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168° Mercoledì di Nexa | 10 gennaio 2024, ore 17.00

by Valeria Bergantino

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare al *168° Mercoledì di Nexa*, che si terrà *mercoledì 10 gennaio*, alle ore 17.00, con un incontro dal titolo /*"L’architetto e l’oracolo. Forme digitali del sapere da Wikipedia a ChatGPT"*/. Ospite dell'incontro: *Gino Roncaglia* (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)/*.*/ _L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE._ _SEDE FISICA_ dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono *Portineria* e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate lungo il percorso. QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. _STANZA VIRTUALE_ dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Di seguito maggiori dettagli: Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-168> NEXA 168° Mercoledì di Nexa Mercoledì 10 gennaio 2024, ore 17.00 - 19.00 Politecnico di Torino https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-168 /L'architetto e l'oracolo./ /Forme digitali del sapere da Wikipedia a ChatGPT/ *GINO RONCAGLIA (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)* *L'INCONTRO SI TERRÀ IN PRESENZA E ONLINE* *SEDE FISICA*: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Suonare al citofono *Portineria* - Seguire le indicazioni segnalate dai cartelli lungo il percorso. (Per maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci clicca QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti>) *STANZA VIRTUALE*: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Al tradizionale modello architettonico e sistematico di organizzazione delle conoscenze, al quale fanno riferimento strumenti come le enciclopedie, i sistemi di catalogazione e metadatazione, o l’organizzazione disciplinare tipica di molti processi formativi, si contrappone oggi un modello assai meno strutturato e organizzato, che cresce e si sviluppa in forme non sempre prevedibili: quello delle *nuove intelligenze artificiali generative, che operano in base a un paradigma statistico-probabilistico e dunque non strettamente deterministico*. Le intelligenze artificiali generative sono state paragonate a ‘pappagalli stocastici’, ma sono forse meglio descrivibili come oracoli predittivi: l’intervento discuterà il rapporto fra i due paradigmi, ne proporrà una rapida ricostruzione storica (con particolare riferimento al passaggio dall’iniziale contrapposizione fra IA forte e IA debole nella ‘Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence’ della seconda metà del secolo scorso, a quella attuale fra i concetti di Narrow AI e General AI) e fornirà una sintetica introduzione al funzionamento delle *reti neurali generative*. Nell’ultima parte saranno poi proposte alcune considerazioni sulla situazione attuale e sulle prevedibili evoluzioni future dell’intelligenza artificiale generativa, in particolare in direzione della *multi-modalità* e dell’*embodiment*. BIOGRAFIA e informazioni supplementari: [mercoledì168] *GINO RONCAGLIA* è professore associato presso l’Università Roma Tre, dove insegna Informatica umanistica, Filosofia dell’informazione ed Editoria digitale. Autore di numerosi saggi sul settore dei nuovi media (con particolare riferimento al futuro del libro e della lettura), è fra gli esperti che hanno partecipato alla stesura del Piano Nazionale Scuola Digitale e collabora da tempo con RAI Cultura. Proprio per RAI Cultura ha realizzato durante l’emergenza COVID-19 i programmi /Scuola @ Casa/ (10 puntate di introduzione alla didattica a distanza) e /Scuola @ Casa News/ (40 puntate di informazioni e notizie destinate al mondo della scuola), e ha curato il programma settimanale /Scuola News/. È membro del Consiglio scientifico della Fondazione scuola beni e attività culturali del Ministero della Cultura, e professore onorario della Universidad Nacional de Villa María in Argentina. Fra i suoi libri più recenti, /L’architetto e l’oracolo. Forme digitali del sapere da Wikipedia a ChatGPT/(Laterza 2023), /L’età della frammentazione. Cultura del libro e scuola digitale/ (Laterza 2018, seconda edizione accresciuta, Laterza 2020) e /La quarta rivoluzione. Sei lezioni sul futuro del libro/ (Laterza 2010). *Letture consigliate:* * Roncaglia, G. (2023), /L’architetto e l’oracolo. Forme digitali del sapere da Wikipedia a ChatGPT/, Laterza * Tegmark, M. (2018), /Vita 3.0. Essere umani nell'era dell'intelligenza artificiale/, Raffaello Cortina Editore * Roncaglia, G. (4 maggio 2023), /Intelligenze artificiali generative e mediazione informativa: una introduzione/, Biblioteche Oggi Trends, N.1, disponibile al LINK <https://www.bibliotecheoggitrends.it/it/articolo/2839/intelligenze-artifici…> Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> <https://www.instagram.com/nexa_center/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/3054864/admin/> #nexawednesday <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexawednesday&src=typd> #GinoRoncaglia <https://twitter.com/roncaglia> #UniversitaRomaTre <https://twitter.com/UnivRoma3> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica), fondato nel 2006, è un centro di ricerca interdisciplinare che, in collaborazione con l’Università di Torino (in particolare il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza), studia le tecnologie digitali e il loro rapporto con la società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “Mercoledì di Nexa”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese alle ore 17 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma accessibile, i temi legati alla Rete: “intelligenza artificiale”, reti sociali, software libero, capitalismo della sorveglianza, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, condivisione di file, "big data" e "open data", “smart cities”, e molto altro. Al centro della maggior parte degli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino, i Proff. Marco Ricolfi e Maurizio Borghi dell'Università di Torino, lo staff, i Fellows del Centro Nexa e tutti i presenti. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Le registrazioni degli incontri sono disponibili qui: https://nexa.polito.it/audio-video. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Valeria Bergantino*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, Mob: +39 347 344 3585, valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>. Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Officer Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it <mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

Dec. 21, 2023

Presunzioni delle macchine e consenso dell'interessato

by Daniele Imbruglia

Salve nexian*, mi permetto di condividere una recente pubblicazione, allegata, anche per ringraziare i tanti input ricevuti da questa magnifica mailing list. Grato per ogni commento, auguro a tutti buone vacanze, Daniele -- dr. Daniele Imbruglia Ricercatore in diritto privato Dipartimento di Diritto ed economia delle attività produttive Facoltà di Economia - Università di Roma "La Sapienza" Via del Castro Laurenziano, 9 - 00161 Roma RM https://uniroma1.academia.edu/DanieleImbruglia

Dec. 19, 2023

E-books are fast becoming tools of corporate surveillance

by Alberto Cammozzo

As the Internet Archive appeals a court decision blocking alternatives to surveillance-ridden digital book licenses, a new report reveals that the world’s largest publisher may be selling readers’ intimate personal data to the highest bidder <https://www.fastcompany.com/90996547/e-books-are-fast-becoming-tools-of-cor…> Three in ten <https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/06/three-in-ten-americans-n…> Americans read digital books. Whether they’re accessing online textbooks or checking out the latest bestselling e-book from the public library, the majority of these readers are subject to both the greed of Big Publishing and the priorities of Big Tech. In fact, Amazon’s Kindle held 72% <https://wordsrated.com/amazon-kindle-e-book-and-kindle-unlimited-statistics/> of the e-reader market in 2022. And if there’s one thing we know about Big Tech companies like Amazon <https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-empire-of-surveillance-leveraging-mo…>, their real product isn’t the book. It’s the user data. Major publishers are giving Big Tech free rein to watch what you read and where, including books on sensitive topics, like if you check out a book on self care after an abortion. Worse, tech and publishing corporations are gobbling up data beyond your reading habits—today, there are no federal laws to stop them from surveilling people who read digital books across the entire internet. Reader surveillance is a deeply intersectional threat, according to a congressional letter <https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2023-12-07-25-human-rights-organizat…> issued last week from a coalition of groups whose interests span civil rights, anti-surveillance, anti-book ban, racial justice, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+, immigrant, and antimonopoly. Our letter calls on federal lawmakers to investigate the harms of tech and publishing corporations’ powerful hold over digital book access. This investigation is an essential first step to revive the right to read without fear of having your interests used against you. Because unfortunately, that right is on life support when it comes to digital books. Right now, there’s a concerted effort from anti-abortion lawmakers and vigilantes to discover who is getting or supporting an abortion, and data brokers have already been sued <https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/08/ftc-sues-kochav…> for packaging up data on visitors to reproductive health centers. But the U.S. still has no meaningful federal data privacy <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/digital-privacy-legislation-civil-rig…> protections to turn off the tap of intimate personal data. Whether you’re traveling for abortion care, legally accessing it at home <https://www.plancpills.org/>, experiencing a miscarriage <https://www.npr.org/2022/07/03/1109015302/abortion-prosecuting-pregnancy-lo…>, or finding support resources <https://mahotline.org/> for a loved one, worrying that reading a book might betray private medical information should be absurd. Yet in today’s post-Roe landscape of legal, social, and health threats around pregnancy, we need to be concerned that Big Publishing’s new hunger for reader data might put abortion seekers at risk of <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/digital-privacy-legislation-civil-rig…> criminalization and violence <https://www.insider.com/texas-woman-killed-boyfriend-getting-abortion-2023-5>. Such /1984/-esque threats woven into the lives of everyday people are particularly insidious. The average abortion seeker does not know <https://jezebel.com/nebraska-mom-pleads-guilty-to-giving-abortion-pills-to-…> how to navigate safely in a surveillance state—and knowing that they may be surveilled causes people to not access <https://societyfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/WeCount-Release-June-2023.…> the reproductive or abortion care they need, to not seek the mental and emotional support they require, and to delay care until further into an unwanted pregnancy. All of these choices endanger a pregnant person. In the age of artificial intelligence, the ability to analyze unfathomably detailed data on individual people, create reports and inferences about those people, and use the whole lot of it to train AI models is constantly improving. The incentives to exploit the data of readers are the strongest they have ever been. Big Publishing is clearly seeing nothing but dollar signs <https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/an-app-called-libby…> as apps like Hoopla <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hoopla-digital/id580643740> gobble up identity-linked data on readers—and so it would be natural to put our hope in public libraries, which view patron privacy as a fundamental right essential to a functioning democracy. In the human rights community, libraries’ resistance against government surveillance <https://slate.com/technology/2015/06/usa-freedom-act-before-snowden-librari…> under the Patriot Act is legendary. Unfortunately, Big Publishing has sued to stop libraries from loaning surveillance-free digital books—winning a lower court judgment that the nonprofit Internet Archive <https://www.battleforlibraries.com/> is set to appeal before the year is out. Unless that judgment is overturned or new laws are passed, libraries have no alternative but to license digital books that are likely to be riddled with spyware. We know less about surveillance at public libraries because, as a November report <https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/confidentiality-clau…> from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition details, Big Publishing has been increasingly sneaky about privacy and surveillance in their library contracts. This is a play right out of Silicon Valley’s handbook: to hide bad behavior with unaccountable external links or NDAs <https://fortune.com/2019/04/29/silicon-valley-nda/> that prohibit libraries from warning their patrons. Without laws to stop them, it’s reasonable to expect that popular library apps like Hoopla and Libby are hiding similar behavior behind legal smokescreens. Already, the absurdity of Amazon Kindle’s data collection is well documented <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/amazon-kindle-data-readi…> and a source of Amazon’s overarching monopsony power <https://jacobin.com/2022/11/cory-doctorow-chokepoint-capitalism-monopoly-te…> in the book market. With libraries facing legal annihilation <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/publishers-librarians-ebo…> from every direction <https://www.tiktok.com/@fightfortheftr/video/7267303386683297067> if they attempt to carve out surveillance-free spaces for digital books, the future of reading is in the eleventh hour. Lawmakers must immediately launch an investigation to protect not only abortion patients, but all readers throughout this country. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ /Lia Holland is a fiction author and campaigns and communications director at digital rights organization Fight for the Future, where they focus on creator’s rights and emerging technologies./ /Jade Pfaefflin Bounds is a reproductive and racial justice educator, doula, and digital rights organizer with Fight for the Future. His work converges and orients towards collective liberation./ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ /Correction: An earlier version of this op-ed claimed the publisher Elsevier was tracking and selling data to third parties, a claim Elsevier rejects. Such claims have since been removed from the /article/. In a statement, a spokesperson says: “We take the issue of data privacy and security very seriously and maintaining the trust of the people who use our services is critically important to us. Our data privacy practices are transparent, comply with the law and operate within a clear ethical framework. We support the right of individuals to know and manage how their personal information is collected and used, as articulated in our Privacy Principles and Privacy Policy and demonstrated by our user-facing Privacy Center and cookie management platforms.”/

Dec. 18, 2023

Articolo "Libertà di ricerca, licenze libere e sistemi d’intelligenza artificiale"

by Marco Ciurcina

Condivido un mio articolo sul tema in oggetto, pubblicato qualche settimana orsono (forse è d'interesse per qualcuno in lista) https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.53227/108473 Abstract After years in which many developments in artificial intelligence systems were the outcome of scientific research and were made available under free licences, the recent success of some generative artificial intelligence systems, which were developed using large computing capacities and quantities of data, leads to the question whether conditions are emerging in which a few players will be able to provide artificial intelligence systems, concentrating economic (but not only) power. But the development of artificial intelligence systems continues. Policies are therefore useful that, by exploiting the regulatory framework (favourable to the development of transparent systems and to the scientific research), make data and computing resources available to researchers in order to foster the free availability, study and understanding of artificial intelligence systems.To achieve this, it is certainly useful to make use of the methods already adopted for free software (which, on the one hand, have led to the generation of digital commons and, on the other, are usefully employed by companies). But this is not enough: artificial intelligence systems do not consist of software alone and require computing and data resources. It is supportive of the European regulatory framework which allows it to adopt policies that enhance the scientific research in the development of artificial intelligence systems thus balancing fundamental rights with conflicting objectives: freedom of enterprise, freedom of scientific research and protection of personal data. L'articolo è in italiano. m.c.

Dec. 16, 2023

How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST)

by Luigi Scorca

https://data.stanford.edu/hcmst?fbclid=IwAR2uBvRZ9qf6CSy70BBOUFxoEQuD070nrc… Interessante come l'evoluzione sia stata velocissima..

Dec. 16, 2023

EU updates product liability regime to include, software, Artificial Intelligence

by maurizio lana

spesso tra le ragioni istitutive dell'UE quella della creazione del "mercato unico" viene dismissed come una svendita delle idealità a vantaggio della ragione economica. ma qui (product liability regime includes software, Artificial Intelligence) si vede che nell'Antropocene i prodotti non sono giusto delle 'inerti pietre grigie' ma concorrono a dare forma all'ambiente umano e regolare i prodotti significa prendere posizione sui principi. (ok ho scritto Antropocene ma potevo anche dire con intento puramente descrittivo "società del capitalismo"). questo della responsabilità civile dei product manufacturers e degli economic operators di sistemi di IA era un principio già espresso in pressoché tutti i precedenti documenti normativi e legislativi dell'UE che trattavano di IA. a me pare una buona cosa perché esclude agency dei sistemi di IA e di conseguenza impedisce quelle fantasiose cose come responsabilità del sistema intelligente (?). Maurizio Il 15/12/23 12:00, Daniela Tafani <daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> ha scritto: > Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2023 13:20:57 +0000 > From: Daniela Tafani<daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> > To:"nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it" <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] EU updates product liability regime to include > software, Artificial Intelligence > > EU updates product liability regime to include software, Artificial Intelligence > By Luca Bertuzzi | > > EU policymakers reached a political agreement on Thursday (14 December) on legislation to bring the bloc’s product liability regime in line with technological developments, notably covering digital products like software, which includes Artificial Intelligence. > > The Product Liability Directive (PLD) provides people who have suffered material damage from a defective product with the legal basis to sue the relevant economic operators and seek compensation. > > The product manufacturers will be liable for defectiveness resulting from a component under its control, which might be tangible, intangible, or a related service, like the traffic data of a navigation system. > > Defectiveness > A product is deemed defective when it does not provide the safety a person is entitled to expect based on the reasonable foreseeable use, legal requirements, and the specific needs of the group of users for whom the product is intended. > > One of the elements considered when assessing defectiveness is the capacity of the product to continue to learn and acquire new features or knowledge; wording meant to cover Artificial Intelligence technology based on machine learning techniques. > > Damages > Under the PLD, material damage includes death, personal injury, psychological harm, and destruction of property. At the same time, national liability regimes might still regulate compensation for non-material damages, such as those resulting from discrimination. > > The concept of damage also includes the loss or corruption of data that is not used exclusively for professional purposes. The European Parliament suggested introducing a threshold for the value of the data to qualify as a material loss, but this idea was rejected in the talks with the Council. > > Disclosure of evidence > The PLD introduces the possibility for claimants who have presented sufficient evidence to request that a national court mandates the defendant disclose the evidence at its disposal as long as necessary and proportionate. > > Conversely, the Parliament proposed allowing the defendant to ask for the disclosure of evidence at the disposal of the claimant under the same conditions. > > The disclosing party might request the national court to take the necessary measures to protect the confidentiality of disclosed information including trade secrets. > > Burden of proof > Claimants must prove the product’s defectiveness, the damage suffered, and the causal link between the two. However, under certain conditions, the defectiveness of the product will be assumed, and it will be on the defendant to disprove it. > > The conditions include cases where the defendant fails to disclose relevant evidence, the claimant demonstrates that the product does not comply with mandatory product safety requirements, or an obvious malfunction causes the damage. > > The defectiveness is also presumed in cases where the claimant faces excessive difficulties due to technical or scientific complexity to prove the defectiveness of the product or the causal link, or the claimant proves that it is likely that the product is defective or that there is a causal link. > > Open source software > The Directive will not apply to free and open-source software developed or supplied outside a commercial activity. The liability rules apply when the software is supplied in exchange for a price or personal data used for anything other than improving the software’s security or compatibility. > > Compensation fund > The European Parliament included the possibility of EU countries using existing or new national sectorial compensation schemes for victims of defective products who fail to obtain compensation because the economic operator is insolvent or no longer exists. > > The text specifies that the member states should preferably avoid funding the schemes with public money. > > Liability exemption > The Parliament pushed a liability exemption for manufacturers of software components to a defective product that were micro or small enterprises when they placed that software in the market, provided that another economic operator is liable. > > However, this measure was left for contractual arrangements between the small company and the other party. > > Right of recourse > Parliamentarians included the principle that whenever more than one economic operator is deemed liable for the same damage and is ordered to pay compensation, each one will have the right of recourse against the others. > > Risk development > The Council added the possibility for EU countries to maintain existing measures in their legal systems that make economic operators liable even if they can prove that they could not know the product’s defectiveness based on the state of scientific and technical knowledge. > > Limitation periods > Claimants will have three years to initiate proceedings following the damage. The right for an injured person to seek compensation under this directive expires after ten years, except for latent injuries that are slow to manifest, for which the timeframe is 25 years. > > Timeline > The PLD will apply to all products placed on the EU market 24 months after it enters into force. EU countries will have until then to transpose the directive into national law. > > [Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic] > > L'articolo è in questo luogo occhiuto: > https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-updates-product-liability-… > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2023 14:40:08 +0000 > From: Daniela Tafani<daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> > To:"nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it" <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] A proposito di prodotti pericolosi e non funzionanti: > Tesla recalls nearly all 2 million of its vehicles on US roads > Message-ID:<4b954e94abc14570919bcb2e9f94bae4(a)unipi.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" > > Tesla recalls nearly all 2 million of its vehicles on US roads > Chris Isidore, CNN > > Tesla is recalling nearly all 2 million of its cars on US roads to limit the use of its Autopilot feature following a two-year probe by US safety regulators of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged. > > The limitations on Autopilot serve as a blow to Tesla’s efforts to market its vehicles to buyers willing to pay extra to have their cars do the driving for them. > > The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the Autopilot system can give drivers a false sense of security and be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when a Tesla’s technology may be unable to safely navigate the road. The over-the-air software update will give Tesla drivers more warnings when they are not paying attention to the road while the Autopilot’s “Autosteer” function is turned on. Those notifications will remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, according to a statement from NHTSA > > After the recall, Teslas with Autosteer turned on will more routinely check on the driver’s attention level – and may disengage the feature – when the software determines the driver isn’t paying attention, when the car is approaching traffic controls, or when it’s off the highway when Autosteer alone isn’t sufficient to drive the car. > > The recall was disclosed in a letter to Tesla posted by NHTSA, which said that Tesla had agreed to the software update starting on Tuesday that will limit the use of the Autosteer feature if a driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate he or she is ready to resume control of the car while the feature is on > Tesla has been pushing its driver-assist features, including Autopilot and what it calls “Full Self Driving,” which Tesla has insisted make driving safer than cars operated exclusively by humans. But NHTSA has been studying reports of accidents involving Autopilot and its Autosteer function for more than two years. > > The recall comes two days after a detailed investigation was published by the Washington Post that found at least eight serious accidents, including some fatalities, in which the the Autopilot feature should not have been engaged in the first place. > > Tesla’s owners manuals say: “Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver.” But the company has pushed the idea that its driver assist features allow the cars to safely make most driving decisions even away from those roads. > > A NHTSA investigation, however, has found numerous accidents over the past several years that suggest that these features do not live up to their names of Autopilot and Full Self Driving. > > The safety regulator in its letter to Tesla said “in certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, the prominence and scope of the feature’s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse [of the feature.]” It said that when drivers are not fully engaged and ready to take control of the car “there may be an increased risk of a crash.” > > In addition to the software updates, Tesla will mail letters to car owners notifying them of the change. > A history of Autopilot issues > > This is not the first time that NHTSA has pushed Tesla to make changes to its Autopilot or Full Self Driving features after finding the features posed safety problems. > > In February, Tesla recalled all 363,000 US vehicles then on the road with its FSD feature after finding cars operating with the feature would violate traffic laws, including “traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution.” > > And NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board have been investigating crashes involving Tesla vehicles using the various driver assist features, including a series of crashes into emergency vehicles on the scene of other accidents. > > Tesla is not the only automaker offering driver assist features marketed as “self-driving.” And it is not the only one to run into safety problems. Recently General Motors’ Cruise unit suspended its driverless taxi service nationwide after California authorities suspended its ability to operate the system there after an accident. > > But, because it markets the names Autopilot and Full Self Driving, Tesla has made a greater emphasis than competitors on self-driving. It charges buyers $6,000 for cars with what it calls “enhanced Autopilot.” and $12,000 for the FSD feature. > > Many who paid extra for those features have told CNN they think the features are not worth the extra money. But while the features have found support among other owners, the reports of serious accidents and deaths by police and safety regulators could hurt Tesla’s efforts to market the cars and their expensive features. > Autopilot’s importance to Tesla > > Tesla is already the most valuable automaker in the world, by far, despite having a fraction of the sales of many established automakers such as Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. > > Investors are betting on projections of future sales growth as well as the value of its software in making those stock valuations. CEO Elon Musk has said the company’s investment in artificial intelligence and its use in both self-driving vehicles as well as its plans for humanoid robots are a key to its current and future value. > > “In the long term, I think, has the potential to make Tesla the most valuable company in the world by far,” Musk said in October on a call with Wall Street analysts. “If you have fully autonomous cars at scale and fully autonomous humanoid robots that are truly useful, it’s not clear what the limit is.” > > Tesla’s stock fell slightly Wednesday. > > https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/tech/tesla-recall-autopilot/index.html > > Qui il Safety Call Report: > https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2023/RCLRPT-23V838-8276.PDF > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > > > ------------------------------ > > End of nexa Digest, Vol 176, Issue 18 > ************************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the knowledge gap between rich and poor is widening witten & bainbridge, how to build a digital library ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana Università del Piemonte Orientale Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli

Dec. 15, 2023

A proposito di prodotti pericolosi e non funzionanti: Tesla recalls nearly all 2 million of its vehicles on US roads

by Daniela Tafani

Tesla recalls nearly all 2 million of its vehicles on US roads Chris Isidore, CNN Tesla is recalling nearly all 2 million of its cars on US roads to limit the use of its Autopilot feature following a two-year probe by US safety regulators of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged. The limitations on Autopilot serve as a blow to Tesla’s efforts to market its vehicles to buyers willing to pay extra to have their cars do the driving for them. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the Autopilot system can give drivers a false sense of security and be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when a Tesla’s technology may be unable to safely navigate the road. The over-the-air software update will give Tesla drivers more warnings when they are not paying attention to the road while the Autopilot’s “Autosteer” function is turned on. Those notifications will remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, according to a statement from NHTSA After the recall, Teslas with Autosteer turned on will more routinely check on the driver’s attention level – and may disengage the feature – when the software determines the driver isn’t paying attention, when the car is approaching traffic controls, or when it’s off the highway when Autosteer alone isn’t sufficient to drive the car. The recall was disclosed in a letter to Tesla posted by NHTSA, which said that Tesla had agreed to the software update starting on Tuesday that will limit the use of the Autosteer feature if a driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate he or she is ready to resume control of the car while the feature is on Tesla has been pushing its driver-assist features, including Autopilot and what it calls “Full Self Driving,” which Tesla has insisted make driving safer than cars operated exclusively by humans. But NHTSA has been studying reports of accidents involving Autopilot and its Autosteer function for more than two years. The recall comes two days after a detailed investigation was published by the Washington Post that found at least eight serious accidents, including some fatalities, in which the the Autopilot feature should not have been engaged in the first place. Tesla’s owners manuals say: “Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver.” But the company has pushed the idea that its driver assist features allow the cars to safely make most driving decisions even away from those roads. A NHTSA investigation, however, has found numerous accidents over the past several years that suggest that these features do not live up to their names of Autopilot and Full Self Driving. The safety regulator in its letter to Tesla said “in certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, the prominence and scope of the feature’s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse [of the feature.]” It said that when drivers are not fully engaged and ready to take control of the car “there may be an increased risk of a crash.” In addition to the software updates, Tesla will mail letters to car owners notifying them of the change. A history of Autopilot issues This is not the first time that NHTSA has pushed Tesla to make changes to its Autopilot or Full Self Driving features after finding the features posed safety problems. In February, Tesla recalled all 363,000 US vehicles then on the road with its FSD feature after finding cars operating with the feature would violate traffic laws, including “traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution.” And NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board have been investigating crashes involving Tesla vehicles using the various driver assist features, including a series of crashes into emergency vehicles on the scene of other accidents. Tesla is not the only automaker offering driver assist features marketed as “self-driving.” And it is not the only one to run into safety problems. Recently General Motors’ Cruise unit suspended its driverless taxi service nationwide after California authorities suspended its ability to operate the system there after an accident. But, because it markets the names Autopilot and Full Self Driving, Tesla has made a greater emphasis than competitors on self-driving. It charges buyers $6,000 for cars with what it calls “enhanced Autopilot.” and $12,000 for the FSD feature. Many who paid extra for those features have told CNN they think the features are not worth the extra money. But while the features have found support among other owners, the reports of serious accidents and deaths by police and safety regulators could hurt Tesla’s efforts to market the cars and their expensive features. Autopilot’s importance to Tesla Tesla is already the most valuable automaker in the world, by far, despite having a fraction of the sales of many established automakers such as Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Investors are betting on projections of future sales growth as well as the value of its software in making those stock valuations. CEO Elon Musk has said the company’s investment in artificial intelligence and its use in both self-driving vehicles as well as its plans for humanoid robots are a key to its current and future value. “In the long term, I think, has the potential to make Tesla the most valuable company in the world by far,” Musk said in October on a call with Wall Street analysts. “If you have fully autonomous cars at scale and fully autonomous humanoid robots that are truly useful, it’s not clear what the limit is.” Tesla’s stock fell slightly Wednesday. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/tech/tesla-recall-autopilot/index.html Qui il Safety Call Report: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2023/RCLRPT-23V838-8276.PDF

Dec. 14, 2023

EU updates product liability regime to include software, Artificial Intelligence

by Daniela Tafani

EU updates product liability regime to include software, Artificial Intelligence By Luca Bertuzzi | EU policymakers reached a political agreement on Thursday (14 December) on legislation to bring the bloc’s product liability regime in line with technological developments, notably covering digital products like software, which includes Artificial Intelligence. The Product Liability Directive (PLD) provides people who have suffered material damage from a defective product with the legal basis to sue the relevant economic operators and seek compensation. The product manufacturers will be liable for defectiveness resulting from a component under its control, which might be tangible, intangible, or a related service, like the traffic data of a navigation system. Defectiveness A product is deemed defective when it does not provide the safety a person is entitled to expect based on the reasonable foreseeable use, legal requirements, and the specific needs of the group of users for whom the product is intended. One of the elements considered when assessing defectiveness is the capacity of the product to continue to learn and acquire new features or knowledge; wording meant to cover Artificial Intelligence technology based on machine learning techniques. Damages Under the PLD, material damage includes death, personal injury, psychological harm, and destruction of property. At the same time, national liability regimes might still regulate compensation for non-material damages, such as those resulting from discrimination. The concept of damage also includes the loss or corruption of data that is not used exclusively for professional purposes. The European Parliament suggested introducing a threshold for the value of the data to qualify as a material loss, but this idea was rejected in the talks with the Council. Disclosure of evidence The PLD introduces the possibility for claimants who have presented sufficient evidence to request that a national court mandates the defendant disclose the evidence at its disposal as long as necessary and proportionate. Conversely, the Parliament proposed allowing the defendant to ask for the disclosure of evidence at the disposal of the claimant under the same conditions. The disclosing party might request the national court to take the necessary measures to protect the confidentiality of disclosed information including trade secrets. Burden of proof Claimants must prove the product’s defectiveness, the damage suffered, and the causal link between the two. However, under certain conditions, the defectiveness of the product will be assumed, and it will be on the defendant to disprove it. The conditions include cases where the defendant fails to disclose relevant evidence, the claimant demonstrates that the product does not comply with mandatory product safety requirements, or an obvious malfunction causes the damage. The defectiveness is also presumed in cases where the claimant faces excessive difficulties due to technical or scientific complexity to prove the defectiveness of the product or the causal link, or the claimant proves that it is likely that the product is defective or that there is a causal link. Open source software The Directive will not apply to free and open-source software developed or supplied outside a commercial activity. The liability rules apply when the software is supplied in exchange for a price or personal data used for anything other than improving the software’s security or compatibility. Compensation fund The European Parliament included the possibility of EU countries using existing or new national sectorial compensation schemes for victims of defective products who fail to obtain compensation because the economic operator is insolvent or no longer exists. The text specifies that the member states should preferably avoid funding the schemes with public money. Liability exemption The Parliament pushed a liability exemption for manufacturers of software components to a defective product that were micro or small enterprises when they placed that software in the market, provided that another economic operator is liable. However, this measure was left for contractual arrangements between the small company and the other party. Right of recourse Parliamentarians included the principle that whenever more than one economic operator is deemed liable for the same damage and is ordered to pay compensation, each one will have the right of recourse against the others. Risk development The Council added the possibility for EU countries to maintain existing measures in their legal systems that make economic operators liable even if they can prove that they could not know the product’s defectiveness based on the state of scientific and technical knowledge. Limitation periods Claimants will have three years to initiate proceedings following the damage. The right for an injured person to seek compensation under this directive expires after ten years, except for latent injuries that are slow to manifest, for which the timeframe is 25 years. Timeline The PLD will apply to all products placed on the EU market 24 months after it enters into force. EU countries will have until then to transpose the directive into national law. [Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic] L'articolo è in questo luogo occhiuto: https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-updates-product-liability-…

Dec. 14, 2023

Dropbox spooks users by sending data to OpenAI for AI search features

by Daniela Tafani

Dropbox spooks users by sending data to OpenAI for AI search features Feature turned on by default bothers users who like to keep their files private On Wednesday, news quickly spread on social media about a new enabled-by-default Dropbox setting that shares your Dropbox data with OpenAI for an experimental AI-powered search feature. Dropbox says that user data shared with third-party AI partners isn't used to train AI models and is deleted within 30 days. Even with assurances of data privacy laid out by Dropbox on an AI privacy FAQ page, the discovery that the setting had been enabled by default upset some Dropbox users. The setting was first noticed by writer Winifred Burton, who shared information about the Third-party AI setting through Bluesky on Tuesday, and frequent AI critic Karla Ortiz shared more information about it on X. Ortiz expressed worries that the data might be trained secretly without consent. In its FAQ, Dropbox contradicts this claim, saying, "We won’t let our third-party partners train their models on our user data without consent." Either way, communication about the change could have been clearer. AI researcher Simon Willison wrote, "Great example here of how careful companies need to be in clearly communicating what's going on with AI access to personal data." So why would Dropbox send user files to OpenAI anyway? In July, the company announced an AI-powered feature called Dash that allows AI models to perform universal searches across platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft Outlook. According to the Dropbox privacy FAQ, the third-party AI opt-out setting is part of the "Dropbox AI alpha," which is a conversational interface for exploring file contents that involves chatting with a ChatGPT-style bot using an "Ask something about this file" feature. To make it work, an AI language model similar to the one that powers ChatGPT (like GPT-4) needs access to your files. According to the FAQ, the third-party AI toggle in your account settings is turned on by default if "you or your team" are participating in the Dropbox AI alpha. Still, multiple Ars Technica staff who had no knowledge of the Dropbox AI alpha found the setting enabled by default when they checked. Right now, the only third-party AI provider for Dropbox is OpenAI, writes Dropbox in the FAQ. "Open AI is an artificial intelligence research organization that develops cutting-edge language models and advanced AI technologies. Your data is never used to train their internal models, and is deleted from OpenAI’s servers within 30 days." It also says, "Only the content relevant to an explicit request or command is sent to our third-party AI partners to generate an answer, summary, or transcript." Disabling the feature is easy if you prefer not to share Dropbox data with OpenAI. Log into your Dropbox account on a desktop web browser, then click your profile photo > Settings > Third-party AI. This link may take you to that page more quickly. On that page, click the switch beside "Use artificial intelligence (AI) from third-party partners so you can work faster in Dropbox" to toggle it into the "Off" position. We reached out to Dropbox for comment, but it did not respond before this story was published. We will update this piece when we hear back from the company. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/dropbox-spooks-users…

Dec. 13, 2023

Re: [nexa] Twenge, "Yes, it’s the phones (and social media)"

by Marco Fioretti

Per completezza, 1) (ri) segnalo quando dissi sostanzialmente la stessa cosa lo scorso giugno, includendo anche una"reading list" per approfondire: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/honestly-the-problem-with-children (https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/honestly-the-problem-with-children) 2) un seguito scritto a novembre in reazione a M. Masnick di TechCrunch, che invece continua a sostenere che "the claim that social media is bad for kids’ mental health is still totally unproven" https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/it-doesnt-really-matter-whether-social (https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/it-doesnt-really-matter-whether-social) 3) l'ultimo pezzo di una serie di Peter Gray, che aggiunge parecchio materiale da studiare a UNA parte del problema, provando che e' senza dubbio complesso ma senza comunque intaccare, a mio avviso, la validita' del criterio "smartphone personale piu' tardi possibile": https://petergray.substack.com/p/d8-multiple-causes-of-increase-in (https://petergray.substack.com/p/d8-multiple-causes-of-increase-in) Marco On Wed, Dec 13, 2023 at 16:54, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote: Yes, it’s the phones (and social media) How every other explanation – from lack of independence to academic pressure to the pandemic – falls short Jean M. Twenge Oct 18, 2023 https://jeanmtwenge.substack.com/p/yes-its-the-phones-and-social-media (https://jeanmtwenge.substack.com/p/yes-its-the-phones-and-social-media) ------ Here are 13 Other Explanations For The Adolescent Mental Health Crisis. None of Them Work. Only smartphones plus social media can explain the international collapse in the early 2010s. Jean M. Twenge Oct 24, 2023 https://www.afterbabel.com/p/13-explanations-mental-health-crisis (https://www.afterbabel.com/p/13-explanations-mental-health-crisis)

Dec. 13, 2023