cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28202261 > The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are calling on people to cancel Game Pass subscriptions, avoid Microsoft-owned video game properties such as Minecraft and Call Of Duty, and boycott all Microsoft Gaming and Xbox-branded products in protest at the company’s reported business connections with the Israeli military. > > The call follows allegations this January about the Israeli military’s usage of Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology and artificial intelligence products in the course of its bombardment and invasion of Gaza. > > According to a joint investigation between the Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, with additional reporting from Drop Site News, Microsoft have “deepened” their relationship with Israel’s defence establishment since 7th October 2023, when several Palestinian militant groups struck across the border and massacred over a thousand people. Israel responded to the attack by mounting a ground offensive and airstrikes that have destroyed much of Gaza and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20858435 > Will AI soon surpass the human brain? If you ask employees at OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large tech companies, it is inevitable. However, researchers at Radboud University and other institutes show new proof that those claims are overblown and unlikely to ever come to fruition. Their findings are published in Computational Brain & Behavior today.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2811405 > "We view this moment of hype around generative AI as dangerous. There is a pack mentality in rushing to invest in these tools, while overlooking the fact that they threaten workers and impact consumers by creating lesser quality products and allowing more erroneous outputs. For example, earlier this year America’s National Eating Disorders Association fired helpline workers and attempted to replace them with a chatbot. The bot was then shut down after its responses actively encouraged disordered eating behaviors. "

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2757988 > "When we let corporations decide who is allowed to speak, they act with a mixture of carelessness and self-interest, becoming off-the-books deputies of authoritarian regimes and corrupt, powerful elites. > > Alas, we made the wrong tradeoff with Trusted Computing. For the past twenty years, Trusted Computing has been creeping into our devices, albeit in somewhat denatured form. " > > "As I wrote last week, giving manufacturers the power to decide how your computer is configured, overriding your own choices, is a bad tradeoff - the worst tradeoff, a greased slide into terminal enshittification"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2546109 > Read why "Web Environment Integrity" is terrible, and why we must vocally oppose it now. Google's latest maneuver, if we don't act to stop it, threatens our freedom to explore the Internet with browsers of our choice.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605 > A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.