DAIR / is on Nostr

We are an interdisciplinary AI research institute consisting of scientists, engineers, organizers and activists who believe that AI is not inevitable. We DAIR to imagine, build & use AI deliberately.

Our Avatar is DAIR written in black, with a white background.

Last Notes

2024-08-06 17:26:24

Congratulations to our friends at @npub15ww…hn9m for being selected as one of the initiatives to be supported by the Data Empowerment Fund.
https://dataempowerment.fund/#initiatives

2024-07-26 01:20:10

✨ Join us this Monday July 29 at 1pm pacific for a live stream of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 at https://www.twitch.tv/dair_institute.
✨ Catch up on the 36 prior episodes at https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/.

2024-07-16 18:09:49

"“It’s theft,” said Dave Wiskus, the CEO of Nebula, a streaming service partially owned by its creators, some of whom have had their work taken from YouTube to train AI."
https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-training-data-apple-nvidia-anthropic/

2024-07-08 22:09:07

Thank you for joining our Data Workers' Inquiry launch🎉🎉🎉
▶️Register for the next event on July 22 @ 8am PDT/5pm CET @ https://tickets.weizenbaum-institut.de/dataworkers2/
▶️Repository @ http://data-workers.org
▶️Event schedule @ http://data-workers.org
▶️Donate to the workers @ https://paypal.com/ncp/payment/VNBXHXYEWH8PN
▶️ Can catch the recording of the virtual launch on https://www.twitch.tv/dair_institute
See you on July 22nd!

2024-06-25 20:52:08

Congratulations to our fellow @npub182c…ptrg, researcher Kathleen Siminyu and faculty affiliate Elaine Nsoesie
for being awarded the Mozilla Rise 25 🎉🎉🎉 !
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-announces-finalists-for-the-2nd-annual-rise25-awards/

2024-06-20 17:56:25

Mark your calendars for the launch of the Data Workers' Inquiry project on July 8 at 8am PDT/5pm CET.
Fifteen data workers from around the world share their in depth reports, zines, comic books, documentaries, podcasts and more based on research questions they developed.
We will launch a series of bi-weekly talks on July 8 so you can hear directly from the workers.
RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/data-workers
https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/112/650/233/215/262/554/original/d68064e60c0c51f0.jpg

2024-06-16 01:07:42

"In this case, the goal is to inhibit studies on disinformation and pressure researchers to abandon their research topics during an election year, as will take place in Brazil in 2024. And it is precisely because we are familiar with this playbook, which recalls the darkest times of dictatorship in our country's history, that we reaffirm our commitment to independent research."
https://www.techpolicy.press/farright-seeks-to-censor-science-and-criminalize-researchers-studying-disinformation-in-brazil/

2024-06-05 15:47:20

"Some of the world’s poorest countries have been investing heavily in digital ID systems which it is claimed will deliver democratic and development dividends. Africa has been at the forefront of this push supported by the World Bank, UN agencies and the international community. Some of Africa’s most fragile states have been encouraged to spend billions of dollars on biometric systems from national IDs to voting systems."
https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/false-promise-of-biometrics/

2024-06-04 19:40:22

- reply

https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/112/560/044/448/690/570/original/9403441c87645f47.png

2024-05-23 18:51:57

“US Big Tech companies are systemically abusing and exploiting African workers. In Kenya, these US companies are undermining the local labor laws, the country’s justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/23/meta-kenya-contractors-ruto-biden/

2024-05-21 20:15:47

"Wanted to say, If they can pull this on a Hollywood celebrity what about "unknown" people, & I realised no need to imagine whats already happened, is happening" Adio-Adet Dinika on OpenAI using Scarlett Johansson's voice without consent or compensation.
That is their business model.

2024-05-21 01:33:39

"When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference...Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word 'her' - a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human."
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/scarlett-johansson-shocked-angered-openai-voice-rcna153180

2024-05-18 01:56:44

"I’ve written about relationships between tech companies and the military before, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything I saw or heard at this conference. But when it ended, and I departed DC for home, it felt like my life force had been completely sucked out of my body."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/17/ai-weapons-palantir-war-technology

2024-05-17 05:26:53

- reply

For Stochastic Parrot tidbits on our website, including a game you can play, go to our Stochastic Parrots Day archive: https://www.dair-institute.org/stochastic-parrots-day/

2024-05-17 05:26:50

Angie Wang's illustrated essay for the New Yorker, wondering whether her child's early attempts at speech were the same as LLMs, was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize. "A toddler has a life, and learns language to describe it. An L.L.M. learns language but has no life of its own to describe," she writes.
Read On The New Yorker's Website: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/sketchbook/is-my-toddler-a-stochastic-parrot

2024-05-07 22:57:57

"Is lack of diverse representation in data problematic? It sure is, but merely expanding exploitation of data subjects is not the answer."
https://medium.com/@nturkewitz_56674/openai-releases-our-approach-to-content-and-data-in-the-age-of-ai-lets-look-under-the-hood-49d7fc052432

2024-05-07 02:45:00

Don't forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter on our website for monthly updates. https://twitter.com/DAIRInstitute/status/1787674763047186691