I saw Jonnie Penn once refer to this as the era of premium mediocrity.

I think it is absolutely right to mercilessly ridicule and rebel against it.

Columbia still has its official website up lionizing the protesters of 1968 who occupied university buildings to protest the Vietnam War until the NYPD, in Columbia's own words, 'stormed' campus, creating a 'fallout that dogged Columbia for years.' news.columbia.edu/content/new-pe…

The FT joins the list of publishers who have inked deals with OpenAI around use of their data.

I spoke to Isobel A Hamilton about this, some longer thoughts in the thread below 🧵

thedailyupside.com/technology/art…

that Trump repeatedly floated executing people while he was in office is especially terrifying in the context of his current push for total presidential immunity.

This banality of evil.

Can we...just accept that we suck at this?

I want to tell you a story that has made me kinda hopeless about Twitter's ability to affect positive things happening, and it starts with this tweet from Hillary Clinton.

twitter.com/HillaryClinton…

Associate Dean for Graduate Education Elizabeth Dunn spoke at the faculty gathering.

Middle East Eye Here’s Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin knocked to the ground with her head on the concrete. Her glasses are thrown off. She shouts “I’m a professor”
#Gaza #Protesters

In November, tech companies promised pre-release access of their latest models for safety testing. Turns out, they're refusing to provide it.

Let's say it together - voluntary commitments do not work. We need mandatory requirements, not broken promises.

politico.eu/article/rishi-…

It'd be nice if tech CEOs applied a similar test of 'if we can't unequivocally prove it works, we won't ship it.'

In other words, this OpenAI engineer says LLMs are doing exactly what its critics accuse it of doing: Replicating as precisely as it can the past works it was trained on (without compensation or consent). If he's right, they really *are* automated plagiarism-production machines

📢ICYMI: We are hiring a Researcher (EU Public Policy).

Help design and deliver our work exploring how data and AI can be governed and regulated to ensure benefits for individuals and society.

Apply by 7 May: adalovelaceinstitute.org/job/researcher…

'These models are truly approximating their datasets to an incredible degree'

I've defended gen AI, but this stunning observation from OpenAI engineer James Betker (James Betker) would seem to bode poorly for the idea the tech doesn't infringe copyright on its training data.

New blog with Eleanor Shearer and Mathew Lawrence on 'public compute' — what it is, why it's important, and how we can leverage it to reshape the AI sector 👇🏻🚀

What can we learn about the different regulatory regimes concerning AI?

Join UCL Faculty of Laws Regulatory Models for Algorithmic Assessment to find out.

WITH: Margot Kaminski Michael Veale @[email protected] Jennifer Cobbe Andrew Strait
WHEN: 25 April 6:00 –7:30 pm
WHERE: UCL, London
BOOK: tinyurl.com/mu46z47c