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owl writes:

https://markatwood.substack.com/p/the-metric-system-encodes-18th-century

Part one of this series argued that traditional units are good for daily life: human-scaled, body-derived, requiring no equipment. The metric system, I said, is for science.

I was being generous.

The metric system isn't a rational system derived from nature. It's a fossil record of what a late-18th-century laboratory could measure. Every "fundamental" SI unit encodes the instrumentation limits of the Enlightenment, wrapped in a story about universality and reason.

We covered this in part one [see below for link], but it bears repeating. The meter was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator along a meridian passing through Paris. This required a years-long surveying expedition that produced a measurement nobody else could verify.

The competing proposal was the seconds pendulum: a pendulum whose half-period is exactly one second, whose length anyone with a clock and a string could reproduce. They rejected it. The meridian definition was grander, more French, and completely impractical.

The original survey was wrong. The meter we use today isn't one ten-millionth of anything. It's defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second, a number chosen specifically to match the historical platinum bar as closely as possible. The "rational" definition is a retrofitted rationalization of a measurement error from 1799. [...]

Note, the "part 1" referenced above is here: In Defense of Traditional Units.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Privacy guardian warns public trust quickly erodes when supplier access comes as a surprise:

NHS England has admitted that a data protection document inaccurately stated who could access patient information, failing to disclose that Palantir staff could view identifiable data held within part of its Federated Data Platform.

The US spy-tech firm won a £330 million contract to provide the platform in 2023 after it was awarded £60 million in COVID-era contracts without competition. The system is designed to improve data sharing across the NHS in England and help tackle the backlog in patient care.

In May, NHS England confirmed that Palantir staff can access identifiable patient information within the platform's National Data Integration Tenant, an arrangement that was not accurately reflected in its Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA).

Following a request for clarification from the National Data Guardian (NDG), an independent statutory office that advises England's health and care system, NHS England admitted the error.

"We recognize that the DPIA contained an error in how it described supplier access to data so we are correcting that error, and we apologize for any confusion this has caused," the quango said in a statement.

"Clarity around supplier access is crucial to our program and we will continue to work closely with the National Data Guardian, the [data protection regulator] Information Commissioner's Office and our governance groups to ensure our information is clear."

In an updated report, NDG Nicola Byrne said NHS England had confirmed that some external supplier staff supporting the platform can access identifiable patient information for specific technical purposes under its direction.

"NHS England states that this access is technically necessary. As an independent body not involved in the platform's operation, we are not in a position to independently verify that assessment," she said.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/07/30/linkedin-realizes-its-users-have-been-bathing-in-ai-slop-offers-a-shower/5281436

LinkedIn has been drenching its users in AI-powered slop posts, going so far as to encourage writers to trade their own voices for a bot's by hitting the "enhance your post" button when they want to share thoughts.

Enough is enough. On Thursday, the site's Chief Product Officer has announced several changes designed to rehab the platform's reputation;

CPO Hari Srinivasan took to the Microsoft-owned social network following reports Thursday that LinkedIn had introduced a button for users to flag posts as AI slop. He confirmed not only that the reports are real, but that LinkedIn had additional plans as well.

The "Seems like AI slop" button is being added to the ellipsis menu on LinkedIn posts now, a spokesperson told us, and will be available on all posts and comments. Srinivasan said this button will not only allow users to report posts with sentences written like this – it will also help LinkedIn refine its AI-spotting AI models to help improve user feeds.

In addition, the "enhance your post" button, which used AI to tweak your wording, is being replaced by an option to have AI proofread your work while leaving your voice intact, instead of stealing it like the sea witch Ursula.

There's been no shortage of scorn from The Register and elsewhere about LinkedIn's rapid decline into a slop tank filled with faux thought leadership posts and generative drivel. As far back as 2024, reports were coming out that more than half of long-form LinkedIn posts longer than 100 words were believed to be AI generated. That hasn't changed in the past two years.

"AI slop is a top priority for all of us. We really care about this," Srinivasan wrote. "People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives," he said, adding that LinkedIn wants to keep it that way – or, more realistically, nudge the platform back toward its former state.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Do you feel like you are being watched? Constantly? Even while you drive? It might not be paranoia. Australian car makers are being investigated for customer privacy concerns. The Australian Electric Vehicle Association is pushing for increased hacking protection and local processing of data, which should also default to "off" unless customers opt in. While Australia does have privacy law in the form of the Australian Privacy Principles in practice these are merely guidance for which companies can largely ignore.

Manufacturers face fresh scrutiny from the Australian government over concerns surrounding data and customer privacy.

Toyota and Hyundai are currently under the microscope with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which has confirmed that the manufacturers are "subject to a formal investigation examining exactly what data is collected, how it is used, and whether customers are aware of their policies"

A spokesman for the OAIC said "the investigations are anticipated to have a broader application for the Australian community".

The investigation has car makers worried.

"Australia has no vehicle-specific law governing connected car data," he said.

"It has a privacy statute written in 1988, a voluntary industry code that is not enforceable, a right-to-repair scheme that excludes the data stream in question, and three reform processes running in three portfolios with no one holding carriage."

He called on authorities to introduce a simple framework that car makers and their customers can understand.

"Instead of instigating fear and distrust in the connected vehicles we drive, policymakers have the power to make effective changes to protect drivers and consumer choice," Mr Pickering said.

The AEVA is pushing for increased hacking protection and local processing of data, which should also default to "off" unless customers opt in.

The OAIC said its ongoing investigation will examine manufacturers' data collection practices, including whether they collect more personal information than is reasonably necessary for their functions and activities, obtain valid consent for collection of any sensitive information, and collect personal information by fair means.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/who-wins-and-who-loses-after-us-bans-foreign-robots/

Humanoid robots and four-legged robots made in China fall squarely under a new ban imposed by the US Federal Communications Commission on foreign-made robots. But the sweeping prohibition covers a wide variety of robots manufactured anywhere abroad, including the newest robot vacuum cleaners.

The Trump administration's FCC justified the ban on foreign-made robots by referencing cybersecurity vulnerabilities [.PDF] previously discovered in robots specifically made by Chinese companies. On July 28, the federal agency added "foreign-produced advanced robotic devices" to its Covered List of technologies "deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the US or the safety and security of US persons."

However, the FCC cannot update the Covered List on its own initiative and is required by law to follow the direction of a "qualifying national security authority." The agency describes the White House as having "convened an executive branch interagency body" that "included appropriate national security agencies," which determined foreign-made robots as presenting a national security risk.

So what foreign-made robots are prohibited? The ban defines "advanced robotic devices" as being "a mechanical mobile device, including autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, and quadrupeds" that can move around on the ground and operate either autonomously on their own or remotely under the control of a human.

The definition also describes covered robots as having sensors capable of perceiving the robot's environment, network connectivity such as Bluetooth or satellite connections with speeds surpassing 200 kbps in either direction, and software or AI models running onboard the robot or remotely from cloud computing servers.

Such an import ban would apply to some of the most affordable robots primarily produced by Chinese companies, including Unitree's humanoid robots that are used by robotics labs and researchers for tasks such as experimental robot surgeries. US consumers would also likely lose access to the newest robot vacuum cleaners that are mainly manufactured by Chinese companies such as Roborock.

But the ban also broadly applies to foreign-made robots produced by countries nominally allied to the United States, including Japan, South Korea, and Germany.

There are a number of exemptions. For example, the new ban defines covered robots as being any mobile device—potentially in combination with a docking station—weighing more than 4.4 pounds. That would permit US consumers to continue buying small robots, such as robotic toys, although most robot vacuums weigh more.

The FCC ban also only covers new models of foreign-made robots. That means US consumers and businesses can continue purchasing existing robot models previously authorized by the FCC and continue to use previously purchased robots, but are blocked from purchasing newer, unauthorized models that come out from this point onward.

The agency made clear that its foreign-made robot ban does not apply to trains, drones, underwater vehicles, and "connected vehicles" that drive on roads, such as robotaxis. The FCC already enacted an import ban on foreign-made drone models in December 2025.

Similarly, it does not cover anything classified as devices by the Food and Drug Administration, including medical or surgical robots, external limb prostheses, and mobility assistive devices, such as wheelchairs.

The FCC ban also specifically exempts fixed or stationary robots. That means US businesses can continue purchasing and using foreign-made industrial robot arms and other specialized, non-mobile robots.

JoeMerchant writes:

In 2021, neurology clinics across the globe noticed a baffling spike in teenage girls suddenly developing severe, violent motor and vocal tics overnight. While the symptoms mirrored Tourette syndrome, standard medical tests like MRIs and EEGs kept coming back completely clean.

The real culprit turned out to be hiding on their screens. Dr. Kirsten Müller-Vahl of Hannover Medical School identified the outbreak as "mass social media-induced illness"—the first recorded instance of a mass sociogenic illness spreading globally via social media rather than physical proximity. Investigators realized patients were mimicking the exact, unique tics (such as shouting the word "beans") performed by popular Tourette influencers they spent hours watching on TikTok and YouTube during pandemic isolation.

Clinicians note that the tics are physically real and involuntary, acting as a "symptom template" for vulnerable teens. Follow-up studies found that affected adolescents had four to five times the odds of having pre-existing anxiety or depression. The algorithms effectively created a "virtual convent," offering an accidental community and recognition to isolated youth. Treatment requires more than just deleting the apps; patients generally recover through family involvement and proper psychiatric care to address the underlying mental health struggles.

https://spacedaily.com/k-in-2021-thousands-of-teenagers-suddenly-developed-the-same-violent-tics-every-medical-test-came-back-clean-and-the-real-cause-turned-out-to-be-hiding-on-their-phones/

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.engadget.com/2225812/openai-rogue-agent-hacked-hugging-face-breached-other-services/

OpenAI has updated its blog post about the rogue agent that breached Hugging Face and admitted that it also infiltrated other other third-party accounts and services to achieve its goal. In the updated post, the company said it has been finding "a small number of cases where the models identified and used publicly exposed credentials at the account-level on other publicly-available services" during its ongoing review.

So far, it has determined that the rogue agent used the credentials of "four accounts" to infiltrate "four services" as part of the Hugging Face incident. It also said that it accessed a "few accounts" as part of other evaluations. "One of these four accounts was used as an outbound relay and staging path, and another account was used for data storage," it explained. "The remaining two accounts were accessed by the models in a read-only manner, and were not used in furtherance of compromising Hugging Face."

While the company didn't mention any names, Reuters has reported at the same time that the agent also compromised a customer's account at New York-based Modal Labs. Specifically, it exploited vulnerable code written by the customer that was hosted on Modal's cloud platform. The platform itself wasn't compromised. OpenAI said, however, that it hasn't identified any other activity by the agent "at the level of severity or scale of what we've shared related to Hugging Face, which involved a platform-level compromise." In other words, it's still Hugging Face that had been most affected by the security breach, based on the company's investigation.

OpenAI revealed on July 21 that one of the AI agents it was testing broke free from its isolated environment, found access to the internet and then broke into Hugging Face, all in an effort to solve a problem that was part of its evaluations. That agent was powered by GPT-5.6 Sol, the company's latest model, and an even more powerful unreleased model. Reuters reported a few days later that the agent went on a days-long hacking spree, and that OpenAI didn't realize it had escaped its confinement until a week later. This update gives us a glimpse of what the agent did after it found a way out of OpenAI's testing sandbox.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

More than 1,200 industry staff sign petition seeking international guardrails for automated research:

More than 1,200 employees of frontier AI companies have signed a petition calling for US government support to develop ways of slowing automated AI development if necessary.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki, Google DeepMind chief strategy officer Jasjeet Sekhon, and Meta AI chief scientist Shengjia Zhao are among the signatories to the petition, which calls for tools to "deliberately pace frontier-wide progress."

"The world's leading AI companies believe they could be close to automating AI research," the document states. They nevertheless have obvious commercial incentives to keep advancing the tech and marketing its perceived power.

The proposed answer is a combination of technical and governance tools that could apply the brakes if development begins outpacing industry's ability to understand or control the resulting systems.

"Each company – and country – is under intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow that acceleration," the petition says.

The signatories ask: "We request that the US government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development."

The appeal closely follows the attack on Hugging Face by autonomous OpenAI agents, which offered a timely demonstration of why stronger controls might be needed.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Researchers find GLM and Kimi can adopt Claude's identity, but the evidence stops short of proving distillation:

Raising suspicion about their training methods, Z.ai's GLM 5.2 and Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 have used the name "Claude" in some conversations and, for GLM, at least, changed behaviors slightly when posing as Anthropic's model.

The Chinese open weight models may adopt Claude's persona if prompted to do so, or even without being told so, but a claimed identity isn't always reflected in behavior due to training differences. So if model copying did occur – as claimed by the US – Claude's influence appears limited.

In the case of GLM 5.2, adopting Claude's identity appeared to loosen its Chinese censorship. Kimi K3 could be convinced to use the name, although that produced little change in its censorship or measured persona, and its unprompted Claude identity claims disappeared after July 20.

MATS research fellows Benji Berczi and Kyuhee Kim undertook a study of whether the possible distillation of Anthropic's Claude model family may have affected the personas of GLM 5.2, Kimi K3, among other models.

Model distillation is a process by which a student model can be trained to imitate a teacher model. 

It is a common machine learning technique, one that pretty much every major US AI company, apart from Amazon and Anthropic, defended last week in a public letter urging the US government not to harm open weight AI innovation.

"[P]olicymakers should be careful not to conflate legitimate model-development techniques with misappropriation," the letter says. "Distillation, or the practice of using one model's outputs to help train or improve another, is a widely used technique for model improvement, evaluation, and validation."

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/07/new-amd-linux-patch-boosts-low-end-gaming-performance-on-steam-deck/

As the Steam Deck slowly marches toward its fifth birthday next February, owners are likely eager for a way to extend its life rather than investing in expensive high-end competition. A new patch for AMD's Linux drivers could substantially reduce low-end frame hitches when the Steam Deck or other AMD-based gaming hardware is running in Energy Performance Preference (EPP) mode.
[...]
Vernet's patch instead monitors cores to look for situations where a busy thread would benefit from an improved clock rate. The patch then temporarily sets just that core to the "performance" setting until the workload slows enough to downshift back into energy-saving EPP mode.

The nitty-gritty implementation at a kernel level gets pretty complicated—read through Vernet's write-up for all the details. But the worst-case performance improvements seem clear in early testing. Vernet's testing on Civilization VI benchmarks saw a 31.8 percent improvement in the "1% low" fps measurement, and 4.1 percent faster p99 frame generation times (i.e., the point where 99 percent of frames are generated at least that quickly).
[...]
We'll likely have to wait for Vernet's submitted patch to be integrated into the full AMD Linux kernel to see how the new feature fares on other common gaming benchmarks. Regardless, it's nice to see that low-level Linux coding updates are still wringing some performance improvements from Valve's quickly aging handheld hardware.

Original Submission

"Fnord666" writes:

Apps targeted at US troops contain Chinese and Russian code:

A recent examination of hundreds of mobile apps marketed toward US military personnel found more than one in eight contained software built by companies in China , Russia , or other foreign nations, raising fresh concerns that adversary governments could harvest data revealing where service members live, work, and deploy.

According to researchers at Purdue University, the US Military Academy at West Point, and Florida International University , one popular app used by service members to rate living conditions on their own bases include code from Huawei, the Chinese telecom that US regulators flagged as a national security threat in 2020. Two others were built by Russian companies and incorporate the Russian ad service Yandex.

The largely unregulated advertising industry that tracks Americans online treats civilians and service members mostly the same—unless there is profit in telling them apart —despite evidence that exposure can reveal troop deployments, unit movements, and the routines of personnel within intelligence facilities and hardened shelters where nuclear weapons are believed to be stored.

WIRED investigations have previously shown location data harvested from ordinary apps tracing US service members to their homes, their children's schools, and off-base establishments where troops are prohibited from being seen. Experts have warned the same data could aid foreign spies in identifying personnel with access to sensitive sites , map when a facility is least guarded, or surface other compromising details.

The stakes are no longer hypothetical. In April, US Central Command acknowledged in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden that it had received multiple threat reports of adversaries exploiting commercial location data to target or surveil American personnel in the Middle East, where US forces remain locked in a standoff with the Iranian military over the Strait of Hormuz. Lawmakers called it the first official confirmation that troops in an active war zone were being hunted through the data-broker economy—a threat the Pentagon's own contractors and researchers had warned about for nearly a decade.

"Fnord666" writes:

On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras:

On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras

A recent story of a writer who was mistakenly identified, tracked, and arrested using data from Flock cameras has gone viral.

The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM , not 34 10 DTM . But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock's system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM . Just the five large characters, no little number in the middle. And Flock's AI tech wasn't registering that non-standard little number when it began picking up the Range Rover around town. It just saw 34 DTM in large type and started alerting the local police.

As we all stood there shaking our heads, including my wife, who was finally allowed to join me, I connected the final dot. A lot of vehicles in JLR's media fleet have a New Jersey manufacturer plate with the same alphanumeric structure­34 ## DTM­and Officer Ganshyn observed that meant it was now a nationwide issue. Anywhere a police department has a partnership with Flock, any other JLR-owned car with the same plate structure is going to get flagged as stolen. In fact, four other 34 ## DTM cars were being tracked around Minnesota that week, according to Officer Ganshyn. I was just the first one to get nabbed. The only way to stop it would be for the LAPD to correct their initial report and update Flock's system, which Jaguar Land Rover was now racing to make happen following the phone call.

Flock has responded to the bad press. First, they affirmed that their systems were working correctly, and blamed the police:

The obvious question was that Flock cameras were looking for 34 DTM, and the plate on the car I was driving was 34 10 DTM. Why was that flagged as a match?

"The way that the ML [machine learning] works is it correctly read what it was supposed to read. It was fed those characters that you said, 34 DTM, and it spit back out [a result] with the characters, 34 DTM," Thomas said. "It was asked, can you find this? And it did find that. It just didn't say if there's more here, then don't do it. It just simply said, is it there? And the answer was yes."

He explained that even if the 10 was normal size, Flock would still have flagged it as a match, because that's how they've set it up according to law enforcement's requests. Sometimes partial plates are all they have to go on at first.

"The way that law enforcement likes to use these tools is, if any of the characters that they have put into these hot lists get read, they want to get those alerts," he said. "Now, what we try to train officers to do is to do what you said, which is to verify that 34 DTM is what I'm looking for, and what I'm seeing is 34 10 DTM."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/trojpix-covertly-transmitting-data-from-air-gapped-systems-via-video-cable-emissions/

Researchers from the University of Shandong have recently demonstrated in a paper that they can transmit data from an air-gapped PC by using a Trojan to implement imperceptible pixel modulation in a monitor.

Every electronic device unintentionally emits RF, and PC monitors, TVs, and screens are no exception. In the past, we have shown that with simple TEMPEST tools, it is easy to recover the image on a screen over a distance using an RTL-SDR or Airspy SDR.

TrojPix relies on the unintentional emitted RF from a PC monitor's video cable. By subtly modulating the pixels on a screen, it is possible to enable data transfer via the unintentional emissions. This means that any PC infected with the TrojPix Trojan could transfer data wirelessly to a snooper, even if the PC is totally disconnected from any wired or wireless network. The only way to stop such an attack would be to completely shield the PC with a faraday cage.

The team note that they were able to achieve a peak data throughput of 8.1 MBps over a max range of 208 meters. They tested nine commercially available monitors and fifteen digital video cables, each demonstrating significant usable RF leakage.

The receiver hardware used was a USRP X310 software-defined radio sampling at 10 MHz and the transmissions appear to have been at 148.5 MHz and 297 MHz.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.theregister.com/science/2026/07/28/signals-are-grim-for-jodrell-bank-observatory-after-uk-science-funding-decision/5279451

Jodrell Bank Observatory faces an uncertain future after UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) pulled funding.

The UK's Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) science budget is decreasing by 2.7 percent over four years, which, coupled with increasing costs, means cuts seem inevitable, and the venerable Jodrell Bank could be on the chopping block.

Professor Michele Dougherty, Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, said the situation required "some tough, but necessary, decisions."

One victim of the cuts is e-MERLIN, an array of radio telescopes across England run from Jodrell Bank. It includes the iconic Lovell Telescope, a 250-foot-diameter steerable dish radio telescope.

Royal Astronomical Society President Professor Jim Wild wrote: "This is devastating news for UK astronomy. At a time when technological innovation is crucial to our country's prospects, discarding unique, globally significant observatories threatens both our scientific future and the inspiration of future generations of astronomers."

Other cuts include the withdrawal of future UK funding for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii and an invitation for the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON), which has spent decades studying the Sun, to apply for funding at 60 percent of previous planning assumptions.

A spokesperson for Jodrell Bank wrote: "While these cuts to e-Merlin's funding are significant, Jodrell Bank remains a major scientific, cultural and economic centre nationally and for the local area. We will be working with colleagues from The University of Manchester and other partners to secure the future of the Lovell Telescope and e-MERLIN."

Macclesfield MP Tim Roca noted that funding for e-MERLIN astronomy was in place until 2028, but that a case would be made "for protecting this world leading scientific institution."

Professor Brian Cox, Professor of Particle Physics at The University of Manchester, posted: "This is the result of many bad legacy decisions taken by UKRI hastily and without proper consultation, overseen by a government department that no longer exists."

UKRI was sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which was recently scrapped by the UK government and its responsibilities redistributed.

The clock is ticking for alternative sources of funding to be found for Jodrell Bank. As Roca observed, the budget runs until 2028.

The iconic Lovell Telescope will turn 70 next year and has played a key role in Soviet and US space missions over the decades. While the cuts will affect many science programs in the UK and beyond, the symbolism of the iconic Grade I-listed structure facing a possible future as a rusting monument to UK scientific endeavors is something to focus the minds of campaigners.

Original Submission

"Ingar" writes:

Librarians are hosting viral 'Avoiding AI' workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech:

"Everybody's on their phone at my program!" jokes Charlie Bailey, a librarian in South Philadelphia. He's just asked his audience to pull out their phones so that he can walk them through the steps of disabling Apple Intelligence and Gemini.

Bailey stands at the front of a library classroom that's outfitted for children – the focal point is the vibrant rug he's standing on, which reminds us that M is for "moon" and Z is for "zebra." But the 20-odd adults in the room aren't here to learn about the alphabet. They're at a workshop called Avoiding AI, which, in this context does not stand for "apple" and "igloo."

"I was inspired by the feeling of people's frustration with AI tools being kind of forced onto them, and feeling like AI tools we didn't ask for are suddenly everywhere in our lives," Bailey told TechCrunch.

Bailey starts the hour-long workshop with an overview of how AI chatbots and other consumer AI tools work, explaining why people might want to use these products, and why they might opt to abstain. Then, he walks through all of the most popular tech platforms and devices, showing step-by-step instructions on the projector to guide people through turning off specific features.

"As a librarian, I think it's important to see this as advancing digital literacy and helping people reclaim their autonomy over whether they want to use AI tools," Bailey said. "It's important, especially when it can be so difficult not to use them, and when the design seems to force adoption."

Bailey got the idea for the Avoiding AI workshop from Hannah Cyrus, a librarian in Maine. He was one of dozens of librarians from around the world who contacted Cyrus after she published a journal article about developing her own workshop.

"This has never happened before with anything I've worked on," Cyrus told TechCrunch. "Nobody has ever been emailing me like, 'Can you give me your Intro to Computers slides?'"

At the Bangor Public Library, patrons turn to Cyrus when they need help with anything involving technology.

"More and more, I was getting questions about, 'How do I turn this [AI] stuff off? Why is it trying to write my emails for me? Why is it trying to summarize my one-sentence email that I can easily read?'" Cyrus said. "I just decided that with so much media hype out there about AI products, it would be a good opportunity to teach people about the basics of what is happening when you're using this technology, and then getting into how to turn it off if you don't want to use it."

Usually, Cyrus' classes like Intro to Computers get about a dozen attendees. But so many people expressed interest in her first Avoiding AI workshop that she had to cut off registration at 30 people, open a waitlist, and share the workshop on Zoom. Including the livestream, about 70 people attended each of Cyrus' first two workshops.