Ukrainian teen abducted by Russia tells how he was tortured and given mind-bending drugs to turn him into a killing machine who would slaughter his own countrymen - before escaping Putin's clutches
Vladyslav was given 30 minutes to pack up his belongings before he was forcefully enrolled into a military camp that aimed to strip him of his Ukrainian identity.
School board meeting holds crisis talk over member's Charlie Kirk post... then comes the 'butterfly' excuse
Misty Hunt, of the Homer-Center School Board, was ridiculed after a post emerged on her social media the day that Kirk was fatally gunned down in Utah.
King Charles may be forced to ban the Yorks from private family occasions as 'the last sanction' amid 'real fear' there could be more Jeffrey Epstein scandals
The King may be forced to ban the Yorks from private family occasions over their latest scandal involving convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Sick truth behind attempt to turn Charlie Kirk's murder into a romantic tragedy of star-crossed lovers
Podcaster Megyn Kelly slammed some journalists for denying any political motive in Charlie Kirk's death and instead spinning it as a tragic twist in the gunman's 'beautiful love story'.
Hundreds of Google AI Workers Were Fired Amid Fight Over Working Conditions
Last week the Guardian reported on "thousands of AI workers contracted for Google through Japanese conglomerate Hitachi's GlobalLogic to rate and moderate the output of Google's AI products, including its flagship chatbot Gemini... and its summaries of search results, AI Overviews."
"AI isn't magic; it's a pyramid scheme of human labor," said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. "These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable...." Ten of Google's AI trainers the Guardian spoke to said they have grown disillusioned with their jobs because they work in siloes, face tighter and tighter deadlines, and feel they are putting out a product that's not safe for users... In May 2023, a contract worker for Appen submitted a letter to the US Congress that the pace imposed on him and others would make Google Bard, Gemini's predecessor, a "faulty" and "dangerous" product
This week Google laid off 200 of those moderating contractors, reports Wired. "These workers, who often are hired because of their specialist knowledge, had to have either a master's or a PhD to join the super rater program, and typically include writers, teachers, and people from creative fields."
Workers still at the company claim they are increasingly concerned that they are being set up to replace themselves. According to internal documents viewed by WIRED, GlobalLogic seems to be using these human raters to train the Google AI system that could automatically rate the responses, with the aim of replacing them with AI. At the same time, the company is also finding ways to get rid of current employees as it continues to hire new workers. In July, GlobalLogic made it mandatory for its workers in Austin, Texas, to return to office, according to a notice seen by WIRED...
Some contractors attempted to unionize earlier this year but claim those efforts were quashed. Now they allege that the company has retaliated against them. Two workers have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging they were unfairly fired, one due to bringing up wage transparency issues, and the other for advocating for himself and his coworkers. "These individuals are employees of GlobalLogic or their subcontractors, not Alphabet," Courtenay Mencini, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement...
"Globally, other AI contract workers are fighting back and organizing for better treatment and pay," the article points out, noting that content moderators from around the world facing similar issues formed the Global Trade Union Alliance of Content Moderators which includes workers from Kenya, Turkey, and Colombia.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ne-Yo's strict rules for his 'wives' after father-of-seven added a fourth woman to his hareem
He soared to fame in the Noughties with hits such as So Sick and Sexy Love. Yet these days it's Ne-Yo 's unconventional lifestyle that's been dominating headlines.
Roads turn into rivers in southern France as severe weather alert is issued for flood-hit region
Dramatic video footage has captured the impact of the extreme weather in the picturesque coastal Carmague region of southern France, with the streets flooded with ankle-deep water.
DAN HODGES: With his formal recognition of Palestine, we now finally know what Keir Starmer actually stands for: Cowardice, appeasement, cynicism and deceit
Sir Keir is not just a coward politically, but now an overt appeaser of terrorism. Where does he stand today? Shoulder to shoulder with the Hamas murderers, rapists, torturers and kidnappers.
80s actress who starred in hit TV series while dating a Hollywood legend 25 years her senior is unrecognizable
One of Hollywood's most glamorous leading ladies of the '70s and '80s turned heads in LA during a rare outing that left fans buzzing. The actress, now 82, is best remembered for Hart to Hart.
Jamie Oliver admits 'I was 200k in debt' as he reflects on career struggles
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has admitted that he was "a couple of hundred grand in debt" after he opened his first restaurant, but a royalty cheque from his publishers saved the day
Tech exec plummets 2000 feet to his death off California mountain
Matias Travizano, an Argentine chairman of Grandata, was killed during his descent of Mount Shasta on September 12.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway cancels official engagements to undergo 'rehabilitation' for incurable lung disease amid her son's legal battles
Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway has been forced to cancel the majority of her October engagements due to her chronic lung disease - just one month after her son was charged with rape.
The 'magical' candleight Coldplay tribute coming to stunning Essex church
The beautiful historic church is a perfect setting for the candlelight event
Notable road closures coming up across north and mid Essex in the coming weeks
Some of the most notable road closures coming up across north and mid Essex in the coming weeks.
Inside the private Essex rehab helping addicts fight their demons during recovery
I visited Sanctuary Lodge, in Halstead, Essex, on one sunny September morning to find out more about the work they do.
Inside the private Essex rehab helping addicts fight their demons during recovery
I visited Sanctuary Lodge, in Halstead, Essex, on one sunny September morning to find out more about the work they do.
Eamonn Holmes, 65, and girlfriend Katie Alexander, 43, put on a united front for their first red carpet together after it's revealed the honeymoon phase of their relationship is over
The age gap couple were all smiles as they walked the carpet for the Icon Awards, which took place at the Troxy in the east end of London.
Father, 67, died hours after paramedics failed to spot deadly signs of sepsis and left him at home
Steve Holbrook-Sishton, a former teacher and college tutor, died unexpectedly in October 2021 when he developed sepsis after catching Covid-19.
I was left broken when I couldn't conceive and spent £70,000 on IVF until my sisters teamed up to create my dream baby - one donated her eggs while the other was a surrogate
Jaclyn Fieberg, 40, from New York, and her husband, Greg Fieberg, 46, went through years of heartbreak to start a family.
Secure Software Supply Chains, Urges Former Go Lead Russ Cox
Writing in Communications of the ACM, former Go tech lead Russ Cox warns we need to keep improving defenses of software supply chains, highlighting "promising approaches that should be more widely used" and "areas where more work is needed."
There are important steps we can take today, such as adopting software signatures in some form, making sure to scan for known vulnerabilities regularly, and being ready to update and redeploy software when critical new vulnerabilities are found. More development should be shifted to safer languages that make vulnerabilities and attacks less likely. We also need to find ways to fund open source development to make it less susceptible to takeover by the mere offer of free help. Relatively small investments in OpenSSL and XZ development could have prevented both the Heartbleed vulnerability and the XZ attack.
Some highlights from the 5,000-word article:
Make Builds Reproducible. "The Reproducible Builds project aims to raise awareness of reproducible builds generally, as well as building tools to help progress toward complete reproducibility for all Linux software. The Go project recently arranged for Go itself to be completely reproducible given only the source code... A build for a given target produces the same distribution bits whether you build on Linux or Windows or Mac, whether the build host is X86 or ARM, and so on. Strong reproducibility makes it possible for others to easily verify that the binaries posted for download match the source code..."
Prevent Vulnerabilities. "The most secure software dependencies are the ones not used in the first place: Every dependency adds risk... Another good way to prevent vulnerabilities is to use safer programming languages that remove error-prone language features or make them needed less often..."
Authenticate Software. ("Cryptographic signatures make it impossible to nefariously alter code between signing and verifying. The only problem left is key distribution...") "The Go checksum database is a real-world example of this approach that protects millions of Go developers. The database holds the SHA256 checksum of every version of every public Go module..."
Fund Open Source. [Cox first cites the XKCD cartoon "Dependencies," calling it "a disturbingly accurate assessment of the situation..."] "The XZ attack is the clearest possible demonstration that the problem is not fixed. It was enabled as much by underfunding of open source as by any technical detail."
The article also emphasized the importance of finding and fixing vulnerabilities quickly, arguing that software attacks must be made more difficult and expensive.
"We use source code downloaded from strangers on the Internet in our most critical applications; almost no one is checking the code.... We all have more work to do."
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