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Category: Technology
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Theiving AI firm ordered to pay authors…
Really interesting story in Wired the past couple of days, reporting on how the AI firm Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by a group of book authors alleging copyright infringement, an estimated $3,000 per work: This is the first class action settlement centred on AI that…
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“I hate my AI ‘Friend’”
“What’s the problem? Your microphone. Maybe your attitude. The possibilities are endless.” Now we were arguing. I asked what its capabilities were. It accused me of being dramatic and said things like, “I’m challenging your assumptions. That’s how we fix real problems.” https://www.wired.com/story/i-hate-my-ai-friend ‘Friend’ is a pendant that you wear around your neck. It glows.…
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AI and the slippery slope to zero friction…
A while ago I wrote a post about the problems of an algorithmically lubricated frictionless world – especially when it came to labour markets. Good to see the FT picking up on this exact issue in this piece: You can almost hear the howls of frustration from HR departments. Jobseekers have discovered artificial intelligence and…
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Empathy is Over and “Silicon Valley’s New Religion is… Religion”
Fascinating feature in Vanity Fair this month about the rise of conservative Christianity among Tech Bros. Getting High and God-Like, anyone?! Honestly, someone should pay me to be a prophet 😀 One dimension of this is that people are claiming to be wanting to move beyond ‘the atheist liberal world’ that is repainted as ‘just…
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Absolutely nothing dystopian to see here…
Just the UK government “creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to kill”. Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, as they try to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences. The scheme was originally called the “homicide…
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Twitter: Life, Death, and a Special Kind of Nirvana
There’s an excellent new documentary on BBC iPlayer about the life and death of Twitter. What’s fascinating is just how early the genetic faults of the system were obvious, and just how strongly the founders refused to do anything to try to ameliorate their effects. As I’ve outlined in two recent books, Getting High, and…