AI beats real doctors on 149 remote OSCE-style tests
"We tested performance in consultations with simulated patients (played by trained actors), compared to those performed by 20 real PCPs using the randomized approach described above. AMIE and PCPs were assessed from the perspectives of both specialist attending physicians and our simulated patients in...
Source: research.google
Jeff Sebo on digital minds, and how to avoid sleepwalking into a major moral catastrophe
"The general case for extending moral consideration to AI systems is that they might be conscious or sentient or agential or otherwise significant. And if they might have those features, then we should extend them at least some moral consideration in the spirit of caution and humility."
Source: 80000hours.org
AI information retrieval: A search engine researcher explains the promise and peril of letting ChatGPT and its cousins search
A new generation of artificial intelligence-based information access systems, which includes Microsoft’s Bing/ChatGPT, Google/Bard and Meta/LLaMA, is upending the traditional search engine mode of search input and output. These systems are able to take full sentences and even paragraphs as input and...
Source: ampproject.org
Tax Filing Websites Caught Sending Users' Financial Data to Facebook - ExtremeTech
Filing status, dependent names, adjusted gross income...once it's on any of these three websites, it's likely in Facebook's hands. ”H&R Block, one of the country’s most recognizable tax filing firms, was found using Meta Pixel to obtain users’ health savings account usage data as well as dependents’...
Source: extremetech.com
Extending the lifecycle of clothes during Covid-19
Good example of analysing behaviour by barriers and enablers. “Two studies carried out with the Centre for Behaviour Change examined factors affecting the purchase, repair, repurpose and disposal of clothes by people in the UK before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Source: ucl.ac.uk
Britain tells its food industry to prepare for CO2 price shock
"Britain warned its food producers on Wednesday to prepare for a 400% rise in carbon dioxide prices after extending emergency state support to avert a shortage of poultry and meat triggered by soaring costs of wholesale natural gas." State support has been given to a key producer for a period of 3 weeks.
Source: reuters.com
England's 'freedom day' marred by soaring cases and isolation chaos
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's 'freedom day' ending over a year of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in England was marred on Monday by surging infections, warnings of supermarket shortages and his own forced self-isolation.
Source: reuters.com
The volunteers using 'honeypot' groups to fight anti-vax propaganda
Volunteers are busting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories with decoy Facebook groups.
Source: bbc.com
Use of 360° virtual reality video in medical obstetrical education: a quasi-experimental design Vera Arents. Pieter C.
Background Video-based teaching has been part of medical education for some time but 360° videos using a virtual reality (VR) device are a new medium that offer extended possibilities. We investigated whether adding a 360° VR video to the internship curriculum leads to an improvement of long-term recall...
Source: biomedcentral.com
Heisenberg on Helgoland - the value of spending time in natural surroundings
"It was finally time to use his strange calculus to calculate the energy of a real physical system. As his excitement mounted he kept on making mistakes and correcting them, but finally he had it. When he looked at it he was struck with joy and astonishment. Out of the dance of calculations emerged an...
Source: fieldofscience.com
Adaptive testing reduces collusion in online tests
“Rensselaer-developed method proven effective in reducing collusion among students”
“When a distanced online test is performed, students receive the same questions, but at varying times depending on their skill level. For instance, students of highest mastery levels receive each question after...
Source: rpi.edu
Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete & ending the new nuclear arms race
"COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the power of biological threats. But the threat doesn’t come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases — which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse — have...
Source: 80000hours.org
How private equity squeezes cash from the dying U.S. coal industry
Private equity firms are proving there’s still plenty of profit in the U.S. coal industry despite a decade of falling demand for the fossil fuel. They are spending billions of dollars buying coal-fired plants on the cheap - and getting paid even when they are not providing...
Source: reuters.com
Most brain activity is "background noise"
"Most brain activity is "background noise" and that's upending our understanding of consciousness." This complexity view of the mind is not new but this article explains it quite clearly.
Source: salon.com
The Sandwich principle: assessing the didactic effect in lectures on
The Sandwich principle: assessing the didactic effect in lectures on “cleft lips and palates”: A teaching concept, that takes individual learning and personal belongings into account, is called the “sandwich principle.” This didactic method is an educational concept that alternates consecutively...
Source: biomedcentral.com
New Steps to Combat Disinformation - Microsoft on the Issues: Today, Microsoft announces two new technologies to help battle
New Steps to Combat Disinformation - Microsoft on the Issues: Today, Microsoft announces two new technologies to help battle disinformation – Newsguard, which will allow users to check the accuracy of the content they are reading, and Video Authenticator, which can detect deepfakes and other synthetic...
Source: microsoft.com
UCL cancer policy update
“Because of the complexity of delivering better cancer care and the dynamics of NHS funding and introducing better practices in the health service there is a strong case for developing new cancer strategies for all the UK nations for the 2020s. Britain could also benefit from leading an independent...
Source: ucl.ac.uk
The Nobel Peace Prize 2018 was awarded jointly to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual
The Nobel Peace Prize 2018 was awarded jointly to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict". "Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to
focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes. Denis Mukwege is
the...
Source: nobelprize.org
Medical Mystery: Something Happened to U.S. Health Spending After 1980: The spending began soaring beyond that of other
Medical Mystery: Something Happened to U.S. Health Spending After 1980: The spending began soaring beyond that of other advanced nations, but without the same benefits in life expectancy.
Source: nytimes.com
The scariest chart in Mary Meeker’s slide deck for newspapers has gotten even a teeny bit scarier: Since 2011, the share
The scariest chart in Mary Meeker’s slide deck for newspapers has gotten even a teeny bit scarier: Since 2011, the share of Americans' media consumption that happens in print has dropped about 40 percent. But the share of American ad dollars that go to print has dropped more than 60 percent. Print...
Source: niemanlab.org
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