“I know a person when I talk to it.” With these words Google engineer Blake Lemoine made headlines in June 2022, thinking that a Google chatbot had become sentient. Google did not appreciate these headlines, and Lemoine was fired. But what is remarkable about this incident is that, as of 2022, someone in the industry […]
Read MoreWhat was the impact of surveillance on writers? If a writer is under surveillance by secret police agents, and he or she knows it, does that change what he or she wrote? Would the literature be a reply, a repudiation, an angry answer to the surveillance? During the Cold war years, in several Latin American […]
Read MoreAs cities, counties and states begin to relax social distancing guidelines, it is important for local and state public health organizations to conduct rigorous disease surveillance looking for indications of COVID-19 resurgence. Recognizing that there will continue to be some level of disease incidence in the population, the question is whether relaxing social distancing guidelines […]
Read MoreEdward Snowden is still holed up in Russia. Bradley Manning has just dodged a charge of "aiding the enemy." And in America, the debate over secret programs that track phone calls, scan emails, and collect the digital details of American citizens is far from over. Gary Chartier, the author of Anarchy and Legal Order, discusses the problem with power in the age of government surveillance.
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