The new version of GPT-3 is much better behaved (and should be less toxic)

“This work takes an important step in the right direction,” says Douwe Kiela, a researcher at Hugging Face, an AI company working on open-source language models. He suggests that the feedback-driven training process could be repeated over many rounds, improving the model even more. Leike says OpenAI could do this by building on customer feedback. […]

Free covid tests are meant to reduce inequity, but they’re highlighting it

The White House has deflected criticism of the problem, with Assistant Press Secretary Kevin Munoz telling The Verge that the errors “were only a small percentage” of overall experiences. Press Secretary Jen Psaki added, “Every website, in our view, comes with risk. We can’t guarantee there won’t be a bug or two.” ​​But as has […]

Android malware can factory-reset phones after draining bank accounts

Getty Images reader comments 10 with 8 posters participating Share this story A banking-fraud trojan that has been targeting Android users for three years has been updated to create even more grief. Besides draining bank accounts, the trojan can now activate a kill switch that performs a factory reset and wipes infected devices clean. Brata […]

The digital-first enterprises will win – IDC’s 2022 IT sector predictions

Peter Griffin, Editor. 27 January 2022, 10:08 am The ongoing pandemic has been the driver for organisations to shift to a “digital-first” strategy, which for many of them represents “an extraordinary migration of mindset,” according to IDC. The IT industry analyst group has just published its latest IDC FutureScape report, which you can purchase for […]

We can’t afford to stop solar geoengineering research

Intense social pressure to cease solar geoengineering research won’t mean that all such research will end—it means that researchers who care about openness and transparency might stop their activities, and the ones who continue might be less responsive to public concerns. They will be supported by funders that don’t care about public opinion—perhaps private actors […]

A bug lurking for 12 years gives attackers root on every major Linux distro

reader comments 18 with 17 posters participating Share this story Linux users on Tuesday got a major dose of bad news—a 12-year-old vulnerability in a system tool called Polkit gives attackers unfettered root privileges on machines running any major distribution of the open source operating system. Previously called PolicyKit, Polkit manages system-wide privileges in Unix-like […]

Booby-trapped sites delivered potent new backdoor trojan to macOS users

reader comments 24 with 19 posters participating Share this story Researchers have uncovered advanced, never-before-seen macOS malware that was installed using exploits that were almost impossible for most users to detect or stop once the users landed on a malicious website. The malware was a full-featured backdoor that was written from scratch, an indication that […]

Starlink preps rugged user terminal that may avoid “thermal shutdown” problem

Enlarge / The current Starlink user terminal. Images of the planned ruggedized terminal aren’t available yet. reader comments 26 with 16 posters participating Share this story SpaceX’s Starlink division is planning a new ruggedized satellite dish that can operate in hotter and colder temperatures. This is the second ruggedized Starlink dish the company has revealed—the […]

Five risks of moving your database to the cloud

Moving to the cloud is all the rage. According to an IDC Survey Spotlight, Experience in Migrating Databases to the Cloud, 63% of enterprises are actively migrating their databases to the cloud, and another 29% are considering doing so within the next three years. This article discusses some of the risks customers may unwittingly encounter […]