Free Republic

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems increasingly influence everything from education to politics, a new study has revealed that many large language models (LLMs) exhibit a consistent left-leaning political bias. The research raises concerns about AI’s role in shaping public opinion and calls for greater transparency and oversight in developing these systems. “When probed with questions/statements with political connotations, most conversational LLMs tend to generate responses that are diagnosed by most political test instruments as manifesting preferences for left-of-center viewpoints,” study author Dr. David Rozado wrote. “With LLMs beginning to partially displace traditional information sources like search engines and Wikipedia, the...

Please help me, as I am not tech-savvy. I have been using Messages+ for quite a while for texting with my Android phone. Verizon is now informing me that this app will be discontinued, and I am being nudged toward replacing it with a Google app. Tried researching other choices, but I don't know how to judge what is a good replacement. My phone is a Galaxy S21. Suggestions?

So, this morning i am searching for stuff and DuckDuckGo informs me: Unfortunately, bots use DuckDuckGo too. Please complete the following challenge to confirm this search was made by a human. And now I can't search for anything. Good job DuckDuckJoke You have absorbed by the collective

There’s a surprise twist in the battle to control genome editing. In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it’s been common for lawyers to try to overturn patents held by competitors by pointing out errors or inconsistencies. But now, in a surprise twist, the team that earned the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing CRISPR is asking to cancel two of their own seminal patents, MIT Technology Review has learned. The decision could affect who gets to collect the lucrative licensing fees on using the technology. ­­The request to withdraw the pair of European patents,...

Starlink, the satellite internet service owned by Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX, has gained over 4 million subscribers, according to a recent post by the company on X (formerly, Twitter). In the post on X, Starlink thanked its customers and said, "Starlink is connecting more than 4M people with high-speed internet across 100+ countries, territories and many other markets." On September 24, Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Starlink anticipated that the company will pass 4 million customers by this week while testifying before the Texas House Appropriations Committee meeting. Starlink's growth has been accelerating at a...

American tech workers, along with lawyers and accountants, have some of the lowest rates of union membership in the country.But in the last few years of ballooning layoffs, sentiments may be changing.This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu, shows the percentage of U.S. tech employees that would join a union if their company had access to one.Data is sourced from Blind, which conducted an online survey of 1,901 verified tech professionals.Which Tech Company Employees Are Likely to Join a Union?Amongst the companies, union support appears to be highest at Intuit (financial software), General Motors, and Oracle (enterprise software).Company NameLikelyUnlikely💼 Intuit94%6%🚗...

@Far7az You can now save videos on 𝕏 for offline viewing 👀 A "Save Video" option is available in the 3-dot menu, and you can access the saved videos in the Offline section from the side menu.

My eyes are getting worse and I increase the font for easier reading, but it seems to me, I might also benefit from a bolder or blacker font.Can that be done ?

Here's a weird one! I have a Lenovo N22 laptop that I use for occasional web browsing, Zoom video chats, etc. No crucial data is kept on this machine. However, I do keep a 128 GB Micro-SD card in the Micro-SD port as a data drive and to house smaller programs such as IrfanView, as the boot drive "C" is only 56 GB. This SD card used to come up as Drive D:\ upon boot up. However, in "This PC" now it comes up as "E", and for "D" there is a little drive symbol, then " ? D:\ "....

@stillgray Mark Zuckerberg now identifies as a libertarian and has reportedly hired a Republican PR firm to help rehabilitate his image and repair his relationship with Trump. Thoughts?

The ABENICS active ball joint gear allows for extremely precise, high-torque movementYamagata University At its core, this system developed at Yamagata University in Japan uses a "simple" cross-spherical gear paired with a monopole gear to control pitch, roll, and yaw. Essentially, the same full range of movement you'd see in a rotator cuff (the shoulder) of a human. With clever gearing, coupling, and sliding motions, the ABENICS gear is extremely precise in its movements. By adding a second monopole gear and differentials in tandem, connected to a ball joint, this system becomes even more robust. Operators are able to achieve...

A newly discovered geoglyph on the Nazca Pama. Image credit: Sakai et al. Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has helped identify over 300 previously unknown ‘Nazca Lines’ geoglyphs, according to newly published findings. Discovered over a six-month period, the total number of images located using the new process nearly matches the 430 previously known Nazca Lines geoglyphs found more than 80 years ago. The discoveries, reported by a research team led by Masato Sakai from Yamagata University in Japan, are helping unravel the possible meaning of these ancient artworks, some of which are 2,000 years old, and point to the likely...

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that one of the world’s richest men had recently experienced a major epiphany. After bankrolling a political organization that supported immigration reform, espousing his support for social justice, and donating hundreds of millions of dollars to support local election workers during the 2020 election, “Mark Zuckerberg is done with politics.” The Facebook founder and part-time Hawaiian feudal lord, according to the piece, “believed that both parties loathed technology and that trying to continue engaging with political causes would only draw further scrutiny to their company,” and felt burned by the criticism he has...

Media Propaganda and Lies Used to Blame Georgia Heartbeat Law…Again! Atlanta, GA — Candi Miller, a 41-year-old mother of three children, learned she was pregnant in the fall of 2022. Candi had several health conditions (high blood pressure, lupus, and diabetes) that needed to be carefully managed by a qualified obstetrician throughout her pregnancy. Unfortunately, Candi reportedly fell prey to fear and trusted a website that provides mail-order abortion pills instead. In 2022, when Candi ordered the drugs from Aid Access, the international organization was using an unregulated distributor in India to ship the pills. It wasn’t until a year...

RAVENNA, Ohio -- A local Ohio elections board says the county sheriff's department will not be used for election security following a social media post by the sheriff saying people with Kamala Harris yard signs should have their addresses recorded so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if the Democratic vice president wins the November election. In a statement on the Portage County Democrats' Facebook page, county board of elections chair Randi Clites said members voted 3-1 Friday to remove the sheriff's department from providing security during in-person absentee voting. Clites cited public comments indicating “perceived intimidation...

Shares of Intel jumped 3% Friday as The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Thomas, Laura Cooper, and Asa Fitch reported that Qualcomm has approached Intel about acquiring it for perhaps as much as $90 billion, citing multiple unnamed sources. The “massive” deal, as the authors put it, is financially daunting, as Qualcomm has just $13 billion in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet against $13 billion of long-term debt. Even a mostly stock exchange would require some large debt raise. Intel, moreover, already has $19 billion of net long-term debt. The deal is much larger than Qualcomm’s attempted acquisition of...

If you search “women’s experiences at Planned Parenthood” on Google, you will find mostly positive news articles about Planned Parenthood (with the majority on Planned Parenthood’s website), and stories about “harrowing” pregnancy experiences states that protect preborn children from abortion. However, a look at the Google reviews of individual Planned Parenthood facilities provides an interesting perspective… and tells a far different story. Though strictly anecdotal, these reviews highlight the allegations of former Planned Parenthood patients — that many women have suffered from medical negligence, coercion, and a lack of maternal health services at Planned Parenthood facilities across the country. The...

I have been happily using Kaspersky anti-virus software to protect my computer for years. It never caused me any problems. Other softwares, notably NORTON, allowed a virus to infect my computer years ago, and could not be removed by home measures. So the BIDEN administration has decided that Kaspersky is too much of a risk by a hostile foreign government to continue to operate in the U.S. and now the company has to close shop in the U.S. and fire all its employees. I haven't shopped for a new anti-virus software for years. Which ones should I look at? I...

In LibreOffice Calc, if I have two fields I wish to compare to within a plus-minus value, and then if the spread between the two numbers is too great, both will, say, flash red, how do I do that?