#Data fluency

[elsa16744]

Data as a Strategic Asset - How are Businesses Embracing the Mindset?

The most significant asset, data, enables businesses worldwide to invest to unlock their secrets and enormous disruptive potential. It lies at the heart of every business model, technology, and ecosystem.

Read More: https://us.sganalytics.com/blog/data-as-an-asset-across-organization-to-drive-business-transformation/

[educationisimp0]

Data Fluency: Empowering Organizational Transformation 

Discover the transformative potential of data fluency in driving business transformation. Data fluency's critical role is empowering employees to comprehend, interpret, and communicate data insights effectively. With a data-fluent workforce, organizations can make informed decisions, foster innovation, and gain a competitive advantage in the digital age. Unleash the power of data as a strategic asset across all operations, optimizing processes and unlocking hidden opportunities. Learn practical approaches to cultivating data fluency within your organization, propelling it toward success in the data-driven landscape. Embrace data fluency and position your organization for a prosperous future.

[dadjglobal1]

IT & IT enabled Services (ITeS)

DADJ is a leading global consultancy that integrates strategy, design and software engineering to enable enterprises and technology disruptors across the globe to thrive as modern digital businesses

Click Here : https://dadjglobal.com/service/it-ites/

[piedoesnotequalpi]

Me: okay time to read this "math wars" article my professor sent me

Me now that I have gone down the rabbit hole to understand the proposed math framework in California: I am ready to commit crimes

[anthonsgi]

★’･ﾟ:｡･:*:HSR Men random bf!headcanons:｡･:*:･ﾟ’★

【Note: Hello! I have decided to write short headcanons for a few men in this game [playable only, sorry Oleg simps (*_ _)人], excuse any fluency errors, English isn't my first language, and I am still learning as I go! Please enjoy, and don't hesitate to request anything; I'm open to suggestions!】

【Pairings: Dan Heng, Gepard, Jing Yuan x GN!READER】

【CW: none!】

☆〜DAN HENG〜☆

He enjoys your company even if you two aren't speaking; simply being aware of your presence near him when he's focused on something insignificant, like reading a book, relaxes him.

Definitely has a soft spot for you and lets go of his usual cold and reserved demeanor when you two are alone.

There have been a few instances of him unconsciously beaming at you as he got lost in thought, looking at your excited face while you rambled about something you're passionate about. He'd never admit to it, though, if you called him out on it.

Prefers to be the big spoon mainly because he loves the feeling of your back pressing against his chest when your breathing slows as you fall asleep.

However, he appreciates it if you ask to be the big spoon whenever he has a nightmare or one of his visions.

He has little relationship experience [renheng ＼(º □ º l|l)/], so as committed as he is to making you feel loved and appreciated, he searches the data bank in the archives for information on romantic gestures and comes across a book about the significance of pet names. After "educating" himself more, he may refer to you as "my love," "darling," or even "baby" if he's feeling particularly lovey-dovey.

Dan Heng isn't a jealous boyfriend; nevertheless, if something bothers him, he becomes touchy! Always holding your arm or wrapping his hand around your waist.

Haven only just awakened, he's such a sleepy cutie! He'd try to kiss you but miss and peck your chin instead.

☆〜GEPARD〜☆

He's an exceptionally blushy guy, and it's pretty simple to make him flustered. Just hold his hand, and he'll melt.

No matter how long you've been together, Gepard loves to kiss but will never do it without getting your consent first. His kisses are short and gentle, but they are also tender and reassuring, given that he frequently cups your face in his hands.

Even though this guy evidently struggles to keep his plants alive, he will make every effort to grow a lovely flower as a gift for you.

He attracts kids like a magnet; some of them aspire to be captains like him, and it's the cutest thing ever to see him grow nervous as they shower him with compliments and questions.

Sometimes he'd find you asleep on the couch, and he'd pick you up bridal style and carry you to bed carefully so as not to wake you.

Oftentimes, Gepard's responsibilities prevent him from spending time with you, but he always strives to make up for it.

Used a cheesy pickup line once and never tried it again after feeling the second-hand embarrassment.

He always looks for a way to impress you with his strength.

☆〜JING YUAN〜☆

His duty as General usually keeps him occupied with work stuff, so when you pay him a visit during the day, he'll light up almost instantly and he'll be in a good mood.

You have to constantly kick him (gently or with force depending on how much sleep he has robbed you of) so he can turn to the other side and stop snoring.

When writing about his day in his diary, he always mentions the instances where something reminded him of you. (Spoiler alert: the majority of his day description is him adoring your facial features).

Jing Yuan's kisses are typically quick, although if he's feeling exceptionally touch-deprived, he prefers deeper, longer kisses.

If you decide to move in with him, it will be incredibly domestic; you would prepare each other's favorite drinks and meals just the way you like them without needing to ask, and you will share each other's clothes and accessories on a daily basis.

Routine, even if secure, can be exhausting, and he finds himself trapped in one. Therefore, Jing Yuan appreciates it when you try new things with him and make him feel like he can breathe freely again. Without worrying about any boring responsibilities, just you and him spending time together. Those are his most treasured moments.

He's very protective of you. Secretly that is. It might seem that he's not that bothered by the times you may have spent a while longer on an errand or went exploring, but he's actually worried! Sometimes to the point of sending someone to go look for you, just to be sure you're all safe and sound.

Has asked you to massage his back on multiple ocassions after a particularly tiring day.

[exilepurify]

“You know a lot of big words.” — Determining Shigeo’s Kanji Literacy

An analysis in four parts:

Jouyou kanji and Japan’s compulsory education system, explained.

An introduction to the analysis—what I did and why I did it.

A presentation of data, evidence, and counterarguments.

The truth revealed: can Shigeo write a reasonable amount of kanji for his age group?

Jouyou kanji and Japan’s compulsory education system, explained

Let us begin this analysis by establishing a basic understanding of how Japan’s education system is structured.

As you may already know, only elementary school and middle school are compulsory in Japan, meaning that high school and college are completely optional. Therefore, compulsory education in Japan consists of grades 1-9, with grades 1-6 being 小学校 (primary school) and grades 7-9 being 中学校 (middle school).

The term 「常用漢字」(jouyou kanji, “Daily-Use Kanji”) refers to a list of 2136 kanji that the Japanese Ministry of Education requires be taught throughout education grades in Japan due to their importance and frequency of use in Japanese daily life. Knowing all 2136 is defined by the Japanese government as the baseline for basic, functional literacy in Japanese. The jouyou kanji list is further divided into two sub-categories: 「教育漢字」(kyouiku kanji, “Education Kanji”) and 「中学・高校漢字」(chuugaku • koukou kanji, “Secondary School Kanji”).

教育漢字 (kyouiku kanji, “Education Kanji”) (A.K.A. 学年別漢字配当表 [gakunenbetsu kanji haitouhyou, “list of kanji by school year”]) is the Japanese term for the 1006 kanji that are taught over the 6 years of primary school in Japan, grouped into different grade levels by difficulty and complexity.

「中学・高校漢字」(chuugaku • koukou kanji, “Secondary School Kanji”) is the term for the 1130 kanji that students are expected to learn throughout middle school and high school. This list of kanji is not strictly divided by grade level, though a general grade level is often provided, because students in secondary school—whether it be middle or high—are expected to learn kanji more independently. Though the responsibility of learning these kanji is shifted from the classroom to the individual, the importance of knowing these kanji by the end of one’s education, if that be middle school or high school, cannot be overstated. Once again, these 2136 kanji are considered the basics of Japanese kanji fluency.

According to the “Kanji Frequency Number Survey/漢字頻度数調査” conducted by the National Cultural Affairs Division in 2000, in 385 books published by a major publishing company, 8474 different kanji were used (not including duplicates). However, speakers are able to understand 99% of them if they know the top 2457 kanji, and 99.9% of them if they know the top 4208 kanji. And as is true for speakers of every other language, people can generally read more words than they can write.

I determined the “grade level” of each kanji in this analysis according to the grade level provided in my Japanese-English dictionaries, but consideration will be made for Secondary School Kanji due to the lack of official grade divisions and the less organized circumstances involved with learning them.

An introduction to the analysis—what I did and why I did it

In this analysis, I focused specifically on Shigeo’s ability to write kanji, not to read them. This is most obviously because it’s much harder to determine whether or not someone can actually read something, especially in anime, without it being explicitly mentioned. However, it is also because the meaning of kanji can be inferred from knowing the meaning of radicals, and as mentioned above, it is common for people to be able to read more words than they can write. The true mark of knowing a kanji is being able to write it.

To determine Shigeo’s kanji-writing ability, I studied screenshots from a few scenes from the anime, specifically a couple of scenes from the Reigen OVA where Shigeo is writing a LOT, and a couple scenes from the regular anime where Shigeo is explicitly seen writing stuff down and the audience is shown the writing.

The data has been organized into two different excel charts—one for kanji he uses correctly, and one for kanji he doesn’t know or messes up. The kanji in each of these charts have been color-coded and organized by grade level, with readings, translations, and explanations provided. There is only one kanji in the entire analysis that is not considered a part of the jouyou kanji, and this kanji has been marked by “N/A” in the grade level section.

I will provide each chart alongside a percentage likelihood that Mob will know any given kanji from each grade level based on the information gathered from the anime. Please note that the sample size is obviously limited, but I’m working with what I have. If there is a kanji with some sort of detail worth consideration, I’ve marked it with a (**) in the chart and will explain below.

Lastly, I included kanji used in names in the chart here after some deliberation. Name kanji are tricky in general, because multiple kanji share the same pronunciation and people usually don’t know what kanji are used in someone’s name unless they are shown by that person (unless it’s some crazy common name like 高田 or 森 or 田中).

A presentation of data, evidence, and counterarguments.

Shigeo’s known kanji:

Shigeo’s unknown kanji:

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are one or two instances of Shigeo NOT using a kanji at all that I’ve decided not to include on the chart. This is because it is common for Japanese speakers to omit kanji for super common verbs and write them in kana instead, either for personal style reasons or for convenience. Since the verbs are so fundamental and commonly-used, it’s unlikely that they will be misunderstood or mistaken for another word if written in kana. So, if Shigeo wrote the verb for “to read” or “to eat” without using kanji, I didn’t include it, as I highly highly highly doubt he doesn’t know those kanji and I felt like it would unfairly skew the results against him.

米** = I don’t blame Shigeo for not knowing this kanji. It’s fair to assume that Mob might not have seen Mezato’s name written out and therefore wouldn’t know which kanji to use. On TOP of that, “me” for 米 is a special nanori (used for names only) reading and is super obscure and uncommon. I couldn’t even find it in my name dictionary by searching “Mezato”, I had to find her name written in kanji in S1E3 and go from there. I wouldn’t expect this kanji to be in anyone’s top ten possible kanji guesses for the “me” in “mezato”. I included it because rules are rules, but wanted to mention this to make it fairer on the boy.

世** = I want to make it known that Shigeo does successfully write this kanji in the image shown here, when he writes 「世紀」(century):

HOWEVER. However. He messed it up SO BAD before that I think it actually overpowers him using it correctly and brings it back around to a “not properly known” kanji, especially because it’s a kanji taught in second grade that he shouldn’t be messing up at all:

The subtitles intersect it but I’ve rewritten what Shigeo wrote there at the bottom. He tried to write 「世の中には」”In the world…”, but tried to write the kanji, messed up, crossed it out, and then rewrote it in kana. Didn’t even try to write it a second time. This is egregious and, in my juror’s power, cancels out his later usage. This would be like misspelling “world” in English. I’m willing to entertain arguments that he just wanted to write it in kana for some reason, but as it is now, I don’t think that excuse is compelling enough against such damning evidence, so in “missed kanji” it goes. (It’s partly cut off but what gets me is that it doesn’t even look wrong in the first place lol but if he crossed it out, it means he didn’t know it well enough, which allowed him to doubt, which is still damning enough.)

造** = Just like above, Shigeo actually does successfully use this kanji once in the show when he’s filling out his paperwork for the Body Improvement Club in S1E2 (forgive my awful kanji, it’s hard to draw on the phone lol): 

However, that was not only on an official school document, it was also in the presence of a student council member and Saruta (#2 in the grade lol) so I have to assume he either asked someone for help or got corrected. Either way, the instance where he doesn’t use the kanji is when he’s in his bedroom alone, writing in his personal notebook—a much more casual environment, and one that takes place AFTER s1e2 (can’t argue he learned it):

This leads me to believe that Shigeo does not naturally know the kanji, as he can’t reproduce it in casual day-to-day or when alone.

焉** = This kanji is not only not included in the jouyou kanji, but it is also used in an obscure word. In fact, it took me a minute to locate it in my Japanese-English dictionary app. It is absolutely not reasonable to expect Shigeo to know this kanji off the top of his head, and he probably wouldn’t know it even if he were a kanji ace. It is included and working against him, however, because the kanji he initially tried to write in its place was 「円」, a.k.a. the kanji for YEN/¥:

Sure, 「えん」is a reading for「円」, that part makes sense. But 「終焉」means “the finals years in one’s life”, so I’m really struggling to understand why Mob would think the yen money kanji would be a part of that word and why he would try to write it with that kanji instead of just writing it in kana first, like the majority of the kanji he didn’t know. It’s truly an enigma to me. I’m bewildered he even tried that, and for that, I’m holding it against him.

BASIC STATS:

GRADE 1 KANJI:

- Total known: 17

- Total unknown: 0

- Grand total: 17

- Shigeo knows: 17 out of 17

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 1 kanji: 100%

GRADE 2 KANJI:

- Total known: 16

- Total unknown: 3

- Grand total: 19

- Shigeo knows: 16 out of 19

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 2 kanji: 84.2%

GRADE 3 KANJI:

- Total known: 13

- Total unknown: 6

- Grand total: 19

- Shigeo knows: 13 out of 19

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 3 kanji: 68.4%

GRADE 4 KANJI:

- Total known: 11

- Total unknown: 0

- Grand total: 11

- Shigeo knows: 11 out of 11

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 4 kanji: 100%

(Baby apparently had a great year in fourth grade.)

GRADE 5 KANJI:

- Total known: 3

- Total unknown: 4

- Grand total: 7

- Shigeo knows: 3 out of 7

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 5 kanji: 43.9%

GRADE 6 KANJI:

- Total known: 0

- Total unknown: 2

- Grand total: 2

- Shigeo knows: 0 out of 2

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 6 kanji: 0%

😭

GRADE 7 KANJI:

(No known or unknown 7th grade kanji found)

GRADE 8 KANJI

- Total known: 5

- Total unknown: 6

- Grand total: 11

- Shigeo knows: 5 out of 11

- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 8 kanji: 45.5%

^ To Shigeo’s credit, this isn’t bad at all considering he’s only halfway through his eight grade year at this point in the story.

% OF JOUYOU KANJI SHIGEO KNOWS:

% known from observed data:

65/86

75.6%

# of jouyou kanji: 2136

75.6% of 2136 = 1615 jouyou kanji

Here’s a graph for your visualizing pleasure:

Finally:

(All values are rounded up)

There are 1006 kyouiku kanji. There are 1130 secondary school kanji. Because high school in Japan is not compulsory, we’ll assume that the secondary kanji are to be learned over the three years of middle school. That means about 377 words per middle school grade. If Shigeo is halfway through eighth grade, let’s say he should generally know 1006 + 377 + (377/2) kanji, which comes out to 1,572.

There are 80 kyouiku kanji assigned to first grade, which Shigeo should know 100% of—80 total.

There are 160 kyouiku kanji assigned to second grade, which Shigeo should know 84.2% of—135 total.

There are 200 kanji assigned to third grade, which Shigeo should know 68.4% of—137 total.

There are 200 kanji assigned to fourth grade, which Shigeo should know 100% of—200 total.

There are 185 kanji assigned to fifth grade, which Shigeo should know 43.9% of—81 total.

There are 181 kanji assigned to sixth grade, which Shigeo should know… 0% of…. 0 total.

This all totals out to:

80 + 135 + 137 + 200 + 81 + 0 = 633/1006 elementary school-level kanji. That’s 63% of the kanji required for elementary school.

(Didn’t include a calculation for middle school kanji due to having 0 data on seventh-grade kanji and also him being halfway through eighth.)

The truth revealed: can Shigeo write a reasonable amount of kanji for his age group?

Uh… no. Maybe? Well… probably not, no.

I mean, of course there are flaws with my methods. I had a super small sample group and applied the stats there to all of the jouyou kanji, which is almost guaranteed to be lower than reality. I just didn’t really have another choice. Also, I’m very certain that Shigeo MUST know some 6th grade kanji, even if in the results here I considered the probability to be 0%. That’s assuredly not accurate. There were just, by chance, only two instances of sixth-grade kanji in all of the sample writing and he happened not to know either of them. This is just for fun, anyway. I can say with confidence, though, that he certainly isn’t a writer, and he definitely knows less kanji than the average eighth grader, but I wouldn’t take my numbers for anything more than entertainment.

But yeah. Shigeo is…. a little kanji-impaired. Which explains why he struggled with Emi’s writing and is only ever seen reading Shounen Jump volumes lmao. I believe in him though. He makes it work. My illiterate king. Who needs the other half of your elementary sight-words anyway?

All jokes aside though, he really started to scare me with the 世 and 円 things 😭😭😭😭😭

[spectral-musette]

I'm running a few days behind on Satine Week, but I finally finished a very short fic (just under 600 words) set during the Manadalore Mission (pre-Episode I) for the prompt "Jewel".

...

            Satine let out an exasperated huff as she set her data reader aside with more vehemence than necessary.

            “What?” Obi-Wan prompted. He also set aside the archaeology periodical he was browsing on his own reader, knowing from prior experience that if he ignored such displays she’d only sulk. After all, if the ruins of the temple uncovered by Master Cordova had waited centuries for discovery, his study on the topic could wait until Satine had vented her ire a little.

            She picked up the reader again, showing him the headline that had so offended her. He squinted at the thin, spiky Mandalorian runes, deciphering and translating as fast as he could before she grew impatient.

            “’The Jewel of Kalevala’,” he read aloud, demonstrating his growing fluency in Mando’a. She didn’t correct him, so he assumed he’d translated correctly. She was evidently too annoyed to be impressed with his intellect just then, and he tried not to be overly put out at the wasted effort. “That’s you?” he concluded, uncertain.

            “Oh, indeed,” she repeated, voice falsely smooth, the expression on her beautiful face deeply indignant.

            “That’s…bad?” Truthfully, he was perplexed. It didn’t seem like such a negative epithet. In fact, he thought it rather fitting, though he knew better than to say as much when she was making that face.

            “Of course it is,” she said, tossing the reader back onto the table.

            He crossed his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robe. “Then I suppose it doesn’t mean that you are… treasured, beautiful?”

            “In Basic perhaps,” she conceded a bit more calmly, showing forbearance with his ignorance of her culture despite her peevishness. “To a Mandalorian, the implication is…” She paused to gesture, her hand graceful even as she waved it about in frustration. “A sparkling bauble. Something frivolous, merely decorative, without strength or purpose.”

            “All that in one word?”

            She shrugged. “If Mandalorians excel at something besides pointless destruction, it’s insulting each other with economy.”

            He reached to unclip his lightsaber from his belt and set it on the table in front of him.

            She cocked her head, fair brows furrowing in a charmingly perplexed expression. “Are you going to fight the data reader on my behalf?” she asked with a soft snort of a laugh.

            He spared her a half-smile before he turned back to the saber, deactivating the power cell and starting to unfasten the casing. “Obviously not. I want to show you something.”

            Her intent gaze did distract him a little as he went through the familiar motions of disassembling his lightsaber. He slowed a little lest he fumble a critical component in self conscious clumsiness. Still, it only took a few moments to reveal the kyber crystal. He turned it a little, letting it catch the light. It sparkled, clear as ice, and seemed to glow from within.

            “When you say ‘jewel’, this is what I think of,” he explained. “That’s why I thought the word suited you,” he added, glancing at her quickly. He bit his tongue before he waxed poetic about the color of her eyes. She was clearly in no mood for flattery about her looks, even if it was genuine.

            “It is beautiful,” she breathed.

            “It is, but it’s more than that as well. It channels energy, amplifies the Light. It’s incredibly precious, remarkably powerful.”

            “I wish that’s what they meant,” she said sadly.

            “You will show them what kind of jewel you are,” he promised.

            “I will certainly try,” she agreed, reaching out to take his hand.

[fanfoolishness]

Headcanons from the (first) Kashyyyk mission

So there was supposed to be an arc with the Batch on Kashyyyk in S7 of Clone Wars, but like Dark Disciple it didn’t get a chance. But I still like to think of the Batch each finding a moment on Kashyyyk where the war receded into the background, and they felt something new:

Wrecker has never seen trees like this. They soar up into the clouds, trunks the size of cruisers, villages spiraling up into the trunks. As the others scout ahead he rests his hand on a vast trunk, so large around its surface almost seems flat instead of curved. The wood beneath his palm feels invincible. For the first time in his life, he feels small in a way the steel and sea and rain of Kamino never had achieved.

Echo takes a deep breath. The smells of smoke on the battlefield, blaster fire and droid grease are thick on the ground, but behind that he catches gusts of a green and living scent rich and raw and real. Water mists on his face, cutting through the grime of battle. It’s nothing like the sterility of Skako Minor, and he breathes deeper, waiting for another hint of green.

Tech’s ears perk up at chatter in the trees. He’s adding fluency in Shyriiwook to his list of languages, filing away each growl and utterance in his mind, cross-referencing with his translator, putting it together. But Kashyyyk is a whirlwind of other sounds, too, and he catalogues and isolates each one as fast as he can in the downtime between the next assault. Spiders insects birds water leaves, the sounds of blaster fire in the distance mingling with the songs of night creatures in the lower canopies, the sighs and flows of the forest. His mind buzzes with it. He records three data cards’ worth of memory in two hours.

Hunter’s senses jangle, whole streams of information coming in through every sense he’s got. This place is absolutely exploding with life at every turn, and it’s a cacophony that takes him a few hours to acclimate to. But even when he’s got a handle on it, there’s still a buzz and a hum he feels more than hears, a webbing that’s got nothing to do with the giant spiders, a connection between… well, everything. It’s a pulse in the soil from tree to tree, the wind carrying animal calls and tree pollen alike, the crackle of mycelia deep in the soil underfoot. He could live here a dozen years and never untangle all of it. But he might like the challenge.

They might be supposedly safe here, but Crosshair still scans the environment, searching for signs of anything suspicious. His vision glides over bark in a dozen shades of brown and gray, smatters of jewel-bright mosses and lichens, vines in flowers of scarlet, violet, gold. There’s creatures, too, scampering furry things of tawny gold with tufted tails, the jet-black glitter of massive spider eyes, insects half the size of clankers with emerald wings and kaleidoscopic scales. The sky peeks through the ceiling of leaf and canopy, and for an instant, he catches just a glimpse across the blue: the silver shimmer of translucent feathers, the suggestion of enormous wingbeats, the shadow of a long and sinuous tail. His eyes sting. He blinks away the water from them, his chest feeling oddly light.

[mariacallous]

It’s now well understood that generative AI will increase the spread of disinformation on the internet. From deepfakes to fake news articles to bots, AI will generate not only more disinformation, but more convincing disinformation. But what people are only starting to understand is how disinformation will become more targeted and better able to engage with people and sway their opinions.

When Russia tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election via the now disbanded Internet Research Agency, the operation was run by humans who often had little cultural fluency or even fluency in the English language and so were not always able to relate to the groups they were targeting. With generative AI tools, those waging disinformation campaigns will be able to finely tune their approach by profiling individuals and groups. These operatives can produce content that seems legitimate and relatable to the people on the other end and even target individuals with personalized disinformation based on data they’ve collected. Generative AI will also make it much easier to produce disinformation and will thus increase the amount of disinformation that’s freely flowing on the internet, experts say.

“Generative AI lowers the financial barrier for creating content that’s tailored to certain audiences,” says Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “You can tailor it to audiences and make sure the narrative hits on the values and beliefs of those audiences, as well as the strategic part of the narrative.”

Rather than producing just a handful of articles a day,  Starbird adds, “You can actually write one article and tailor it to 12 different audiences. It takes five minutes for each one of them.”

Considering how much content people post to social media and other platforms, it’s very easy to collect data to build a disinformation campaign. Once operatives are able to profile different groups of people throughout a country, they can teach the generative AI system they’re using to create content that manipulates those targets in highly sophisticated ways.

“You’re going to see that capacity to fine-tune. You’re going to see that precision increase. You’re going to see the relevancy increase,” says Renee Diresta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, says this kind of customized disinformation is going to be “everywhere.” Though bad actors will probably target people by groups when waging a large-scale disinformation campaign, they could also use generative AI to target individuals.

“You could say something like, ‘Here’s a bunch of tweets from this user. Please write me something that will be engaging to them.’ That’ll get automated. I think that’s probably coming,” Farid says.

Purveyors of disinformation will try all sorts of tactics until they find what works best, Farid says, and much of what’s happening with these disinformation campaigns likely won’t be fully understood until after they’ve been in operation for some time. Plus, they only need to be somewhat effective to achieve their aims.

“If I want to launch a disinformation campaign, I can fail 99 percent of the time. You fail all the time, but it doesn’t matter,” Farid says. “Every once in a while, the QAnon gets through. Most of your campaigns can fail, but the ones that don’t can wreak havoc.”

Farid says we saw during the 2016 election cycle how the recommendation algorithms on platforms like Facebook radicalized people and helped spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. In the lead-up to the 2024 US election, Facebook’s algorithm—itself a form of AI—will likely be recommending some AI-generated posts instead of only pushing content created entirely by human actors. We’ve reached the point where AI will be used to create disinformation that another AI then recommends to you.

“We’ve been pretty well tricked by very low-quality content. We are entering a period where we’re going to get higher-quality disinformation and propaganda,” Starbird says. “It’s going to be much easier to produce content that’s tailored for specific audiences than it ever was before. I think we’re just going to have to be aware that that’s here now.”

What can be done about this problem? Unfortunately, only so much. Diresta says people need to be made aware of these potential threats and be more careful about what content they engage with. She says you’ll want to check whether your source is a website or social media profile that was created very recently, for example. Farid says AI companies also need to be pressured to implement safeguards so there’s less disinformation being created overall.

The Biden administration recently struck a deal with some of the largest AI companies—ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta—that encourages them to create specific guardrails for their AI tools, including external testing of AI tools and watermarking of content created by AI. These AI companies have also created a group focused on developing safety standards for AI tools, and Congress is debating how to regulate AI.

Despite such efforts, AI is accelerating faster than it’s being reined in, and Silicon Valley often fails to keep promises to only release safe, tested products. And even if some companies behave responsibly, that doesn’t mean all of the players in this space will act accordingly.

“This is the classic story of the last 20 years: Unleash technology, invade everybody’s privacy, wreak havoc, become trillion-dollar-valuation companies, and then say, ‘Well, yeah, some bad stuff happened,’” Farid says. “We’re sort of repeating the same mistakes, but now it’s supercharged because we’re releasing this stuff on the back of mobile devices, social media, and a mess that already exists.”

[elsa16744]

Leveraging Operational Data: Driving Business Transformation Across Organizations

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[educationisimp0]

The Power of Data as an Organizational Asset: Driving Business Transformation 

Discover how data is the driving force behind modern business transformation! In this insightful blog from SG Analytics, explore the immense potential of data as a strategic asset across organizations. Uncover data integration strategies, data quality and governance practices, and the role of advanced analytics in unlocking actionable insights. Join the discussion on leveraging data to optimize processes, foster innovation, and gain a competitive edge in today's data-driven world.  

[atthebell]

Hey i saw your post about the translator and pacs accent from yesterday and thought i would throw in my two cents as a brasillian, though im merelly a hobbyist linguist and havent a degree in it like you so take this with a grain of salt please.

First of you are absolutelly right about pacs time in canada not really affecting how he sounds, i watched tazercrafts content for years and the accent is the same. As you said pac has not been through language loss or anything like that, so much so that he still has a pretty strong brasillian accent when he speaks english and that before joining the qsmp his fluency level was still a little clunky.

I also agree with you that the reason the translator has a hard time with pac/mike/forevers accents is the training data, which is likely composed of mostly paulista accents.

Now heres where i can add smth, so, idk about the UN thing that you mentioned, but as you said a lot a lot of tradicional brasillian media is filmed in rio. So why isnt there much carioca training data? Well, its probably because most of that media is most likely professionally produced for tv, and most of the people who work in entertainment or news (or politics in regards to the UN training data) actually learn how to speak with a "neutral" accent, which is basically just a paulista accent but slower. With very enunciated words and little to no maneirisms (thats why the translator sometimes gets confused with some slang or repetitions cellbit or bagi say even if they sound paulistas). Idk why that is the established neutral accent, but it sort of is.

The stereotype is basically: paulista – as long as you dont use too much slang – makes you sound professional, carioca makes you sound like you like to party, gaucho makes you sound like a bit of farmer, bahiano makes you sound very chiillllllllll (think surfer dude chad type of chill), nordestino makes you sound straight to the point (but also some people think it sounds simple-minded and poor, i personally dont see it but its a think that enough people think that rich people from that region learn to speak like paulistas/teach their children to speak like paulistas), and honestly i dont know what a northern accent sounds like bc they have so little coverage in media. So yeah, i hope this bring some insight, idk why i wrote this i guess i just wanted to share

thank you for your insight! also i don't have a degree in linguistics, for clarity, but i took classes in undergrad and it's a big area of interest for me personally.

good to know i was right about the canada thing! i feel like that's kind of a piece of language misinfo that people talk about a lot and i wanted to clear it up generally along with the fact that it doesn't apply for pac specifically.

and the stuff about media & the paulista accent is super interesting! that's kind of similar to the accent many broadcast news anchors use in the US, which is a kind of general american accent that is meant to not alienate viewers from across the US rather than having a more regional accents (mental floss & insider articles about said "broadcast voice"). i think that being the case for brazilian media makes a lot of sense! my understanding is this is the case in many countries, so if training data was based on traditional media like tv and movies, it would make sense that it would be less able to understand other accents & various types of slang.

thank you for the accents breakdown! it's always cool to learn about regional differences and how they impact social & media settings.

[drdemonprince]

I've been working my way through Unmasking Autism, and am very curious about the "bottom-up" or systematic processing definition of Autism. I am autistic, and consider myself a pretty intuitive person-- I lack certain common kinds of intuition, certainly, like social intuition-- but I find that I tend to learn or internalize information only when I get the *vibe* of it. I rarely remember things word-for-word, for instance. I feel that my most important ideas and insights are intuited; if I systematize them or justify them, it's after the fact. Some other autistic friends of mine have a similar feeling about this.

Now, I recognize that I'm approaching this explanation in a fairly (autistically) systematic way, and I'm do wonder if what I'm describing is the experience of someone with a largely systematic mind grappling with the fact that it occasionally intuits. I wonder to what degree it's really possible to understand or measure this kind of thing, or if it's an "is my red the same as your red" kind of situation? Or is it just another way that every autistic person varies?

In my experience at least, a lot of Autistic 'intuition' is finely tuned pattern matching and systemization of information that feels so first-nature to us that we don't think of it as an effortful data organizing process, but the second we share the fruits of that process with allistics theyre totally fucking gob smacked by it and cant believe we bothered putting something so intricate together because they operate primarily on vibes. Distinguishing between vibes and systematized intuition is tricky to do, but it's the difference between having a gut feeling you cant describe even when pressed and having a framework that makes so much sense to you that it now operates effortlessly (but can be called forth when needed). For example, I never was taught grammar rules and never had to effortfully learn them, I just have a natural fluency for language that allows me to pattern match and adopt new linguistic rules on the fly without much effort, but then i can think through what i'm doing by instinct and describe it to conclude what the norms actually are. (prescriptive grammar sucks but i do like learning descriptive norms ' "rules" in the sense of the dominant social tendencies).

this is all further complicated by the fact that if your an AuDHDer, you might just have a more intuitive processing style! the bottom-up versus top town model of Autism is still just a model, it's a summary and a way of explaining a lot of different disparate features, so if it doesnt work for you that just speaks to the limited rendering capacity of the model, and it's not a sign youre not Autistic or anything like that

[sapphicbookclub]

The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard

Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates' enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si's help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si's technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together...

Genres: science fiction, romance

Get the book from The Book Depository here!

[nikhos]

Laurie´s dad: A character´s study (1/2)

I've alway been curious about who Laurie's father was; so in my rereading of the TC novel I´ve tried to pick some data and meditations  in order to give some light on the character.

We know Laurie´s father is called Michael, (Michael Odell, I presume)

He is a journalist or a newspaperman (which I find fascinating).

He travels a lot (apparently) or spends most of his time away from home:  “He was often away, covering things”  and he talks French, fluency : “Tais-toi; voici l´enfant” ( it could be told by the mom, but i prefer to think is from the father because of his job)

His child pictures him as sort of a companion in mischief  because  both of them get in problems and make Laurie's mom mad: "They were too often in trouble together, for making a mess without cleaning up, or being late home from their joint expeditions.” That point makes Laurie see his father as an equal, and loves him for that.

Michael cares for his son, too: He gives him a gold cap from a broken fountain pen and takes him on long walks. He is not a neglected father.

However, he is not on good terms with his wife, Laurie´s mom. Both of them have had disagreements and now, daddy doesn't share the same room with mommy anymore: “He sat up in bed, but feet passed, and when he called it was too late; they have gone on the door of what had in the last few days become Daddy´s Room.”

We don't know what exactly Laurie´s father did, but in agreement with five years old Laurie's thoughts it was something wicked: “During his approaches and retreats he had heard snatches of the conversations his presence had interrupted. He knew that his father had done something wicked while he was away from home.” Where wicked is attached to the words: ill, evil, bad, immoral, amoral, unprincipled, depraved, dissolute, degenerate. (American edition thesaurus). This will be the first time Laurie associate Love with right and good.

The wicked thing Michael did to lose his wife's confidence was to have an illicit affair. (This point is confirmed in chapter three for Laurie himself "You know, my father wasn't faithful to my mother. She minded a lot at the time, but she is all right now." )

Because of that, there's a sense of guilt in Michael when accepts the mother's complaint of trying to influence their child's feelings “Michael!” she said quietly. “Oh, how could you?” (Also, there is some selfishness in the mom´s behavior due to she is sure he is leaving home)

Later, a teen Laurie will tell us the official version of his father's leaving:  “He had been too young when his father went to fear economic changes; and in fact there had been none.” And that version is, of course, the mom's version “Laurie knew his mother's side of the story so well that on the thinking surface of his mind it was only one.” 

The memento of his father has faded away from Laurie's memories; but will see it still alive somehow around his infatuation for a senior student in school and his abrupt departure. (We could find some similitudes between Michael and Ralph's descriptions: " His father drew his thick dark brows together; his eyes glancing at his wristwatch looked narrow and blue." and for Ralph: "He was slight and lean, with dusty-fair hair and eyes of a striking light blue which were narrowed by the structure of the orbit above, giving him a searching look even when he smiled." )

(it will continue...)

Daily Mirror News Room 1920

Reporter (Movie: Feel my pulse- 1928)

Men fashion in 1920

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