The old fossils are on the way out. No, not just them, but also the coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar. CC-licensed photo by Molesworth II on Flickr.
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It’s Friday, so there’s another post due at the Social Warming Substack at about 0845 UK time.
A selection of 9 links for you. Up in smoke. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
Google: AI potentially breaking reality is a feature not a bug • 404 Media
Emanuel Maiberg:
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Generative AI could “distort collective understanding of socio-political reality or scientific consensus,” and in many cases is already doing that, according to a new research paper from Google, one of the biggest companies in the world building, deploying, and promoting generative AI.
The paper, “Generative AI Misuse: A Taxonomy of Tactics and Insights from Real-World Data,” was co-authored by researchers at Google’s artificial intelligence research laboratory DeepMind, its security think tank Jigsaw, and its charitable arm Google.org, and aims to classify the different ways generative AI tools are being misused by analyzing about 200 incidents of misuse as reported in the media and research papers between January 2023 and March 2024.
Unlike self-serving warnings from Open AI CEO Sam Altman or Elon Musk about the “existential risk” artificial general intelligence poses to humanity, Google’s research focuses on real harm that generative AI is currently causing and could get worse in the future. Namely, that generative AI makes it very easy for anyone to flood the internet with generated text, audio, images, and videos.
Much like another Google research paper about the dangers of generative AI I covered recently, Google’s methodology here likely undercounts instances of AI-generated harm. But the most interesting observation in the paper is that the vast majority of these harms and how they “undermine public trust,” as the researchers say, are often “neither overtly malicious nor explicitly violate these tools’ content policies or terms of service.” In other words, that type of content is a feature, not a bug.
…This observation lines up with the reporting we’ve done at 404 Media for the past year and prior. People who are using AI to impersonate others, sockpuppet, scale and amplify bad content, or create nonconsensual intimate images (NCII), are mostly not hacking or manipulating the generative AI tools they’re using. They’re using them as intended.
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Kenya protesters us AI in anti-government battle • Semafor
Martin Siele:
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Kenya’s government has raised concerns about risks associated with use of artificial intelligence (AI) as youth-led, anti-government protests continue across the nation. Protesters have deployed creative uses of AI and digital tools to take on the political establishment over the past few weeks as part of the nationwide demonstrations, which were triggered by the now-scrapped Finance Bill 2024 containing a raft of unpopular tax hikes.
Among widely shared AI tools created in support of the protests include the Corrupt Politicians GPT, a chatbot which reveals corruption cases involving Kenyan politicians. Another is the Finance Bill GPT, which helps break down the controversial bill and its potential impact on prices The chatbot also shares lawmakers’ phone numbers for their constituents to share their concerns.
Protesters also contributed to and shared databases of businesses owned by politicians, which have faced boycotts and attacks, and created another chatbot featuring their contributions to parliamentary debates.
The mostly Gen Z and millennial protesters, who are now pushing for the president’s resignation, began organizing against the Finance Bill on TikTok and X before taking to the streets. They continue to use the social media apps’ features, including spaces and live-streams, to coordinate protests and mobilize.
The protesters have also used these platforms to crowdfund medical bill payments and funeral costs for injured and killed protesters. At least 39 people have been killed in the protests since mid-June, according to a government-funded human rights organization. An online fundraiser managed by activist and journalist Hanifa Farsafi, one of the protest’s key figures, had raised 29.8 million Kenyan shillings ($231,906) from over 34,000 people as of Wednesday evening.
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So it’s actually a very modern and targeted use of ChatGPT to create something trained on a very specific set of data to give accurate answers: when chatbots work on a small knowledge set (but not language set) they are very informative.
Though one has to wonder how much time people are spending quizzing chatbots about this sort of thing. I suspect a small group of people will, and then screenshots will get shared far and wide.
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Leak confirms Apple’s work on ‘home accessory’ • MacRumors
Aaron Perris:
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Code discovered on Apple’s backend by MacRumors confirms Apple is indeed working on a long-rumored home accessory in addition to the HomePod and Apple TV.
The code references a device with the identifier “HomeAccessory17,1,” which is a new identifier category. The name is similar to the HomePod ‘s “AudioAccessory” identifier.
Interestingly, the 17,1 in the identifier name suggests that this device may receive Apple’s upcoming A18 chip, which will be used in all four iPhone 16 models later this year. With the A18 chip, the HomeAccessory device would have the power for Apple Intelligence.
The code also indicates that this “home accessory” will be running a software variant of tvOS, much like the HomePod . Earlier this year, MacRumors found evidence of Apple’s work on homeOS, which could be the firmware running on this device.
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One has to wonder about how much backing this will actually get. Apple, weirdly, just can’t imagine the home beyond computers; the Apple TV has never had much pizazz, and the HomePod line came too late compared to other home “assistants” and didn’t get much support either. Arguably, nobody has figured out “what do you need in the home?” For me, it’s smart (programmable) lights and a programmable thermostat, but beyond that, not much else.
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The conspiracy of silence to protect Joe Biden • NY Mag
Olivia Nuzzi:
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Under vines of white moonflowers on the governor’s patio, I watched as the president neared the end of his ten-minute speech [to reassure donors after his calamitous debate performance]. If a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth, he was still making them. The truth he told now was this: “I’ve got a helluva lot of plans for the next four years — God willing, as my father used to say.”
In January, I began hearing similar stories from Democratic officials, activists, and donors. All people who supported the president and were working to help reelect him to a second term in office. Following encounters with the president, they had arrived at the same concern: Could he really do this for another four years? Could he even make it to Election Day?
Uniformly, these people were of a similar social strata. They lived and socialized in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles. They did not wish to come forward with their stories. They did not want to blow a whistle. They wished that they could whistle past what they knew and emerge in November victorious and relieved, having helped avoid another four years of Trump. What would happen after that? They couldn’t think that far ahead. Their worries were more immediate.
When they discussed what they knew, what they had seen, what they had heard, they literally whispered. They were scared and horrified. But they were also burdened. They needed to talk about it (though not on the record). They needed to know that they were not alone and not crazy. Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine. The president was fine. The election would be fine. They would be fine. To admit otherwise would mean jeopardizing the future of the country and, well, nobody wanted to be responsible personally or socially for that.
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Of course Nuzzi is being monstered for this piece, by people asking both “why didn’t you write this in January?” and “why are you writing this now?” The former, she explains, is because she needed to firm up the findings; the latter, well, it’s like comedy. All about the timing.
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So it’s bye bye to the ERG, Spud-u-hate, five families and the 1922 Committee • The Times
Matt Chorley:
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After the humiliation will come something much worse: irrelevance. It is impossible to overstate just how totally irrelevant the Conservatives are about to become. There is no easy way to say this, but nobody will be filling in their wall charts with the runners and riders for the Tory leadership. The tight timetabling for elections to the 1922 Committee matters not. Senior Tory sources will be left to scream into the void.
The alphabet spaghetti leftovers will be scraped into the bin: ERG, CCHQ, IEA, IDS. Bye bye to the banging of tables. Farewell to the star chambers. Arrivederci to the Five Families [of right-wing Tories] — they will struggle to muster one.
Nobody will care who Penny Mordaunt has unfollowed on Twitter. Or about the sandwiches at Tom Tugendhat’s launch. Or what Latin phrase Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has had mowed into his front lawn. Or anything that is said in all those WhatsApp groups. Step away from Nadine Dorries’s column, Lee Anderson’s GB News show, Dominic Cummings’s Substack. Think how much free time you’ll now have.
We will all have to adjust. Just at the moment when someone (not me) has added Andrew Bridgen to my Wikipedia page in a section marked “feuds”, it’s all over. Spud-u-hate, like the rest of them, has had his chips.
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Ah, the Five Families, more accurately described by James O’Brien as “the Gammonbinos”. These will all be lost, like tears in the rain, and we won’t care any more.
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British Airways owner IAG warns airfares must rise to fund carbon cuts • FT
Philip Georgiadis:
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Airlines in Europe will be forced to raise prices to fund the cost of cutting carbon emissions, the boss of British Airways owner IAG said.
Luis Gallego told the Financial Times that switching to cleaner, more expensive sustainable fuel would “have a big impact” on the industry and put some people off flying.
“Flying is going to be more expensive. That is an issue, we are trying to improve efficiency to mitigate that, but it will have an impact on demand,” he said.
He added that European airlines could become less competitive because of the bloc’s tough net zero targets, which include a requirement for 6% of jet fuel to be from sustainable sources by 2030.
“We agree with decarbonisation . . . but I think we need to do it in a consistent way worldwide not to jeopardise European aviation,” Gallego said.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is made from a range of non-fossil fuel sources, from waste cooking oil to crops, and can emit 70% less carbon dioxide than traditional jet fuel.
But very little of it is being produced — less than 1% of total aviation fuel consumption last year was from sustainable sources — meaning it is far more expensive than jet fuel.
IAG itself used 12% of the world’s SAF last year across its five airlines, which include British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus.
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So IAG used 12% of 1%? It’s not a lot, is it. This feels like something that’s more of an ambition than a target, but it’s a great way to push up airline prices and blame someone else.
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The EU got more than 50% of its electricity from renewables in first half of 2024 • The Progress Playbook
Nick Hedley:
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Renewables accounted for 50.4% of the European Union’s electricity generation in the first six months of 2024, data from industry association Eurelectric shows.
That’s a sharp increase from calendar year 2023, when renewables comprised 44.7% of the bloc’s mix, according to Eurostat.
“The pace of change is impressive,” Eurelectric secretary general Kristian Ruby said in a statement.
When including nuclear, 74% of the EU’s power came from low-carbon sources in the first half — up from 68% in 2023.
Yes, but: The association said demand continues to decline, reflecting sluggish economic growth, warmer temperatures, energy savings, and industry relocating abroad.
This trend must be reversed “to provide the necessary investment signals for clean generation,” Ruby said.
With this in mind, Eurelectric wants the new European Commission to propose an Electrification Action Plan that seeks to boost the share of electricity in final energy consumption to 35% by 2030. This would entail a faster shift to electric vehicles, heat pumps, and industrial decarbonisation technologies, among other things.
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Impressive.
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The UK’s last coal fired power plant takes final delivery of old fossils • RenewEconomy
Joshua Hill:
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The last coal-fired power station in the UK, the 2GW Ratcliffe-on-Soar facility in the East Midlands, is entering its final days and has received its last load of coal ahead of its planned closure on September 30.
The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station is operated by German multinational energy company Uniper began operations in 1967 and claims to produce enough electricity to make more than one billion cups of tea a day, or more then 21 trillion overall – a truly British analogy.
“The last coal delivery will be a significant moment and one that heralds the end of the story for the power station,” said Mike Lockett, Uniper UK country chair.
“However, it’s not the end for the site, as we look towards a future where it could become a zero-carbon technology and energy hub for the East Midlands.”
Uniper is looking at various options for the Ratcliffe site, including green hydrogen production and green manufacturing. Uniper aims to be completely carbon-neutral by 2040.
In May, just 0.4% of the UK’s power supply came from coal, with wind and solar providing 27% and nuclear 17%. Fossil gas and imports accounted for most of the rest. A decade ago, it provided 40% of the power supply, according to Ember.
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They’re burning Tory party members? Oh, a different sort of old fossil. Amazing transformation of energy supply, though. The Labour Party’s 2008 Climate Change Act actually worked.
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Fourth US dairy worker tests positive for H5N1 bird flu • Daily Telegraph via MSN News
Maeve Cullinan:
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A fourth dairy worker has tested positive for H5N1 bird flu in the US, as the virus continues to infect herds of cattle across the country.
The unnamed farm worker from Colorado had close contact with sick cows and suffered a mild illness reporting only conjunctivitis-like symptoms, according to state health officials.
H5N1 – which has killed millions of animals since it began re-circulating in 2020 – has so far spread to 139 cattle herds in 12 US states, 27 of which are in Colorado.
Just this week the U.S. government announced a $176 million investment in Moderna to advance the development of its mRNA bird flu vaccine in a bid to prepare for an H5N1 pandemic as scientists become increasingly concerned that the virus will mutate and gain the ability to spread among people.
H5N1 can be lethal, with a death rate of around 50% since it was first detected in humans in the late 1990s – although all four of the recent human cases in the US have been extremely mild.
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Just a watching brief! Though I’m sure Sir Keir Starmer will sort this out.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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