Latest news with #informationoverload
ABC News
08-07-2025
- ABC News
Erin Patterson's trial revealed our need for moral certainty in uncertain times
It is an odd conundrum of modern life that the more frenzied the proliferation of information with which we are pelted daily, on every subject imaginable, the more voracious and unreasonable becomes our appetite for moral clarity. Of the data presently available on the internet world wide, approximately 90 per cent was created in the last two years. Probably not even a fifth of that data comprises hot takes on the Mushroom Murders, but the trial of Erin Patterson certainly provides a neat example of how humans behave when swamped with too much information. The escalating daily assault of data on our brains — war, horror, destruction, dead sea creatures on Adelaide beaches, dead children in Texas rivers, Italian brain-rot, the power-sucking zombie creep of AI — what does it really make us feel like doing? Turns out it makes millions of us feel like getting to the bottom of whether Patterson really did have mismatched plates. That's what. The only solution, perhaps, to this misery of overwhelm and huge things, is to pursue aggressive certainty about smaller things. And to find ourselves in company with others who also are sure. How odd, that an endless torrent of context and nuance should inflame, in humans, an urgent need to abolish all traces of doubt. We need people to be good, or to be evil. We need a cause to be unimpeachable, or reprehensible. How else to explain the unscratchable itch that the trial of Erin Patterson has become for humans all over the world? It's not the blamelessness of the dead generating traffic volumes here; Patterson's three victims and sole survivor are surely that, but their names swirl quickly away in the tally of humans who have died horribly and unfairly, even in this week alone. And while chat forums and podcasts discussing the case often carry a virtuous disclaimer that the real tragedy here is of course the loss of innocent life, there's no doubt at all that the juice in the system of this content behemoth is the perfidy or otherwise of the chef herself. The trial unfurled the kind of detail that is now common in murder trials and would have been inconceivable a generation ago; hot-tempered exchanges that once would have wafted away on the air are now immortalised by messaging apps. Pings from mobile phone towers point an accusatory finger. Closed circuit TV sequences are excavated, along with the damning, unscrubbable images of a dehydrator. A Facebook thread in which an outburst about in-laws, suspended forever like a mosquito in amber, suddenly reanimates and buzzes back to torment its author. This wealth of detail, along with DNA technology, makes the job of detectives and juries easier of course, in one sense. There's more evidence. But the jobs of "detective" and "juror" are harder now, too, simply by virtue of the fact that they're contestable now. We're all detectives. We're all jurors. The justice system — like so many institutions, whether their business be public policy or news reporting or weather forecasting or epidemiology — has been violently democratised by disruptive technology. The jury system was originally conceived to ensure that defendants would be judged not by elites but by a group of utterly unremarkable peers. But now, jurors are remarkable in one key respect: they're the only humans during a criminal trial who aren't allowed to google the key players and undertake a spot of online sleuthing. The rest of us — having not only access to the trial evidence in real time but also the ability to form our own opinions without much by way of structural constraint — are free to succumb to that uniquely modern act of self-soothing, the sorting of ourselves into prejudicial tribes. In his 2020 book Why We Are Polarised, Ezra Klein argues that the formation of tribes has to do with the human brain's incapacity to accommodate the vast new tides of information that swamp the world. "We are exquisitely tuned to understand and manage our role in the small, necessary groups that defined our world as hunter-gatherers, but we've not had long to adjust to the digitised, globalised, accelerated world we've built," Klein writes. "The sensitivities that helped us thrive within the interplay of a few groups of a few hundred people can drive us mad when exposed to the scale, noise, and sophisticated manipulations of modern capitalism and politics." How mad? In the case of the criminal trial of the moment, this hunger for simplicity, for clarity, for fellow feeling, for quiet, might lead us to Reddit threads or podcasts or scans of iNaturalist in search of the exhilaration that accompanies the certainty that another human being is absolutely black of heart. In other more extreme contexts that same hunger might lead us to dox someone, or storm a building, or trash a synagogue. The jury in the Patterson trial — a dozen Gippsland locals whose names we don't know — were sequestered for a week. They delivered an answer on Monday, and were allowed to go home with the commendation of the presiding judge. Unlike American jurors, they cannot be identified by name or give interviews. Unlike judges who hear criminal cases in the Australian jurisdictions which allow trials by judge alone (NSW, SA, WA, Queensland and the ACT), they are not required to provide grounds for their decision. So juries, in Australia, find themselves in a weird situation. The job they do is publicly, flappingly contestable. They may find themselves — as did the Morwell Twelve — at the centre of a live-action drama commanding global attention. But their own reasoning, unlike that of every pub galah on Reddit, stays hidden forever. Only conjecture — or painstaking simulations, like Tosca Looby's recent SBS series, Jury: Death On The Staircase, in which cameras monitored the decision-making process of a jury for whom the entire real-life criminal trial of a Sydney man was recreated by actors — can summon their arguments, their reasons, their midnight moments of self-doubt or epiphany. They remain anonymous. Their job is done. But the vast and clanking business of Mushroom Investigation Inc is unlikely to be crimped by anything so trifling as a verdict supplied by the relevant legal authority. There are documentaries to be made, and a fresh-fallen snowdrift of evidence from the court files to be romped through; messages exchanged between the accused and her victims, and new CCTV of Patterson visiting a service station whilst simultaneously wearing white trousers and experiencing explosive diarrhoea (a detail that launched a thousand opinions). Each new detail delivers a spark of certainty for someone; filaments of context that delivers us, one by one, from evil, having established that it lives in the hearts of others.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Information overload: smartphones are exposing children to an avalanche of irrelevance
More than 80% of children aged ten to 12 in the UK own a smartphone, according to a recent report by media watchdog Ofcom. Many people think this is a bad thing: there has been much debate about whether children should be allowed to have smartphones. The discussions around the potential negative aspects of children's smartphone use often focus on the possible mental health risks of social media, or how spending too much time glued to a screen rather than in nature or interacting with others might affect children. On the other hand, smartphones may help children stay connected and interact with supportive communities. But there's another aspect to this debate: information overload. My research is in the science of information. Here we encounter one of the most fundamental laws of nature, commonly known as the second law of thermodynamics. It says that over time, order is replaced by disorder, and information is overshadowed by noise. Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK's latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences. To understand this idea in the context of messaging, think of the development of communication facilities. A long time ago, when it was difficult to disseminate information – mainly through handwritten letters that might take months to arrive – people would do so only if the information was of importance. You wouldn't expect a friend living a thousand miles away to inform you that their dog had just barked at a neighbour's cat if it meant that missive would physically have to make a journey of a thousand miles. Printing, wire communications, the internet and mobile devices have changed this. With each innovation that eases communication, the quality of information that is transmitted reduces. Nowadays, much of the information surrounding us is noise. By noise, I mean insignificant and irrelevant information that no one needs to know. Nowadays, we know not only that our friend's neighbour's cat has been antagonising a dog, but about the lives of the cats and dogs of countless internet acquaintances and strangers. Increasing noise contamination is a consequence of the law of nature that cannot be beaten easily, if at all. That said, with concerted efforts, sometimes the effect can be reversed momentarily. If irrelevant and insignificant information is 'noise', we can – using the terminology of communication theory – call information of interest the 'signal'. Imagine a child wanting to look up specific information on a smartphone for a school project – one of the planets in the Solar System, perhaps. The webpage they end up on contains a huge amount of unrelated information – reader comments, links to other content, maybe advertisements or videos. To reach the knowledge they are looking for, they will have to wade through, and end up absorbing, a huge amount of unnecessary information. You can think of the proportion of relevant versus irrelevant or incorrect information as the signal-to-noise ratio. A calculation shows that typically, if the noise level doubles, you will have to consume about twice the amount of information to obtain the same level of relevant knowledge. That amounts to doubling your screen time. So, if the noise level were to grow exponentially, as is inevitable from the second law, then you'll have to consume exponentially more messages to get the same amount of relevant information. You'll have to be glued to your smartphone 24-7. This is obviously something we want to avoid – for us and our children. To make matters worse, the information we consume will affect what we consume next, and information overload can negatively affect this process. When this happens, it becomes all too easy to end up hopping from one site to another without gathering any useful information. So is there a way out? Well, the answer, in theory, is simple. We just have to keep the level of noise low. Biological systems in natural environments – that is, without human intervention – tend to maintain stable communication without increasing noise level very much. This is because the methods of communication between animals, typically through sound, olfactory, or visual signals, or between green plants, typically through volatile organic compounds, have hardly changed for thousands of years. Only humans are capable of advancing technologies that significantly increase confusion. Limiting children's access to these technologies means their environment becomes a lot less noisy and more calm. The same, of course, applies to adults. An outright ban on smartphones for children is impractical and possibly unhelpful – but creating an environment in which parents can comfortably say 'no' to a smartphone, or alternatively in which parents can have an open and transparent dialogue with their children on their smartphone use, might work better. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Dorje C. Brody does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Zawya
10-06-2025
- Zawya
What's the significance of AI agents?
Last week, my article revolved around the Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents, being digital assistants and/or helpers that go beyond just responding to user inputs and prompts where they actually act proactively and not reactively to user/your requests. This week, I want to elaborate on what significance do these AI agents have on us? Truth be told, as a senior professional, one can be overwhelmed and loaded too, not just with information as an overload (from news outlets, social media, work, family, etc) yet with personal and professional actions and commitment too (from checking various emails, meetings, projects, and a huge to-do-list that continues to grow periodically) I know some might say that there are productivity tools and apps that might help and be a solution to help manage time and tasks, yet the proof is in the pudding on the number of hours that may be needed which is not enough to be honest and practical. A probable solution is therefore my last article on utilizing AI agents, for they would (as soon as they mature) assist you 24/7 (365 days) on virtually all your tasks, even while you're asleep or is on vacation. What's the significance of these AI agents though? In a nutshell, having someone smart and knowledgeable available next to you, round the clock, to assist you. What more? Quicker, cheaper (in price and not in quality), multitasker, and are very responsive. This may not be practical to have as a human being, let aside the bomb (in terms of cost) you would need to pay if such a service is available, for you may require more-than one person or resource to get such activities done (just incase an organization tries to mimic such a need today). Humans have emotions, humans need time to rest and humans cannot normally handle more-than one task at a time with superior quality. Yet smart machines and robots can (only with limitations as it stands today) AI agents save lots of time. Think of all the repetitive tasks it can do for you every day, from replying to emails, reviewing and summarizing your readings/reports, organizing your digital calendar and many more. All these time-consuming tasks can be freed up for you to focus on other activities that only you can do best (or don't necessarily need assistance with). AI agents learn and can adapt quite fast, thanks to the large language models (LLMs) which I will try and write about in the coming articles. But briefly, LLMs get smart every day by learning from a context, applying some logic and/or sometimes also get creative. As a pratical example, see how generative AI apps like ChatGPT and Gemini works (they all depend on LLMs). Lastly, AI agents biggest significance, as I had mentioned earlier, is that they work while you are asleep. They don't take break, don't ask for leave, and certainly are not moody (as they don't have emotions as humans do). This is a big bonus of working with AI agents. To conclude, AI agents would be able to think, plan and act on your behalf. What you just need to do is to give them a goal (such as 'Find me a restaurant here in Muscat that serves Mandi Rice, and is at a place near the beach, and book for me at 12 p.m. next Saturday the 14th June'). The AI agent will find out the steps, look for the information, and get you the results so as perform the necessary booking for you. AI agents will surely redefine what's possible by making life management much easier and faster; something I personally need to keep abreast. Until we catch up again next week, stay positive and tuned. 2022 © All right reserved for Oman Establishment for Press, Publication and Advertising (OEPPA) Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
New York Times
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
It's Still South by Southwest, but This Time It's in London
The artist known as Beeple set a record in 2021 when a work of his — a collage of 5,000 images that existed only as a digital file — sold for $69.3 million in a Christie's auction. Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, is one of the artists participating in the inaugural edition of South by Southwest London, the music, film and tech festival. This time, he is presenting 'The Tree of Knowledge,' a critique of the human addiction to smartphones. 'People don't fully recognize how much their phone is stressing them out,' and how much they're 'dialing up the noise,' Beeple said in a phone interview. 'They could make the choice to dial down the noise, and just put their phone down, and exist in a much more calm state in which technology still exists.' The work is a refrigerator-size box containing a giant tree (recreated via projection mapping), with screens on all sides, and a large dial. When viewers turn the dial, the box is covered with live news, stock prices and data, illustrating the information overload faced by humanity. 'The Tree of Knowledge' encapsulates the spirit of South by Southwest London, which begins on Monday and runs through June 7. The event will feature a diverse group of speakers, including the ABBA singer-songwriter Bjorn Ulvaeus, the actor Idris Elba, the wellness and meditation expert Deepak Chopra, the primatologist Jane Goodall and the comedian Katherine Ryan. There will also be voices from the technology world, including Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google's DeepMind lab and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; and Alex Kendall, the chief executive of Wayve, a developer of artificial intelligence systems for self-driving cars. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
