Cogent – Curated – Updated || Since 1999 || Information you need-produced by humans
Large language models still struggle to tell fact from opinion “Large language models (LLMs) may not reliably acknowledge a user’s incorrect beliefs … The findings highlight the need for careful use of LLM outputs in high-stakes decisions in areas such as medicine, law, and science, particularly when belief or opinions are contrasted with facts.” (from TechXplore, November 4, 2025) Go to the source: *Suzgun, M.,…
See more
Kai R. Larsen, University of Colorado Boulder; Roman Lukyanenko, University of Virginia, and Thomas H. Davenport, Babson College (from The Conversation) Technological innovations can seem relentless. In computing, some have proclaimed that “a year in machine learning is a century in any other field.” But how do you know whether those advancements are hype or reality? Failures quickly multiply when there’s a deluge of new…
See more
Peyton McCauley, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Melissa Scanlan, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (from The Conversation) As demand for artificial intelligence technology boosts construction and proposed construction of data centers around the world, those computers require not just electricity and land, but also a significant amount of water. Data centers use water directly, with cooling water pumped through pipes in and around the computer equipment. They also…
See more
Aaron French, Kennesaw State University (from The Conversation) Back in 2008, The Atlantic sparked controversy with a provocative cover story: Is Google Making Us Stupid? In that 4,000-word essay, later expanded into a book, author Nicholas Carr suggested the answer was yes, arguing that technology such as search engines were worsening Americans’ ability to think deeply and retain knowledge. At the core of Carr’s concern…
See more
*Capraro, V., Globig, L., Rausch, Z., Rathje, S., Wormley, A. S., Olson, J., … Van Bavel, J. J. (2025, May 15). A consensus statement on potential negative impacts of smartphone and social media use on adolescent mental health. PsyArXiv. [PDF] [Cited by] “The impact of smartphones and social media use on adolescent mental health remains widely debated. To clarify expert opinion, we convened over 120…
See more
“Phubbing refers to the act of ignoring one’s immediate social interactions in favor of engaging with a smartphone” (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phubbing). The word is a combination of “phone” and “snubbing.” Since the word was coined and the phenomenon became common from the early 2010’s, significant research on phubbing has taken place. Like many facets of our digital world where large for-profit corporations and governments work to…
See more
We live in a world awash with misinformation and disinformation. “Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.” Disinformation in particular, often leveraged through X, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, and created by political, corporate, criminal, and other bad actors besieges us on a daily basis. It’s a never…
See more
“Facial recognition technology is increasingly used for identity verification and identification, from aiding law enforcement investigations to identifying potential security threats at large venues. However, advances in this technology have outpaced laws and regulations, raising significant concerns related to equity, privacy, and civil liberties. Facial recognition connects an image of a face to an identity or connects an image of a face to a database…
See more
There is a vast amount of hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications. And there are valid concerns about the use of AI and its negative impact on our society. Like the long lineage of communication technologies that have preceded AI, human beings will use it–some for good (or at least with good intentions) and some to further crime, greed, corruption, and to gain…
See more
ChatGPT and generative AI (artificial intelligence): a quick primer … *Heaven, W.D. (2023). ChatGPT is everywhere. Here’s where it came from: OpenAI’s breakout hit was an overnight sensation—but it is built on decades of research. MIT Technology Review. “We’ve reached peak ChatGPT. Released at the end of November [2022] as a web app by the San Francisco–based firm OpenAI, the chatbot exploded into the mainstream…
See more