Satoshi Nakamoto is the founding father of cryptocurrency—and a mystery. In October 2008, Nakamoto gave Bitcoin to the world. Then they disappeared. To this day, nobody knows who Nakamoto is. Amongst the speculation, one man stepped forward: Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who has, since 2016, maintained that he …
Read More »Linda Yaccarino Says X Needs More Moderators After All
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, since rebranded as X, his favorite letter of the alphabet, he went on a firing spree. Chief among those ejected were people working on trust and safety, the work of keeping bad content, from hate speech to child exploitation, off the platform. In front …
Read More »I Tested a Next-Gen AI Assistant. It Will Blow You Away
The most famous virtual valets around today—Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant—are a lot less impressive than the latest AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Bard. When the fruits of the recent generative AI boom get properly integrated into those legacy assistant bots, they will surely get much more interesting. To …
Read More »‘Over Time the Trust Will Come’: An Exclusive Interview With TikTok’s CEO
Before I sit down to talk to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, he apologizes for the noise. The evening’s guests have been doing sporadic sound checks all day: Peso Pluma running through his opening number, Offset ad-libbing over a backing track. I passed by throngs of One Direction fans to …
Read More »After 20 Years of Facebook, Lawmakers Are Still Trying to Fix It
It’s been 20 years since Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg released a program called Thefacebook to his college community, launching a company that would capture over 3 billion users, flirt with a trillion-dollar valuation, and make so much money that it’s now kicking back a dividend to shareholders. And what better …
Read More »The Mystery of the $400 Million FTX Heist May Have Been Solved
When more than $400 million worth of crypto was mysteriously pulled out of the coffers of what was once the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, on the very day that it declared bankruptcy in November of 2022, many initially suspected insiders at the company—including, potentially, then CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, now …
Read More »Google Splits Up a Key AI Ethics Watchdog
When Google CEO Sundar Pichai emailed his workers the company priorities for 2024 this month, developing AI responsibly was top of the list. Some employees now wonder whether Google can live up to that goal. The small team that has served as its primary internal AI ethics watchdog has lost …
Read More »Why So Many TikTok Videos Don't Have Sound Anymore
Starting Thursday, the sounds on TikTok have gotten a little quieter. That’s because Universal Music Group has removed its catalog from the video-sharing app after the massive music company failed to reach a licensing agreement with TikTok. Taylor Swift, Drake, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish are just a few of …
Read More »Hulu Shows Jarring Anti-Hamas Ad Likely Generated With AI
Hulu ran an anti-Hamas ad that appears to be made using artificial intelligence to show an idealized version of Gaza—claiming this paradise destination could exist if not for Hamas. The 30-second spot, opening like a tourism ad, shows palm trees and coastlines. There are five-star hotels and children playing. People …
Read More »US Lawmakers Tell DOJ to Quit Blindly Funding ‘Predictive’ Police Tools
The United States Department of Justice has failed to convince a group of US lawmakers that state and local police agencies aren't awarded federal grants to buy AI-based “policing” tools known to be inaccurate, if not prone to exacerbating biases long observed in US police forces. Seven members of Congress …
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