Google’s Gemini AI Sparks Backlash Over Watermark Removal Capabilities

#AI #GenAI #GoogleAI #GeminiAI #Google #Alphabet #AIregulation #WatermarkRemoval #ImageProtection #CopyrightAI #SynthID #AIMisuse #AIcontroversy #DigitalRights #AIEthics

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/03/17/googles-gemini-ai-sparks-backlash-over-watermark-removal-capabilities-xcxwbn/

The relief is palpable. Students sometimes/often don't want this - or at least they should be given the choice, and mandatory to be asked for consent if AI is being utilised in their L, T & A process.

[screenshot from the Artists Against Generative AI FB group]

Note to friends in my feed: Im sharing all @BenPatrickWill BS posts bc he has stopped posting in Mastodon. I for one think he should post here too as (arguably) Masto has more visibility, even though he has less followers than in BS (maybe he cld try Buffer?). Anyway, I get notified when he posts so I boost everything. His content is too important to not be seen. Please pass it on.

Wenn ihr mir folgt, habt ihr wahrscheinlich kein Amazon Echo in Hörweite stehen. Wer sowas kauft, hat ganz sicher die Kontrolle über sein Leben verloren. Das Gerät hat nicht umsonst mehrere #BigBrotherAwards »gewonnen«.

Aber vielleicht kennt ihr ja Leute, die sich selbst was vormachten und dachten, sie seien auf der sicheren Seite, wenn sie anklicken, dass der Echo (Dot/Spot) die Spracherkennung selbst machen soll, statt alle Tonaufzeichnungen in die Amazon-Cloud zu schicken. Tja, diese Option schaltet Amazon Ende des Monats ab. Weil der Bullshit-Generator Alexa+ sonst nicht profitabel sei.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

@molly0xfff on AI vs. scraping vs. copyright protection vs. openness. Very thoughtful (as usual) and worth reading.

Also included, this gem (together with other thoughts about sustainable business models):
«Many AI “visionaries” seem perfectly content to promise that artificial superintelligence is just around the corner, but claim that attribution is somehow a permanently unsolvable problem.»

#AI #GenAI #LLM #CreativeCommons #Sharing
https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/

#AI #GenAI #edtech #academia

I like the linked summary of current major issues. Mike often favors a particular tech/company in his columns, but getting past that, he has stated the problems well.

The patchwork solutions are still not good enough for real buy-in by academia. (I mean, the cited 88% is maybe a B+ if you want to put it in those terms.)

The techbros need a new paradigm to connect with educators. It's not 1995 or 2005 or even 2015.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3843220/finally-some-truth-serum-for-lying-genai-chatbots.html

Grap/Graph/Graphics.. GPU

04:38am on a Friday means it's time to upgrade my local rack's LLMs

Gemma2 -> Gemma3 (1,4,12,27b)
Llama3.2 -> Llama3.3 (70b)
Phi3 -> Phi4 (14b)
DeepSeek-R1 (1.5, 7, 8, 14b, 32b, 70b)

Also some SysD/journald puke to clean up via new automation calls (have they no regard for garbage collection? no they do not).

Reading about Copilot and how to put guardrails on it. There are anecdotal reports that one of the most common questions to Copilot in organisations is, “What’s the salary of the CEO?”

Ed Zitron on the recent estimated 14% cut in planned data center capacity due to waning demand for gen AI.

This is big news.

#ai #ChatGPT #GenAI #openai #microsoft #academicchatter

Power Cut
https://www.wheresyoured.at/power-cut/

Thought-provoking: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/12/a-machine-shaped-hand-read-a-story-from-openais-new-creative-writing-model

Announcing the latest title in Open Humanities Press's MEDIA : ART : WRITE : NOW series:

Masked Media: What It Means to Be Human in the Age of Artificial Creative Intelligence by Gary Hall.

Available open access - to be downloaded for free:

http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/

If we want a socially and environmentally just future, do we need a radical new theory of change – or to radically change theory? Unsettling received ideas of the author and the book, originality and copyright, real and artificial intelligence, Masked Media tests ‘non-modernist-liberal’ modes of creating and sharing knowledge enabled by media technologies, from writing through to GenAI. Thinking outside the black box that renders Euro-Western knowledge-making practices invisible – keeping the human ontologically separate from the nonhuman – it shows there’s no such thing as the human, the nonhuman already being in(the)human.

#newmedia #academicpublishing #experimentalwriting #humanities
#philosophy #ai #openai #genai

Yesterday, someone described to me a future in which most literature was AI-generated, and real books were "artisan".

I'm still trying to find all the words to explain why that wouldn't be okay.

The now-famous "why should I read something you couldn't be bothered to write?" line lands, yes. But deeper than that, writing is an essential part of thinking and imagination.

And human thought and imagination must never be outsourced or replaced.

A Moscow-based disinformation network has infiltrated Western AI tools worldwide, flooding them with pro-Kremlin propaganda, according to a new study.

https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/ai/ai-chatbots-infected-russian-propaganda

Happening now - via EDEN_DLE - EDEN NAP Webinar on "Reflections on #GenAI and scholarly publishing: The story of the Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning special issue on GenAI" @ilta_journal @ILTAtweets

Thursday January 25, 15:00 (CET)
https://eden-europe.eu/register-now-eden-nap-webinar-reflections-on-genai-and-scholarly-publishing-the-story-of-the-irish-journal-of-technology-enhanced-learning-special-issue-on-genai/

You've all seen the latest guide for educators from @openAI, right?

https://openai.com/blog/teaching-with-ai

let's have some fun. Tell me about the funkiest way you've used #GenAI in education. Be specific, tell a good story, but also get nerdy.

- describe the setting / situation
- what where you trying to achieve, and why was it a non-trivial challenge
- how did you use AI to do it
- what where the results

Provide a recipe for those who want to follow in your footsteps.

oh, and do tag your friends.