Lucky in Life

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According to psychologist Richard Wiseman, luck – bad or good – is just what you call the results of a human beings consciously interacting with chance, and some people are better at interacting with chance than others.

Over the course of 10 years, Wiseman followed the lives of 400 subjects of all ages and professions. He found them after he placed ads in newspapers asking for people who thought of themselves as very lucky or very unlucky. He had them keep diaries and perform tests in addition to checking in on their lives with interviews and observations. In one study, he asked subjects to look through a newspaper and count the number of photographs inside. The people who labeled themselves as generally unlucky took about two minutes to complete the task. The people who considered themselves as generally lucky took an average of a few seconds. Wiseman had placed a block of text printed in giant, bold letters on the second page of the newspaper that read, “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” Deeper inside, he placed a second block of text just as big that read, “Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250.” The people who believed they were unlucky usually missed both.  

Wiseman speculated that what we call luck is actually a pattern of behaviors that coincide with a style of understanding and interacting with the events and people you encounter throughout life.  

Unlucky people are narrowly focused, he observed. They crave security and tend to be more anxious, and instead of wading into the sea of random chance open to what may come, they remain fixated on controlling the situation, on seeking a specific goal. As a result, they miss out on the thousands of opportunities that may float by.  

Lucky people tend to constantly change routines and seek out new experiences. Wiseman saw that the people who considered themselves lucky, and who then did actually demonstrate luck was on their side over the course of a decade, tended to place themselves into situations where anything could happen more often and thus exposed themselves to more random chance than did unlucky people. The lucky try more things, and fail more often, but when they fail they shrug it off and try something else. Occasionally, things work out.

David McRaney

23 Articles about Social Media & AI

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10 Best AI Tools for Social Media – Unite AI

Instagram Begins Randomly Showing Users AI-Generated Images of Themselves – 404 Media

Here’s what to know before using AI to craft your brand’s social media posts - Technical.ly

Meta plans to flood social media with AI-generated users and content - SiliconANGLE

Instagram is planning to introduce a generative AI editing feature next year that will allow users to 'change nearly any aspect of your videos' – The Verge

AI Social Media Users Are Not Always a Totally Dumb Idea – Wired  

Instagram Ads Send This Nudify Site 90 Percent of Its Traffic - 404 Media 

TikTok owner ByteDance plans to spend $12 billion on AI chips in 2025 - Reuters

Instagram’s head says social media needs more context because of AI – The Verge

Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes - The New York Times

Does Anyone Need an AI Social Network? – NY Mag

The rise of fake influencers – Axios

Will AI Suck the Humanity Out of Social Media? – Social Media Today

Elon Musk’s X is a haven for free speech — and noxious AI images – Washington Post

Meta Launches Custom AI Bot Creation Platform in the US - Social Media Today

Facebook Is Already Mistakenly Tagging Real Photos as "Made With AI" – Futurism

Hot AI Jesus Is Huge on Facebook – The Atlantic

Meta Is Offering Hollywood Stars Millions for AI Voice Projects – Bloomberg

How Reddit Fits Into the AI World – Wall Street Journal

AI-generated influencers based on stolen images of real-life adult content creators are flooding social media – Wired   

Meta Moves to End Fact-Checking Program – New York Times

Is it still 'social media' if it's overrun by AI? – CBC

AI and Social Media Fakes: Are You Protecting Your Brand? – Law.com

23 Articles from January about Data Science & AI

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Getting Clarity

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We are too often motivated by a craving to put an end to the inevitable surprises in our lives. This is especially true of the biggest "negative" of all. Might we benefit from contemplating mortality more regularly than we do? As Steve Jobs famously declared, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way that I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."

Oliver Burkeman

11 Articles about AI & Coding

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Taking Beauty Seriously

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If all experience of beauty is merely subjective, we find ourselves in a position in which some people like rice pudding and other people do not like rice pudding, which is then the conclusion of the matter. In short, it would mean that no two people have ever differed or ever can differ on a question of beauty. When one person says the Philadelphia City Hall is more beautiful than the Parthenon and another person denies this, they are not, on the subjectivist theory, arguing at all.

One man is telling about his insides and the other is telling about his insides. If someone wishes to contend that the works of a contemporary leader of a dance band are aesthetically superior to the works of Beethoven, there is, subjectively speaking, no suitable rejoinder.

This situation, however, is too absurd to be accepted by thoughtful critics as the last word on the question. The fact is that people do argue about aesthetic judgments, and the subjectivists argue as much as anybody else.

Regardless of their philosophical position, those who take beauty most seriously tend to hold that those who fail to see what they see really ought to see it, and with sufficient clarification of sight would see it.

Kant goes beyond the mere rejection of the familiar maxim and points out the imperative note which is essential to aesthetic judgment, a note similar to that which we found in moral judgment. To assert that a thing is beautiful is to blame those who do not agree. If I am right, they are wrong.

It would be laughable of a man to justify himself by saying, "This object is beautiful for me."

Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion

22 Articles about Amazing Things AI can do now

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Using AI & computer vision to diagnose greenhouse crops with diseases or pests – Tech Crunch  

OpenAI introduced a new tool, called Operator, that can autonomously perform tasks on the internet – New York Times 

AI brings better odds and betting concerns to sports gambling – Semafor

A new tool uses AI to transcribe video recordings from police officers’ body-worn cameras to create initial drafts of police reports - Gov Tech 

AI model that can distinguish between Scotch and American whiskeys with 100 percent accuracy (better than humans)– New Scientist

Engineers Develop AI Tool to Automate Finding Defects in Sewer Lines – CU Denver

Google’s new AI tool uses image prompts instead of text - CNN 

This new AI technology enhances video analysis by detecting human actions in real time – Tech Radar 

Tennessee Sheriff’s Department implements AI-enabled dashcams to detect up to 15 different driving behaviors – Gov Tech

Researchers Use AI To Turn Sound Recordings Into Accurate Street Images – Univ of Texas

New methane monitoring AI tool unveiled – Axios  

AI helps uncover hundreds of unknown ancient symbols hidden in Peru’s Nazca Desert – CNN  

Google's DeepMind unveils an AI model capable of predicting the weather more accurately than existing forecasting systems – MIT Tech Review

How Indigenous engineers are using AI to preserve their culture – NBC News   

Explore the World’s First 3D Replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Made with AI – Open Culture

New Microsoft Teams AI promises to translate speech in real time – Semafor   

Can a fluffy robot really replace a cat or dog? My weird, emotional week with an AI pet – The Guardian  

Want to speak Italian? Microsoft AI can make it sound like you do. – Washington Post 

Google's AI Tool Big Sleep Finds Zero-Day Vulnerability in SQLite Database Engine – The Hacker News

AI’s Impact on Insurance Innovation – Expert AI

Anyone Can Turn You Into an AI Chatbot. There’s Little You Can Do to Stop Them – Wired  

AI robot helps recover and recycle beverage cans – Axios

AI Definitions: Open Source AI

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Open Source AI – This is when the underlying source code of an AI is available to the public, including other businesses and researchers. It can be used, modified, and improved by anyone. Closed AI means access to the code is tightly controlled by the company that produced it. The closed model gives users greater certainty as to what they are getting, but open source allows for more innovation. Of course, once it’s out in the wild open-source AI is impossible to corral. It could be used to spread disinformation or cause other serious harm. Open-source AI would include Stable Diffusion, Hugging Face, Llama (created by Meta), and DeepSeek (from China). Closed Source AI would include Google’s Bard and, despite its name, OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT).

More AI definitions here

The Halo Effect

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If you like the president’s politics, you probably like his voice and his appearance as well. The tendency to like (or dislike) everything about a person–including things you have not observed–is known as the halo effect. The term has been in use in psychology for a century, but it has not come into wide use in everyday language. This is a pity, because the halo effect is a good name for a common bias that plays a large role in shaping our view of people and situations. It is one of the ways the representation of the world that system one generates is simpler and more coherent than the real thing.

You meet a woman named Joan at a party and find her personable and easy to talk to. Now her name comes up as someone who could be asked to contribute to a charity. What do you know about Joan's generosity? The correct answer is that you know virtually nothing, because there is little reason to believe that people who are agreeable in social situations are also generous contributors to charities. But you like Joan and you will retrieve the feeling of liking her when you think of her. You also like generosity and generous people. By association, you are now predisposed to believe that Joan is generous. And that you believe she is generous you probably like Joan eve better than you did earlier, because you have added generosity to her pleasant attributes.

The sequence in which we observe characteristics of a person is often determined by chance. Sequence matters, however, because the halo effect increase the weight of the first impressions, sometimes to the point that subsequent information is mostly wasted.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

23 Articles about AI & Health Care

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What to know about an AI transcription tool that ‘hallucinates’ medical interactions – PBS

Manchester virtual reality blood transfusion training programme could help save lives – About Manchester   

Lethal snake venom may be countered by new AI-designed proteins - Science News

Why isn’t AI transforming biopharma as fast as we’d like? – Stat News

AI will now read your medical school application - AAMC

Machine learning reveals how metabolite profiles predict aging and health - News-Medical.Net

AI could transform health care, but will it live up to the hype? – Science News  

Trump, and tech tycoons, stoke health AI hype with Stargate - Stat News

AI-powered app accurately detects high blood pressure through voice recordings – The Brighter Side  

AI trial to spot heart condition before symptoms – BBC 

What Your ‘Face Age’ Can Tell Doctors About Your Health – Wall Street Journal

Should you trust an AI-assisted doctor? I visited one to see. – Washington Post  

The companies paying hospitals to hand over patient data to train AI - Stat News 

New algorithm is twice as accurate at predicting stroke timing compared to the standard of care – Health Imaging  

AI-powered blood test spots earliest breast cancer signs - University of Edinburgh

Self-improving generative foundation model for synthetic medical image generation and clinical applications – Nature  

When A.I. and Doctors Make the Diagnosis – New York Times

Researchers use AI to define new subtypes of common brain disorder – Washington University Medical  

How AI is shaping the future of the healthcare industry – Data Science Central

AI predictive modeling of survival outcomes for renal cancer patients undergoing targeted therapy – Nature

A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness – New York Times 

Should a Student Reporter Face Prosecution for Embedding with Protesters? – Columbia Journalism Review

Why AI in Healthcare Harkens Back to Early Social Media Use – Bank Info Security

AI Definitions: Interpretability

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Interpretability (or interpretable AI which is similar but not the same as explainability and explainable AI) – The study of how to understand and explain the decisions made by artificial intelligence (AI) systems in order to audit them for safety and biases. It is a key ingredient of human-centered design because a more transparent model is usually more trustworthy—it's easier (than explainable AI) to verify and evaluate as well as easier and quicker to debug and optimize. However, this transparency through its inner workings can impact performance, especially when dealing with complex models, like neural networks. Interpretability techniques include decision trees, linear regression, scalable Bayesian rule lists, etc.

More AI definitions here

9 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media

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Mon, Jan 27 - How to Acquire Free Satellite Imagery for Your Investigations

What: This GIJN webinar brings together leading experts to share practical advice and tips on navigating this often-overwhelming field. Attendees will learn the best platforms and techniques for obtaining free imagery, strategies for analyzing and processing the data, and ethical considerations when using it in investigative stories. Whether you’re looking to track deforestation, document urban expansion, or investigate geopolitical conflicts, this webinar will equip you with the skills to get started.

Who: Carl Churchill is a journalist at The Wall Street Journal; Yao Hua Law is an award-winning journalist from Malaysia; Laura Kurtzberg is a data visualization specialist, cartographer, and news applications developer with a particular interest in environmental stories; Manuela Andreoni, Chief Correspondent at Reuters based in Brazil.

When: 9 am

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Global Investigative Journalism Network

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Tue, Jan 28 - Disinformation takeaways from the 2024 elections and starting points for future investigative reporting

What: This session with Factchequeado, a fact-checking organization filling the gap of reliable information in Spanish in the U.S., will highlight the team’s takeaways from investigating disinformation impacting Latino communities during the 2024 elections. The team will share starting points for your investigations and tools to help with your reporting. They’ll also provide examples of Factchequeado investigative reporting to help inspire you.

Who: Laura Zommer, Factchequeado CEO and Co-founder; Rafael Olavarría, Factchequeado Politics and Immigration Fact-checker.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free to members

Sponsor: Investigative Reporters & Editors

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Tue, Jan 28 - Empowering the marketers, entrepreneurs, and creators in your classroom

What: We'll explore strategies for nurturing the next generation of business leaders, creative thinkers, and storytellers. Discover techniques and resources to support students in developing job-ready skills to launch their careers, as well as the marketing acumen and entrepreneurial spirit to find long-term success in a dynamic workforce landscape.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Pearson, Adobe, Meta

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Tue, Jan 28 - Journalists are First Responders: Mental Health in Times of Crisis

What: Ways to stay attentive to your mental health during your day-to-day work cycle and especially during a crisis.  

Who: Gretchen Schmelzer, ICF certified senior coach, licensed psychologist, co-founder of the Center for Trauma and Leadership, and the author of Journey Through Trauma.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Radio Television Digital News Association

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Wed, Jan 29 - Science Essentials for Local Reporters 

What: The key do’s, don’ts, and pitfalls to watch for when including science in your news reporting. Among the topics covered:  Knowing whether and how science can enhance your story; Different kinds of studies and what each can—and cannot—reveal; Practical tips for identifying credible scientist-sources and interviewing them; and How to get the essentials from scientific reports, studies, and press releases.

Who: Freelance science reporter Elena Renken and Ph.D. neuroscientist Dr. Tori Espensen.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: SciLine, a free service for journalists and scientists based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society.

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Wed, Jan 29 - The First Amendment in the 21st Century

What: This class is a First Amendment primer for students new to the topic and a great refresher for those whose work or volunteer service involves the Five Freedoms.

Who: Gregory V. Sullivan, Esq. is the President of Malloy & Sullivan, Lawyers Professional Corporation and teaches First Amendment Media Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.

When: 6:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications

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Thu, Jan 30 – PR Trends 2025: Building Strategies That Drive Results

What: A discussion of key trends that are shaping the future of PR. Gain actionable insights into crafting a high-impact PR strategy for 2025, including leveraging AI with a human touch, bringing authenticity to media relations, and embracing data-driven approaches for effective communication. The discussion will also cover strategies for crisis management to build brand resilience and insights into using social media platforms to engage audiences, manage reputation, and address challenges.

Who: Hajira Amla, Nectar Marketing Communications; Michelle Garrett is a public relations consultant; Bill Byrne, founder of Remedy PR.

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Cision

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Thu, Jan 30 - Source tracking fosters responsive engagement and improves your journalism

What: Learn from the American Press Institute’s experience supporting news organizations to track sources in order to build community trust, improve reporting strategies and attract new revenue.

Who: American Press Institute Director of Product Strategy Liz Worthington; Sherkiya Wedgeworth, Managing Editor of Accountability and Outreach for Colorado Public Radio; Leigh Munsil, Editor in Chief at San Antonio Report; and Blanca Méndez, Community Engagement Editor at San Antonio Report.

When: 12:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: American Press Institute

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Thu, Jan 30 - Report for America

What: This informative opportunity will cover the top newsrooms’ work culture, newsroom environment, salary, day-to-day routines, and much more. It will also provide a unique opportunity for members to network and ask direct questions to newsroom managers.

Who: Tim Lampley, Recruitment Manager, with Report for America, for a conversation about Report For America’s beat options, corps culture, and the application process.

When: 5:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Association of Hispanic journalists

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15 Recent Articles about Students Using AI

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AI Definitions: Deep Neural Network

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Deep Neural Network – A computer system with a structure inspired by neurons, or brain cells. It processes information in layers, with the deepest layers doing the most complex work. Scientists can train systems like these to “learn” human tasks, such as interpreting sounds. However, if understanding is inseparable from experience, then our physical embodiment may be difficult if not impossible to capture in symbolic processing systems.

More AI definitions here

16 Articles about AI’s impact on College Faculty & Administrators

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Dealing with False Guilt

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Here are 4 options when dealing with false guilt.

1. Remove the Source of Guilt (the conscience)
This may only desensitize us to actual wrongs and could lead to a denial of real evil in our lives.

2. Emphasize Self-Potential
This fails to address the underlying problems and ignores any real wrongs.

3. Emphasize Punishment
This can lead to feeling guilt when caught, ignoring legitimate conviction.

4. Emphasize Forgiveness
If the guilt is false, there lacks a basis for forgiveness and the person may feel they haven’t suffered enough.

When AIs are Bribed or Threatened

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What’s bizarre about LLMs is that they act more like humans than we think they should. For example, some researchers have tested the hypothesis that LLMs perform better when offered a cash reward or threatened with death. It also turns out that some of the best ways to “jailbreak” LLMs (getting them to disobey their creators’ explicit instructions) look a lot like the kinds of social engineering tricks that humans use on each other: for example, pretending to be someone else or saying that the request is just a joke. But other effective jailbreaking techniques are things no human would ever fall for. One group found that if they used ASCII art (constructions of symbols that look like words or pictures) to pose dangerous questions, like how to build a bomb, the LLM would answer them willingly. - IEEE Spectrum