T3THICS #31: Who blocks the ad blockers?
YouTube faces criticism over ad blocker detection, SAG-AFTRA win some and lose some on AI protections for actors
It’s #T3THICS Tuesday, so here are some…
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One of the big pieces of news this week: after a historic 118 day strike, SAG-AFTRA, the joint union for the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has reached a deal with studios. Negotiations as recently as a few days ago hinged on the ability of studios to own the digital identity of actors into perpetuity. Some protections, including studios needing an actor’s consent to create a digital replica, were retained. Other controversial points like the use of “synthetic performers” will likely cause debate during the ratifying vote. Deadline has shared the full AI Guardrails prepared by SAG-AFTRA below:
Actress, writer and filmmaker Justine Batemen, who served as the Generative AI advisor for the union, opposed the new deal:
"I think [studio executives] sort of like to think of themselves as being tech barons themselves or something. But this, doing projects that don't involve humans … you're not in the film business anymore"
YouTube is in hot water over its ad blocker detection system rollout in the EU, which privacy activists claim violates EU’s ePrivacy Directive. Online, users are pointing out that the ads served as a result of the ad blocker removal may even be disinformation:
Business Insider reports on a Microsoft study showing that LLMs like ChatGPT, GPT-4, Hugging Face's BLOOM, and Meta's Llama return higher accuracy answers when prompts contain emotionally charged language
Google Maps’ erroneous label of a non-existent trail north of Vancouver, British Columbia is finally taken down after a hiker was stranded and needed rescue in dangerous terrain, one in a series of hikers to be stranded or die on the fake trail
Signal in noise Toot: From activist Gwen Snyder: a thread on the garden walls companies like to build around their app ecosystems and how the relentless push for user stickiness hurts the disabled community and all who rely on interconnectivity between apps:
