All articles tagged with #attribution
AI is increasingly essential in mathematical research, but its use raises attribution and trust questions as researchers navigate potential influence on proofs and results; OpenAI defends that prompts or data didn’t influence the Navier–Stokes solution, while mathematicians push for guidelines (such as the Leiden Declaration) and a cautious path forward to balance efficiency gains with preserving human credit.
Canada’s public broadcaster CBC says it will label the 9/11 attacks as terrorism in its reporting with attribution, reversing a prior cautious stance. The change follows criticisms and notes that attribution of the term is common among major outlets; CBC officials emphasize that the practice of attributing such terms has long been part of reporting.
MIT CSAIL researchers show that for diffusion-model image generators, attribution to individual training images is effectively impossible at scale: removing specific training images hardly alters outputs, a phenomenon they call attribution decay. The study finds outputs can resemble a human artist or artwork, yet it’s virtually impossible to prove which training data influenced the result, complicating IP lawsuits and signaling broader regulatory and accountability challenges for large commercial models.
Phia, the shopping app cofounded by Phoebe Gates, is offering refunds and correcting attributions after Bloomberg revealed it earned commissions on sales it didn’t drive. Impact.com and other networks are reprocessing actions from June 20 to July 29, refunding advertisers where appropriate, and Phia has been suspended from Impact’s marketplace. The startup, which has raised about $43.5 million, has not publicly addressed the issue, risking trust in its business model.
AI tools are being used in many jobs, but managers often credit the AI rather than the human who contributed, leading to delayed promotions and smaller raises. Studies show that disclosure of AI help can erode trust and reduce the perceived ownership of the worker, creating an “AI penalty.” Companies are experimenting with attribution schemes (e.g., IBM’s AI Attribution Toolkit, OpenHands tagging, Adidas’ outcome-based credit) and token-tracking, yet it’s hard to show how humans contributed. The result: workers may hide AI use or avoid it altogether, undermining initiative and accountability unless governance norms and fair credit practices emerge.
UK regulators (the CMA) order Google to add clearer source attribution and links to content used in AI-generated search results and to allow publishers to opt out of AI features; Google must implement new controls (including directory- and page-level opt-outs) and publish compliance reports within nine months, with testing in the UK before a potential global rollout.
In a wide-ranging interview, Shishir Mehrotra explains Superhuman (formerly Grammarly)’s AI-powered productivity suite and Go platform, their philosophy of embedding AI into work, and how a controversial Expert Review feature that used reporters’ names without permission sparked backlash and a lawsuit before being scrapped; they discuss the line between attribution and impersonation, the economics of an agent marketplace with a 70/30 split, and how the creator economy might adapt to AI through new business models and platform dynamics, while acknowledging ongoing legal and policy uncertainties in copyright and likeness as AI tools scale.
A marble bust in Rome’s Sant’Agnese fuori le mura is reattributed to Michelangelo after decades of archival research, challenging the idea that the master destroyed works late in life; the sculpture, preserved for centuries by a Catholic order, is now on display in the basilica under an alarm system.
Brussels collectors’ claims that a canvas Pietà and a Rome bust are by Michelangelo sparked a high-stakes debate: a Belgian report cites technical tests and monograms as evidence, but leading Renaissance experts remain skeptical, noting the lack of provenance and that such attributions develop slowly over decades rather than days. The piece uses a “Dan Brown” quip to underline how sensational discoveries in art history can mislead when not supported by widespread scholarly consensus.
Grammarly's Expert Review AI surfaces feedback supposedly inspired by well-known experts and journalists, but The Verge found attributions to editors and writers made without their permission and with questionable sources; Grammarly says it does not claim endorsements, only inspiration from publicly available works, yet the feature has crashed and linked to dubious sources, raising privacy, consent, and attribution concerns about who the AI can imitate and cite.
Strava plans to comply with Garmin's API attribution requirements by November 1, despite previous pushback and a lawsuit, indicating potential app updates to include Garmin attribution in line with Garmin's brand guidelines, while continuing negotiations.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the suspension of his presidential campaign with a quote attributed to Winston Churchill, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts," which was found to be falsely attributed to Churchill by the Winston Churchill Project at Michigan's Hillsdale College and the International Churchill Society. The society also noted that the quote is often incorrectly attributed to Abraham Lincoln. DeSantis' campaign has not responded to requests for comment on the matter.
The Claudine Gay plagiarism scandal has sparked a debate on the relevance of plagiarism rules, with some arguing that the rules are hypocritical and unnecessary. The author contends that plagiarism rules are unjustified and that authors should not be required to attribute unless they believe it's deserved. They suggest that abandoning plagiarism rules would be beneficial and that punishing authors for using clichés or students for learning through plagiarism should be stopped.
Extreme weather events such as droughts, storms, wildfires, and heat waves are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change. Scientists are using a method called "attribution" to analyze whether a particular extreme event could have happened in a world without global warming. In some cases, the impacts of climate change are so clear that scientists conclude extreme weather events would have been all but impossible without global warming. The article lists six such events, including the Siberian heat wave of 2020 and the Pacific Northwest heat wave of 2021.