Contrary to your social media feeds, Pokemon Go is NOT the only web news this week! While the gaming app has dominated computer and traditional media, turned society on its heads, and created a slew of new job opportunities (Pokemon Drivers, $20/hour), you can find all that information bombarding you on other news channels. We’re here to talk about what else is happening on the web.
Humans Posing as Chatbots Trying To Be Human
Ellen Huet, Bloomberg Technology
If you fear the AI takeover will happen any day now, this article will help you rest easier. Behind every good chatbot there are hundreds of people influencing its behavior and machine learning capabilities. But what if I told you there are actual humans posing as those chatbots more often than you think? Enter the AI trainer, humans whose jobs are to review, screen, and correct chatbot responses to ensure accuracy. Even though AIs are supposed to surpass us all with logic and efficiency, all the logic in the world can’t always answer oddly phrased requests from live humans. Until AI reaches the level of understanding sarcasm and figurative speech, we’ll still need AI trainers pushing the buttons from the shadows.
What would the Turing test say about these hybrid bots? While we’re on the subject of AI, take a look at the impact the European Union’s new regulations might have on the use of artificial intelligence algorithms.
The Internet is Influencing Literature and Media in More Ways than One
Lexi Pandell, Wired
Can an avid Twitter user be considered an author? The Internet and social media have shaped what we consider sources of news and given us new methods of storytelling. Social media content turning mainstream media is happening more often than you think. From the cell phone video shown on the nightly TV news to blog series turning into major motion pictures (I’m looking at you, Julie and Julia), more and more of our media and entertainment is coming directly from the Internet. This new print novel (or eBook, because of course), So Much for That Winter, brings about a new writing style pandering to the social media-saturated culture.
We no longer read articles and books like our forefathers. News sometimes comes in clips and bits, piecing together the story of Prince’s death in 20 tweets per second with the hashtag #RIPPrince. We learn about major social issues through firsthand accounts on Facebook Live videos. We are now the eyewitness news reporters. But with this new floodgate of information comes a new code of control. Just like a TV station, Facebook and YouTube have to determine what is appropriate and what is not, sometimes in the wake of controversy as recently seen with the Reynolds video. The next time you’re overwhelmed by a new flood of news from the Internet, sit back and question how much more noise there would be without server-side censorship?
In Mr. Robot Season 2 Premiere, Art Imitates Life
Mr. Robot, the semi-dystopian tale of modern-day anarchy at its finest, is back for a second season and already making a splash in its own unique way. Prior to its official premiere on July 13, the fictitious “fsociety” hacker group did exactly what hackers do and breached the Mr. Robot official Facebook page. The video was a brief clip, a message (read: threat) against Evil Corp followed by a short montage catching us up to the events of the end of season 1.
The video has since been removed, only to have the entire first episode uploaded to Twitter not long after. The tweet came two days before the official premier, masquerading as illegal footage that “won’t be here long”. Looking back on the Mr. Robot twitter feed, they apparently bounced the “leaked” video around to several outlets – YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, usanet.tv – all before taking them down to let the light shine on the real broadcast premiere.
If you haven’t already watched season 1, I highly recommend grabbing your Amazon Prime Video subscription and giving it a whirl. It’s an amazingly accurate look at the very freedoms being lost and the crimes being committed, all thanks to the World Wide Web.
Netflix is Once Again the Center of Net Neutrality and Online Freedom Debates
A large portion of the Internet was in a panic recently when the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled sharing passwords is grounds for prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The ruling came from the case of david Nosal, a former employee of an executive search firm using a co-worker’s credentials to hack his former employer’s database. But the Internet being the Internet reacted with panic along the lines of, “If you share your Netflix password the FBI is going to arrest you.”
Here’s the good news: you won’t be going to jail for sharing your Netflix password. Netflix has publicly stated that it likes when its users share their Netflix with friends. And they are right to do so. Many people who “mooch” off their friends’ Netflix accounts eventually become paying customers once they’re hooked (that is if their friend cuts them off). Plus, Netflix does have stream limits, so users are encouraged to get an account of their own if they see the “There are too many devices using this account” message too often.
Netflix also made a splash in the news recently with the announcement of their partnership on Comcast’s X1 interactive television box. Comcast customers will get this new enhanced box with their service that comes pre-installed with Netflix. No word on whether there will still be the separate Netflix fee (likely) or how this will work if you only have a TV service subscription and no Internet connection.
This partnership creates an interesting caveat in the net neutrality battle. Netflix – a strong supporter of NN – is choosing to put its eggs in Comcast’s basket, potentially protecting its service if NN fails and ISPs are able to throttle services at will. If throttling does come to pass, will this make Comcast come out on top as the keeper of the Netflix?
Used 23andMe? Your Genetics Are Now Third-Party Property
Sarah Zhang, Gizmodo
It seems nothing is sacred these days to info-hungry marketers. First our social profiles were mined, and now they’re trying to get into our genes. (That joke’s better read aloud) The popular genetic testing kit, 23andMe, promised users a look into their genetic history and fun facts like why they’re predisposed to like certain foods. The kits were met with some controversy from the start, with the FDA questioning their data regarding a person’s risk of serious diseases. But now there’s a new controversy – your genetic data just landed in the hands of big pharma.
The biotech company Genetech is paying 23andMe $60 million for access to its 800,000-strong genetics database. They say the research will go toward studying Parkinson’s for now, but there are questions about what other uses the database could have. Users of the service do have to sign a consent document for their data to be signed over to third-parties, and about 85 to 90 percent of the users have signed. But the Parkinson’s research is just scratching the tip of this big gray iceberg…will the results of this gene-mining bring about new cures, or give big pharma more ways to manipulate the health care market. Time will tell.
The FBI Says Malware Isn’t Illegal if They’re Using it for Good
William Turton, Gizmodo
If this isn’t government privilege I don’t know what is. The FBI is claiming their use of malware in the takedown of a dark web child pornography website is legal, because it was for a good cause. But that’s not what some judges are saying after dismissing evidence from the sting because it was obtained without proper warrants and with malicious tactics. The FBI countered saying it’s not malware because they’re the good guys!
This gets into a legal gray area of social justice hacking. This case could set a new precedence for vigilante hackers (see Mr. Robot story above) when their actions lead to a positive outcome. Hacked the social profiles of your neighbor to gather evidence to convict him of child molestation? You’re a hero to the neighborhood, but potentially a felon in the eyes of the law. While we debate over the ethics of using hacker tactics to save innocent children, a sly change to Rule 41 (not to be confused with the Internet’s Rule 34) which expanded Federal Criminal Procedure to allow warrants to hack any computer even without knowing the status of the computer’s user.
Bottom line: don’t do bad things on the Internet and you won’t have to worry about being arrested…for now.
david returns next week with your original flavored web news!
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