Scott Boehmer

Author: Scott Boehmer

  • Killer robots hiding in plain sight

    As more and more decisions about human fates are made by algorithms, a lack of accountability and transparency will elevate heartless treatment driven by efficiency devoid of empathy. Humans become mere data shadows.

    Per Axbom

    Killer robots hiding in plain sight (Axbom)

  • Lost in the Future

    Modern existence has become engulfed in sludge, the institutions that exist to cut through it bouncing between the ignorance of their masters and a misplaced duty in objectivity, our mechanisms for exploring and enjoying the world interfered with by powerful forces that are too-often left unchecked. Opening our devices is willfully subjecting us to attack after attack from applications, websites and devices that are built to make us do things rather than operate with the dignity and freedom that much of the internet was founded upon.

    Ed Zitron

    Lost In The Future (Where’s Your Ed At)

  • Three big answers (about NC elections)

    What direction is North Carolina headed in?

    The answer: still unclear.

    Carolina Forward Research Staff

    Together, Robinson and Morrow may have publicly established the floor of support that Republican statewide candidates can expect in North Carolina, no matter what. If anything, this speaks even more clearly to how deep political polarization has sunk in.

    Carolina Forward Research Staff

    Though Democrats won a majority of votes for the State Senate (50.1%) and State House (51.1%), Republicans nevertheless held on to their supermajority in the former, and are just 1 seat from a supermajority in the latter.

    Carolina Forward Research Staff

    Three big answers (Carolina Forward)

  • Wind the clock

    What you don’t do is give up. The outcome of this election has exposed to many the realities we didn’t want to see, of just how many people around us openly embrace hatred and bigotry and authoritarianism. Standing up to that can be scary and even dangerous, but it is also right. Beliefs are the things you stand for even when it’s scary, even when it’s hard, even when there might be consequences. And the less danger you, personally, face for standing up for what you believe, the more obligated you are to do it.

    Molly White

    Wind the clock (Citation Needed)

  • 2024 is going to smash heat records

    This is likely also the first year that global average temperatures have risen more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than they were before the industrial revolution. That might not sound like much, but it exceeds the most ambitious target set in the Paris climate accord — an international treaty to keep warming from surpassing 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius over the long term. Our planet’s climate remained relatively stable for the last 11,000 years or so, supporting the rise of agriculture and civilization as we know it, until the industrial revolution. The Paris agreement aims to keep global temperatures within roughly the same temperature range. But without a transition to cleaner energy to get rid greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, global temperatures will continue to rise.

    Justine Calma

    2024 is going to smash heat records (The Verge)

  • Information literacy and chatbots as search

    If someone uses an LLM as a replacement for search, and the output they get is correct, this is just by chance. Furthermore, a system that is right 95% of the time is arguably more dangerous than one that is right 50% of the time. People will be more likely to trust the output, and likely less able to fact check the 5%.

    But even if the chatbots on offer were built around something other than LLMs, something that could reliably get the right answer, they’d still be a terrible technology for information access.

    Professor Emily Bender

    Information literacy and chatbots as search (Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000)

  • American Reality

    The shining possibility of an America living up to its ideals feels washed away by the dark reality of the America that is.