If 2022 was the year the generative AI boom started, 2023 was the year of the generative AI panic. Just over 12 months since OpenAI released ChatGPT and set a record for the fastest-growing consumer product, it appears to have also helped set a record for fastest government intervention in …
Read More »The Most Dangerous People on the Internet in 2023
In 2023, the world has felt like it was balanced on a precipice. A United States presidential election looms, with a resurgent candidate that threatens to bring with him all the chaos of 2016 and 2020. Artificial intelligence developed so quickly that it seemed to have suddenly sprung into being, …
Read More »Cars Are Getting Bigger. Can Smarter Software Make Them Safer?
It’s not just you: American cars have gotten bigger. Over the past two decades, growing numbers of US buyers have turned in their sedans for SUVs and pickup trucks. And those SUVs and pickups have grown ever more hulking. The electrification of driving isn’t slowing the growth spurt. Batteries are …
Read More »How to Use OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Create Your Own Custom GPT
I was never afraid to train an AI chatbot on my writing, because OpenAI had already broken the seal. CEO Sam Altman announced the “GPT” feature at OpenAI’s first developer day in November, prior to the company’s five days of leadership chaos. Before the release of custom GPTs, ChatGPT with …
Read More »How Not to Be Stupid About AI, With Yann LeCun
Do not preach doom to Yann LeCun. A pioneer of modern AI and Meta’s chief AI scientist, LeCun is one of the technology’s most vocal defenders. He scoffs at his peers’ dystopian scenarios of supercharged misinformation and even, eventually, human extinction. He’s known to fire off a vicious tweet (or …
Read More »The Race to Fill Crypto’s FTX-Shaped Hole
The fall of FTX created a “huge vacuum” in the cryptocurrency market, says Can Sun, cofounder of Backpack, a new crypto exchange under development in the United Arab Emirates. Sun knows that better than most: He was previously the general counsel at FTX, whose high-profile collapse has led to industry-wide …
Read More »Apple’s Tight Grip on iMessage Spurs Fresh Calls for an Antitrust Probe
The US Department of Justice has got mail: A coalition of more than a dozen tech advocacy groups wrote to the agency today calling on it to launch an investigation into allegedly anticompetitive behavior by Apple. The letter says that Apple’s recent blocking of Beeper, which reverse engineered iMessage to …
Read More »Blood, Guns, and Broken Scooters: Inside the Chaotic Rise and Fall of Bird
In a minivan with the rear seats ripped out, John is chasing one of his 250 electric scooters down a California highway. He finds it 10 miles away, hiding in a bush—a run-and-dump tactic that he says thieves use to test whether anyone will come after them before they take …
Read More »America’s Big AI Safety Plan Faces a Budget Crunch
US president Joe Biden’s plan for containing the dangers of artificial intelligence already risks being derailed by congressional bean counters. A White House executive order on AI announced in October calls on the US to develop new standards for stress-testing AI systems to uncover their biases, hidden threats, and rogue …
Read More »Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff
“If anyone actually knows what Flip is, and how it works, and how they give hundreds of dollars of free products to everyone, please let me know,” says 21-year-old TikTok user Alexis Taliento. She then opens a package containing $74 worth of products from Sephora-grade beauty brands like Saie and …
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