was concerned about what he called “not a very vigorous uptake” of the Omicron-specific booster.
Health officials in cities nationwide are encouraging residents to embrace mitigation measures — strongly recommending masking in New York and Los Angeles.
Musk Calls to Prosecute Fauci, Drawing Swift Backlash
Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Sunday called to prosecute Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden who has led the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic since it started during the Trump administration, and drew swift backlash for his comment.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk said on Twitter. He later shared a meme edited to show Fauci telling Biden, “Just one more lockdown, my king.”
Lawmakers and other officials jumped to Fauci’s defense online. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said Musk “wants to criminalize Anthony Fauci because he disagrees with him” and hit at the Twitter CEO for hypocrisy in his free-speech claims.
“Fauci’s resignation should not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He must be required to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the Wuhan lab leak. His policies destroyed lives,” wrote Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in response to Musk’s post.
Judge Rejects Vaccine Choice Law in Healthcare Settings
A person’s choice to decline vaccinations does not outweigh public health and safety requirements in medical settings, a federal judge ruled in a Montana case.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy last week permanently blocked a section of law the state said was meant to prevent employers — including many healthcare facilities — from discriminating against workers by requiring them to be vaccinated against communicable diseases, including COVID-19.
The Montana law made it illegal for a person to be denied services, goods or employment based on their vaccine status. The law did not change vaccine requirements at schools or daycare facilities or eliminate a person’s right to seek a religious or medical exemption.
With New Twitter Files, Musk Forces a Free-Speech Reckoning for Politicians and Pundits
“We don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire.” That line from the third tranche of company documents released by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, captures the social media giant’s censorship culture. Its humorless, officious tenor is all too common with state censors throughout history. Censorship creates an insatiable appetite for more censorship, where even jokes become intolerable.
These latest Twitter files shatter past denials of “shadow banning” and other suppression techniques targeting disfavored viewpoints. That includes denials by former CEO Jack Dorsey under oath before Congress and public denials by top corporate executives. The legal ramifications will become clearer as more information emerges. Yet, a far more significant problem already is confirmed in these files: the existential threat of corporate censors to free speech.
In the new material released late Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi confirmed that Twitter executives met weekly with FBI, Homeland Security and national intelligence officials to discuss “disinformation” they felt should be removed from the site. Those discussions apparently included the Hunter Biden laptop story.
You don’t need a state ministry of information if the media voluntarily maintains official narratives and suppresses dissenting views. And what emerges from these files is the notion of an effective state media in America — an alliance of media, business and political figures who act, not out of government compulsion, but out of personal conviction.
Judge Fast-Tracks Rumble’s Lawsuit Against New York’s Online Censorship Law
New York State lawmakers passed a law requiring online platforms to address “hateful” content posted by users.
Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) teamed up with Rumble and filed a lawsuit challenging the law, which took effect on December 3. A federal judge has fast-tracked the briefing and set a teleconference for December 19.
Failure to comply with the law results in daily fines of up to $1,000 per day. The fine might not be much for Big Tech platforms like YouTube and Facebook. However, the law’s definition of “social media networks” is so broad that it covers a wide range of platforms, apps, sites and forums.
China Scraps Tracking App as Zero-COVID Policy Is Dismantled
China has announced plans to scrap its primary COVID tracking app in the latest rollback of pandemic control measures, just days after abruptly abandoning its long-running zero-COVID policy.
It came as health authorities warned of widespread infections on the horizon, and redeployed hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses to intensive care units in preparation for an Omicron surge through the population of 1.4 billion people.
On Tuesday, the government-run “communications itinerary card” will be retired, according to an official announcement on Monday. The app tracked people’s movements using mobile phone signals, identifying those who had been in high-risk areas in order to control their travel to other areas.
Some expressed concern about the vast amounts of personal data collected by the app and others like it. “I hope there will be mechanisms and measures to log out and delete this,” said one.
‘It’s Killing Our Babies’: 12-Year-Old Boy Dies Attempting TikTok Challenge, Family Says + More
‘It’s Killing Our Babies’: 12-Year-Old From Richmond Heights Dies Attempting TikTok Challenge, Family Says
A 12-year-old boy from Richmond Heights died Tuesday after trying a dangerous game from social media that has gone viral, his family says. Tristan Casson died attempting the “blackout challenge” on TikTok, one of the world’s most popular apps, the boy’s mother, Taylor Davis said. As part of it, participants are challenged to hold their breath or asphyxiate themselves until they pass out.
Davis said her son died by strangulation and does not think her son was suicidal, but rather a victim of a dangerous trend circulating online. She said he always tried new dances and trends that were popular on TikTok.
In November, Bloomberg News reported that the blackout challenge has been linked to the deaths of at least 15 children ages 12 or younger in the past 18 months.
“I just wish that TikTok would ban these types of challenges from going around,” said Tanisha Watson, a friend of the boy’s mother. “It is killing our babies.”
House Passes Defense Bill Scrapping Military COVID Vaccine Mandate
A bill to rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and provide nearly $858 billion for national defense passed the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch off one of the final items on their yearly to-do list.
The bill provides for about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 350-80. It now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass easily, then to the president to be signed into law.
To win bipartisan support for the bill, Democrats agreed to Republican demands to scrap the requirement for service members to get a COVID-19 vaccination. The bill directs Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind his August 2021 memorandum imposing the mandate. Only days earlier he voiced support for keeping the mandate in effect.
New York City Officials Issue Health Advisory, Urge Mask Use as Flu, COVID and RSV Spread
New York City health officials are urging residents to wear masks indoors and in crowded settings due to the rise in RSV, flu and COVID-19 cases. Health officials are urging New Yorkers to get tested before and after gatherings and to wear a mask around people who are at increased risk of severe respiratory illness
Masks have been the center of plenty of debates since the start of the COVID pandemic. Now they may also be making a comeback in New York schools. The state is now recommending kids wear them again, with three respiratory viruses sweeping across the area.
Former NYT Columnist Bari Weiss Releases ‘Twitter Files Part Two’
Former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss released the second installment of the “Twitter Files” on Thursday night, sharing images of accounts that Twitter allegedly placed on various types of “blacklists.”
Weiss posted several images of what appears to be an internal Twitter system that marked certain accounts as being under various kinds of “blacklists,” in addition to flagging other information about the accounts.
Jay Bhattacharya, a health policy professor from Stanford University who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns, appeared to have been placed on a “Trends Blacklist,” as was the right-wing Libs of TikTok account, according to the photos.
Weiss’s Twitter thread is the second installment in what Twitter CEO Elon Musk has dubbed the “Twitter Files.” The first installment, released by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, appeared to show an internal debate at the social media company over how to handle a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
Elton John Quits Twitter Over Change That ‘Allows Misinformation to Flourish’
Sir Elton John has said that he will no longer use Twitter after a change in its policy that he says will allow “misinformation to flourish unchecked.”
The 75-year-old musician’s comments come after Elon Musk, who bought the social media outlet for $44 billion (£35.9bn), said he was granting “general amnesty” for suspended accounts, which experts have said would lead to “superspreaders of hate” returning to the platform.
Musk was recently told by the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, Thierry Breton, that he needed to protect users to ensure Twitter avoided violating rules that threatened tech giants with big fines or even a ban in the European Union.
Several other celebrities, including Whoopi Goldberg, Gigi Hadid and Jim Carrey, have left Twitter since Musk’s takeover.
CommonSpirit Health Says Patient Data Was Stolen During Ransomware Attack
Chicago-based medical giant CommonSpirit Health has confirmed that an October ransomware attack exposed the personal data of more than 620,000 patients.
CommonSpirit Health, which operates more than 700 care sites and 142 hospitals in 21 states, first confirmed an “IT security issue” on October 5. At the time, the company declined to comment on the nature of the incident, which interrupted access to electronic health records and delayed patient care in multiple regions and refused to say whether patient information or health data was compromised.
In a December update, CommonSpirit confirmed that the incident was a ransomware attack. The organization said that threat actors gained access to portions of its network between September 16 and October 3 and, during that time, “may have gained access to certain files, including files that contained personal information” belonging to patients who received care or family members of those who received care at Franciscan Health, a 12-hospital affiliate of CommonSpirit Health.
‘We’ve Lost Our Humanity in This’: Widower Strives to See No Patient Left Alone Again
After his wife died in a Colorado hospital in 2020 with no family present, Steve Reiter strives to see that no patient is ever left alone again. He initiated the Never Alone Project to raise awareness about the dangers of isolating patients in hospitals and to influence legislation that would require hospitals to allow families to visit their loved ones while they are being treated.
In a National Institute for Health and Care Research study on home care residents during COVID-19, social isolation — which includes the social distancing measures taken in 2020 — contributes to adverse health outcomes stemming from loneliness such as mortality, cardiovascular disease, depression and dementia.
In June 2022, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) introduced the No Patient Left Alone Act, which would guarantee a patient’s right to have visitors, and require hospitals to honor this right as a condition of their participation in Medicare.
Given what he’s seen over the last few years, Reiter concluded: “We’ve lost our humanity in this. And we need to find our way back.”
Federal Trade Commission Sues Microsoft to Block $69 Billion Activision Purchase
The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Microsoft on Thursday to block its $69 billion acquisition of video game giant Activision Blizzard, arguing the company could stifle competition, as Microsoft looks to compete with gaming giants Nintendo and Sony.
The FTC voted to file the suit blocking Microsoft’s biggest-ever acquisition in a 3-1 vote on Thursday, with the commission’s three Democrats forming the majority.
The commission alleges the acquisition would unfairly lure consumers to Microsoft, the maker of the video game console Xbox, allowing it to “suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing content and cloud-gaming business.”
In China’s Wuhan, a Shadow of Reserve and Resentment Even as COVID Lockdowns Ease
In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where coronavirus was first detected nearly three years ago and where thousands died, residents cautiously greeted a relaxation of lockdown measures by authorities this week. In the city center, few people were in shops and restaurants and the subway was only partially filled as many residents remained wary of a possible new flare-up of infections.
The teeming metropolis bore the brunt of the pandemic in its early stages in early 2020, when authorities ordered the entire city of 11 million to be sealed off in a military-style lockdown for more than two months — a traumatic chapter that has not been forgotten by some.
“We know the country is reopening but we ourselves haven’t let down our guard,” said one Wuhan corner shop owner. “We’re taking precautions, protecting ourselves because it (the virus) is spreading quickly.”
Two Wuhan pharmacies visited by Reuters had sold out of fever medication a day ago, while customers asked for vitamin C or cough medicine in vain with stocks depleted.
U.K., Japan and Italy Are Joining Forces to Build a New Next-Generation Fighter Jet That Can Fight With Artificial Intelligence
Britain, Italy and Japan are joining forces to build a next-generation fighter jet that can use artificial intelligence amid heightened security concerns in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.
Leaders of the three countries announced the initiative, dubbed the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), in a joint statement on Friday and said the “ambitious” development of the aircraft has a target date of 2035.
Britain’s defense ministry said in a release that it hopes to develop the fighter jet with various advanced capabilities such as cutting-edge weapons, innovative data systems and advanced sensors. There is also hope that it could work with uncrewed aircraft.
DOJ Undermines Google in Supreme Court Case Over Who’s Responsible for Social Media Posts + More
DOJ Undermines Google in Supreme Court Case Over Who’s Responsible for Social Media Posts
The Department of Justice warned the Supreme Court against an overly broad interpretation of a law shielding social media companies from liability for what users post on their platforms, a position that undermines Google’s defense in a case that could reshape the role of content moderation on digital platforms.
In a brief filed Wednesday led by DOJ Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher, the agency said the Supreme Court should vacate an appeals court ruling that found Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected Google from being liable under U.S. antiterrorism law.
Section 230 allows for online platforms to engage in good-faith content moderation while shielding them from being held responsible for their users’ posts. Tech platforms argue it’s a critical protection, especially for smaller platforms that could otherwise face costly legal battles since the nature of social media platforms makes it difficult to quickly catch every harmful post.
But the law has been a hot-button issue in Congress as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle argue the liability shield should be drastically limited. But while many Republicans believe the content moderation allowances of the law should be trimmed down to reduce what they allege is censorship of conservative voices, many Democrats instead take issue with how the law can protect platforms that host misinformation and hate speech.
Rollback of COVID Vaccine Mandate Met With Furor at Pentagon
The Biden administration fumed Wednesday at the near-certainty that Congress will strip away the Defense Department’s requirement that all military personnel be vaccinated against the coronavirus, upending a politically divisive policy that has led to the dismissal of nearly 8,500 service members and numerous lawsuits disputing its fairness.
The agreement, brokered as part of the Pentagon’s next spending bill, was celebrated by Republicans as a victory for individual choice. It comes despite opposition from President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who characterized the vaccine mandate as a way of protecting troops from COVID-19 and preventing sprawling outbreaks that sideline entire units, undermine the military’s readiness and endanger national security.
The looming reversal — spurred by Republicans who had threatened to block the passage of the $858 billion spending bill if the mandate wasn’t struck down — creates a rat’s nest for the Pentagon. Commanders whose job it was to enforce the mandate will face the onerous task of assessing whether — and how — to allow back into uniform those already separated from the military for refusing to follow orders. Managing overseas deployments, especially in countries that require visitors to be vaccinated, will create burdensome logistical headaches as well, officials said.
TikTok Is a Huge Threat to Our Democracy and Our Kids. Ban It Now
Negotiations between the Biden Administration and TikTok regarding the company’s data security have reportedly been delayed due to national security concerns. But the news begs the question: Why are we negotiating anything regarding TikTok when it presents such a clear national security threat?
Some people have gotten the message loud and clear. The U.S. armed forces prohibited the app on military devices two years ago. More recently, on Dec. 5, South Dakota banned TikTok from state-owned devices. Texas and Maryland followed suit shortly thereafter, and other states are taking similar steps.
The threat is real. Here in the U.S., TikTok has approximately 100 million active users, and a third of those are 14 years old or younger. That means TikTok is collecting deeply personal information and biometric data on 30 to 40 million young children in America. This data is fed right into the hands of the Chinese government, which controls it for life.
Indiana Sues TikTok, Claiming It Exposes Children to Harmful Content
Indiana’s attorney general sued TikTok on Wednesday, claiming the Chinese-owned company exposes minors to inappropriate content and makes user data accessible to China, in one of the strongest moves against the social media giant taken by a state.
Indiana’s lawsuit is the latest move to put TikTok and its parent company under scrutiny. As U.S. officials have sought to regulate TikTok, the platform in recent years has come under sharp questioning in Washington and has been under investigation by a bipartisan group of attorneys general for its potential effects on youth mental health, its data security and its ties to China.
Filing two lawsuits in a state superior court, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) argued that everything including people’s interests and their facial features are potentially accessible to the Chinese government. The suits claim that TikTok and its Beijing-based owner, tech giant ByteDance, have deceived consumers about their data security and suitability for young teens.
TikTok and ByteDance have also misled consumers about how safe the app is for children, Rokita’s office claims in the second lawsuit. The state’s court filings dispute the app’s 12-plus age rating and “infrequent/mild” designation for content about sex, drugs, alcohol and violence in Apple’s App Store.
CDC and Census Bureau Had Direct Access to Twitter Portal Where They Could Flag Speech for Censorship
Emails between an employee at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Twitter have revealed that at least one CDC staff member and the U.S. Census Bureau had access to Twitter’s dedicated “Partner Support Portal” which allows approved government partners to flag content to Twitter for censorship.
The emails were released by the nonprofit organization America First Legal and show Twitter enrolling a CDC employee into this portal through their personal account in May 2021.
On May 10, 2021, the CDC’s Carol Crawford sent Twitter employee Todd O’Boyle a list of example posts highlighting “two issues that we [the CDC] are seeing a great deal of misinformation about.” O’Boyle responded by saying that enrolling in Twitter’s Partner Support Portal is the best way for Crawford to get posts like this reviewed in the future.
In other emails, Crawford asked O’Boyle whether the federal government could flag “COVID misinformation on the portal using the existing census.gov accounts that have access” and questioned how to flag “misinformation” via the portal.
These emails provide more evidence of the Big Tech–Biden administration censorship collusion that’s currently facing a legal challenge over potential First Amendment violations.
Face Masks May Return Amid Holiday ‘Tripledemic’ of COVID, Flu and RSV
With three highly contagious respiratory viruses sickening adults and children around the country and holiday gatherings just weeks away, public health officials are beginning to talk about face masks again. While mask mandates are unlikely in most parts of the country, health experts are renewing recommendations to wear a high-quality medical mask on public transportation, in airports and on planes, while shopping and in other crowded public spaces.
What’s notable is that the mask recommendations this time aren’t just about avoiding the coronavirus. Masks are advised to protect against what is being called the “tripledemic” — a confluence of influenza, coronavirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that already is straining hospitals and forcing parents to miss work in record numbers.
Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, noted earlier this week that the agency encourages everyone “to wear a high quality, well-fitting mask to help prevent the spread of respiratory illness,” particularly on public transportation and during airport travel. Masking is especially important in counties with high COVID-19 community levels, she said.
While the CDC is not a regulatory agency and does not impose mask mandates, its recommendations have been influential in shaping whether local governments, schools and institutions require masks.
Fauci Deposition: Fauci Says No One From His Office Pushed for Social Media Censorship. Documents Show They Did.
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s deposition, taken as part of the lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana’s Attorneys General alleging collusion between government and online platforms to censor certain viewpoints, has details about Dr. Fauci’s attitude towards COVID topics that were censored on social media platforms.
Fauci, the retiring director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was deposed under oath on November 23. During the deposition, Fauci said that he did not have the expertise to say whether or not COVID-19 originated from a laboratory or nature. However, he repeatedly dismissed the lab-leak theory.
Despite evidence to the contrary, during the deposition, Fauci said he does not advocate for social media censorship and does not have a social media presence. Emails produced as evidence in the case show that government officials contacted Big Tech over the removal of multiple accounts pretending to be Fauci.
He was later shown an email proving that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases officials attempted to contact Google to discuss “vaccine communications, specifically misinformation” and even planned a meeting. Fauci said he was not sure the meeting ever happened.
Amazon, FBI.Gov and 70,000 Other Sites Are Sending Your Data to Elon’s Twitter, New Research Says
In October, Elon Musk purchased Twitter for a cool $44 billion dollars. Among a variety of other assets and headaches, the deal came with one resource that’s gone under-explored: a vast data collection network spanning the sites of more than 70,000 Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, non-profits, universities and more. Given Twitter’s history of security lapses, how safe is all that data?
At least 70,772 websites are using a Twitter advertising tool called a pixel to send the company information about every person who visits their sites, even people who don’t have Twitter accounts, according to a bombshell new report from Adalytics, an ad tech firm.
The list includes the websites of government agencies — the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Education’s student aid portal — Fortune 500 behemoths — Amazon, General Motors, Pfizer — and healthcare companies like WebMD and UnitedHealth Group. General Motors, Pfizer and other companies that claimed they pulled their ads from Twitter after Musk’s takeover continued to send Twitter data using the advertising Pixel.
Meta Employees Can Reportedly No Longer Discuss ‘Disruptive’ Topics Like Abortion, Gun Rights and Vaccines
Meta told employees on Tuesday that they would no longer be allowed to discuss topics at work that the company had deemed “very disruptive in the past,” according to a recent report from Fortune.
Meta’s head of people, Lori Goler, wrote in an internal forum that the new rules were effective immediately and that off-limit topics include abortion, the effectiveness of vaccines and gun rights, as well as political issues, including civil movements and elections, Fortune reported.
The new rules do not apply to employees that are required to address the topics as a part of their roles at Meta. The “community engagement expectations” also do not govern staff’s external communications, including posts on social media, Fortune reported.
Meta is one of several tech companies that has instituted policies to address social and political discussions at work. Google and Coinbase have also set similar expectations for workers.
AI Bot That Can Do Schoolwork Could ‘Blow up’ U.S. Education System, With Youngest at Most Risk: Former Teacher
The emergence of artificial intelligence chatbots that can complete students’ assignments will lead to a crisis in learning, forcing educators to rethink schooling entirely, a former teacher said.
“The introduction of new artificial intelligence technologies into schools that enables students to auto-generate essays has the capacity to blow up our entire writing education curriculum,” Peter Laffin, founder of Crush the College Essay and writing coach, told Fox News. “It may make us have to rethink it from the ground up, and that might ultimately be a good thing.”
Last week, tech company OpenAI unveiled an AI chatbot, ChatGPT, which has stunned users with its advanced functions. The language model can automatically generate school essays for any grade level, answer open-ended analytical questions, draft marketing pitches, write jokes, poems and even computer code.
The internet is swirling with predictions about how this sophisticated technology could impact several industries and render countless jobs obsolete. But at the forefront of Laffin’s concern is the impact it will have on education. The artificial intelligence-powered ChatGPT garnered global interest and exceeded 1 million users in less than a week. It’s also the first time a high-level AI text generator with a user-friendly interface has been made available to the public for free.
WHO Meets to Plot Censorship of ‘Misinformation’ Under International Pandemic Treaty + More
World Health Organization Meets to Plot Censorship of ‘Misinformation’ Under International Pandemic Treaty
Members of the World Health Organization (WHO), an unelected international public health agency, are meeting to consider a draft version of a proposed international pandemic treaty which will give the WHO new powers to “tackle false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation” and be legally binding under international law.
The draft treaty contains various provisions in Article 16 (“Strengthening pandemic and public health literacy”) that require the WHO’s 194 member states (which represent 98% of all the countries in the world) to target so-called misinformation.
Member states are told to “conduct regular social media analysis to identify and understand misinformation,” design their own messaging to “counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news” and manage “infodemics” (a phrase that was created by the WHO and describes “too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak”).
While the provisions in Article 16 don’t directly call for member states to censor content that’s deemed to be misinformation, a provision in Article 14 (“Whole-of-government and other multisectoral actions”) paves the way for Big Tech to perform this censorship on the WHO’s behalf.
Defense Bill Rolls Back Pentagon’s COVID Vaccine Mandate
A compromise defense policy bill released Tuesday night would end the Pentagon’s policy requiring troops to receive the COVID vaccine — and kicking out those troops who refuse it — delivering a win to Republicans who railed against the policy.
A final version of the National Defense Authorization Act included the measure after conservatives threatened to hold up the bill to curtail the vaccine mandate. The policy became a point of contention in talks in recent days between Democratic and Republican leaders over the bill.
The measure defies the wishes of both the Pentagon and the White House, which said in recent days they want to retain the rule that separates troops who don’t receive the vaccine.
Congressional leaders are aiming to bring the defense policy bill up for a vote in the House this week. The Senate will follow and send the measure to President Joe Biden for his signature. The bill would authorize a total of $858 billion, $847 billion of which would be for national defense. The legislation mandates that the Pentagon rescind the vaccine mandate within 30 days of becoming law.
Army Is Only Service Branch Booting Troops Over COVID Vaccine Mandate in Full Force
The Army continues to be the only branch of the armed services that has not slowed or frozen its discharge of service members who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine, insisting it will continue separating soldiers even as Congress appears poised to soon do away with the mandate.
“We will not speculate on any potential legislative actions, and continue to follow the policy of the Department of Defense and the United States Army to achieve a fully vaccinated force,” an Army spokesperson said of the policy, according to a report by Military.com Tuesday.
While the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force have all paused separating service members for vaccine refusal as legal battles have played out — especially those who have filed for religious exemptions — the Army has kicked out 1,841 active-duty soldiers even at the risk that a change in the law could open the door to the Army being forced to compensate troops it booted and/or let them back in the service.
Muslim Firefighter Sues for $8 Million After Being Denied Religious Exemption for COVID Vaccine, Put on Leave
A firefighter is suing Boston for more than $8 million after the city denied his request for a religious exemption from COVID-19 vaccination and put him on indefinite unpaid leave.
In a complaint filed in Suffolk Superior Court Tuesday, Michael Browder Jr., who is Muslim, said he suffered personal hardship and stress on his family and marriage after the city placed him on unpaid administrative leave in October 2021.
Rather than get a vaccine, Browder — who had been a Boston firefighter since 2007 — asked to wear face coverings, check his temperature and complete a self-monitoring form twice a day while on duty.
His attorney, Richard Chambers, is representing a former Boston police officer — a Jehovah’s Witness who also sought a religious exemption and was denied — in a separate case. The Lynnfield lawyer is also representing several people who have filed a multi-million-dollar federal lawsuit against the city of Boston over its indoor vaccine mandate.
Some Schools Close to Stem Flu Outbreaks — but Is It a Good Long-Term Solution?
Some schools across the United States have been closing early in an attempt to stem influenza outbreaks. In Maine, students at Casco Bay High School in Portland were dismissed early on Friday, Dec. 2, due to 32% of pupils and staff members out sick with the virus, according to a news release from the school.
Two other schools in the state, Harpswell Community School and Mt. Ararat Middle School, both of which are north of Portland, announced closures Tuesday, Dec. 6, “due to student illness” and will reopen on Dec. 7 after the buildings are “deep cleaned.” Additionally, in southeastern Kentucky, the Bell County School District announced schools would be closed Monday, Dec. 5, and Tuesday, Dec. 6.
An infectious diseases expert told ABC News that school closures are not sustainable in the long term and schools should focus on other interventions to stem outbreaks. “I think what we’ve learned from the pandemic is that school closures are really a last resort and should be avoided at all costs because of the impact it has on kids, the broad impact on kids and their parents,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said.
Studies, including one from the Netherlands, have suggested that remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic led to learning losses and increased learning disparities among students.
Youngkin Moves Toward Reimbursements for ‘Unjust’ COVID Fines in Virginia
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) announced on Tuesday that he plans to reimburse individuals and businesses who paid fines for violating most state COVID-19 restrictions put in place by his Democratic predecessor.
Youngkin signed an executive order directing all state agencies to report all COVID-19 fines and disciplinary actions they imposed, and the governor said he plans to develop a reimbursement process in his upcoming budget proposal for the restrictions imposed by former Gov. Ralph Northam (D).
“The fact that businesses are still dealing with COVID-19 related penalties and fines is infuriating,” Youngkin said in a statement.
Youngkin added that the review and reimbursements will not apply to violations in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and hospitals.
Pandemic Lockdowns Linked to Decline in U.S. Twin Births, Study Suggests
Reduced access to infertility treatments early in the pandemic may have contributed to a drop in twin births, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest.
The number of twin births fell 7% between 2019 and 2020 — from 120,291 to 112,437 — compared to an average 2%-per-year decline from 2014 to 2019, researchers reported on Wednesday in the CDC’s National Vital Statistics Reports, based on data from 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The largest decline in twin births was seen in women over age 40, the group most likely to use infertility treatment. The smallest decline was in women under age 30, who are least likely to use infertility treatment, the authors said.
The study cannot prove pandemic lockdowns caused twin births to decline. In fact, the authors point out that Hispanic women had a larger decline in the twin birth rate than non-Hispanic white women, even though Hispanic women are less likely to receive infertility treatments.
Pagan Nurse Files Religious Discrimination Lawsuit Against UMC
Las Vegas Review-Journal reported:
A Las Vegas nurse and self-described pagan has sued the hospital that fired her after it rejected her request for a religious exemption to its COVID-19 vaccination requirement.
Labor and delivery nurse Julia Kidd last week filed a federal lawsuit against University Medical Center alleging it had engaged in religious discrimination. The lawsuit claims she was fired in retaliation for requesting the exemption and for seeking redress through the Nevada Equal Rights Commission.
Kidd, who is 55, had been working at Clark County’s public hospital for 18 years when she requested a religious exemption from its mandate that employees be vaccinated against COVID-19. UMC denied her request, and when she continued to refuse to get vaccinated, fired her in January.
The nurse said she is a practitioner of paganism, an alternative nature-based religion. She described herself as a solitary practitioner whose spiritual practice centers on invocation and communing with nature. The message she got from the hospital was that “we don’t think that’s a valid belief, so it doesn’t matter,” she said on Saturday.
Republicans Target TikTok: Wisconsin Latest State With Officials Demanding App Be Banned From Government Devices
Six Republican Wisconsin congress members including Sen. Ron Johnson have called for banning TikTok from state government devices through a letter sent to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers Tuesday, citing recent orders banning the social media app in Maryland and South Dakota.
A letter sent by Reps. Mike Gallagher, Glenn Grothman, Scott Fitzgerald, Bryan Steil, Tom Tiffany and Johnson declared TikTok as “nefarious Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spyware that surveils Americans citizens” while calling for a ban of the app from Wisconsin government devices.
The letter complements its argument by leaning on recent reporting, including a Forbes article reporting that parent company ByteDance planned to monitor the location of American citizens, in addition to a New York Times article suggesting the app can track user keystrokes.
‘We’re Going to Be Free’: Chinese Cheer as COVID Curbs Are Loosened
China on Wednesday announced the most sweeping changes to its resolute anti-COVID regime since the pandemic began three years ago, loosening rules that curbed the spread of the virus but sparked protests and hobbled the world’s second-largest economy.
The relaxation of rules, which includes allowing infected people with mild symptoms to quarantine at home and dropping testing for people traveling domestically, is the clearest sign that Beijing is pivoting away from its zero-COVID policy to let people live with the disease.
Citizens cheered the prospect of a shift that could see China slowly emerging back into the world three years after the virus was first identified in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
For nearly three years, China has managed COVID as a disease on par with bubonic plague and cholera and as cases spread earlier this year, whole communities were locked down, sometimes for months.
Apple Is Ready to Leave China as COVID Protests Delay iPhones Past Christmas. That Could Take a Decade and Cost Billions.
When Apple‘s manufacturing hub in Zhengzhou, China, temporarily shut down in November, it was clear Apple needed to rethink its supply chain.
The shutdown, which Bloomberg reported could result in a shortage of 6 million iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max units, means wait times are now stretching past the holiday season. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported Apple was accelerating the expansion of its manufacturing base outside China.
But any shift out of China won’t be quick, with over 35% of the factories supplying Apple located in China. Some estimates say it will take until the end of the decade to move 10% of Apple’s iPhone manufacturing out of the country. Moreover, it’s unclear what would happen to Apple’s enormous hardware margins if it attempted to leave China.
National Security Concerns Reportedly Delay TikTok-U.S. Deal
Negotiations between TikTok and the U.S. government have been delayed as officials continue to worry about the potential national security issues the app could pose given its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The government’s concerns include how TikTok could share information related to its video recommendation algorithm and how much trust the government would ultimately need to put in TikTok to follow through on the deal’s terms, according to the Journal. The government has yet to come back with TikTok with new requests on how to address the concerns, the Journal reported based on unnamed sources. TikTok confirmed it has not received an update from the government about any unresolved concerns.
The two sides had reached broad agreements about storing U.S. user data on Oracle servers in the U.S., the Journal reported, moving it from TikTok data centers in Virginia and Singapore. Oracle would also be in charge of overseeing protocols about which employees within TikTok could access U.S. user data, according to the report.
10 Apple Privacy Problems That Might Surprise You
Apple wants you to know that it cares about your privacy. For years, the company has emblazoned billboards with catchy slogans about its robust data protection practices, criticized tech rivals for their misuse of users’ personal information and made big pronouncements about how it shields users.
There’s no question that Apple handles your data with more care and respect than a lot of other tech companies. Unlike Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Apple’s business doesn’t depend on mining and monetizing your data. But that doesn’t mean owning an iPhone spells perfect privacy.
Apple harvests lots of personal information, often in ways that you might not expect if you buy into the company’s promise that “what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” It uses that information for advertising, developing new products and more.