EVENTS

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Zoo Hosts Panda Palooza: A Giant Farewell, Sept. 23 to Oct. 1. “The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) will celebrate its three giant pandas before the bears depart for China later this year. Visitors are invited to join the Panda Palooza, a nine-day onsite and online series of events in honor of 25-year-old Mei Xiang (may-SHONG), 26-year-old Tian Tian (tee-YEN tee-YEN) and 3-year-old Xiao Qi Ji (SHIAU-chi-ji) from Sept. 23 to Oct. 1.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: The AI-assistant wars heat up with Claude Pro, a new ChatGPT Plus rival. “On Thursday, AI-maker and OpenAI competitor Anthropic launched Claude Pro, a subscription-based version of its Claude.ai web-based AI assistant, which functions similarly to ChatGPT. It’s available for $20/month in the US or 18 pounds/month in the UK, and it promises five-times-higher usage limits, priority access to Claude during high-traffic periods, and early access to new features as they emerge.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: Creating A Simple WordPress Plugin With 6 AI Chatbots. “I tested six AI chatbots by creating a WordPress plugin. Find out if ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, Claude, Code Llama, and Llama 2 completed the task.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Federal News Network: National Archives prepares to ramp up work in new federal records system. “The National Archives and Records Administration is addressing bugs and user experience kinks in its new system for managing electronic records, and NARA plans to allow agencies to begin using the system more widely later this month.”

The Next Web: Ukraine’s fight against disinformation is creating a new startup sector. “Government campaigns had prepared Ukrainians for digital disinformation. When the crude deepfake appeared, the clip was quickly debunked, removed from social media platforms, and disproven by Zelenskyy in a genuine video. The incident became a symbol of the wider information war. Analysts had expected Russia’s propaganda weapons to wreak havoc, but Ukraine was learning to disarm them. Those lessons are now fostering a new sector for startups: counter-disinformation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Lost in AI translation: growing reliance on language apps jeopardizes some asylum applications. “Carlos, who is Afro-Indigenous, speaks Portuguese but does not read or write it. Staff at the Calexico, California, detention center spoke only English or Spanish. The staff used an artificial intelligence-powered voice-translation tool to interpret what Carlos was saying, but the system didn’t pick up or understand his regional accent or dialect. So Carlos spent six months in Ice detention unable to meaningfully communicate with anyone.”

New York Times: A $700 Million Bonanza for the Winners of Crypto’s Collapse: Lawyers. “Bankruptcy lawyers and other corporate turnaround specialists have reaped major fees from the bankruptcies of five cryptocurrency companies, including FTX.”

Bleeping Computer: Freecycle confirms massive data breach impacting 7 million users. “Freecycle, an online forum dedicated to exchanging used items rather than trashing them, confirmed a massive data breach that affected more than 7 million users. The nonprofit organization says it discovered the breach on Wednesday, weeks after a threat actor put the stolen data for sale on a hacking forum on May 30, warning affected people to switch passwords immediately.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Illinois: Twitter analysis captures nutrition chatter early in pandemic . “A new study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research from authors at UIC and Texas Woman’s University Institute for Health Sciences used data from Twitter to assess how non-expert users discussed one area of heavy interest during COVID-19: nutrition. By analyzing over 70,000 tweets posted between January and September 2020, the authors characterized the most common topics of conversation, identifying supplements, fluids and fruits as especially prominent.”

ScienceDaily: ChatGPT is debunking myths on social media around vaccine safety, say experts. “ChatGPT could help to increase vaccine uptake by debunking myths around jab safety, say the authors of a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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