Dr. S.A. Applin

Delivery Robots Will Rely on Human Kindness and Labor If robots are going to invade public spaces, they will be subject to vandalism and pranking.

See my Motherboard piece on this very topic from 2018:
www.vice.com/en/article/d...

Hey folks, Applin and Fischer told you why #AVs wouldn't work 14 years ago. And again 11 years ago (twice!) and yet, here we are.
posr.org/w/images/a/a...

Hey folks, Applin and Fischer told you why #AVs wouldn't work 14 years ago. And again 11 years ago (twice!) and yet, here we are.
posr.org/w/images/a/a...

Do not buy creeptech, do not wear creeptech, and do not tolerate the creeps who do.

Meta sued over AI smart glasses' privacy concerns, after workers reviewed nudity, sex, and other footage | TechCrunch Lawyers say Meta's marketing materials promised privacy and user control over sharing footage. But an investigation found that subcontractors are reviewing footage from customers' glasses.

That escalated quickly.

"Your tires are leaking more than air" was *right* _there_.

Meta Ray-Bans are a Cybertruck you wear on your face.
www.garbageday.email/p/meta-ray-b...

Reminder: When "AI" makes 'battlefield' decisions instead of trained appointed and/or elected officials, it means that unelected private sector engineers and "AI" companies are co-opting government functions, and using a 'backdoor' to unbridled political power. Also, their software can hallucinate.

🎉🥇❤️

She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’...

The data from your Meta Ray Bans is used to train Meta's AI, which most people don't understand means that humans are looking at the most intimate details of their lives. www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/met...

What a fantastic opportunity! Congratulations!

Waymo Says It Has Nothing to Say After Its Self-Driving Taxi Blocked an Ambulance Responding to a Mass Shooting "Come on! Go!"

“The Google-owned Waymo told outlets that it would not be providing a statement.”

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

My friend Lindsey’s camera roll montage from last years lunar eclipse. (Posted with permission).

Deliveries by Drone: Obstacles and Sociability The current desire of retailers and vendors to have goods delivered via drones to individuals within an urban environment is in its early stages. Providing near ubiquitous delivery services to custome...

Let's see how it does in aggregate. I wrote an extensive book chapter on this in 2016, "Deliveries by Drone: Obstacles and Sociability" (Link below)

and flagged why it wouldn't work in 2013, "Managing Multiple Multiplexed PolySocial #Drones: The #Amazon Drone Dream"
Link: posr.org/wiki/Amazon_...

Let's see how it does in aggregate. I wrote an extensive book chapter on this in 2016, "Deliveries by Drone: Obstacles and Sociability" (below)
and flagged why it wouldn't work in 2013, "Managing Multiple Multiplexed PolySocial #Drones: The #Amazon Drone Dream"
posr.org/wiki/Amazon_...

Photo of a cardboard box, open, full of files named things like “Aedes infirmatus”

Photo of an open box of SEM prints

Everyone knows that insect collections have insects, but we also archive other things. Just received a box of entomologist Oz Breland’s (1910-1984) papers and photographs to complement his research specimens already in the collection.

Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social and Flick @liedra.net got into this in 2021 when the pilot for these got announced. Please enjoy our 27 page open access paper on the #ethics of smart glasses in the Commons
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

37 million years old whale spine found in the hot dunes of Egypt. This is a complete skeleton, the first-ever find for Basilosaurus, a large, predatory, prehistoric archaeocete whale uncovered in Wadi El Hitan, preserved with the remains of its prey.

Original post

Delivery Robots Will Rely on Human Kindness and Labor If robots are going to invade public spaces, they will be subject to vandalism and pranking.

I wrote about the volunteer needs that are in addition to labor maintenance.
www.vice.com/en/article/d...

I have an article for that. From 2018 (8 years ago!)
www.vice.com/en/article/d...

In prior smaller communities that info was known: everyone's name, address, job, etc. When we started moving around, ties distanced. We had more anonymity, and new networks of connected people were harder to penetrate. Difference today is outsiders not in any community collecting/applying that data.

Facebook's Project Aria indicates problems for responsible innovation when broadly deploying AR and other pervasive technology in the Commons Nearly every week, a technology company is introducing a new surveillance technology, varying from applying facial recognition to observing and catalo…

See also @anthropunk.bsky.social and @liedra.net on the ethics surrounding the glasses in general:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
and my bit on FR from
@technologyreview.com
www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/15/1...

Meta won’t let morality get in the way of a product launch What a great time to add facial recognition to everything!

“Just because you are outside of your home doesn’t mean you have consented to having a random bozo collect your face and your name, the latter of which can enable them to search for your digital presence or even home address. The act of existing in public should not carry those risks.”

Man Opposing Data Center Arrested for Speaking Slightly Too Long An Oklahoma man tried to talk about a data center coming to his community. Police arrested him when he went a few seconds over his time limit.

An Oklahoma man tried to talk about a data center coming to his community. Police arrested him when he went a few seconds over his time limit.

www.404media.co/man-opposing...

Meanwhile, meta analyses of generations of anthropological research on hunter-gatherer societies show that Darwin was deeply wrong in his conclusions about sex and gender. Showing clear and consistent evidence of women in prominent hunting roles.

stories.spu.edu/articles/pro...

A gentle reminder that contemporary neural networks are only an abstraction built upon Boolean logic

And that said neural networks are only an echo of a whisper of what organic neurons are.

Nothing.