Tayo Bero , The Guardian; The weirdest things a leak revealed about Peter Thiel’s secret club
"Given that the group’s members include some of the world’s most culturally and politically important people, one would think that this information would be far more securely guarded."
THE EDITORIAL BOARD, Financial Times; The ethical dilemmas of AI
"Leo reminds us while AI may surpass human intelligence, they are not the same thing. AIs “do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean”. Machine learning “does not imply inner growth”. He warns in particular against so-called post- or transhumanist views, because these attempts to improve humanity see human limitations as flaws to get rid of.Rebecca Bellan, TechCrunch ; Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers
"After helping lead the lawsuit that bankrupted media firm Gawker, Aron D’Souza says he saw something broken in the American media system: People who felt harmed by coverage had little recourse to fight back.
His solution is software. D’Souza says his latest startup, Objection, aims to use AI to adjudicate the truth of journalism. And for the price of $2,000, anyone can pay to challenge a story, triggering a public investigation into its claims. (D’Souza is also the founder of the Enhanced Games, an Olympics-style competition that allows performance-enhancing drugs and is set to debut in Las Vegas next month.)
Objection launched on Wednesday with “multiple millions” in seed funding from Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan, as well as VC firms Social Impact Capital and Off Piste Capital.
Thiel, who funded the Gawker lawsuit partly in defense of the individual right to privacy, has long been critical of the media. D’Souza says his goal is to restore trust in the Fourth Estate, which he argues has collapsed over decades. Critics, including media lawyers, warn Objection could make it harder to publish the kind of reporting that holds powerful institutions to account, particularly if that reporting relies on confidential sources."
Professor of Society & Environment, University of Technology Sydney , The Conversation; Tech giant Palantir helps the US government monitor its citizens. Its CEO wants Silicon Valley to find its moral compass
"Critics of those who misuse power tend to be outsiders. So, it’s striking that Alexander Karp, co-founder and CEO of data analytics giant Palantir Technologies, has written a book, with Palantir’s head of corporate affairs Nicholas Zamiska, calling on Silicon Valley to find its moral compass...
Karp has described Palantir’s work as “the finding of hidden things”. The New York Times described its work as sifting “through mountains of data to perceive patterns, including patterns of suspicious or aberrant behavior”.
Palantir has worked closely with United States armed forces and intelligence agencies across Democratic and Republican governments for 14 years. It has been criticised for enabling heightened government surveillance and loss of privacy among US citizens."
Minho Kim, The New York Times ; Close Trump Allies Sponsored the Military Parade, Raising Ethical Concerns
"Federal regulations prohibit the use of public office for the private gain of officeholders or their friends, relatives or nongovernmental affiliates, said Richard W. Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office under President George W. Bush.
“The parade is being used for advertising by these entities with close business ties to the president,” Mr. Painter said in an interview. “You’re in a situation where the U.S. government has been used to endorse a product.”
If he had been Mr. Trump’s chief ethics lawyer, he added, he would have not wanted the sponsorships at all. Such an arrangement would be acceptable only if the companies were to pay for the entire event, Mr. Painter said, allowing the government to host the celebration without paying any tax dollars. The military parade was estimated to cost up to $45 million."
