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There were thousands of mysterious holes lined up in Peru. We didn’t know why until a drone saw them from the air

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In the arid hills of Pisco Valleyin the south of Peru, extends a monument as mysterious as it is precise: a strip of almost a kilometer and a half made up of some 5,200 perfectly aligned cavities, known like Mount Sierpe or the Band of Holes. Discovered in 1931 by the geologist Robert Shippee and Lieutenant George R. Johnson during one of the first aerial expeditions over the Andes, the site baffled generations of archaeologists. Until now. A mysterious landscape. For decades, theories were proposed ranging from its defensive use to fog capture or water storage, but none of them quite fit. Now, a new study published in Antiquity provides a convincing hypothesis from a point of view that no one had valued: from the air. In this way, Mount Sierpe would have functioned as a accounting and barter system on a large scale, a kind of “spreadsheet” of the pre-Hispanic Andes. The geometry that speaks. The international team of researchers, led by archaeologist Jacob Bongers from the University of Sydney, used drones to map the site with millimeter precision. Aerial images revealed an organized structure into about 60 blocks or sections, each with distinct alignments and regular number patterns. Some areas show rows of nine by eight holesothers alternate between groups of seven and eight. This internal order, absent any defensive or agricultural logic, suggests an administrative purpose. Sediment analyzes extracted microscopic remains corn, totora and willow (plants traditionally used to make baskets and mats), which suggests that the cavities were lined with plant fibers and were used to store goods, possibly in packages or braided baskets. The holes of Mount Sierpe From local barter to administration. Researchers believe that Monte Sierpe was born as a space for exchange between highland and coastal communities, an organized market for balance the flow of goods in the absence of currency. Products (for example, corn, coca or cotton) could be deposited in each cavity as a visible representation of the value of one good compared to another, allowing quantities to be compared in a public and transparent manner. Centuries later, with the expansion of inca empirethat system would have been reinterpreted and expanded as an accounting tool to manage the tribute of local populations. Each block of holes would have corresponded to a different community group, and the variations in number and arrangement would reflect the contribution levels or work shifts required by the Inca State. In essence, Monte Sierpe would have been a physical data recorda stone matrix destined to organize the unwritten economy of the Andean world. A carved khipu. The most revealing finding is the similarity between the structure of the site and the Inca khipusthe rope systems with knots used to record censuses, taxes or resources. One of the khipus found near Pisco presents around 80 groups of lacesa figure surprisingly close to the 60 segments of Monte Sierpe. This correspondence suggests that the Band of Holes could have been a three-dimensional khipua monumental version of that woven numerical language, designed to coordinate the flow of goods and work between communities. Unlike the tablets or inscriptions of other civilizations, the Andean peoples turned geography itself into a support for information. Code in the desert. If you also want, Monte Sierpe redefines our understanding of pre-columbian organizational intelligence. Without writing, without currency and in a hostile environment, Andean societies managed to develop a visual, modular and mathematical method to represent their economy. Each hole would have been a cell a great living recordmanaged collectively, perhaps accompanied by ceremonies or ritual exchanges. Thus, in its apparent geometric simplicity, this “spreadsheet” carved into the rock reveals a advanced economic systembased on reciprocity and communal control of resources. What for the first explorers were simple rows of holes now emerge as the physical testimony of a civilization that, centuries before European contact, had already found its own way of turning the landscape into memory. Image | JL Bongers In Xataka | We have found 76 megatraps in the Andes. It’s amazing we hadn’t done it before. In Xataka | A secret room has just revealed how they ruled in Peru 2,000 years ago: with the help of drugs

Years ago we discovered that our ancestors’ dreams were not like ours. There are now thousands of people trying to introduce biphasic sleep into their lives.

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It’s two or three in the morning and something clicks in your eyes. You wake up. There are five seconds of disorientation. You try to go back to sleep, but many people can’t. In fact, those early morning awakenings they become a curse. Therefore, when they see on social networks that there are experts who recommend sleeping in two blocks (either in more); What’s more, when they read that biphasic sleep It is ‘normal’ biologically speakingthey think maybe they don’t have a problem. Maybe, just maybe, society has the problem. What is true in all this? How human beings sleep. A few years ago, historian Thomas Ekirch discovered recurring references to “first dreams.” It was not something isolated: he found them in documents that covered not only the Middle Ages but also the modern age. Many centuries of “first dreams” that contrasted with the fact that, in short, he did not know what they were talking about. He decided to investigate it in detail and, with this, he managed compile a series of tests historiographical evidence of the existence of a biphasic dream in these periods: according to their research, the first dream lasted from 9 to 11 at night. Then there would be a period of wakefulness (which is dedicated to the most diverse activities: chatting, praying, visiting neighbors…) and, subsequently, there would be another period of sleeping again until dawn. It’s not just something historical. Seduced by Ekirch’s ideas, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr performed an experiment with 15 subjects who were left without artificial light. He found that under certain restrictions (basically limiting their leisure activities), participants adopted a biphasic pattern. This has triggered the ‘two-phase evangelizers’. And, in fact, it is increasingly common to find people who defend it. The problem is that this ‘natural’ pattern is highly debatable. Yes, in the pre-industrial European era many slept in two phases: but that is not ‘natural’. As Wehr himself discovered, it is, in any case, the natural adaptation to short days (around 10 hours). If we go closer to the equator, where the days are more stable, the anthropological evidence does not find the same patterns. What does this mean? That there are no magical ways. If we review the research on naps, for example, we will see cases in which there is a lower cardiovascular risk and others in which cardiometabolic risk skyrockets. Here we are defenders of the napbut only when it makes sense. The bottom line here is that lack of sleep or poor quality sleep has been linked to immunological problems, metaboliccardiac, psychological and cognitive. Not only that, the scientific literature is full of studies showing an increase in coronary heart diseaseof the diabetes and of the obesity. To make matters worse, social problems they are also on the agenda. The important thing, therefore, is to find a way of sleeping that works for us. And for this we have some tricks. a lot of tricks: turn sleep into a routine (whatever it may be), exercise throughout the day, do not consume substances that affect it, relax and use our physiology to our advantage. However, the central trick is not to overwhelm ourselves. As we said years agothe idea behind all sleep experts is that, we can use certain techniques to help us sleep, but the only way to cultivate restful sleep is to reconcile ourselves to it. Image | Mussi Katz In Xataka | When “dying of sleep” is literal: This is how not sleeping can kill us

What happens to human creativity when thousands of human creatives fall in love with AI

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It is not every day that one attends an event taking a walk with the sea and the sunrise in the background. But that’s just what happened to us Upscale Confa conference organized by the Spanish company freepik. The objective: to serve as a meeting point for a creative community that is absolutely dedicated to the world of AI. It is the third edition of Upscale Confthe second in Malaga —San Francisco was the other venue in May—and it is clear that we are facing what is little by little becoming one of the great events of the intersection between human creativity and creativity? of generative AI models. It doesn’t seem like attendees have too many doubts about it. After the almost inevitable queue for accreditations, two days of talks, workshops and much, much begin. networking. Showing a QR code on your mobile to connect to LinkedIn is the modern version of the business cards of yesteryear. To me, a very occasional user of this network, I find that surprising and very invasive: hey, I might not want to follow you on LinkedIn. I liked it better when you simply asked for the email—which didn’t commit you as much—and even more when people gave you their business card, which was almost like a trading card from before. You didn’t just keep business cards: you almost collected them. That time seems to have almost vanished. AI democratizes creativity made into an image Be that as it may, once inside the atmosphere is surprisingly optimistic. No one here seems to be worried about being replaced by an AI, something that It has already begun to be seen in China in 2023 in creative works. There are no nerves or restlessness in the respectable: only expectation and acceptance of an apparent reality. The one that AI is here and no one is going to stop it. Compared to other conferences with a more technical background, here is a scent of discovery. Wanting to know what this can give. To listen to the people who are trying to be the spearhead explain how their relationship with AI is going in what was theoretically the last frontier that AI would never conquer, human creativity. I come across attendees from here and there and I ask two of them what their motivation is for attending Upscale Conf. Andy and Antonio are from a tourism agency in Malaga and they explain to me that they already use AI in the software development part, but curiously, not so much in the visual and creative part. The argument is forceful: “in the tourism sector, using artificial photos can be very dangerous.” And yet, they come to take the pulse of this apparent revolution and learn from it. What I find everywhere are very diverse profiles and, curiously, not necessarily linked to the creative segment. I speak with (another) Antonio, who like me has gray hair and who, like me, is also optimistic about the future of AI. He is not creative, but rather helps companies understand the potential of AI for a fundamental aspect: productivity. And like the kids from Malaga, you are here to learn, discover and be inspired. Four guys who are talking animatedly tell me the same thing practically when I interrupt them and ask them what sectors they come from. There is a little bit of everything. One of the boys, a content creator, took advantage of current tools to demonstrate that kitten olympics They can have a lot of pull. DEPT’s Marten Kuipers made it clear that not everyone sees this creative AI thing as a good idea. He, like the rest of the attendees, has a different opinion. Two others, in the real estate segment, are investigating possible uses of generative image and video AI for their business. The fourth, in the consulting branch, explains to me that the other great reason is not only to learn, but a classic of events: networking. Meet people and make yourself known. Putting faces to people with whom you had been exchanging messages for months (or years?) on Twitter (sorry, X) or on Instagram or LinkedIn. From IG or TikTok influencers to creatives who take advantage of AI But in all cases, we insist, absolutely optimistic atmosphere between professionals from both sides who seem to see this as an opportunity. One in which some are certainly making gold: several of the speakers at the event are new stars in the firmament of content creators. PJ Accetturo during his presentation explaining how to make a viral video. The idea is still the important thing, the process and the prompts are surprisingly “normal”. For example, PJ Accetturo, creator of the famous trailer for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in Studio Ghibli style…before OpenAI I would copy the idea. Or Yonatan Dor, who have managed to get their gritty videos created with AI—using the image of Trump, Musk or Kamala Harris—become viral phenomena that already have hundreds of millions of visits. AI helps, but it doesn’t come close to doing everything. Laura Pin showed in her 90-minute workshop how she combines Midjourney, nanobanana, Magnific, Topaz AI, Photoshop and Lightroom to achieve just what she had in her head. The attention to detail is extraordinary. We walked through the different conferences and workshops and, as in any event, we found a little of everything. The days begin with the entrance of Linus Ekenstam (@LinusEkenstam), popularizer and influencer of this segment, who acts as master of ceremonies throughout the event. As a good communicator, you know some useful tricks: Start with a good personal story to hook attendees. He tells how when he was little a friend gave him a computer and he slept with the machine next to him, like a stuffed animal, because he was afraid that that treasure would be stolen. Joaquín Cuenca, CEO of Freepik, announcing the launch of the new collaborative service on his platform, called Freepik Spaces. Then it comes Joaquin Cuencafounder and CEO … Read more

Synthetic influencers are already selling in the thousands. A startup offers them as a service to manipulate networks

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Influencer accounts created by AI are already a reality, some even have hundreds of thousands of followers. There is a startup that has taken this idea to the next level: they create and manage synthetic influencers to orchestrate massive actions on different platforms, all using AI. Their website reads “Never pay a human again”, a true declaration of intent. Doublespeed. It is the name of the startup that offers the service. Using AI, they create the accounts of these fake influencers and also the content, all with minimal human intervention, just a few finishing touches. Its goal is to “orchestrate actions on thousands of social accounts through the creation and massive deployment of content.” They count in 404media that the startup is financed by the Andreessen Horowitzone of the most important venture capital funds in Silicon Valley. Make it look human. The platforms have systems to detect bots, but at Doublespeed they have the solution to make their AI influencers appear human to the algorithms. In addition, the accounts they offer have been used, since newly created accounts with hardly any interactions are easier to detect as bots. The company’s co-founder, Zuhair Lakhani, said in a podcast that use a “mobile farm” (like the click farms) to manage all their accounts and boasted that one client got almost 5 million views in less than a month with 15 of these AI influencers. Raising the level. He astroturfing It is a tactic through which artificial opinions are generated that seek to appear real and spontaneous, all in order to give an impression of support (or rejection) of a topic or product. What Doublespeed does is next level, creating not only the message, but the “persona” who spreads it. Doublespeed sells “packs” between $1,500 and $7,500, depending on the number of posts they want to generate. Cons the rules. The point is that this practice goes against the rules of the main platforms, such as Meta, which they expressly say that accounts that “make a misleading representation of identity to deceive or confuse people” will not be allowed. It is not the first company to offer services of this type, What is striking is that it has one of the largest funds in the world behind it. dead internet. Is a conspiracy theory which says that the internet is full of bots and humans have been replaced by algorithms. There is some truth in it. According to the cybersecurity company Imperva, in 2024 more than half of internet traffic was non-human. With the emergence of AI, networks were flooded with AI Slop and now it also comes in the form of fake influencers. Image | Reshma Mallecha, Pexels In Xataka | The more we know about the evolution of the internet, the closer we come to a conclusion: bots can kill it

Thousands of people bought the “romantasy” fashion book because it was cute. An unpleasant surprise awaited them.

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The consumerist desire that invades any area of ​​our lives also contaminates our hobbies. We are no longer talking about your identity being determined by your style when it comes to dressing or the music you listen to; Now, not missing the latest literary viral phenomenon in #Booktok also forms that identity that is built through what we consume. And if not tell everyone who bought ‘Catabasis‘, the author’s new novel RF Kuangfor its colorful edition and supposed themes related to a whole legion of readers, only to end up with a disappointment that leads them to abandon it after a few pages. Be aware of the latest news and let your private library be ground zero of your literary diogenes, full of those decorated songs so instagrammableis a new aspect of consumerism. The essential thing is not to search and select a book that suits your taste or surprises you, but to look for that pompous edition in trend on Tiktok. With the rise and increase in the number of readers has given way to a community on social networks that consumes books, mostly from a specific genrehe romanticasyand that follows like a mantra literary fashion of the month. As we have mentioned, marketing strategies can confuse the public and in order to attract the largest number of buyers, sometimes blur categories and genres that should be delimited. The fever for colored songs As a regular reader, it is healthy to get out of that nebula and inform yourself well about the reading you are going to do or, on the contrary, go with an open mind and let yourself go when starting those new pages. Because if you don’t, you can come to ‘Catábasis’ looking for a romance within an academic-fantastic environment and end up with your head full of equations, formulas and philosophical postulates. If we dive in reviews from ‘Catábasis’, we will find an alleged romance Dark Academia with the clichés of rivals to lovers (rivals to lovers), forced proximity (forced proximity) or one bed (the famous trope of rom-coms where the protagonists are forced to share a single bed). This would lead us to place our perception of the work in an erroneous perspective. The novel has been sold as if it were addressed to the general public, when It’s niche. Doctoral thesis, graphic description. RF Kuang is not your typical romance writer. In his previous books such as the ‘Poppy War’ trilogy (named by Time as one of ‘The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time‘) we find an epic fantasy of Asian inspiration; in ‘Babel’, a criticism of British imperialism; and in ‘Amarilla’, a satire on the publishing world. Perhaps it is from there that we have to establish the starting point of ‘Catábasis’. It may be that the public has been launched en masse to buy Kuang’s new novel infected by expectations, but just look at social networks to see that the outcome has been disappointing for not a few. The result of this phenomenon is curious because the criticisms of Kuang’s novel are based, for the most part, on issues that have little to do with its theme or the characters. It seemed that part of the book’s audience, directly, I didn’t know what he was facing. On this occasion the #Booktok community was a victim of “what goes” and an elegant and striking edition: but, dear readers, not everything has to be romance and romanticasy. This lucrative sales strategy that consists of labeling all the literary novelties under clichés that are associated with romance to attract more attention ends up being a double-edged sword for books like Kuang’s. hell is a campus In this new novel we find the story of two Cambridge doctoral students who, after the death of their thesis advisor, decide to travel to hell to look for him and obtain a letter of recommendation that will determine their professional future. And yes, we can accept the label Dark Academia since it has several of its elements, just as we also find a romance that floods and emerges throughout the story; but ‘Catabasis’ (a Greek term that refers to the descent to hell and subsequent exit from it), is about something else. RF Kuang, in essence, uses the underworld as MacGuffin to create a critique and a satire of the academic world through a raw and realistic vision. Sounds good, maybe not so good. The author shoots us with scenes in offices that cause more chills than Dante’s own inferno; while talking about toxic rivalries, directors who abuse their power, gender inequality and academic obsession with knowledge. And, despite fantasy and a system of magic based on logic and paradox, these unreal situations trigger a conversation and social criticism about the academy. While the protagonists Alice and Peter wander through the “eight circles of hell” we are immersed in numerous philosophical and mathematical elements. Dante, Piranesi, the myth of Orpheus or the scrolls of Hecate are part of the daily narrative. The book is full of mathematical theories, academic references, and terms that will make you stop several times to do a Google search. The fact that for some doctoral students hell is, literally, their own university, already makes us suspect that we are not facing a rivals to lovers to use; not even in the face of academic criticism of Ali Hazelwood style. ‘Catabasis’ is dense and requires active reading; In fact, we can say that it is an essay disguised as a novel that sometimes sacrifices the rhythm of the plot or its development in favor of the style and ideas it wants to convey. With an acidic, witty and harsh tone, Kuang uses Alice as the epicenter of the narrative. A character who is not designed to make you like him, but to embody the loss of health and identity caused by the pressure of his tutor and the academic environment. The message that we can filter is quite clear: Sartre said that … Read more

The first nest of Asian hornets in Andalusia was more than seven kilos and had thousands of larvae about to emerge. It’s not good news

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The 7.5 kilo nest, located 10 meters high in a pine tree in Alhaurín de la Torre. This mass full of thousands of larvae has the dubious honor of being the first Asian wasp nest detected in Andalusia. A species that, it is worth remembering has killed three people in Galicia in the last two weeks. “We caught it on time,” explained Alvaro Garciafrom the pest control company Lucanus. “If we had left it a few more days, hundreds of fertile queens would have emerged, and that would be unstoppable.” And yet, the relief of having stopped the expansion of the velutina throughout the most populated community in Spain has been followed by something else: the anxiety generated by knowing that we have found them by pure chance. What if by chance? The discovery It was due to Eduardo Sáezthe biologist who owns the farm where the nest was found. Sáez is not an expert on wasps, but upon seeing him he realized that it was not normal and raised the alarm. Given this, it seems inevitable to ask not only what would have happened if they had not “caught it in time”; but if it really has been like that. Is there not one but dozens of Asian wasp nests maturing in Andalusia without anyone noticing? What is the vespa velutina? The Vespa velutina nigrithoraxnative to Southeast Asia, is an invasive species that arrived in Europe in 2004. It is not difficult to identify itbut it is not something trivial either: it is larger than the common wasp (up to 3.5 cm), it is darker and has an almost completely black abdomen. After expanding from Cantabria, the Basque Country and Galicia throughout the north of the peninsula, it is growing at a rate of 80 kilometers per year. In addition, and if that were not enough, it feeds on fruit, bees and other pollinating animals. To this, of course, we must add that this type of wasps are especially aggressive. Didier Descouens And in response to that, Alhaurín has taken a desperate measure. The municipality of Malaga, recognizing that it is unable to trace its entire area to ensure that the velutina is not growing elsewhere, has requested citizen collaboration: Dozens of neighbors and volunteers have supported the call and are combing the Pinos de Alhaurín area. This obviously entails security risks (due to improper approach to the nests) and false positives (putting other species at risk). However, the situation is very complicated. We must not forget that Málaga has been fighting against Vespa orientalisadding the velutina would be a disaster for provincial beekeeping (and for another half dozen sectors). Why this urgency? Because, as its impact has shown in the north of the peninsula and endorses technical literatureOnce it enters an ecosystem, eradicating it is almost impossible. And the city councils do not have enough of their own equipment to deal with this type of threats. Above all, in a context in which both climate change and anarchic urbanization have made it incredibly easy. A problem that goes beyond beekeeping. And, as I said, in less than two weeks and in the middle of autumn, three men have lost their lives in Galicia due to stings from velutina wasps. It is true that these are deaths related to “severe allergic reactions”, but that does not make the situation any more reassuring. We must not forget that Galicia has been fighting this insect for 15 years with massive trapping and nest removal programs. Without any success. In fact, according to the Xuntawe are experiencing an “extraordinary increase” due to “enormous adaptability” and asks for “caution, especially in the case of allergic people.” Image | Francis ITHURBURU In Xataka | After centuries of disappearance, there are people releasing beavers into the Tagus and other rivers in Spain. The problem is that we don’t know who

Amazon is not done with layoffs, according to Reuters. A new round will affect thousands of employees starting this week

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Amazon is preparing for a new wave of layoffs that could reach up to 30,000 corporate jobs starting this Tuesday, according to information provided by Reuters. The stated objective within the company is to cut expenses and correct the oversizing of personnel derived from the years of greatest demand during the pandemic. The news agency points out that, if confirmed at these levels, it would be the largest internal adjustment since the around 27,000 cuts that began at the end of 2022. The new cut comes in a context of constant changes within Amazon since Andy Jassy assumed executive management. In these three years, the company has alternated layoffs and new hires. The first wave of mass layoffs under Jassy took place in November 2022 and mainly affected the Devices and Services teams. Since then, the company has continued to review its internal structure in search of a balance between efficiency and growth. The figures. The plan contemplates up to 30,000 corporate cuts, according to the aforementioned media, which is equivalent to almost 10% of Amazon’s approximately 350,000 office employees. In its total global workforce, of about 1.55 million people, it represents a smaller fraction, but the internal impact would be considerable. If confirmed, it would be the company’s largest personnel adjustment since the around 27,000 positions eliminated between 2022 and 2023. The exact figure could vary depending on the financial priorities of each division. Where it impacts. The most affected divisions will be, according to Reuters, the Human Resources departments – known internally as People Experience and Technology –, along with the Devices and Services areas, and part of the operations. In the last two years, Amazon had already made minor cuts to several of these teams, including communications and podcasts. The new departures, which begin this week, point to a broader reorganization within corporate structures. Why now. Since his arrival, Andy Jassy has promoted a restructuring aimed at reducing what he himself described as excessive bureaucracy. Its strategy includes cutting hierarchical levels and promoting the use of artificial intelligence to optimize internal work. Jassy had already anticipated in June that the advancement of these tools would cause new cuts, by automating routine tasks. How will you communicate? The management teams began internal training this Monday to manage communication with affected employees, according to the sources consulted. Email notifications are scheduled for Tuesday morning, when the process will formally begin. Amazon wants area managers to be able to answer their teams’ questions and offer support during the transition. While preparing this internal adjustment, Amazon is heading towards a new Christmas season that promises to be intense. The company plans to hire about 250,000 temporary employees to reinforce its logistics centers, the same figure as in the previous two years. Next Thursday it will present its third quarter results, where it is expected to detail the impact of its internal reorganization and forecasts for the end of the year. Images | Amazon (1, 2) | tonodiaz In Xataka | The striking thing is not that Accenture is laying off 11,000 workers for AI: it is that it is hiring many more for AI

the trauma of thousands of underpaid workers in developing countries

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He data labeling It is a necessary step so that learning models can understand them and thus learn. It’s the ScaleAI business, Alexandr Wang’s company recently valued at $29 billion. However, not everyone involved in data labeling enjoys this status. Much of this work is carried out by workers in poor countries, poorly paid and involves very unpleasant tasks. what’s happening. The advancement of artificial intelligence requires an enormous amount of data labeling. They count in AFP that this work is usually done by workers who reside in impoverished countries such as Kenya, Colombia or India. In addition to being very poorly paid, the job often requires them to review very unpleasant images. For example, for an AI to write an autopsy report, taggers must view hundreds of images of real crimes. The work. It consists of reviewing and labeling files, most often images. It does not require a degree, just knowing how to use a computer and demonstrating that you can think analytically. The ease of access means that many people in vulnerable situations turn to this type of work. The problem is that, to get a decent salary, they have to work long hours, up to 16 hours a day in some casesand also many times the content they must label is violent and extreme. AI moderators. It is a situation similar to the one that moderators of different platforms have been denouncing for years. We recently talked about the lawsuit that a former Chaturbate moderator had imposed on the company. There are other cases like that of Facebook moderators in Barcelona who denounced the company due to the psychological trauma that filtering all that content caused them. Invisible. The data labeling market generated 3.8 billion dollars in 2024 and is expected to grow to 17 billion in the next five years. However, those who make it possible work in very poor conditions. A Colombian worker tells AFP that data taggers are “like ghosts. No one knows we exist even though we are contributing to the technological progress of society.” Better conditions. There was no legislation in Kenya, but data taggers have been organized to achieve regulation and have better working conditions. They denounce the lack of psychological support they receive and demand formal employment contracts, a fair salary that reflects their work and the fundamental right to rest. This mobilization seeks to guarantee a more dignified work environment and protect the rights of these essential workers in the artificial intelligence industry. The platforms. The most mentioned is Remotasks, a subsidiary of Scale AI that has been the subject of protests in countries such as Kenya, Venezuela and the Philippines for defaults and problematic practices. The company defends himself and ensures that they offer “fair and competitive remuneration.” Last year closed its doors in Kenya after workers complained publicly. There are more like the Australian Appen or Sama, a subcontractor of companies like Meta and OpenAI that was sued in Kenya due to poor working conditions and also ceased its activity. The human cost. There is growing concern about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence, that requires large amounts of energy to run, especially due to the training and operation of complex models. However, there is not only an energy and natural resource cost, but also a significant human cost that seems to be going more unnoticed. Image | Christina Morillo, Pexels In Xataka | There are 60 countries that have signed an agreement for “open”, “inclusive” and “safe” AI. And two that don’t: the US and the United Kingdom

A man had access to the Government’s nuclear secrets. Until he uploaded thousands of porn photos to his work computer

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Using your work computer for personal things is a delicate area that can be reason for dismissal. This worker from the US Department of Energy has discovered it by force after uploading hundreds of thousands of pornographic images on his company computer. What has happened? They tell it in 404Medium. In March 2023, the employee wanted to back up his photo collection. He thought he was uploading the images to his personal hard drive, but it was connected to his work computer and he ended up making the copy where it wasn’t. The problem is that it was not a normal collection of photos, but more than 187,000 pornographic images that he had been collecting over several decades. Although he did not lose his job, his mistake has had consequences and the main one is that he has lost his security clearance. To train AI. The employee defended himself by arguing that this happened during a depressive episode in which he felt “extremely isolated and alone.” One of his distractions at this stage was creating images with AI, specifically “robotic porn.” At first he used his cell phone, but tired of using such a small screen, he thought it was a good idea to upload all his pornographic images to the computer to train the AI. The problem is that he did not upload them to his hard drive, but rather they ended up on the network of a government company. Goodbye accreditation. The employee did not realize his mistake until six months later. It was the time it took his bosses to investigate the origin of that enormous amount of porn photos flooding their servers. The result was that his security clearance was withdrawn. The Department of Energy is the in charge of supervising the US nuclear arsenalso we are talking about access to very sensitive information. The worker appealed to get it back, but after an exhaustive investigation, they decided not to return it. If he had not appealed, the story would not have been made public. My boss spies on me. It is one of the reasons that the man presented in his appeal, which compared the investigation to “the Spanish Inquisition.” What does the law say about this? According to expertsAlthough they let us use it for personal things, we should not expect to have privacy on a company-owned computer. Some companies even pre-install software to measure the time employees work. Control programs. Can they force you to install one of these programs? A few years ago we talked about installing software to control the work of remote employees and Joaquín Muñoz, an expert lawyer in digital law, resolved our doubt: the company cannot force us to install a program of this type if the computer we use to work is ours, but if it belongs to the company they can do so. Of course, they are obliged to report in detail about all the functions of said software. Image | Gemini In Xataka | “These are things that a university student would get in trouble for”: Deloitte scammed Australia with a report made with AI

Red Eléctrica asked for calm. Immediately afterwards, thousands of Spaniards flocked to buy generators and camping gas.

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“The ghost of the great blackout has once again haunted Spain,” This is how my partner summed it up after learning that Red Eléctrica Española had detected new “sudden voltage variations” in the peninsular network. The news was enough to reactivate a recent fear: being left in the dark again. And with that fear, the fever for forecasts also ignited. In search of forecasts. Demand for products related to energy supply and survival has increased by 76%, according to data from the European price comparator Idealo. Among which stand out stoves and camping gas, with an increase of 253%, followed by power stations at 87%, radios at 56% and portable batteries at 49%. Interest in products such as water purification tablets has also skyrocketed by 20% and flashlights by 14%. An alert that set off the alarms. The alert issued by Red Eléctrica Española October 7 was enough to put the population on guard. Although the company assured that the voltage fluctuations “do not pose an imminent risk of a blackout,” the population reacted quickly. Many households, still with fresh memories of the April 28 blackout, began to reinforce their domestic emergency kits, as recommended the European Commission at the beginning of the year. The great precedent. The current prudence is not accidental. Half a year ago, the peninsula suffered a blackout that left the entire country without power for more than twelve hours. During that day, the chaos moved to the stores: endless lines and empty shelves in hardware stores and large stores. Servimedia data they confirm it: The demand for electric generators shot up by 639% and that for gas camping stoves by 547% in just 24 hours. Mass hysteria or rational prevention? The figures may suggest an emotional reaction, but the data rather points to a new culture of foresight. Before the blackout, only 5% of Spaniards had an emergency kit prepared. After the event, the figure doubled to 10%, and the intention to prepare for it went from 32% to 58%. as detailed on YouGov. The CIS adds that 78% of citizens did not feel afraid during the blackout, although 53.5% acknowledged that they remembered the kit recommended by the EU. Furthermore, 88.2% positively valued the civic and supportive behavior of their neighbors during those hours of darkness. The phenomenon has revived the debate: are we facing a “collective energy hysteria” or a modern form of domestic resilience? The business of self-supply. In a matter of months, concern about a possible power outage has created a new market niche: that of energy self-sufficiency. Sales of generators, solar panels and stoves they multiplied by five after the blackout in April. Large chains such as Leroy Merlin or Decathlon sold out their stocks in hours, while neighborhood hardware stores had their own special August selling flashlights, radios and batteries. The trend has not stopped. From Idealo confirm that the searches of these products continue to rise. In parallel, interest has grown in so-called portable power stations, small devices capable of charging everything from mobile phones to basic appliances, and which are already among the most consulted articles on the internet. “Prepper” culture is normalized. Added to this fever of prevention is the rise of the so-called prepperspeople who prepare for emergencies. In fact, two of them described how the blackout tested their preparedness: Their kits allowed them to cook and stay informed when most people lost power. A phenomenon that, far from eccentricity, reflects a growing search for domestic autonomy. A new energy consciousness? Electrical Network insists that “There is no imminent risk of a blackout,” but citizens—and the market—think differently. The culture of self-sufficiency is no longer a rarity and has become established in the collective mentality. There is no blackout in sight, but there is a change: many prefer to rely on their generator before the electrical system. In times of uncertainty, energy is no longer only measured in kilowatts, but also in peace of mind. Image | FreePik and FreePik Xataka | A ghost haunts Spain: the ghost of another massive blackout caused by network tension problems

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