Month: March 2021

The labels attached to images used to train machine-vision systems are often wrong. That could mean bad decisions by self-driving cars and medical algorithms. The current boom in artificial intelligence can be traced back to 2012 and a breakthrough during a competition built around ImageNet, a set of 14 million labeled images. In the competition,
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Both sides are preparing for a potentially protracted battle over ballots and labor practices. It’s been a star-studded, action-packed seven weeks since the union ballots shipped to the workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, fulfillment center on February 8. President Joe Biden tweeted out a video of support. Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, and The Matrix director
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Manufacturers say the devices remove 99 percent of viruses. Researchers say such claims are unproven, and cheaper air filters are more effective. Last fall, Jeff Kreiter, director of operational services for the school district in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, found himself flooded with proposals to clean the air inside classrooms. The ideas varied—UV lights, air
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Everyone knows Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube make money by keeping users engaged. Why won’t their executives admit it to Congress? Anyone who has been paying any attention at all knows that big social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube prioritize user engagement above just about anything else. So why won’t their CEOs admit it?
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The Locus Charter asks companies to commit to 10 principles, including minimizing data collection and actively seeking consent from users. As smartphone apps track our every move, a group of technologists in the US and UK this week offered guidelines for the ethical uses of location data. Leaders of the American Geographical Society and Britain’s
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Is a job offer a way out, or a pathway to soul-crushing disappointment? Megan weighs in. Dear OOO, My job is awful and is crushing my soul. For insurance reasons, though, I can’t quit until I have a new job lined up. This week I got an offer. It’s not my dream job, but it’s
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As tech campuses became ghost towns, the people who kept them running—cooks, custodians, drivers—faced an existential threat to their livelihoods. A year ago, while people across America were still taking the subway to work, sharing elevators and conference rooms, Silicon Valley was emptying out. Its companies were among the first to ask that people work
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We’re looking for new voices to provide an insider perspective on rapidly changing industries. Between a pandemic, climate change, and advances in technology that continue to reshape almost every way of life, the past year has been a bellwether for work in the US. At WIRED, we believe some of the people best situated to
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AI surveillance cameras. Punishing workloads. Low pay. Worker complaints are piling up, and so are the roadblocks. the Netradyne cameras were the last straw. For the past year, Casey had been working as a driver for one of Amazon’s Delivery Service Partners (DSP), the company’s network of last-mile delivery contractors. On busy days, she’d cart
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The demise of surveillance capitalism has been greatly exaggerated.  Google got some good press a few weeks ago when it announced in a blog post that it would be moving forward with its plans to remove third-party cookies from the Chrome browser. The move had been announced early last year as part of the company’s
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Officers’ use of Boston Robotics’ Digidog intensifies concerns about militarization of the police. New York City councilmember Ben Kallos says he “watched in horror” last month when city police responded to a hostage situation in the Bronx using Boston Dynamics’ Digidog, a remotely operated robotic dog equipped with surveillance cameras. Pictures of the Digidog went
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Also: What to do with clients who want to meet in person? Megan offers her advice. Dear OOO, How do I find a “work wife”? (I know that sounds sort of silly and gender normative, but you know what I mean.) This is my first job. My friends outside work have a best friend in
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In a new book, Alec MacGillis explores the growing divide between winner-take-all cities and everywhere else, and the ecommerce giant at the heart of it.  The coronavirus pandemic has offered a poignant reminder, as if we needed one, that the United States is a profoundly unequal country. Over the past year, the The Washington Post recently reported,
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Two academics changed plans to attend an invite-only conference this week; a third says he’ll no longer accept funding from the company. Monday morning, some of the world’s top minds in robotics and machine learning convened for a virtual, invite-only research workshop hosted by Google. Two academics invited didn’t log on as scheduled: They withdrew
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Managers of the ImageNet data set paved the way for advances in deep learning. Now they’ve taken a big step to protect people’s privacy. In 2012, artificial intelligence researchers engineered a big leap in computer vision thanks, in part, to an unusually large set of images—thousands of everyday objects, people, and scenes in photos that
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After approving a $7 billion fund to help students get internet access, lawmakers on the left proposed a $94 billion package to deploy high-speed broadband nationwide. Congress this week approved a $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund that schools and libraries will use to help people get internet access at home. The fund is part of
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