Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to fabricate video and audio of people doing and saying things they never did or said. Hollywood has used deepfakes in movies, and museums are exploring them as ways to animate famous paintings and bring long-gone artists to life. But the same technology is being used for sexual harassment in cyberspace and threatening to foment chaos in the 2020 election cycle. How do deepfakes work? What lies ahead? What can be done? These issues were explored on September 27, 2019, in two programs organized by the Future of Information Alliance.

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¡Flash!  The Joy of Search is now available in your local bookstore!  I stopped by my local bookstore (Kepler’s in Menlo Park, CA) and was just browsing new releases on the “Big Ideas” table.  Lo and behold… there is was!&nbs…

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This was supposed to be simple… … but as we know, even simple Research Questions can sometimes be more complicated than you’d think.  Here’s what I did in each case… 1.  I’ve got a BIG (4 meters tall!) trellis of green be…

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Okay… by now I’m almost back into my Californian mindset…  … but our Challenge from last week still remains.  Remember, I asked:  While there, I saw lots of wildlife.  Such as this anemonefish I found on Raiatea,&nbs…

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A couple of weeks ago…… I asked what I thought was a simple question about “lanes” of quiet water that one can see on bodies of water.  Here’s that Challenge:  2.  As we’re sailing from place to place, it’s not uncommon to see l…

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