Hasnain says:

“Koren alleges in her complaint that, within days of the November meeting, the company notified some of her colleagues she would no longer have a position on the team even though she hadn’t yet accepted or rejected the transfer to Brazil. According to the complaint, when she asked why this information was being shared, her manager stated: “You mean you actually would consider moving to Sao Paulo?”

“This is further indication to me that the ‘choice’ to move to Sao Paulo is not a choice at all,” Koren wrote in the complaint.”

Hasnain says:

Having had a lot of gripes with the way math is generally taught, this was quite refreshing to read.

“Creating this course, Mathematics for Life Scientists, wasn’t easy. The life sciences faculty involved, none of whom had a joint appointment with the math department, said they resorted to designing the course themselves after math faculty rebuffed their overture. The math faculty feared creating a ”watered-down” course with no textbook (though after the course was developed, one math instructor taught some sections of the class). Besides math, the life sciences faculty said they experienced “significant pushback” from the chemistry and physics departments over concerns that the course wouldn’t adequately prepare students for required courses in those disciplines.

But the UCLA course seems to be successful, and a textbook based on it now exists.

According to recently published research led by UCLA education researchers, students in the new classes ended up with “significantly higher grades” in subsequent physics, chemistry and life sciences courses than students in the traditional calculus course, even when controlling for factors such as demographics, prior preparation and math grades. Students’ interest in the subject doubled, according to surveys.”

Hasnain says:

This is why ethics in ML and AI is so important. The paper is really ominous.

“The reality is that this is not science fiction. We are but one very small company in a universe of many hundreds of companies using AI software for drug discovery and de novo design. How many of them have even considered repurposing, or misuse, possibilities? Most will work on small molecules, and many of the companies are very well funded and likely using the global chemistry network to make their AI-designed molecules. How many people have the know-how to find the pockets of chemical space that can be filled with molecules predicted to be orders of magnitude more toxic than VX? We do not currently have answers to these questions. There has not previously been significant discussion in the scientific community about this dual-use concern around the application of AI for de novo molecule design, at least not publicly. Discussion of societal impacts of AI has principally focused on aspects such as safety, privacy, discrimination and potential criminal misuse10, but not on national and international security. When we think of drug discovery, we normally do not consider technology misuse potential. We are not trained to consider it, and it is not even required for machine learning research, but we can now share our experience with other companies and individuals. AI generative machine learning tools are equally applicable to larger molecules (peptides, macrolactones, etc.) and to other industries, such as consumer products and agrochemicals, that also have interests in designing and making new molecules with specific physicochemical and biological properties. This greatly increases the breadth of the potential audience that should be paying attention to these concerns.”

Hasnain says:

“Alka Pradhan, one of his lawyers said: “If the CIA had not hidden their own conclusions about the illegality of Omar’s torture for this long, the US government would not have been able to bring charges against Ammar because we now know that the torture inflicted on Ammar led to lasting brain damage in the form of a traumatic brain injury and other debilitating illnesses that cannot be treated at Guantánamo Bay.””

Hasnain says:

“Bourgeon started her research at the Bluefish Caves believing that people weren’t in North America during the last ice age, but quickly realized that Cinq-Mars was right. Though she met him only a few times, and wishes she’d had more opportunities to speak with him before he passed, Bourgeon is glad he lived to see her efforts confirm his research.”

Hasnain says:

I’m glad I see more and more awareness of the fact that burnout is systemic.

“Burnout is rarely framed in this way because fixing these problems takes systemic work, and one-off solutions aren't going to cut it. To actually defeat burnout, you have to understand the work process, and you have to be willing to make hard calls about personnel who may be making frontline employees miserable. Managers you think are on top of things may actually be micromanagers who nag people about work they don't understand. Managers you think are funny may actually make others feel uncomfortable or upset in the workplace. Managers you think are hard workers may actually be presenting other people's work as their own, draining their colleagues of enthusiasm and initiative. “

Hasnain says:

Uh oh.

“Foxconn is the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of electronics, and the most important supplier to companies including Apple and Samsung. Many Chinese tech giants like Huawei, Tencent, and Oppo are headquartered in Shenzhen, which is situated near the border with Hong Kong. Foxconn says it’s stopping production at its Longhua and Guanlan factories until further notice, Nikkei reports; the Shenzhen base is Foxconn’s second largest in the country.”

Hasnain says:

I had never heard about the software or the character before this, so this was quite fascinating to read.

“The team behind Seeking Mavis Beacon has asked for any leads and tips about L’Esperance or any of the other models who later incarnated Mavis. “We don’t know what we’re going to find,” Jones told Mashable. “And we hope that it is a triumphant story in which Renee L’Esperance is just chilling, and is like, ‘Why did you bother me? I’m living great.’” The documentarians are also interested in hearing from people with strong memories associated with the character and the typing software. A website has been set up, as well as a hotline for people looking to share information.”

Hasnain says:

I liked this post a lot. It’s not like the usual blogpost announcing *what* a bug is - rather, it goes into how the bug was found and the exploit was built. And explains some of the thought process so others can replicate it.

“This was a really fun bug to discover and work on. From start to end, it took just under a week to find, triage the bug, figure out how to hit it, and build the exploit. While not novel, the OOB write primitive we get with it is also pretty interesting, and makes for quite a clean exploit as we’ve seen.”

Hasnain says:

Hard hitting journalism right here. An inside look into some of the most influential and unethical people in journalism in recent history.

“In his wake, Zucker leaves a media landscape more fractured than ever, with public distrust of journalists at an all-time high. And why not, when a peek behind the curtain reveals secret dealings between his news outlets and the politicians they’re supposed to hold to account, coverage dictated not by the issues but by whatever sensational dreck would keep eyes glued to the screen, and newsrooms where alleged predators roamed freely? Zucker may not have invented the culture of powerful men exploiting the women around them, but he incubated it for the modern media age, empowering people who were supposed to hold the public’s trust — but couldn’t even be trusted to keep their hands off of their subordinates. Perhaps most damning, he leaves a political landscape warped by a man he was all too proud to use for ratings throughout his career.”