Ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Stephen Goforth
It’s not that chatbots can’t do some impressive things in health care. The problem is that they’re designed to respond with an “average” answer, says Rachel Draelos, a physician and computer scientist who founded the health tech start-up Cydoc. “But nobody’s an average. What makes medicine really interesting is that every patient is an individual and needs to be treated that way.” - Washington Post
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. (the opening line of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini)
If you kept going the way you are now, who would you be in five years? Instead of focusing on what you’ll become, in terms of work and social success, think about what you are learning and what kind of person you are turning into.
New Year's Eve is time to resolve what you want in the year ahead. Rather than creating a list of resolutions, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, sits down and does the opposite. Before setting down any strategic objectives, he comes up with three corresponding things to stop doing. So if he decided he wanted to read more, he first determined to unplug the TV.
He suggests you ask yourself what you're:
a) passionate about
b) good at
c) able to make a living doing.
Then consider how you're spending time. How much of it falls outside those three factors? If the answer is most of it, a not-to-do list could be a valuable tool.
The daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. -Deirdre Sullivan
I’m very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder, in noise rather than silence. How do we encourage reflection? -Mister Rodgers
Pending copyright-infringement lawsuits could derail AI’s economic potential – Wall Street Journal
AI and the Law – University of Chicago
To Whom Does the World Belong? The battle over copyright in the age of ChatGPT. – Boston Review
Agentic AI in legal: What it is and why it may appear in law firms soon – Reuters
Recent Decisions on Whether AI Training Violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – JD Supra
An AI companion suggested he kill his parents. Now his mom is suing. – Washington Post
Denying Copyright for AI-Assisted Art Threatens Innovation – Data Innovation
Law firm use of data scientists grows alongside AI’s challenges – Roll Call
Judge Rules in Favor of School That Gave Student a Bad Grade for Using AI – Gizmodo
Stanford Professor Accused of Using AI to Write Expert Testimony Criticizing Deepfakes – Gizmodo
Navigating legal drafting: A how-to guide for law firms using AI-powered tools – Reuters
Google unveils invisible ‘watermark’ for AI-generated text – Nature
Lawsuit claims Character.AI is responsible for teen's suicide – NBC
Parents sue after student disciplined for using AI on school project in Massachusetts - CBS Boston
Five Canadian news media outlets sue OpenAI for copyright breach – Al Jazeera
The role of legal teams in creating AI ethics guardrails – Legal Dive
Writers Guild Calls on Studios to Take “Immediate Legal Action” Against AI Companies – Hollywood Reporter
Because of copyright restrictions, the training data sets for LLMs are largely restricted to old texts from the early twentieth century. As a result, some researchers have used the frequency of certain words that were popular then but have since fallen out of common parlance as evidence of generative AI. from The-Scientist
Multiple times daily, I find myself silently asking, Did you really write this or did AI? Just like handwritten notes have decreased over time, human-generated content will also decrease over time, but it will maintain its value—because we hunger to be heard and cared for by another human. However, unlike handwritten notes, it will be harder to distinguish between AI-generated content and human-generated content. - Tara Chklovski writing in Fast Company
*Hallucinations – When an AI provides responses that are inaccurate or not based on facts. Generative AI models are designed to generate data that is realistic or distributionally equivalent to the training data and yet different from the actual data used for training. This is why they are better at brainstorming than reflecting the real world and why they should not be treated as sources of truth or factual knowledge. Generative AI models can answer some questions correctly, but this is not what they are designed and trained to do. However, hallucinating AIs can be very useful to researchers by giving scientists innovative insights, which speeds up the scientific process.
More AI definitions here
In order to manage the avalanche of information that our senses are absorbing at all times, our brains work to find patterns, simplify information, and look for clarity. That allows us to be able to make decisions and act. But sometimes in the rush to make order of the world, our brains jump to unwarranted conclusions — taking in the myriad of information around us and deducing something that just isn't quite right.
A high need for closure isn't necessarily a bad thing. You may just be the type of person who likes to make plans and avoid surprises. However, the need for closure can lead to two major pitfalls in decision making.
The first is what psychologists call the "urgency effect," which is basically the tendency to jump to conclusions. The second is the "permanence effect" — a stubborn tendency to stick with your beliefs and not change your mind, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Both of these effects result from your brain trying to avoid feelings of uncertainty.
If you have a high need for closure, research suggests you should be careful making decisions, especially in times of fatigue or stress.
Ana Swanson writing in the Washington Post
It happened in those days that a proclamation went out from President Augustus that every citizen must register. This was the first registration while Quirinus was Secretary of War. So everybody went to register, each going to his own hometown. Joseph too went up from south Georgia from the city of Valdosta, to his home in north Georgia, a place named Gainesville, to register with his bride Mary, who by now was heavily pregnant.
While the were there, her time came, and she gave birth to her first boy. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in an apple box. (There was no room for them at the hospital.)
Now there were some farmers in that section who were up late at night tending their baby chicks. And a messenger from the Lord appeared to them, and evidence of the Lord was shining all about them. It nearly scared the life out of them. And the messenger said to them, “Don’t be afraid; for listen, I’m bringing you good news of a great joy in which all people will share. Today your deliverer was born in the city of David’s family. He is the Leader. He is the Lord, And here’s a clue for you: you will find the baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in an apple box.”
And all of a sudden there was with the messenger a crowd of angels singing God’s praises and saying. “Glory in the highest to God, And on Earth, peace to mankind, The object of his favor.”
When the messengers went away from them into the sky, the farmers said to one another, “Let’s go to Gainesville and see how all this the Lord has showed us has turned out.”
So they went just as fast as they could, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in an apple box. Seeing this, they related the story of what had been told them about this little fellow. The people were simply amazed as they listened to what the farmers told them. And Mary clung to all these words, turning them over and over in her memories. The farmers went back home, giving God the credit and singing his praises for all they had seen and heard, exactly as it had been described to them.
Clarence Jordan, Cotton Patch Gospel
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. -Mark 10:45
When Jesus took the time to explain his reason for coming among us, he was simple and direct: to serve and to give. Not to be served. Not to grab the spotlight in the center ring. Not to make a name or attract attention or become successful or famous or powerful or idolized.
Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve
With recent developments in higher ed, such as courses running on AI-produced materials and interactions, we’re going to see more policy discussion about AI as an infrastructure with respect to institutional mission, ethics and values as well as regulatory standards for accreditation and government oversight. -Trey Conatser quoted in Inside Higher Ed
The Scriptures are filled with the ruggedness and struggles of actual life. But in our teaching of the gospel we have sweetened or repressed the universal human qualities of our Lord’s stories almost beyond recognition. Jesus evidently talked about the things like people’s sexual escapades and crooked business deals to illustrate his message about the reign of God. And he furnished additional wine for at least one celebration. Read the parables. With the whole of human behavior from which to select, Jesus chose the gritty, earthy areas of life to illustrate the way God loves people. He was real! He expressed his own uncertainly and doubt in the midst of his faith. And he got very angry. Jesus talked about the same deep separation, dishonest and inner restlessness we experience in modern life. I had always heard the church saying the God prefers the poor, the despised, and the weak… Religious people have difficulty admitting that (Jesus) prefers sinners to the righteous. Those who call themselves righteous are not free from it but have repressed it. Those called sinners are aware of their guilt and are, for that reason, ready to receive pardon and grace.
Keith Miller, The Becomers
Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them. Once the precious moment of falling in love has passed and the boundaries have snapped back in place, the individual is disillusioned. Real love (the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth) is a permanently self enlarging experience. Falling in love is not.
M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
While many academics may scorn the idea of outsourcing article summaries to generative AI, a new investigation by researchers at Ontario’s University of Waterloo found peer reviewers rated abstracts written by humans—but paraphrased using generative AI—far more highly than those authored without algorithmic assistance. -Inside Higher Ed
One of life’s great paradoxes: Happiness requires purpose; purpose requires a sense of direction; a sense of direction requires goal-setting—but happiness cannot be had by realizing those goals. People believe that achieving big objectives will give them a lot of happiness and then are bitterly disappointed to find that doing so is a letdown. After a big achievement, many people experience depression. True satisfaction comes from progress in the struggle toward the goal.
Arthur C. Brooks writing in The Atlantic
My first book was about a lot of pain and a lot of knee-jerk, reactionary responses to being mistreated and abused [emotionally and physically]. When I look back on it now, I see it wasn’t about craft. It was my release.
As I’ve become older, I’m learning more about what grace really means, and what it means to be able to bring a slice of joy to somebody. At the end of the day, I’d like to think, “What did I do today that was beneficial for somebody?” I know I can’t change the world, save the world, but I believe if all of us scratch hard enough in the same little spots where we occupy time, where we live, play and die, that we can effect change.
Jaki Shelton Green speaking to the Washington Post
Prompt Injection - Like prompt engineering (where a user is good at writing AI prompts), but, in this case, with the goal of working around AI to produce harmful content. Hackers use carefully crafted prompts or text-based instructions to manipulate generative AI systems into sharing sensitive information or perform unintended actions by making the model ignore previous instructions.
More AI definitions here
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