books - CybAI news

15 Nov

The New Hatred of Technology

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsbooks, Computing, philosophy, plaintext, simulations

People have never been better, here in the Year of Our Simulation 2024, at hating the very forces underlying that simulation—at hating, in other words, digital technology itself. And good for them. These everywhere-active tech critics don’t just rely, for their on-trend position-taking, on vague, nostalgist, technophobic feelings anymore. Now they have research papers to back them up. They have bestsellers by the likes of Harari and Haidt. They have—picture their smugness—statistics. The kids, I don’t know if you’ve heard, are killing themselves by the classroomful.None of this bothers me. Well, teen suicide obviously does, it's horrible, but it’s not…

26 Oct

What to read this weekend: Jeff VanderMeer returns to Area X

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbooks, comics, entertainment, horror, news, sci-fi

One thing I did not foresee happening this year was us getting a new entry in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series. But the author announced exactly that back in April, and I’ve pretty much been counting down the days until the book’s release ever since. Absolution, the fourth novel in what previously stood as a trilogy, hit the shelves this week and it takes us back to the beginning of Area X and the ill-fated first expeditions to explore it. For the uninitiated, the series deals with a strange coastal region in the US that’s inexplicably been shut off behind…

19 Oct

Penguin Random House amends its copyright rules to protect authors from AI

stp2y0 CommentsNewsai, artificial intelligence, books, news, penguin random house, plagiarism, publishing, tomorrow

Artificial intelligence makers have faced a mountain of criticism for borrowing from the work of others to train its models. Now the world’s largest publishing house is taking steps to ensure its authors don’t have their work plagiarized in the name of progress. reports that Penguin Random House Publishing changed the copyright page at the front of its books to address using any of its titles as a source for AI training. Now the wording states: “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.”The new…

05 Oct

What to read this weekend: Preventing an asteroid apocalypse, and Cult of the Lamb’s first arc wraps up

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbooks, comics, Cult of the Lamb, entertainment, science

New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.HarperNormally a book described as being largely about a teen love triangle wouldn’t be something I’d reach for, but I decided to give this one a go after reading many glowing reviews, and found myself drawn in by Louise Erdrich’s prose right away. There is a love triangle, yes, but The Mighty Red is about much more than that. It covers a lot of ground, including the struggles of a farming community facing economic recession, land degradation and concerns about the chemicals being used to keep the land productive. The…

28 Sep

What to read this weekend: The history of overhyped tech, and a new graphic novel from Charles Burns

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbooks, comics, entertainment, news, sci-fi

New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.W. W. Norton & CompanyRichard Powers’ Playground is a novel of contrasts: the vast unknown of Earth’s oceans, a place of constant discovery and marvelous creatures that seem always to be at play, versus technological advancement and the rise of AI; the unlikely friendship between a young poet and a boy whose life revolves around coding; a remote island with a tiny population still feeling the effects of a history of exploitation, and the tech elites who envision it as the stepping stone to their own utopia. Through the perspectives…

27 Sep

The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsbooks, copyright, google, intellectual property, internet, lawsuits, memory, music

If you step into the headquarters of the Internet Archive on a Friday after lunch, when it offers public tours, chances are you’ll be greeted by its founder and merriest cheerleader, Brewster Kahle.You cannot miss the building; it looks like it was designed for some sort of Grecian-themed Las Vegas attraction and plopped down at random in San Francisco’s foggy, mellow Richmond district. Once you pass the entrance’s white Corinthian columns, Kahle will show you the vintage Prince of Persia arcade game and a gramophone that can play century-old phonograph cylinders on display in the foyer. He’ll lead you into…

21 Sep

What to read this weekend: A house haunted by AI and the mysterious murder of a superhero

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbooks, comics, entertainment, horror, news

New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.Putnam Pub GroupAn agoraphobic engineer named Henry spends his days locked away in his extremely smart home building freaky little robots, including one that looks like a magician and rides around on a tiny bike. His wife, Lily, is the only person he really ever sees, but things have grown tense between them — a situation only worsened by the fact that he’s usually holed up alone in the attic working on a secret project. One day, Lily invites some former coworkers over to encourage Henry to socialize, and Henry…

16 Sep

“Learning React” Book Review

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbooks, coding, community, development, engineering, inclusive, programming, react, software, webdev

"Learning React" by Alex Banks and Eve Porcello is a project-based guide that looks into the essential concepts of React, ensuring readers gain practical skills in using the framework effectively. From exploring the details of React Hooks to mastering advanced component patterns, this book equips you with the knowledge to build dynamic, efficient web applications. It also covers key libraries within the React ecosystem, providing a comprehensive foundation for developers at all levels.In this article, I will summarise the book and explain it might be a good read for anyone looking to learn the basics of React.The book starts by…

14 Sep

What to read this weekend: The Night Guest, Is Earth Exceptional? and Into the Unbeing

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbooks, comics, entertainment, horror, news, science, science fiction

New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.The Night Guest by Hildur KnútsdóttirAnyone who lives with a difficult-to-diagnose chronic illness and has endured the demoralizing process of trying to get proper treatment can tell you it is, at times, a living nightmare. Advocating for yourself, fighting to be taken seriously; it’s something I’ve dealt with most of my life as a person with autoimmune diseases. So when I read the description of Hildur Knútsdóttir’s psychological horror novel, The Night Guest, it resonated with me immediately:Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is…

04 Sep

The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsarchives, books, copyright, laws, lawsuit

The Internet Archive has lost a major legal battle—in a decision that could have a significant impact on the future of internet history. Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the long-running digital archive, upholding an earlier ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive that found that one of the Internet Archive’s book digitization projects violated copyright law.Notably, the appeals court’s ruling rejects the Internet Archive’s argument that its lending practices were shielded by the fair use doctrine, which permits for copyright infringement in certain circumstances, calling it “unpersuasive.”In March 2020, the Internet Archive, a San…