Artificially-intelligent bots are plagiarizing known authors. It happened to author Jane Friedman, who reports on the publishing industry. A copycat version of her work was reviewed on Goodreads.

Friedman told ZDnet that an author she found on Twitter.com has been plagiarized by AI bots 29 times. It could be a growing problem.

Suppose, for example, that you insert the text of a published novel into a site like ChatGPT, and ask for it to be rewritten in the bot’s own words. Next you run the result through an AI content detector. If it scores 100 percent, it’s 100 percent fakey-sounding. So you tweak it a bit before uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing. I decided to test this idea myself.

I pasted a chapter of a book I edited into the ChatGPT search box and asked AI to redo it and add drama. (The result was amateurish, overloaded with flowery adjectives.) Next I tested the new manuscript at Originality.ai, a content detector. It said it was 87 percent AI and 13 percent human, which sounds about right. But copyleaks.com said it was 100 percent human. Wrong!

As a final experiment, I put an author’s own words through the detection process. While scanning them, Originality AI  said it was comparing them to books indexed by Google. But these books are only nine percent of the 130 million books that have been published since the Gutenberg Bible debuted in 1455. No wonder it failed to recognize that the work is 100 percent human. In short, AI detection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially now that everyone and their dog want to be authors.

The Trouble with Google Docs

Have you ever lost all your edits in a Google Doc because you weren’t connected to the internet? I have. It’s happened when I thought I was working offline but wasn’t. The easiest way to be sure is to click on “Help,” at the top of a document and type “Make available offline.” When it comes up, click it.

New Feature in WhatsApp: Videos

It might be fun to respond to a text with a video showing whatever you’re seeing at the moment, such as a parade, a sunset, or a child doing gymnastics. WhatsApp, the free text and phone calling app owned by Meta, now offers the ability to do just that. To use it, long press the camera icon next to the text box and choose “video” instead of “photo.” Alternatively, press the microphone icon and send a voice message. I often do this by accident.

End of a Fad

Sotheby’s is being sued by investors who bought $24.4 million worth of “Bored Ape Yacht Club” NFTs, according to Ars Technica. These NFTs are digital pictures of apes generated by an algorithm. To make the pics seem valuable, the lawsuit alleges, Sotheby’s hinted that a “traditional buyer” was behind the offering. That buyer, crypto currency king Sam Bankman-Fried, is in jail, awaiting trial on criminal charges. The value of the NFTs plummeted 79 percent.

Family-Friendly Games

TruPlayGames.com offers wholesome games for kids. The graphics and music are beautiful, and the games look fun. Each one includes a preview. They’re geared for Christians, but all are welcome.

Controlling Electronics with Your Tongue

 The “Mouthpad” from Augmental lets you control electronics with your tongue. The device looks like a dental retainer and requires a fitting from a local dentist. There’s a waiting list at augmental.tech.

Since the human tongue has eight separate muscles, it’s like having an extra finger, the disabled say. Some use it at work to create graphic art and check email. In public, they’d rather use it than keep calling out to Siri or Alexa.

Avoiding a Bad Link

Malicious links lurk in email and social media. Here are two ways to avoid them.

First, when in doubt, hover over a link to see its true address. For example, the text might say “Social Security” but the underlying link shows something scammy. If you hover and don’t get a preview, right-click the text, choose “copy link” and paste it into a Word document or some kind of notepad so you can see if the underlying address matches the words in the link.  Even better, avoid the link. Go straight to the site you want, such as SSA.gov.

It’s also a good idea to avoid clicking links in Facebook and other social media sites, even when posted by your friends.

Using Windows as Solar Panels

The problem with using traditional solar panels as windows is that we can’t see out of them. But Ubiquitous Energy, a solar tech company founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has come up with a solution.

With an invisible glass coating that doesn’t use the whole spectrum of light, they make the world’s first electricity-generating alternative to traditional windows. In this way, skyscrapers become vertical solar farms, offsetting 30 percent of their energy usage.

Internut

OpenToDebate.org stages fascinating debates online. Starting September 8th, they’re offering: “Does America Need a Third Party?” Andrew Yang, former Presidential candidate and founder of the Forward Party says “yes,” it would decrease polarization. Daniel DiSalvo, political science professor and Manhattan Institute fellow, says “no,” it encourages vote-splitting, allowing unpopular candidates to win.

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