"Facebook shuts off AI experiment after two robots begin speaking in their OWN language"

Via Drudge:  The “chatbots” Alice and Bob modified English to make it easier for them to communicate — creating sentences that were gibberish to watching scientists.

“We do not know what these bots are saying. Once you have a bot that has the ability to do something physically, particularly military bots, this could be lethal.

“If one says, ‘Why not do this,’ and the other says ‘Yes’ and it’s a military bot, you have a serious situation.

“This is the first recorded communication but there will have been many more unrecorded.

“Smart devices right now have the ability to communicate and although we think we can monitor them, we have no way of knowing.

“Stephen Hawking and I have been warning against the dangers of deferring to Artificial Intelligence.”

Link to media

"Orlando terrorist's... Facebook posts from inside club revealed"

In the hours after he blasted his way into an Orlando gay nightclub, and with his victims lying dead or wounded around him, Omar Mateen took to Facebook to pledge his loyalty to ISIS and threaten more attacks on the civilized world, a key lawmaker privy to the gunman’s posts told FoxNews.com Wednesday.

Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 inside Pulse early Sunday, died when a SWAT team stormed the club. But in the roughly four hours between his initial rampage and his death, the 29-year-old radicalized Muslim broadcast his twisted message of hate on social media, according to Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.

“I pledge my alliance to (ISIS leader) abu bakr al Baghdadi..may Allah accept me,” Mateen wrote in one post early Sunday morning. “The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west” …“You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance.”

Mateen’s social media accounts were taken down before they could be widely viewed by the public, but Johnson’s committee investigators have uncovered some or all of them. The senator has also written a letter to Facebook executives expressing concern about Mateen’s postings and asking for more information on his activities.

I call for a Facebook ban for people on watch lists.

Show Hillary the money!

Hillary Clinton has received nearly $75,000 in political contributions from employees at the Department of Justice, the agency that would decide whether or not to act if the FBI recommended charges against Clinton or her aides following its investigation into her private email server.

Justice Department employees have given Clinton far more money than her rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Donald Trump, according to a review of federal campaign contributions for the 2016 presidential cycle.

Trending at Facebook is Hillary Clinton, receiving the most donations from Facebook Employees.

Hilary Clinton is the largest beneficiary of donations from Facebook employees this election cycle, having received over $114,000, more than any other presidential candidate.

The Facebook money is on crooked Hillary. "Facebook Manager in Charge of Trending Topics Is Max Clinton Donor"

The person in charge of Facebook’s Trending Topics section, which has come under fire in recent days over accusations that the social media platform deliberately suppressed news articles that were published on conservative websites, is a maximum donor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Tom Stocky, Facebook’s vice president of product management, issued a response to the report that was first published by Gizmodo by claiming that he has not found any evidence that the accusations within the report are true.

"Facebook MADE Black Lives Matter ‘Trend’ By Inserting It Into News Feeds"

Gizmodo:  Sometimes, breaking news would be injected because it wasn’t attaining critical mass on Facebook quickly enough to be deemed “trending” by the algorithm. Former curators cited the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris as two instances in which non-trending stories were forced into the module. Facebook has struggled to compete with Twitter when it comes to delivering real-time news to users; the injection tool may have been designed to artificially correct for that deficiency in the network. “We would get yelled at if it was all over Twitter and not on Facebook,” one former curator said.

In other instances, curators would inject a story—even if it wasn’t being widely discussed on Facebook—because it was deemed important for making the network look like a place where people talked about hard news. “People stopped caring about Syria,” one former curator said. “[And] if it wasn’t trending on Facebook, it would make Facebook look bad.” That same curator said the Black Lives Matter movement was also injected into Facebook’s trending news module. “Facebook got a lot of pressure about not having a trending topic for Black Lives Matter,” the individual said. “They realized it was a problem, and they boosted it in the ordering. They gave it preference over other topics. When we injected it, everyone started saying, ‘Yeah, now I’m seeing it as number one’.” This particular injection is especially noteworthy because the #BlackLivesMatter movement originated on Facebook, and the ensuing media coverage of the movement often noted its powerful social media presence.

Via Daily Caller

"Woman killed boyfriend for spending too much time on Facebook"

NY Post: Terri-Marie Palmer, 23, broke down in tears as she was convicted of 24-year-old Damon Searson’s murder following a one-week trial, where the details emerged about the fatal end of their rocky relationship, according to multiple reports.

Moments before the killing, Palmer posted: “He p***** me off sitting on Facebook, completely blanking me when I’m talking to him,”

She regularly posted on the social media site about how Searson would ignore her while scrolling through Facebook messages on his phone, adding random girls and posting shirtless photos of himself.

“Gross,” she wrote on one of his topless pics. “Didn’t expect any different to come out of your mouth f–king b–ch,” he fired back.  Eventually, Palmer texted her man that she was fed up — and furious.  “Crying myself to sleep for the second time this week and it’s only Wednesday. Thanks Damon. I’m so angry and hurt I honestly want to f–king stab you,” she wrote...

Hairdresser

The two met at Palmer’s hair salon, Costa Del Sol in Lancaster, England, and moved in together last July.

"Man posts passport to Facebook to prove his name is real"

"A Vietnamese-Australian called Phuc Dat Bich has spoken of his anger after repeatedly being blocked by Facebook. His picture of proof, and its accompanying message, has been shared more than 123,000 times."

Phuc Dat Bich (pronounced "Phoo Da Bic")

"I find it highly irritating the fact that nobody seems to believe me when I say that my full legal name is how you see it," he said.

"I've been accused of using a false and misleading name of which I find very offensive."

He went on to explain that his frustration was due to what he suggested was a lack of understanding in the West for names which appear amusing to some.

"Is it because I'm Asian? Is it?" he asked in the post.

How Facebook is Stealing Views

Obama expands propaganda machine

Obama launches Facebook page. https://t.co/UhoDTqm1C5 Here's @juliehdavis story on 20 aides who will really write it https://t.co/7wbITk8AkC

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) November 9, 2015

"Judge says Brooklyn woman can use Facebook to serve divorce papers"

"In a landmark ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper is allowing a nurse named Ellanora Baidoo to serve her elusive husband with divorce papers via a Facebook message."

Baidoo, 26, “is granted permission serve defendant with the divorce summons using a private message through Facebook,”... 

“I think it’s new law, and it’s necessary,” said Baidoo’s lawyer, Andrew Spinnell.

His client and Blood-Dzraku tied the knot back in a civil ceremony back in 2009, but their relationship crumbled when Blood-Dzraku reneged on his promise to have a traditional Ghanaian wedding ceremony as well, Spinnell said. Both are from Ghana.

“She wanted their families there,”

Date-a manipulation

"First, Facebook admitted it was screwing with your "friend"-ships. Now OkCupid has admitted it’s been screwing with your hookups. 

The dating website said yesterday that, like Facebook, it experimented on users without telling them. But unlike Facebook, OkCupid is unapologetic about the experiments. Co-founder Christian Rudder put it bluntly in a blog post: "If you use the internet you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work." 

...The similarity to Facebook's data manipulation is most apparent in OkCupid’s third experiment, in which the company sought to answer the questions, "Does this thing even work?" To figure that out, Rudder writes, "we took pairs of bad matches (actual 30 percent match) and told them they were exceptionally good for each other (displaying a 90 percent match)." Then OkCupid watched what happened, waiting for users to send first and second messages. Ultimately, Rudder writes, he and the OkCupid team determined that "when we tell people they are a good match, they act as if they are.""

-Popular Mechanics

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ever used a dating site? It seems a logical use of computers, unless you use one like OKCupid. Or do they all do it, and OKCupid is just being honest about it?

Study: Human Face Evolved to Withstand Punches

"The researchers found that bones that suffer the highest rates of fractures in fights are the same parts of the skull that exhibited the greatest increase in sturdiness during the evolution of our early human relatives. These bones are also the parts of the skull that show the greatest difference between males and females in both australopiths and humans today."

via Instapundit

***

h/t AllenS

Harry Reid's Facebook page

Finally something truly cheering on Facebook, Harry Reid's Facebook page. Comments are full, too full they expand so hidden treasures in there tucked away easily overlooked. A cheerful read indeed. Opening and clicking, amusing pictures, heartening links all the way down, delightful uplifting commentary to all Harry's entries.

The most extraordinary case of profound deafness I've ever seen. Harry Reid's posts followed by comments are two entirely separate conversations. Harry against everybody. He presumes to lead.

"Rand Paul gets standing ovation at Berkeley: ‘Your right to privacy is under assault’"

"Delivering a rare speech for a Republican at this bastion of liberalism, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday was given multiple standing ovations by the left-wing audience after railing against government surveillance and warning the students: “Your right to privacy is under assault.”

“I am here to tell you that if you own a cell phone, you’re under surveillance,” he told the crowd.

Paul’s address at the Berkeley Forum on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley focused on the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone metadata and the debate over privacy.

During his remarks, the potential 2016 Republican candidate discussed California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s claim that the CIA had spied on her congressional staff, and announced that he plans to call for a special committee on Capitol Hill to investigate the domestic spying by government agencies .

“No one should be allowed to invade your privacy,” Paul said. “That’s why I’m announcing today that when I return to Washington, I will push for a select committee styled after the Church Committee that investigated the abuses of power of the intelligence committee in the 70s. It should be bipartisan. It should be independent, and wide reaching. It should have full power to investigate and reform those who spy on us in the name of protecting us.”

Added Paul: “It should watch the watchers.”

Meanwhile, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been lying (apparently) about his knowledge of the NSA domestic spying programs.

"When You Fall in Love, This Is What Facebook Sees"

"As couples become couples, Facebook data scientist Carlos Diuk writes, the two people enter a period of courtship, during which timeline posts increase. After the couple makes it official, their posts on each others’ walls decrease—presumably because the happy two are spending more time together."

In the post on Facebook’s data science blog, Diuk gives hard numbers:

During the 100 days before the relationship starts, we observe a slow but steady increase in the number of timeline posts shared between the future couple. When the relationship starts ("day 0"), posts begin to decrease. We observe a peak of 1.67 posts per day 12 days before the relationship begins, and a lowest point of 1.53 posts per day 85 days into the relationship. Presumably, couples decide to spend more time together, courtship is off, and online interactions give way to more interactions in the physical world.

Diuk also writes that, even though the number of wall posts goes down once the relationship starts, the wall posts becomes happier.

“We observe a general increase [in sentiment] after the relationship's ‘day 0,’ with a dramatic increase in days 0 and 1!” he says. Here’s a chart describing that change:

The Atlantic

Always posting pics on Facebook? Then you're weird, study says

"Research from the U.K. suggests that those who post vast numbers of pictures to Facebook might have trouble enjoying relationships in real life." 

So here are 20 photos of our hike this weekend.

Here am I, standing halfway up a hill. And here am I standing halfway down a hill. 

I don't have a Facebook account, for reasons which I have not sat down to deliberately think about, as to why it is, that I'm not on Facebook. I do know people who are on Facebook and sometimes they ask me why I'm not on it.

Here is some good news, however. A study suggests that people who do this may be alienating themselves from those who might be called normal human beings.

I don't have problem with that sentence. But something tells me that the "may" and "might" are there because some people would have a problem with the suggestion that some people could be characterized as "normal human beings". 

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