The 207th Block: Dressed up data
Would you exchange your personal data for breaks at work?
This week…
Your reading time is about 5 minutes. Let’s start.
I like learning and I’ve made that into a proper hobby. In the last few years, I’ve built simple Arduino projects, learned Rust, taken ASL 101 (and thinking about registering for the next level), and completed several levels of sewing classes (my last project was making a pair of trousers with POCKETS!). Most recently, I have also been learning to draw. Unlike the other things I’ve listed, I did not enroll in a class but I’ve been using books and online tutorials. Right now, I am still drawing lines and circles.
It is not easy to self-teach, because it starts with holding and moving/pivoting the pen(cil) with skill, which I lack. Everyone thinks they have incredible proprioception, when, in fact, they have horrendous, injury-risking form—I know this from my years of powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting and yoga mat practices. I am also aware that this overcautiousness could hold me back.
Anyway, I am enjoying Ignasi Monreal’s 2022 ‘Sobremesa’ food paintings. I felt like licking my screen to finish up what was left on the plate. Even though they are paintings of food scraps, they look so clean and palatable. Well, maybe one day I will be able to draw something that resembles even a plate. :)
And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
ICYMI: The Previous Block on press freedom across parts of the world, fake news, and French media. CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified. PERSONAL DATA
The startup offering free toilets and coffee for delivery workers — in exchange for their data
Daniela Dib for Rest of World:
Most workers who spoke to Rest of World, including Alba Trejo, said they were unaware that their data was being shared with third parties. But they are not concerned. Jonathan Alejandro Pablo Pérez, a gig worker who frequents Nippy’s center in Mexico City, said he “has no problem with” the company using his data. He wishes the center offered additional services available in its Argentina facility, like bicycle repairs.
The fact that gig workers are willing to give up control over their data in exchange for access to a resting spot says a lot about the gig work economy, Mariel García–Montes, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies privacy and surveillance technologies, told Rest of World.
I thought it’s a basic workers’ right to have bathroom breaks. Loosely linked:
A new wave of wearable devices will collect a mountain on information on us—we need to get wise about the privacy implications by Luis Quintero (Stockholm University) for The Conversation.
Websites deceive users by deliberately hiding the extent of data collection and sharing by Raymond A. Patterson (University of Calgary), Ashkan Eshghi (University of Warwick), Hooman Hidaji (University of Calgary), and Ram Gopal (University of Warwick) for The Conversation.
EU privacy body adopts view on Meta’s controversial ‘consent or pay’ tactic by Natasha Lomas for TechCrunch.
Meta to close Threads in Turkey to comply with injunction prohibiting data sharing with Instagram by Paul Sawers for TechCrunch.
Social media platform X blocked in Pakistan over national security, ministry says by Asif Shahzad for Reuters.
THE LANGUAGE OF AI
How cheap, outsourced labour in Africa is shaping AI English
Alex Hern for The Guardian:
Hundreds of thousands of hours of work goes into providing enough feedback to turn an LLM into a useful chatbot, and that means the large AI companies outsource the work to parts of the global south, where anglophonic knowledge workers are cheap to hire.
[…]
I said “delve” was overused by ChatGPT compared to the internet at large. But there’s one part of the internet where “delve” is a much more common word: the African web. In Nigeria, “delve” is much more frequently used in business English than it is in England or the US. So the workers training their systems provided examples of input and output that used the same language, eventually ending up with an AI system that writes slightly like an African.
And that’s the final indignity. If AI-ese sounds like African English, then African English sounds like AI-ese. Calling people a “bot” is already a schoolyard insult (ask your kids; it’s a Fortnite thing); how much worse will it get when a significant chunk of humanity sounds like the AI systems they were paid to train?
In short, if you think ChatGPT speaks in “quirky” English, it’s probably “African English”! Loosely linked:
The Humane AI Pin is lost in translation by Victoria Song for The Verge.
Deepfake detection improves when using algorithms that are more aware of demographic diversity by Siwei Lyu and Yan Ju (University at Buffalo) for The Conversation.
Why universities shouldn’t mark down international students for using non-standard English by Alexander Baratta, Paul Vincent Smith, and Rui He (University of Manchester) for The Conversation.
Is there enough text to feed the AI beast? by Katyanna Quach for Semafor.
USER-GENERATED MEDIA
Afghan women become YouTubers as Taliban restrict work
Rohullah Talaash and Orooj Hakimi for Context:
The Taliban have stopped most Afghan female staff from working at aid agencies and closed beauty salons, putting tens of thousands out of work. They also barred women from parks and curtailed travel for women without a male guardian.
Most girls and women have been barred from attending high school and going to universities.
“In a situation where women's hands are tied from working in the media, YouTube channels are a good option, and through that, I can also meet my living expenses,” said Maina Sadat, a former law student who started creating videos on YouTube after she was barred from going to college.
The Taliban’s sudden return to power reversed two decades of Western efforts to boost economic opportunities for women. The Taliban say they respect rights in line with Islamic law.
Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan women’s rights activist who was shot in the arm by the Taliban in 2020, said YouTube channels not only provided income, but also served as a means for women to communicate their messages, experiences and aspirations.
Loosely linked:
From international student to popstar by Aparita Bhandari for The Local.
Indonesia taps influencers to convince people to move to its new, under-construction capital by Michelle Anindya for Rest of World.
The Circle producers on adding AI Max to Netflix show as first bot contestant by Kelly Wynne for People.
What I read, listen, and watch…
I’m reading Rogers v. Rogers (2024) by Alexandra Posadzki about the Rogers family leadership struggle at Canada’s largest telecom empire. It is called Canada’s real-life Succession, and even Brian Cox, the actor who played the show’s patriarch, was involved in this drama. (Ps. Rogers is my current employer!)
I’m listening to episode 122 of Click Here about how the U.S. and U.K. made a splashy coordinated announcement last month about a years-long cyber espionage campaign by Chinese state-backed hackers but forgot to tell many of its victims.
I’m watching Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post on the AI tools and Google’s complicity in Gaza.
Other curious links, including en español et français:
Digital ‘death knocks’: is it fair game for journalists to mine social media profiles of victims and their families? by Alysson Watson (University of Newcastle) for The Conversation.
The cloud under the sea by Josh Dzieza for The Verge. The Internet really is a series of tubes.
Did millennials kill astrology? by Erika W. Smith and art by Margie Rischiotto for Cosmopolitan.
Inside the Kenyan cult that starved itself to death by Carey Baraka for 1842 via Pulitzer Center.
Javier Milei y ¿un nuevo cientificidio? por Nuria Giniger en Letra P.
X (Twitter) bloquea sin previo aviso cuentas de investigadoras, activistas y medios de comunicación por Carlos del Castillo en elDiario.es.
Qui sont les brouteurs, ces escrocs qui jouent avec les sentiments de leurs victimes ? par Gaël Joly dans France Info.
Que reproche-t-on à la vidéosurveillance algorithmique pour les JO de Paris 2024 ? par Julien Lausson dans Numerama.
Chart of the week
TikTok released findings from research in partnership with NRG, showing the benefits of multilingual ads for brands targeting Hispanic audiences.
And one more thing
The NYT sucks, part… 4? From Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick’s The Trend Report, scroll down to ‘The Art of Stealing.’
