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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39931144

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/14Rau

Bombshell new reporting from 404 Media found that Flock, which has its cameras in thousands of US communities, has been outsourcing its AI to gig workers located in the Philippines.

After accessing a cache of exposed data, 404 found documents related to annotating Flock footage, a process sometimes called “AI training.” Workers were tasked with jobs include categorizing vehicles by color, make, and model, transcribing license plates, and labeling various audio clips from car wrecks.

In US towns and cities, Flock cameras maintained by local businesses and municipal agencies form centralized surveillance networks for local police. They constantly scan for car license plates, as well as pedestrians, who are categorized based on their clothing, and possibly by factors like gender and race.

In a growing number of cases, local police are using Flock to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surveil minority communities.

It isn’t clear where all the Flock annotation footage came from, but screenshots included in the documents for data annotators showed license plates from New York, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, and California.

Flock joins the ranks of other fast-moving AI companies that have resorted to low-paid international labor to bring their product to market. Amazon’s cashier-free “just walk out” stores, for example, were really just gig workers watching American shoppers from India. The AI startup Engineer.ai, which purported to make developing code for apps “as easy as ordering a pizza,” was found out to be selling passing human-written code as AI generated.

The difference with those examples is that those services were voluntary — powered by the exploitation of workers in the global south, yes, but with a choice to opt out on the front-end. That isn’t the case with Flock, as you don’t have to consent to end up in the panopticon. In other words, for a growing number of Americans, a for-profit company is deciding who gets watched, and who does the watching — a system built on exploitation at either end.

Mark Russo reported the dataset to all the right organizations, but still couldn't get into his accounts for months.

Concerns over screwworm ramped up this fall after the parasite was detected in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. One was detected approximately 70 miles from the Texas border in September and a second was detected about 170 miles from the border in October.

USDA officials told state lawmakers on Tuesday that within 400 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, they’ve detected 14 cases, but all of them were related to cattle movement. None of the cases suggested the fly population itself was moving farther north.

Efforts to eradicate the screwworm are underway in Panama, where USDA officials are helping produce 100 million sterile flies per week meant to mate with the screwworm in hopes of eradicating their population.

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Ukraine began its involvement in the Iraq War on 5 June 2003, shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As part of the Multi-National Force – Iraq, they engaged in combat with Iraqi insurgents. On 9 December 2008, Ukraine formally withdrew its last forces from Iraq, ending its participation in the Iraq War. Prior to the Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukraine's involvement in the Iraq War was the largest military operation ever performed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Over 6,000 Ukrainians performed military service in Iraq and Kuwait during the war, including a permanent presence of 1,600, with more than 40 Ukrainians wounded and 18 killed in action.

I just finished a preliminary interview for a medium sized engineering company. The interviewer was impressed with my background and asked to proceed with my candidacy but wanted four additional rounds of interviews and a 30 minute technical presentation about how I solved a problem. I turned them down and said I don't work for free, the amount of time it would take to gather my notes and thoughts on a slide deck would be too much. She quickly soured and we ended the call soon after. I feel like I dodged a bullet going through a gauntlet of work for the high chance of ending up with nothing.

What are Lemmy's thoughts on preparing presentations for lengthy job interview processes? Would you have considered going through with it?

And I might add maybe not the happiest people either. They could have everything they want yet they don't always seem all that happy. Elon Musk for example doesn't seem much happier than the average person, maybe even less so (depends on who you're comparing against of course).

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that her country intends to send more water to the United States, but not immediately, even as Donald Trump threatens to raise tariffs by 5% on Mexican imports if more water is not delivered as part of a water-sharing agreement.

Sheinbaum said Mexico is proposing a water delivery this month and another one in the coming years. The proposal will be discussed in a virtual meeting with U.S. officials Tuesday, she said.

Mexico is behind water deliveries to the United States from the Rio Grande River because of drought and pipeline limitations, Sheinbaum said.

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/127026

A leaked memo by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Justice Department and FBI to compile a list of groups that may be labeled “domestic terrorism” organizations based on political views related to immigration, gender and U.S. policy. The memo was obtained by independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, who joins us to discuss how it expands on President Donald Trump’s NSPM-7…

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I'd post this this in a vegan community but I got bant for saying cats shouldn't be given a vegan diet 😬

Looking at the mess regarding GPU and ram, I start to wonder whether we'd be able to produce enough supra conductors and have enough helium to support quantum computers leaving research lab and being industrialised?

While I doubt quantum computer would be massively produced, I am not sure how much materials are needed for a quantum processor compared to let's say, an MRI to take the most common supra conducting machine

Ohh ya baby!

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so I want to take a trip. but I do NOT want to go to anywhere in the world that has been taken over by Walmart's and whatnot..

I went to Mexico the last time, was driving around... bam... giant Walmart. why.. why does everything need to look the same, sell the same junk.

is there a list of cities, countries that are still.. good that haven't been visually infected with corporate American trash stores?

Pianoforte -> Fortepiano

European leaders are considering dumping $2.34 trillion in US debt if Trump abandons Ukraine, potentially triggering an economic crisis worse than 2008