NewsGuard, Now Guarding Podcasts
May 23, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-2.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Advertising alongside false or biased information can be bad for a brand’s image, a problem that has obviously escalated in recent years. News vetting service NewsGuard saw a niche and promptly filled it. The firm has provided would-be advertisers with reliability ratings for websites and TV shows since 2018, and now includes podcasts in its appraisals. The company’s PodNews shares the press release, “NewsGuard Launches World’s First Journalist-Vetted Podcast Credibility Ratings to Help Advertisers.”
We learn NewsGuard is working with three top podcast platforms to spread the word to advertisers. The platforms will also use ratings to inform their recommendation engines and moderate content. The write-up explains:
“The podcast ratings include a trust score from 0-10, overall risk level, metadata fields, and a detailed written explanation of the podcast’s content and record of credibility and transparency. The ratings are used by brands and agencies to direct their ad spend toward highly trustworthy, brand-safe news podcasts while being protected from brand-safety and brand-suitability risks inherent in advertising on news and politics content. … NewsGuard determines which news and information podcasts to rate based on factors including reported engagement, estimated ad revenue, and the volume of news and information content in the podcast’s episodes. The podcasts rated by NewsGuard include those that cover topics including politics, current affairs, health, business, and finance. The journalists at NewsGuard assess news and information podcasts based on five journalistic criteria:
- Does not regularly convey false, unchallenged information: 4 points
- Conveys news on important topics responsibly: 3 points
- Is not dominated by one-sided opinion: 1 point
- Discloses, or does not have, a political agenda: 1 point
- Differentiates advertising and commercial partnerships from editorial content: 1 point”
The press release shares example scores, or what it calls “Nutrition Labels,” for five podcasts. The top scorer shown is a Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal podcast, which received a 10 out of 10. Interesting. NewsGuard was launched in 2018 by a pair of journalist entrepreneurs and is based in New York City.
Cynthia Murrell, May 23, 2023
Those Mobile Phones Are Something, Are They Not?
May 23, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Apple, Google, Samsung, and a covey of Chinese mobile phone innovators have improved modern life. Imagine. People have a phone. No sharing one telephone in a fraternity house, a cheap flat, or at an airport, just call, text, vlog, or swipe.
Are their downsides? For a quarter century the American Psychological Association was not sure. Now an outfit called Sapien Labs provides additional information about mobile phone usage.
For me, there were several highlights in the article “Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health.”
First, the idea that young people who tap, swipe, and suck down digital information are unlikely to emulate Jonathan Edwards, Mother Teresa, or the ambiguous St. Thomas of Aquinas. The article states:
the younger the age of getting the first smartphone, the worse the mental health that the young adult reports today.
Obvious to some, but a scientific study adds more credence to the parent who says no to a child’s demand for a mobile phone or tablet.
Second, women (females) are more affected by the mobile phone. The study points out six categories of impact. Please, consult the article and the full study for the academic details. Again. No big surprise, but I wouldn’t ignore the fact that in some male cohorts, suicides are increasing. Regardless of gender, mobile phones appear to nudge some into wackiness or the ultimate solution to having friends make fun of one’s sneakers.
Third, I was surprised to learn that some young people get phones when they are five years old. I have seen very young children poking at an iPad in a restaurant or playing games on the parental unit’s mobile phones in an airport. I did not know the child had a phone to call his own. Good marketing by Apple, Google, Samsung, and Chinese outfits!
The study identifies a number of implications. Again, I am okay with those identified, but the cyber crime crowd was not discussed. My own perception is that mobile devices are the catalyst for a wide range of cyber crime. Once again, the unintended consequences of a mobile device have the capacity to enable some societal modifications that may be impossible to remediate.
Again: Nice work!
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2023
Neeva: Another Death from a Search Crash on the Information Highway
May 22, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-6.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
What will forensic search experts find when they examine the remains of Neeva? The “gee, we failed” essay “Next Steps for Neeva” presents one side of what might be an interesting investigation for a bushy tailed and wide eyed Gen Z search influencer. I noted some statements which may have been plucked from speeches at the original Search Engine Conferences ginned up by an outfit in the UK or academic post mortems at the old International Online Meeting once held in the companionable Olympia London.
I noted these statements from the cited document:
Statement 1: The users of a Web search system
We started Neeva with the mission to take search back to its users.
The reality is that 99 percent of people using a Web search engine are happy when sort of accurate information is provided free. Yep, no one wants to pay for search. That’s the reason that when a commercial online service like LexisNexis loses one big client, it is expensive, time consuming, and difficulty to replace the revenue. One former LexisNexis big wheel told me when we met in his limousine in the parking lot of the Cherry Hill Mall: “If one of the top 100 law firms goes belly up, we need a minimum of 200 new law firms to sign up for our service and pay for it.”
“Mommy, I failed Search,” says Timmy Neeva. Mrs. Neeva says, “What caused your delusional state, Timmy.” The art work is a result of the smart software MidJourney.
Users don’t care about for fee search when those users wouldn’t know whether a hit in a results list was right, mostly right, mostly wrong, or stupidly crazy. Free is the fuel that pulls users, and without advertising, there’s no chance a free service will be able to generate enough cash to index, update the index, and develop new features. At the same time, the plumbing is leaking. Plumbing repairs are expensive: New machines, new ways to reduce power consumption, and oodles of new storage devices.
Users want free. Users don’t want to compare the results from a for fee service and a free service. Users want free. After 25 years, the Google is the champion of free search. Like the old Xoogler search system Search2, Neeva’s wizards never figured that most users don’t care about Fancy Dan yip yap about search.
Statement 2: An answer engine.
We rallied the Neeva team around the vision to create an answer engine.
Shades of DR-LINK: Users want answers. In 1981, a former Predicasts’ executive named Paul Owen told me, “Dialog users want answers.” That sounds logical, and it is to many who are expert informationists the Gospel according to Online. The reality is that users want crunchy, bite sized chunks of information which appear to answer the question or almost right answers that are “good enough” or “close enough for horseshoes.”
Users cannot differentiate from correct and incorrect information. Heck, some developers of search engines don’t know the difference between weaponized information and content produced by a middle school teacher about the school’s graduation ceremony. Why? Weaponized information is abundant; non-weaponized information may not pass the user’s sniff test. And the middle school graduation ceremony may have a typo about the start time or the principal of the school changed his mind due to an active shooter situation. Something output from a computer is believed to be credible, accurate, and “right.” An answer engine is what a free Web search engine spits out. The TikTok search spits out answers, and no one wonders if the results list are shaped by Chinese interests.
Search and retrieval has been defined by Google. The company has a 90 plus percent share of the Web search traffic in North America and Western Europe. (In Denmark, the company has 99 percent of Danish users’ search traffic. People in Denmark are happier, and it is not because Google search delivers better or more accurate results. Google is free and it answers questions.
The baloney about it takes one-click to change search engines sounds great. The reality is as Neeva found out, no one wants to click away from what is perceived to work for them. Neeva’s yip yap about smart software proves that the jazz about artificial intelligence is unlikely to change how free Web search works in Google’s backyard. Samsung did not embrace Bing because users would rebel.
Answer engine. Baloney. Users want something free that will make life easier; for example, a high school student looking for a quick way to crank out a 250 word essay about global warming or how to make a taco. ChatGPT is not answering questions; the application is delivering something that is highly desirable to a lazy student. By the way, at least the lazy student had the git up and go to use a system to spit out a bunch of recycled content that is good enough. But an answer engine? No, an online convenience store is closer to the truth.
Statement 3:
We are actively exploring how we can apply our search and LLM expertise in these settings, and we will provide updates on the future of our work and our team in the next few weeks.
My interpretation of this statement is that a couple of Neeva professionals will become venture centric. Others will become consultants. A few will join the handful of big companies which are feverishly trying to use “smart software” to generate more revenue. Will there be some who end up working at Philz Coffee. Yeah, some. Perhaps another company will buy the “code,” but valuing something that failed is likely to prove tricky. Who remembers who bought Entopia? No one, right?
Net net: The GenZ forensic search failure exercise will produce some spectacular Silicon Valley news reporting. Neeva is explaining its failure, but that failure presaged when Fast Search & Transfer pivoted from Web search to the enterprise, failed, and was acquired by Microsoft. Where is Fast Search now as the smart Bing is soon to be everywhere. The reality is that Google has had 25 years to do cement its search monopoly. Neeva did not read the email. So Neeva sucked up investment bucks with a song and dance about zapping the Big Bad Google with a death ray. Yep, another example of high school science club mentality touched by spreadsheet fever.
Well, the fever broke.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2023
Google DeepMind Risk Paper: 60 Pages with a Few Googley Hooks
May 22, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved in writing, just a dumb humanoid.
I read the long version of “Ethical and Social Risks of Harm from Language Models.” The paper is mostly statements and footnotes to individuals who created journal-type articles which prove the point of each research article. With about 25 percent of the peer reviewed research including shaped, faked, or weaponized data – I am not convinced by footnotes. Obviously the DeepMinders believe that footnotes make a case for the Google way. I am not convinced because the Google has to find a way to control the future of information. Why? Advertising money and hoped for Mississippis of cash.
The research paper dates from 2021 and is part of Google’s case for being ahead of the AI responsibility game. The “old” paper reinforces the myth that Google is ahead of everyone else in the AI game. The explanation for Sam AI-man’s and Microsoft’s markeitng coup is that Google had to go slow because Google knew that there were ethical and social risks of harm from the firm’s technology. Google cares about humanity! The old days of “move fast and break things” are very 1998. Today Google is responsible. The wild and crazy dorm days are over. Today’s Google is concerned, careful, judicious, and really worried about its revenues. I think the company worries about legal actions, its management controversies, and its interdigital dual with the Softies of Redmond.
A young researcher desperately seeking footnotes to support a specious argument. With enough footnotes, one can move the world it seems. Art generated by the smart software MidJourney.
I want to highlight four facets of the 60 page risks paper which are unlikely to get much, if any, attention from today’s “real” journalists.
Googley hook 1: Google wants to frame the discussion. Google is well positioned to “guide mitigation work.” The examples in the paper are selected to “guiding action to resolve any issues that can be identified in advance.” My comment: How magnanimous of Google. Framing stakes out the Googley territory. Why? Google wants to be Googzilla and reap revenue from its users, licensees, models, synthetic data, applications, and advertisers. You can find the relevant text in the paper on page 6 in the paragraph beginning “Responsible innovation.”
Googley hook 2: Google’s risks paper references fuzzy concepts like “acceptability” and “fair.” Like love, truth, and ethics, the notion of “acceptability” is difficult to define. Some might suggest that it is impossible to define. But Google is up to the task, particularly for application spaces unknown at this time. What happens when you apply “acceptability” to “poor quality information.” One just accepts the judgment of the outfit doing the framing. That’s Google. Game. Set. Match. You can find the discussion of “acceptability” on page 9.
Googley hook 3: Google is not going to make the mistake of Microsoft and its racist bot Tay. No way, José. What’s interesting is that the only company mentioned in the text of the 60 page paper is Microsoft. Furthermore, the toxic aspects of large language models are hard for technologies to detect (page18). Plus large language models can infer a person’s private data. So “providing true information is not always beneficial (Page 21). What’s the fix? Use smaller sets of training data… maybe. (Page 22). But one can fall back on trust — for instance, trust in Google the good — to deal with these challenges. In fact, trust Google to choose training data to deal with some of the downsides of large language models (Page 24).
Googley hook 4: Making smart software dependent on large language models that mitigates risk is expensive. Money, smart people who are in short supply, and computing resources are expensive. Therefore, one need not focus on the origin point (large language model training and configuration). Direct attention at those downstream. Those users can deal with the identified 21 problems. The Google method puts Google out of the primary line of fire. There are more targets for the aggrieved to seek and shoot at (Page 37).
When I step back from the article which is two years old, it is obvious Google was aware of some potential issues with its approach. Dr. Timnit Gebru was sacrificed on a pyre of spite. (She does warrant a couple of references and a footnote or two. But she’s now a Xoogler. The one side effect was that Dr. Jeff Dean, who was not amused by the stochastic parrot has been kicked upstairs and the UK “leader” is now herding the little wizards of Google AI.
The conclusion of the paper echoes the Google knows best argument. Google wants a methodological toolkit because that will keep other people busy. Google wants others to figure out fair, an approach that is similar to Sam Altman (OpenAI) who begs for regulation of a sector about which much is unknown.
The answer, according to the risk analysis is “responsible innovation.” I would suggest that this paper, the television interviews, the PR efforts to get the Google story in as many places as possible are designed to make the sluggish Google a player in the AI game.
Who will be fooled? Will Google catch up in this Silicon Valley venture invigorating hill climb? For me the paper with the footnotes is just part of Google’s PR and marketing effort. Your mileage may vary. May relevance be with you, gentle reader.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2023
AI Is Alive. Plus It Loves Me. No One Else Does. Sigh
May 22, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Those young whiz kids from Stanford University have come up with an idea sure to annoy some in the AI Funland of Frenzy. Imagine. Some bright young sprouts suggest that smart software is alive or “emergent” in the lingo of the day is a more about the researcher than about the smart software.
“I know my system is alive. She loves me. She understands me.” — The words of a user who believes his system is alive and loves him. Imagined by good old heavily filtered MidJourney.
Don’t believe me? Navigate to “Are Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models a Mirage?” The write up suggests, based on the authors’ research obviously:
we find strong supporting evidence that emergent abilities may not be a fundamental property of scaling AI models.
One Googler wobbled very close to hiring a lawyer for his flavor of smart software. Others believe that ChatGPT is really talking with them. A New York Times technology expert learned that his smart software wanted the humanoid to ditch his significant other.
What’s happening is that the humanoid projects human characteristics on to the software. One can watch this behavior in its many hues by observing how owners of French bulldogs treat their animals. The canine receives treats, clothes, and attention. The owner talks to the dog. The owner believes the dog is on the same wavelength as the owner. In fact, one Frenchie owner professed love for the pet. (I know this from direct observation.)
If you want to learn more about personification and weird identification with software, read the 16 page paper. Alternatively, you can accept my summary. Excuse me. I have to say good morning to my ChatGPT session. I know it misses me.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2023
ChatBots: For the Faithful Factually?
May 19, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I spotted Twitch’s AI-fueled ask_Jesus. You can take a look at this link. The idea is that smart software responds in a way a cherished figure would. If you watch the questions posed by registered Twitchers, you can wait a moment and the ai Jesus will answer the question. Rather than paraphrase or quote the smart software, I suggest you navigate to this Bezos bulldozer property and check out the “service.”
I mention the Amazon offering because I noted another smart religion robot write up called “India’s Religious AI Chatbots Are Speaking in the Voice of God and Condoning Violence.” The article touches upon several themes which I include in my 2023 lecture series about the shadow Web and misinformation from bad actors and wonky smart software.
This Rest of World article reports:
In January 2023, when ChatGPT was setting new growth records, Bengaluru-based software engineer Sukuru Sai Vineet launched GitaGPT. The chatbot, powered by GPT-3 technology, provides answers based on the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse Hindu scripture. GitaGPT mimics the Hindu god Krishna’s tone — the search box reads, “What troubles you, my child?”
The trope is for the “user” to input a question and the smart software outputs a response. But there is not just Sukuru’s version. There are allegedly five GitaGPTs available “with more on the way.”
The article includes a factoid in a quote allegedly from a human AI researcher; to wit:
Religion is the single largest business in India.
I did not know this. I thought it was outsourced work. product. Live and learn.
Is there some risk with religious chatbots? The write up states:
Religious chatbots have the potential to be helpful, by demystifying books like the Bhagavad Gita and making religious texts more accessible, Bindra said. But they could also be used by a few to further their own political or social interests, he noted. And, as with all AI, these chatbots already display certain political biases. [The Bindra is Jaspreet Bindra, AI researcher and author of The Tech Whisperer]
I don’t want to speculate what the impact of a religious chatbot might be if the outputs were tweaked for political or monetary purposes.
I will leave that to you.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2023
The Ebb and More Ebby of Technology Full Time Jobs
May 19, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Do recent layoffs herald a sea change for the tech field? The Pragmatic Engineer and blogger Gergely Orosz examines “What Big Tech Layoffs Suggest for the Industry.” Probably not much, we think. Gergely penned his reflections just after Microsoft axed 10,000 jobs in January. Soon after Google followed suit, cutting 12,000 positions. Gergely appended a note stating those cuts strengthen his case that layoffs are significant. He writes:
“The layoffs at Microsoft suggest that in 2023, the tech industry may stall growth-wise. By cutting 5% of staff, Microsoft reduces its headcount from 221,000 to around 211,000. We can expect that by the middle of this year, the company’s headcount will increase, but only modestly, and still be below the 221,000 figure it was at last July. … Microsoft’s layoffs worry me precisely because the company has a very good track record of predicting how the business will grow or shrink.”
Okay, so Microsoft and other “nimble” tech companies are responding to market forces. That is what businesses do. Gergely himself notes:
“It’s certain we’ll see a correction of 2021-22’s hiring frenzy and it’s a given that Big Tech will hire much less this year than in 2022, while the question remains whether other large tech companies will follow suit and announce layoffs in the coming months.”
Well, yes, they did. Nevertheless tech workers, especially developers, remain in high demand compared to other fields. And when the proverbial stars align, hiring is sure to surge again as it did a couple years ago. Until the next correction. And so on.
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2023
Time at Work: Work? Who Has Time?
May 18, 2023
I recall data from IDC years ago which suggested or asserted or just made up the following:
knowledge workers spend more than one day each week looking for information.
Other mid tier consulting firms jumped on the bandwagon. Examples include:
- McKinsey (yep, the outfit eager to replace human MBAs with digital doppelgängers says is is 9.3 hours a week
- A principal analyst offers up 2.5 hours per day or 12.5 hours per week searching for information
Now let’s toss in a fresh number. The Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal asserts “Workers Now Spend Two Full Days a Week on Email and in Meetings.” I assume this includes legal preparation for the voting machine hoo hah.
What do these numbers suggest when workers are getting RIFed and college graduates are wandering in the wilderness hoping like a blind squirrel that an acorn will trip them?
With meetings, email, and hunting for information, who has time for work? Toss in some work from home flexibility and the result is… why nothing seems to work. Whether it is locating information in an ad supported network, browsing Twitter without logging in, or making “contacts” on LinkedIn — the work part of work is particularly slippery.
Microsoft needs a year to fix a security issue. Google is — any day now — rolling out smart software in most of its products except in the European Union due to some skepticism about the disconnect between Googley words and Googley actions. Cyber security firms are deploying proactive systems as the individual cyber security developers work overtime to deal with new threats.
I am surprised when something works; for example, a Southwest flight takes off and lands mostly on time, an Amazon package arrives the next day as promised, and my Kia is not stolen due to engineering that causes automobile insurance companies to let loose a flight of legal eagles.
Net net: Not too many people work. Quite a few say they work and some are stressed about their work. But work? Who has time? The purpose of work is to not work.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2023
Neeva: Is This Google Killer on the Run?
May 18, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Sometimes I think it is 2007 doing the déjà vu dance. I read “Report: Snowflake Is in Advanced Talks to Acquire Search Startup Neeva.” Founded by Xooglers, Neeva was positioned to revolutionize search and generate subscription revenue. Along the highway to the pot of gold, Neeva would deliver on point results. How did that pay for search model work out?
According to the article:
Snowflake Inc., the cloud-based data warehouse provider, is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire a search startup called Neeva Inc. that was founded by former Google LLC advertising executive Sridhar Ramaswamy.
Like every other content processing company I bump into, Neeva was doing smart software. Combine the relevance angle with generative AI and what do you get? A start up that is going to be acquired by a firm with some interesting ideas about how to use search and retrieval to make life better.
Are there other search outfits with a similar business model? Sure, Kagi comes to mind. I used to keep track of start ups which had technology that would provide relevant results to users and a big payday to the investors. Do these names ring a bell?
Cluuz
Deepset
Glean
Kyndi
Siderian
Umiboza
If the Snowflake Neeva deal comes to fruition, will it follow the trajectory of IBM Vivisimo. Vivisimo disappeared as an entity and morphed into a big data component. No problem. But Vivisimo was a metasearch and on-the-fly tagging system. Will the tie up be similar to the Microsoft acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer. Fast still lives but I don’t know too many Softies who know about the backstory. Then there is the HP Autonomy deal. The acquisition is still playing out in the legal eagle sauna.
Few care about the nuances of search and retrieval. Those seemingly irrelevant details can have interesting consequences. Some are okay like the Dassault Exalead deal. Others? Less okay.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2023
Harvard and a Web Archive Tool
May 18, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
The Library of Congress has dropped the ball and the Internet Archive may soon be shut down. So it is Harvard to the rescue. At least until people sue the institution. The university’s Library Innovation Lab describes its efforts in, “Witnessing the Web is Hard: Why and How We Built the Scoop Web Archiving Capture Engine.”
“Our decade of experience running Perma.cc has given our team a vantage point to identify emerging challenges in witnessing the web that we believe extend well beyond our core mission of preserving citations in the legal record. In an effort to expand the utility of our own service and contribute to the wider array of core tools in the web archiving community, we’ve been working on a handful of Perma Tools. In this blog post, we’ll go over the driving principles and architectural decisions we’ve made while designing the first major release from this series: Scoop, a high-fidelity, browser-based, single-page web archiving capture engine for witnessing the web. As with many of these tools, Scoop is built for general use but represents our particular stance, cultivated while working with legal scholars, US courts, and journalists to preserve their citations. Namely, we prioritize their needs for specificity, accuracy, and security. These are qualities we believe are important to a wide range of people interested in standing up their own web archiving system. As such, Scoop is an open-source project which can be deployed as a standalone building block, hopefully lowering a barrier to entry for web archiving.”
At Scoop’s core is its “no-alteration principle” which, as the name implies, is a commitment to recording HTTP exchanges with no variations. The write-up gives some technical details on how the capture engine achieves that standard. Aside from that bedrock doctrine, though, Scoop allows users to customize it to meet their unique web-witnessing needs. Attachments are optional and users can configure each element of the capture process, like time or size limits. Another pair of important features is the built-in provenance summary, including preservation of SSL certificates, and authenticity assertion through support for the Web Archive Collection Zipped (WACZ) file format and the WACZ Signing and Verification specification. Interested readers should see the article for details on how to start using Scoop. You might want to hurry, before publishers jump in with their inevitable litigation push.
Cynthia Murrell, May 18, 2023
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