Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Quick notes: AI scraping | R Thyagarajan...

  • AI Scraping: Big Tech wants to "digest" copyrighted works. Google is training its bots on millions of copyrighted works without permission. The company wants to change copyright laws so that it can grab any content it wants from the Internet, use it as training data for its AI products, and argue “fair use” if anyone objects to its plagiarism.


  • The Economic Losers in the New World Order: Giant subsidies and rising protectionism are upending decades of free trade. The world’s biggest economies are offering huge subsidies in a cutthroat race to win the industries of the future. The losers: all the countries that can’t pay up. Smaller countries, from the U.K. to Singapore, are getting left behind


  • India is a rising force in Southeast Asia: India is taking major strides to expand its influence in Southeast Asia, a move that will allow countries to counter China’s dominance in the region. “Since China hasn’t budged on the border issue, India now feels there has been no real return for its cautious attitude towards Southeast Asia”.


  • Jumpstarting India's start-up dream: Tech is not mere real-estate play.


  • R Thyagarajan: Indian tycoon gave away $750 million. He doesn't even own a mobile phone. RT founded the Shriram group in Chennai in 1974


  • English Note: Prince Rama Varma



  • When will UK return its loot? US returns haul of stolen artefacts to Italy


  • What alcohol does to a woman’s body: For a variety of reasons, women can’t metabolize alcohol as fast as men, meaning they have more of the toxic substance in their systems for longer.

    Women have lower amounts of the enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, needed to break their drinks down, so they are left with higher levels of a substance that is toxic to organs like the liver. Moreover, women have less body water to dilute the alcohol they’ve consumed — the end result is that alcohol in their systems becomes more concentrated


  • Toxic pharma exports from India: A cold medication made in India and sold in Iraq is tainted with toxic chemicals. The Cold Out label indicates it was made by Fourrts (India) Pvt. Ltd., a Chennai-based exporter of medicines.

    It’s the fifth time in a year that testing has found an Indian exporter’s drugs to contain excessive levels of ethylene glycol. Cases of Indian-made tainted cold syrups have been reported in Indonesia, Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon, and have killed about 300 children in the past year.


  • India’s English-medium craze stunts brains: The more highly developed the first language skills, the better the results in the second language.


  • Decouple: India bars makers of military drones from using Chinese parts. India relies on foreign manufacturers for both parts and entire systems as it lacks the know-how to make certain types of drones. "There has to be coherent national strategy to fill the technology gaps" to deliver commercially viable products.


  • Despite sanctions, Chinese tech continues to thrive: China builds Exascale supercomputer with 19.2 Million cores.


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