Month: March 2023

Enlarge (credit: National Academies of Science)

With the advent of genomic studies, it's become ever more clear that humanity's genetic history is one of churn. Populations migrated, intermingled, and fragmented wherever they went, leaving us with a tangled genetic legacy that we often struggle to understand. The environment—in the form of disease, diet, and technology—also played a critical role in shaping populations.

But this understanding is frequently at odds with the popular understanding, which often views genetics as a determinative factor and, far too often, interprets genetics in terms of race. Worse still, even though race cannot be defined or quantified scientifically, popular thinking creeps back into scientific thought, shaping the sort of research we do and how we interpret the results.

Those are some of the conclusions of a new report produced by the National Academies of Science. Done at the request of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the report calls for scientists and the agencies that fund them to stop thinking of genetics in terms of race, and instead to focus on things that can be determined scientifically.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

As part of pre-release safety testing for its new GPT-4 AI model, launched Tuesday, OpenAI allowed an AI testing group to assess the potential risks of the model's emergent capabilities—including "power-seeking behavior," self-replication, and self-improvement.

While the testing group found that GPT-4 was "ineffective at the autonomous replication task," the nature of the experiments raises eye-opening questions about the safety of future AI systems.

Raising alarms

"Novel capabilities often emerge in more powerful models," writes OpenAI in a GPT-4 safety document published yesterday. "Some that are particularly concerning are the ability to create and act on long-term plans, to accrue power and resources (“power-seeking”), and to exhibit behavior that is increasingly 'agentic.'" In this case, OpenAI clarifies that "agentic" isn't necessarily meant to humanize the models or declare sentience but simply to denote the ability to accomplish independent goals.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Rubrik, the Silicon Valley data security company, said that it experienced a network intrusion made possible by a zero-day vulnerability in a product it used called GoAnywhere.

In an advisory posted on Tuesday, Rubrik CISO Michael Mestrovich said an investigation into the breach found that the intruders gained access to mainly internal sales information, including company names and contact information, and a limited number of purchase orders from Rubrik distributors. The investigation, which was aided by an unnamed third-party company, concluded there was no exposure of sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, or payment card data.

Tight-lipped

“We detected unauthorized access to a limited amount of information in one of our non-production IT testing environments as a result of the GoAnywhere vulnerability,” Mestrovich wrote. “Importantly, based on our current investigation, being conducted with the assistance of third-party forensics experts, the unauthorized access did NOT include any data we secure on behalf of our customers via any Rubrik products.”

Enlarge / Presumed self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1510) at the Royal Library of Turin, Italy. (credit: Public domain)

Could Leonardo da Vinci's mother, Caterina, have been a slave kidnapped from the mountainous Caucasus region of Central Asia? That's the latest hypothesis re-igniting a long-running debate about the identity of this mysterious woman largely lost to history. Historian Carlo Vecce of the University of Naples told reporters at a Tuesday press conference that he discovered a previously unknown document supporting the claim. He's also written a historical novel about Caterina's life (Il Sorriso di Caterina or Caterina's Smile) based on his research.

It's well-established that Leonardo was born in 1452, the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary named Ser Piero d’Antonio and a woman named Caterina. Ser Piero went on to marry a woman named Albiera Amadori, followed by three subsequent marriages after her 1464 death. His various unions produced 16 children (11 of whom survived their early years), in addition to Leonardo, who grew up in his father’s household and received a solid education.

As for Caterina, many historians have identified her as a local peasant girl and eventual wife of a kiln worker named Antonio di Piero del Vacca (nicknamed "L'Accattabriga" or "the quarrelsome one"). But that's all we know of her. So naturally, over the years, various alternative identifications have been suggested. Perhaps the most controversial, proposed in 2014 by Italian historian Angelo Paratico, is that Caterina had been a Chinese domestic slave imported from Crimea by Venetian traders and sold to a Florentine banker.

Enlarge (credit: Oliver Helbig | Moment)

A Dallas County Sheriff's Department deputy, Francisco Castillo, was briefly suspended after livestreaming a traffic stop, allegedly just to gain TikTok clout, in 2021. Now, the Texas motorist that he pulled over, Torry Osby, is suing, saying that the deputy exposed Osby to risks of identity theft and break-ins at his home by flashing Osby's driver's license and sharing his personal information to more than 100 followers tuned into Castillo's livestream.

Osby’s lawyer, James P. Roberts, told Ars that it’s unlikely that their client was the only victim of Castillo’s alleged privacy-invading social media abuse. The complaint documents a seeming pattern of Castillo sharing videos while on duty that seemed to get more engagement than his other videos, making it appear likely to Osby's lawyers that Castillo was increasingly motivated to create videos of his police activity in hopes of boosting his likes and followers.

“The deputy’s actions are deeply concerning given the number of other on-duty videos he has deleted from his TikTok account,” Roberts told Ars. “Through the course of this lawsuit, we will undoubtedly uncover other instances of livestreamed interactions with citizens between this deputy and others.”

Enlarge / The end is coming for two of Nintendo's digital storefronts.

In just a few weeks, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U owners will finally completely lose the ability to purchase new digital games on those aging platforms. The move will cut off consumer access to hundreds of titles that can't legally be accessed any other way.

But while that's a significant annoyance for consumers holding onto their old hardware, current rules mean it could cause much more of a crisis for the historians and archivists trying to preserve access to those game libraries for future generations.

"While it's unfortunate that people won't be able to purchase digital 3DS or Wii U games anymore, we understand the business reality that went into this decision," the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) tweeted when the eShop shutdowns were announced a year ago. "What we don't understand is what path Nintendo expects its fans to take, should they wish to play these games in the future."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images)

The Federal Communications Commission should be investigated for letting employees own stock in Comcast, Charter, AT&T, and Verizon, nonprofit watchdog group Campaign Legal Center told government officials.

"Federal law specifically bans FCC employees from owning 'any stocks, bonds, or other securities of [any company] significantly regulated by the Commission,'" the nonprofit group said last week in a letter and detailed report sent to FCC Acting Inspector General Sharon Diskin. "Despite this ban, the most recent financial disclosures publicly available show that ethics officials allowed multiple FCC employees to own stock in telecommunications and other companies that appear to fall under the prohibition."

The letter, sent by Campaign Legal Center General Counsel Kedric Payne and two other lawyers at the group, urged the FCC Office of Inspector General (OIG) to "investigate whether the FCC's ethics officials took appropriate action to enforce the ethics laws... The ethics officials responsible for enforcement must explain to OIG and the public why they allowed employees to hold stocks in FCC licensed telecommunications and computer companies in apparent violation of the law."