speculations

https://gizmodo.com/google-fires-28-workers-who-protested-its-contracts-wit-1851418289 He never liked having to do it. You didn’t get to his level in the company without being ruthless but there was something about firing a colleague. He was a nice guy. He particularly didn’t like it when the reason wasn’t a cut-and-dried issue but something a little greyer:… Read the rest

https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea-deep-repair-ships I’ve still got his letters. Well, messages, but I think of them as ‘letters’, a bit like the ones generations of men sent home from the front to partners and kids. I guess those kids treasured their dad’s messages too. They were probably as proud as I was… and… Read the rest

https://the-media-leader.com/lie-detecting-ai-may-be-coming-to-a-job-interview-near-you/ She demanded there was a human “in the room”. “Call me old fashioned but I want to look the candidate in the eye. I can tell whether they’re right.” They humoured her. The AI systems on the call would make the decision anyway. Micro-expressions, tonal analysis, discourse analysis –… Read the rest

https://www.ft.com/content/311b29a4-bbb3-435b-8e82-ae19f2740af9 There are different initiatives. Behind the scenes we’re lobbying ministers. This proposed legislation is a threat to civil liberties and freedoms. We cannot allow this authoritarian clampdown. We’re also taking legal action. We’ve uncovered a number of interesting precedents and legal strategies that we’re sure Government lawyers won’t see… Read the rest

https://www.ft.com/content/4c5d823e-004b-4f00-9536-9fea93330453 People often ask me what I do. I give them a brief rundown on object-oriented philosophy, the idea that the world is made up of objects connecting and networking like the jewels in Indra’s Net. The key thing is the ontology is flat: human (objects) are as real and… Read the rest

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/12/meta-is-testing-an-ai-powered-search-bar-in-instagram It had been one of those day. The news. Real wars and culture wars. Everywhere she looked: hate, People behaving badly. One of those days. She needed reassurance. “Show me..” she began. The search bar autocompleted. A stream of stories: people helping strangers. She smiled. It had been one… Read the rest

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/11/openai-makes-chatgpt-more-direct-less-verbose Ever since I learned to speak I’ve loved language, its power to do more than describe in a dry, functional, utilitarian way. I remember discovering how I could use words to paint pictures, conjure feelings. As I read the great poets and writers, I understood how I could create… Read the rest

https://newatlas.com/robotics/teleoperated-humanoid-h2o No-one can afford to go to University without working unless daddy’s an oligarch or something. But the rest of us, we fit classes around some dead-end job. Evening shift picking packages in an e-commerce giant’s warehouse; stocking shelves in a real-world giant’s supermarket; I know someone who finishes a… Read the rest

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/techcrunch-minute-spotify-rolls-out-an-ai-powered-playlist-feature He couldn’t decide. He really liked her but it was a lot to spend. Maybe the sponsored one? How naff was that? He didn’t want to come across as cheap. He’d been stung before, going for the full package and then she chucked him a week later. You can’t… Read the rest

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/8/24124638/watch-solar-eclipse-apple-vision-pro The crowd was silent. Awed. They’d traveled from far and wide to share the experience. There was something about seeing it together, feeling small together. Some were with family and friends, others didn’t know anyone but for that moment they were not alone. They were a species, a congregation.… Read the rest