Technology

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25905220

This week at the Munich Security Conference, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, played “I’ve got a secret.” It’s a game national security officialdom loves to play, slyly claiming authority ‘if they could only tell you what they know.’

It is in that vein that Warner spilled the beans on what he called the “real story” behind the law that could still ban TikTok.

“I want to see if you're going to tell the real story,” a grinning Warner said, addressing former congressman Mike Gallagher, and now a Palantir executive who, along with Warner, first introduced the bill that claimed that TikTok was a national security threat, a claim still relevant given the app’s uncertain future.

Gallagher described how the national security bill was dead until Hamas’ attack on Israel, which brought the legislation back to life. As Gallagher

“So we had a bipartisan consensus. We had the executive branch, but the bill was still dead until October 7th. And people started to see a bunch of anti-Semitic content on the platform and our bill had legs again.”

And if so, does anyone know where could I get one?

My cat will attack anything that moves, including my laptop cord, and has already ruined one by chewing on it. I've seen plastic ones for sale, but I'm fairly certain he would just chew right through them. 😼

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/109565

Constructing artificial intelligence that aligns with human values is a crucial challenge, with political values playing a distinctive role among various human value systems. In this study, we adapted the Political Compass Test and combined it with rigorous bootstrapping techniques to create a standardized method for testing political values in AI. This approach was applied to multiple versions of ChatGPT, utilizing a dataset of over 3000 tests to ensure robustness. Our findings reveal that while newer versions of ChatGPT consistently maintain values within the libertarian-left quadrant, there is a statistically significant rightward shift in political values over time, a phenomenon we term a ‘value shift’ in large language models. This shift is particularly noteworthy given the widespread use of LLMs and their potential influence on societal values. Importantly, our study controlled for factors such as user interaction and language, and the observed shifts were not directly linked to changes in training datasets. While this research provides valuable insights into the dynamic nature of value alignment in AI, it also underscores limitations, including the challenge of isolating all external variables that may contribute to these shifts. These findings suggest a need for continuous monitoring of AI systems to ensure ethical value alignment, particularly as they increasingly integrate into human decision-making and knowledge systems.

Elon Musk is using Artificial Intelligence as a weapon of mass destruction against the American government. "Elon Musk’s DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts," reports the Washington Post, describing it as "part of a broader plan to deploy the technology across the federal government."

In a must-read essay Eryk Salvaggio describes an "AI Coup" currently underway in Washington. "AI is a technology for manufacturing excuses," opens his devastating analysis of how artificial intelligence is being weaponized against democracy. While Silicon Valley prophets warn us about AI robots taking over by force, a more insidious coup is already underway: the systematic replacement of democratic decision-making with automated systems, justified by empty promises of efficiency.

At the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk deploys college-age operatives to seize control of federal computer systems. The Trump administration builds keyword blacklists to strangle research into algorithmic bias. And in agency after agency, civil servants who embody institutional knowledge and values are being ousted, perhaps to be replaced by chatbots that can be reprogrammed at will.

https://archive.is/DCkub

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25887269

Almost after a year since the first release in the sixth generation of the popular Linux and UNIX desktop environment, KDE community announces the release of the latest version of KDE Plasma 6.3. In this major release the System Settings’ Drawing Tablet page has been overhauled and split into multiple tabs to improve how things are organized, and new configuration options have been added to each section. KWin window manager makes a stronger effort to snap things to the screen’s pixel grid, greatly reducing blurriness and visual gaps everywhere and producing sharper and crisper images. In the color department, screen colors are more accurate when using the Night Light feature both with and without ICC profiles, and KWin offers the option to choose screen color accuracy. Hardware and system monitoring and information tools have also received new features and performance optimizations. KRunner (the built-in search tool that also does conversions, calculations, definitions, graph plotting, and much more) now let you jump between categories using keyboard shortcuts. A security enhancement landing in Discover software management/app store application highlights sandboxed apps whose permissions will change after being updated. If you’re a fan of the forecasts provided by Deutcher Wetterdienst, you’re in luck: Plasma 6.3’s weather widget allows using this source for weather data. You can now configure its built-in touchpad to switch off automatically, so it doesn’t interfere with your typing. When you drag a file out of a window that’s partially below other windows, it no longer jumps to the top, potentially obscuring what you wanted to drag it into. Plasma panels can now be cloned You can also use scripting to change your panels’ opacity levels and what screen they appear on. And there’s much more. To see the full list of changes, check out the complete changelog for KDE Plasma 6.3.

The best time to join a union was 10 years ago. The second best moment is now.

Fascism is coming to your country, and nobody is coming to save you. Today fascism looks like a dorky asshole in a t-shirt with a company logo. Do you really want to live with the regret of having done nothing while a tech bro dismantled your country?

If you work in tech, join Tech Workers Coalition. TWC 101 event is the best way to come on board. No skills or previous experience expected. TWC is by workers and for workers: if you work, you're already one of us.

Option A will take place at 18:00 CEST / 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT, and you can register at bit.ly/twc101-feb2025A.

Option B will take place at 5:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM ET, and you can register at bit.ly/twc101-feb2025B.

Windows 11-24H2 installations with certain update statuses can no longer install further updates. Only a manual correction will help.

Last Christmas, a problem with Windows 11 24H2 installations became known that they cannot install further updates if they were installed from an installation medium with certain update statuses. Microsoft has now given up looking for an automated solution to this problem or developing a fix-it tool – The only option available to those affected is manual correction.

Microsoft has confirmed this decision by setting the entry in the Windows Release Health announcements to "resolved". Specifically, the problem description is that a Windows 11 installation on version 24H2, which was installed from a CD (sic) or USB drive with integrated October or November updates from 2024, can no longer install any further security updates. This also includes media created with the Windows Media Creation Tool at those times. However, installations that have downloaded the updates via Windows Update and applied them do not have this problem.

Windows update dropouts: only manual solution available

The entry on the problem from Microsoft has had the status "resolved" since the end of last week. However, it still only contains the previous workaround as a solution: The problem can be solved by overinstalling with an installation medium that contains at least the security updates from December 2024 – i.e. was created from December 10, 2024 –. Microsoft does not mention a fix-it tool, script or other options, such as registry changes.

Such an updated medium can be created with the Windows Media Creation Tool, which is available on Microsoft's Windows 11 download website. This either downloads an ISO file that can be transferred to DVD or creates a bootable USB stick with the Windows installation; this should have at least 8 GB of space.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Windows-11-24H2-update-problems-Microsoft-gives-up-on-finding-a-solution-10275962.html