Archives: Briefs | Page 4

^{Type
brief

Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 14, 2025

Categorized
Media, Politics

Tagged
BBC and USAID funds, Simon Bishop}

The BBC responds to USAID funding shutoff

_{Denyse O'Leary
February 14, 2025

3

Media, Politics}

In my view, an outreach of the sort the BBC Media Action CEO describes is best funded by disparate private philanthropists who have an interest in media. Read More ›

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 13, 2025

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Brutalist (2024), De-aging and AI, Featured, Irishman (2019), Model collapse (films), Oscars and AI}

Film Academy ponders mandatory disclosure of AI use in films

_{News
February 13, 2025

3

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

Will de-aging venerable stars and giving them AI "foreign" accents spur model collapse in films by constantly recycling old stuff instead of finding fresh stuff? Read More ›

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 13, 2025

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Tagged
AI bubble, Dot.com bubble, Gary Smith, Jeffrey Funk}

Funk and Smith at MarketWatch: AI is staring at another bubble…

_{News
February 13, 2025

2

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance}

AI companies have far less revenue than did dot-com companies before the burst; their revenue is 50 times smaller. Read More ›

Media Interview - journalists with microphones interviewing formal dressed politician

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 13, 2025

Categorized
Media, Politics

Tagged
Associated Press as government-funded, Politico as government funded}

Politico strikes back against US government funding charge

_{News
February 13, 2025

2

Media, Politics}

Despite the angry denials, government data shows that key media outfits found a huge new source of income when Joe Biden took power in January 2021. Why? Read More ›

Man hand using digital chatbot for provide access to information and data in online network.Artificial intelligence.

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 11, 2025

Categorized
Large Language Models (LLMs), Work

Tagged
AI and critical thinking skills}

Microsoft study: Use of chatbots reduces critical thinking skills

_{News
February 11, 2025

3

Large Language Models (LLMs), Work}

By definition, we can’t allow chatbots to do our thinking for us and still offer an original take on a topic. For some, that’s a solution, not a problem. Read More ›

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 11, 2025

Categorized
Ethics, Logic

Tagged
Bill Dembski, Monkey's Paw (1902), MrBeast}

Bill Dembski on MrBeast, ethics, and small probabilities

_{News
February 11, 2025

3

Ethics, Logic}

He reflects on MrBeast's 2022 question, would you take $10,000 provided a random person dies. Nearly 45% of the audience said yes… Read More ›

A bunch of pink and purple scheme with a DNA strand in the background. concept XX, XY chromosome.

^{Type
brief

Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 11, 2025

Categorized
Censorship, Evolution, Politics

Tagged
Evolutionary biology group, transgenderism}

Evolutionary biology group now claims: Humans are NOT two sexes!

_{Denyse O'Leary
February 11, 2025

3

Censorship, Evolution, Politics}

One thing they are doing for sure is casting doubt on the value of evolutionary biology itself, in a way no Darwin doubter, however strong his argument, could. Read More ›

2 UAPS / Ufos in the night sky at a beach. UFO UAP Sighting at night

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 8, 2025

Categorized
Cosmology, Politics

Tagged
Daniel Lippman, FBI and UFOs/UAPs, Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, Politico as government funded}

The FBI has its own UFO tracking bureau…

_{News
February 8, 2025

2

Cosmology, Politics}

Presumably, to avoid layoffs, the FBI’s challenge will be to demonstrate that it can do things about UFOs/UAPs that the Pentagon can’t. Read More ›

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 8, 2025

Categorized
Cosmology

Tagged
Barry Arrington, Goldilocks planet arguments, Ptolemy vs. Copernicus}

Now welcoming you to the Big Universe, Goldilocks Planet section…

_{News
February 8, 2025

5

Cosmology}

Barry Arrington looks at claims that Earth cannot be very special or important because we have only just discovered that the universe is very big. Not so. Read More ›

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 7, 2025

Categorized
Archeology, Artificial Intelligence, Language

Tagged
AI scroll decipherment, Eli Wizevich, Indus Valley civilization mystery script, Min Chen, Nisha Yadav, PHerc. 172, Rajesh P.N. Rao, Regina Sienra, Tibi Puiu}

Million-dollar prize offered to decode elusive ancient script

_{News
February 7, 2025

3

Archeology, Artificial Intelligence, Language}

It is a perplexing script because the symbols occur in short strings and there is no Rosetta Stone available for comparison with other languages. Read More ›

demostrator with megaphone and notebook protesting

^{Type
brief

Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 7, 2025

Categorized
Media, Politics, Science

Tagged
Cory Franklin, Laura Helmuth, Scientific American as politicized}

Scientific American: Trading scientific rigor for Woke agitprop?

_{Denyse O'Leary
February 7, 2025

3

Media, Politics, Science}

Cory Franklin warns that, when you introduce politics into science, all you are left with is the politics. Read More ›

The Dohuk Dam Reservoir along the river Dohuk in the Kurdish governed region of Iraq, Middle East

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 6, 2025

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Paleontology

Tagged
Ella Egberts, Evrim Yazgin, Paleolithic hand axes}

Hand axes from as long at 1.5 million years ago found in Iraq

_{News
February 6, 2025

2

Arts & Culture, Paleontology}

We know so little about life before people started writing things down but every such discovery is a sort of light going on. Read More ›

News Update Journalism Headline Media Concept

^{Type
brief

Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 6, 2025

Categorized
Media, Politics

Tagged
Associated Press as government-funded, BBC as US government funded, Canadian media as government-funded, Elon Musk and government-funded media, Featured, Media and government funding, New York Times as government-funded, Pierre Poilievre, Politico as government funded, U.S. government funding foreign media}

Turns out many news media are on the U.S. government payroll

_{Denyse O'Leary
February 6, 2025

3

Media, Politics}

The basic problem with a federal government funding news media is that the real audience becomes — not the private news seeker — but that government. Read More ›

Armed super soldier with supersonic gun in the cyber city. cyberpunk city. cyborg. Robot. Generative AI

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 5, 2025

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Military

Tagged
Gary Marcus on Google and weapons, Google and surveillance, Google and weapons development, Google Don’t be evil slogan, Hugh Langley, Matt Novak}

Google will now develop AI for weapons and surveillance

_{News
February 5, 2025

3

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Military}

Perhaps the big worry, with firms of that size and power, is whether — whatever any government’s intention — the tail will end up wagging the dog. Read More ›

Portrait of young bearded man using public phone wearing hoodie (jacket) and black sunglasses - informant, spy, secret agent and fake news concept

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 4, 2025

Categorized
Censorship, Law

Tagged
Ben Weingarten on federal censorship, Bias reporting systems, Donald Trump on federal censorship, Greg Lukianoff on bias reporting systems}

U.S.: bias reporting systems spread from campus to neighborhoods

_{News
February 4, 2025

3

Censorship, Law}

The trend may be short-lived. On campus, fear of not graduating seals many lips. Off campus, many would lose little by challenging unconstitutional bias police. Read More ›

chubby curly-haired black baby 3 months old smiles strongly on white background

^{Type
brief

Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 4, 2025

Categorized
Language

Tagged
Babies and language learning, Catherine T. Best, Denis Burnham, Eylem Altuntas, Marina Kalashnikova}

Babies learn much language in the first six months post-birth

_{Denyse O'Leary
February 4, 2025

3

Language}

Even at that point they can tell sounds from languages they have never even heard apart. Read More ›

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 3, 2025

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Non-Computable You (Discovery Institute 2022), Ratio Christi, Robert J. Marks, Robert Zeinstra}

Robert J. Marks to speak at the University of North Texas Feb 10

_{News
February 3, 2025

1

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

The focus of the talk will be the theme of his recent book, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will. Read More ›

Tiananmen Square, one of the world's largest city square, China landmark location, in Beijing China

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 3, 2025

Categorized
Censorship, Large Language Models (LLMs)

Tagged
DeepSeek and censorship, Lily Hay Newman, Matt Burgess, Michael Geist on DeepSeek, Tienanmen Square (massacre)}

DeepSeek unapologetically offers political censorship

_{News
February 3, 2025

2

Censorship, Large Language Models (LLMs)}

And besides, it is a wonderful app if you want to be sure that the Chinese Communist Party knows all your business. Read More ›

James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 1, 2025

Categorized
Astrobiology, Cosmology

Tagged
Cosmos and Camus (Peter Lang 2020)), Fine-tuning of the universe, Shai Tubali}

Philosopher: Should we just accept a lifeless cosmos?

_{News
February 1, 2025

3

Astrobiology, Cosmology}

The fine-tuning of the universe, and Earth, for life suggests a Mind behind it all so, even so, we are not alone. But we don’t know. Read More ›

Two chimpanzees on a large rock in the zoo.

^{Type
brief

News
Date
February 1, 2025}

Chatbot is asked to estimate the probability of human evolution…

_{News
February 1, 2025

3

Uncategorized}

Human evolution from an ape-like creature is the central myth of secular society, enabling self-understanding, and it is unclear that evidence is even relevant. Read More ›