Perché siamo antipatici? Anzi, peggio che antipatici, proprio della brutta gente? È una questione di percezione della realtà. Che può essere cambiata. Questa analisi sperimentale è molto interessante e dice un paio di cose che vale la pena ricordarsi.

Money quote: "Rahwan directs the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, where, according to his website, he’s focused on understanding “how intelligent machines impact humanity.” Given that avenue of curiosity, it seems inevitable that Rahwan would be inspired by the imaginatively bleak scenarios Black Mirror brings to life. And that’s exactly how his new paper, co-authored with social psychologist Nils Köbis and others, came about. The research explores a more benign version of the situation the Black Mirror episode “Men Against Fire” dramatizes. As Rahwan and his colleagues describe the episode, “soldiers perceive the world through a real-time AI filter that turns their adversaries into monstrous mutants to overcome their reluctance to kill.”"

https://nautil.us/how-were-becoming-bigger-jerks-online-311312/

Questa cosa della gente che viene pagata per addestrare le AI (lavoraccio) e che per massimizzare passa il lavoro di addestramento ad altre AI è meravigliosamente "meta", ma pieno di problemi.

Money quote: "A significant proportion of people paid to train AI models may be themselves outsourcing that work to AI, a new study has found.

It takes an incredible amount of data to train AI systems to perform specific tasks accurately and reliably. Many companies pay gig workers on platforms like Mechanical Turk to complete tasks that are typically hard to automate, such as solving CAPTCHAs, labeling data and annotating text. This data is then fed into AI models to train them. The workers are poorly paid and are often expected to complete lots of tasks very quickly.

No wonder some of them may be turning to tools like ChatGPT to maximize their earning potential. But how many? To find out, a team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) hired 44 people on the gig work platform Amazon Mechanical Turk to summarize 16 extracts from medical research papers. Then they analyzed their responses using an AI model they’d trained themselves that looks for telltale signals of ChatGPT output, such as lack of variety in choice of words. They also extracted the workers’ keystrokes in a bid to work out whether they’d copied and pasted their answers, an indicator that they’d generated their responses elsewhere."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/22/1075405/the-people-paid-to-train-ai-are-outsourcing-their-work-to-ai/

Cosa succede nei giornali adesso che arrivano le AI generative? Ecco la policy del Guardian (la prima che ho letto finora e anche l'unica)

Money quote: "For the benefit of readers

GenAI tools are exciting but are currently unreliable. There is no room for unreliability in our journalism, nor our marketing, creative and engineering work. At a simple level, this means that the use of genAI requires human oversight. We will seek to use genAI tools editorially only where it contributes to the creation and distribution of original journalism. We will guard against the dangers of bias embedded within generative tools and their underlying training sets. If we wish to include significant elements generated by AI in a piece of work, we will only do so with clear evidence of a specific benefit, human oversight, and the explicit permission of a senior editor. We will be open with our readers when we do this."

https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2023/jun/16/the-guardians-approach-to-generative-ai

Qual è il futuro del trasporto aereo civile? Ciclicamente scrivo articoli su questo argomento, basandomi su fonti molto diverse: segnalazioni di startup, comunicati delle grandi aziende produttrici, paper delle università e centri di ricerca. Qui sotto, un comunicato Nasa rimaneggiato dal sito che lo pubblica. Interessante.

Money quote: "Earlier this year, NASA announced that it would be working with Boeing to create an aircraft with a dramatic new look, and it could be strutting down a runway in about five years. Called the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator, it has long, thin wings that are supported by trusses to give them the stability they need. Between those wings and other efficiency tweaks, the plane could be 30 percent more fuel efficient than similar-sized aircraft today, like the single-aisle Boeing 737 or Airbus A320, according to the aeronautics and space agency.

This week, NASA said that the aircraft, which doesn’t yet exist, has received an X-plane designation from the Department of Defense. It’s now officially the X-66A, meaning that it’s an experimental research aircraft. NASA already has two ongoing X-plane programs, so the X-66A makes three of them. Here’s what to know about all three."

https://www.popsci.com/technology/nasa-x-planes/

Un articolone che tocca un tema fondamentale: avere una casa piena di libri. Sono consigli di interior design da parte di una esperta, ma è anche una riflessione su chi siamo e come funziona la nostra vita di noialtri che ci riempiamo la casa di libri.

Money quote: "As a feng shui consultant and design magazine editor and lifelong book obsessive, I am often asked by clients what to do when a collection of books moves from a state of abundance into what feels like a design problem. That moment arrives when people notice they are emotionally overwhelmed by the visual of overflowing bookshelves, or when they have encountered advice elsewhere about how to style shelves and the visual example shelf has only three books on it.

First, let’s all agree that for passionate readers, a personal library is nothing less than a soulful archive of the ever-changing self. We book lovers catalog our transformations, our influences, our ways of being, and our interests through our volumes and develop relationships—perceived or existing—with the people who created them.

Where once a library might have been a way to signal status to visiting society, today, a room full of books tells us a story about us: Where we came from, how we have struggled, what has lifted us, what we know for sure."

https://lithub.com/what-to-do-if-your-house-is-overflowing-with-books/

L'emozione di vedere l'ultimo film di Miyazaki a Tokyo - sono andato a vederlo a Tokyo e ne ho scritto qui su Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/07/kimi-tachi-wa-do-ikiru-ka-ultimo-film-miyazaki/

È passato un po' di tempo, ma questo ragionamento sulla strategia di Apple nei confronti dei suoi utenti è carino.

Money quote: "That was the setup: Apple is helping users help themselves, giving them tips and tricks and tools for managing modern life. Then, after a beat, Tim Cook returned to the stage to deliver the punchline in the form of an all-new product: the Vision Pro, a $3,500 computer that straps directly to your face."

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/apple-keeps-trying-to-fix-its-users.html

Una bella raccolta di libri non nuovi ma molto importanti sul mondo della tecnologia. Perché in un settore dove le novità tech si susseguono molto velocemente, succede la stessa cosa anche per quanto riguarda i libri, ma è un peccato perderne alcuni, che sono di valore.

Money quote: "If the modern tech landscape is defined by obsolescence, then we wanted to celebrate the books about it that have stood the test of time. Language is a technology — one of our oldest and most powerful."

https://www.theverge.com/c/23771068/best-tech-books-nonfiction-recommendations

Sta finendo un'epoca. Con Sonoma, la nuova versione di macOS, vanno in pensione alcuni degli ultimi modelli di Mac con processore Intel e tra poco potrebbero non essercene proprio più. Ecco qui la situazione aggiornata, per chi in autunno pensa di aggiornare.

Money quote: "In addition to the new Mac Pro, Apple also announced macOS Sonoma at WWDC 2023 earlier this week. The update doesn’t bring any significant changes, except for some improvements to FaceTime, interactive widgets on the desktop, and a new API for porting Windows games to the Mac. But even so, Apple has dropped support for some Intel Macs with the update.
For instance, none of the iconic 12-inch MacBooks can run the new version of macOS. The 2017 MacBook Pro won’t get the update either. When it comes to the iMac, while the 2017 iMac was the oldest supported model on macOS Ventura, the update to macOS Sonoma requires the 2019 iMac or newer."

https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/08/apple-intel-mac-macos-updates/

Planimetria di un Silo, anatomia di una storia - la mia rubrica su Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/07/silo-serie-tv-apple-romanzi-hugh-howey/

I "Golden passport" sono una cosa davvero interessante: a fronte di un mondo dove la gente letteralmente muore per arrivare in paesi dove non vogliono farli entrare in nessun modo, ci sono altre persone che si comprano nazionalità e passaporti per potersene andare dove vogliono. Gli ultraricchi possono, i comuni mortali no.

Money quote: "The ultrarich are collecting not one, but sometimes two or three passports and multiple citizenships, and all the privileges they confer. These passports, often issued by nations particularly welcoming of cash, can be a kind of collector’s item, a status symbol luxury good to show off at bougie soirees. It also cracks open the door to a possible escape, should things go south for the holder in their personal life or in their country of origin.

All it requires is money — anywhere from $100,000 on the low end to more than $1 million on the high end, invested in property or a public good — plus background checks and a short wait for approval. Called “golden” passports, they don’t even actually require the wealthy to reside in the places where they hold citizenship."

https://www.vox.com/money/23762537/golden-passports-wealthy-explained

Come si disegna un cavallo? Mica facile. Disegnatori anche bravi ci sbattono il grugno. Ma adesso Emma Hunsinger sul New Yorker spiega bene come si fa. Interessante! E pieno di disegni facili.

https://archive.is/yfz5d

Una storia di balene salvate durante la pandemia. Ma anche di studenti che si raccontano sul giornale dell'università. E di come si raccontano le storie e di che voce cercare per dire quello che vuoi dire. E dell'impatto della pandemia in chi vuole fare la differenza. L'idealismo della biologia marina in una lettura forse non spettacolare ma certamente intrigante, perché apre le porte di un posto luminoso e pulito: un ambiente completamente estraneo al resto della società.

Money quote: "It’s a conversation that would have looked a lot different just one year ago when Anastasia and I were attending graduate school virtually. Likely from home, likely on Zoom, likely with a Google Doc trannoscript of my notes—but certainly not in front of the ocean, inspiring each thread of conversation with a renewed vigor to protect “all of this,” as Anastasia often puts it, gesturing at the brown pelicans, marine mammals, and students all enjoying their local marine protected area. For students like her, going to school virtually highlights just how important it is to connect with the places you’re working so hard to protect."

https://bren.ucsb.edu/news/saving-whales-during-pandemic-story-student-team-navigating-remote-times

Il fumetto che racconta la storia di Patrick Zaki - il mio articolo per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/07/patrick-zaki-fumetto-gianluca-costantini/

Una mappa semplice semplice che mostra i tassi di morte per l'uso eccessivo di alcool in Europa. L'Italia e la Grecia hanno una educazione al bere che il resto del continente ci dovrebbe invidiare. Pure la Spagna non è male. (I paesi invece islamici hanno un approccio diverso e punteggi conseguenti).

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/uszfck/oc_alcohol_death_rates_in_europe/

La terza dentizione

Money quote: "A clinical trial scheduled for July 2024 will initially be for participants with tooth agenesis, a genetic condition that results in the absence of teeth, but the scientists have a view to making the treatment available for general use by as soon as 2030."

https://newatlas.com/medical/humans-grow-new-teeth-drug-trial

"Barbie" è un blockbuster sovversivo e postmoderno - la mia entusiastica recensione per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/07/barbie-film-recensione-margot-robbie/

Costa solo otto dollari. È la web-serie del regista Steven Soderberg. Bella assai.

Money quote: "Funny Thing About The Future

It’s never going away. Or at least not anytime soon. But what to DO with it? Or ABOUT it? These questions—and many more—can be answered with a few clicks and few bucks (for two good causes). But be warned: with every answer will come more questions, because, hey: IT WERE EVER THUS."

https://extension765.com/blogs/soderblog/command-z

Tokyo è una città meravigliosa e Hayao Miyazaki uno dei miei autori preferiti. Un connubio perfetto vedere il suo ultimo film in un cinema della capitale giapponese.

https://antoniodini.com/ultimo-film-hayao-miyazaki/

10 libri di fantascienza da leggere questa estate - la mia selezione per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/07/libri-di-fantascienza-estate-2023/

Stranissimo articolo su una artista che conoscevo solo superficialmente. Ma la foto di apertura vale tutto.

Money quote: "Joanna Sternberg’s relationship with visual art has been a lifelong pursuit. They recall developing a childhood interest that wasn’t always encouraged in school. “When I was home drawing, it was so much fun, and I would just get lost in it. In middle school, I started really wanting to draw all the time and was always drawing something else during class,” they explain. "

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/joanna-sternberg-interview/