Showing 1 - 8 of 8
YouTube ramps up ads, moderation
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/03/2023
» If this was a YouTube video you would have to sit through up to 30 seconds of ads before you could even start. YouTube seems to be stepping up its advertising while at the same time providing less service. I still use it because it has things I'm interested in, like Chinese martial arts series and info on music products I like. If I'd written this using ChatGPT you would not see some of the material because the trust and safety filters on the AI product have repeatedly been found to be biased towards the US political left in the content it will return. Some people associated with ChatGPT have acknowledged this but it remains to be seen if anything will change.
The populist climate threat
Oped, Published on 04/10/2022
» Reactionary populism is now the biggest obstacle to tackling climate change. With outright climate denial no longer an option, populist politicians have increasingly positioned themselves as climate doubters and delayers, and this new approach is proving to be quite insidious. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that global greenhouse-gas emissions must peak within three years to keep the Paris agreement's 1.5° Celsius target in reach; by slowing effective action, the tactics of today's populists are becoming an existential threat.
Are we ready for the first real automatons?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/01/2021
» They were planning to put on a play written by an artificial intelligence programme in Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic, this month, to mark the invention of robots (or at least the idea of robots) in the same city exactly one hundred years ago. The coronavirus pandemic got in the way of that, and it will now only be available free online late next month. Kind of symbolic, really: the future is quite different than what they expected.
Barack Obama Memoir Sells More Than 887,000 Copies on First Day
Business, Published on 20/11/2020
» Former President Barack Obama's memoir sold more than 887,000 copies on Tuesday, a sizzling debut that publisher Penguin Random House said marked the largest first-day sales for any book it had ever published.
Embracing diversity on the screen
Life, Melalin Mahavongtrakul, Published on 23/06/2020
» Thailand and the world have come a long way when it comes to diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression of characters on our screens. On the occasion of Pride Month, Netflix facilitated a talk with filmmaker Chookiat Sakveerakul (Love Of Siam and Dew) and Sanchai Chotirosseranee, deputy director of the Thai Film Archive, where they discussed onscreen representation, visibility and political correctness of today's LGBTI content.
An R-rated roller-coaster ride
Life, Tatat Bunnag, Published on 19/06/2020
» A dozen strangers suddenly wake up to find themselves in a remote field. They have no idea where they are or how they got there, but the next thing they know they're being hunted down for sport. Judging by its premise or the trailer, the new action/horror film The Hunt could give you an impression of another The Hunger Games or Maze Runner, a survival story mixed with strong political messages. But the film surprisingly delivered a satire, dark humour combined with really well filmed action sequences, plus some of the most likeable performances you'll see in a movie this year.
Asia's century, China's year
Asia focus, Published on 30/12/2019
» Way back when 1999 was winding down, pundits were telling us that the Asian Century was about to dawn. That prediction has not yet been fully realised, but few would disagree that 2019 belonged to China. Over the past 12 months, the top headlines have been about the bruising trade war with America, defiant protests in Hong Kong against Beijing's tightening grip, and the rise of a surveillance state that is herding hundreds of thousands into "re-education" camps on its western fringes. Below, the Asia Focus team looks back on a busy and sometimes troubling 2019.
Don't call AI bigoted
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/11/2019
» Despite what some claim, Artificial Intelligence is not racist. Google built a system to detect hate speech or speech that exhibited questionable content. Following the rules given, it picked out a range of people with what some try to claim was a bias toward black people. Wrong. The AI simply followed the rules and a larger number of black people and some other minorities, as defined in the US, were found to be breaking those rules. It didn't matter to the machines that when one group says it, it isn't defined as hate speech by some; it simply followed the rules. People can ignore or pretend not to see rules, but machines don't work that way. What the exercise actually found was that speech by some groups is ignored while the same thing said by others isn't. As the saying goes, don't ask the question if you're not prepared to hear the answer.