Tuesday, May 02, 2023

The battle over authenticity — and coolness — following The Great Unverification

Vintage 2009 

Blood and courage

Barossa Valley 

Shiraz

Success never comes easy.

If it did, everyone would have it.

It means taking a leap of faith. Swim across Cold War River. It means falling and getting up straight back up again for another crack. It takes drive and an unwavering belief in yourself. It takes dogged determination. It takes grit. It takes blood 🩸 and courage.




US Income Tax Withholding Payments Stumble Again, Signaling Job Weakness. Will the Fed Start to Consider Backing Off?

Income tax receipts are a good proxy for jobs. That measure has suddenly gone wobbly. If that persists, will the Fed blink?



German magazine under fire for AI-generated Schumacher interview https://www.aa.com.tr Anadolu Agency


Eleven Minutes of Media Falsehoods, Just On One Subject, Just On One Station Matt Orfalea and Matt Taibbi, Racket News. A new #TwitterFiles from Orfalea:

35 Ways Real People Are Using A.I. Right Now

The New York Times: “The public release of ChatGPT last fall kicked off a wave of interest in artificial intelligence. A.I. models have since snaked their way into many people’s everyday lives. Despite their flaws, ChatGPT and other A.I. tools are helping people to save time at work, to code without knowing how to code, to make daily life easier or just to have fun. It goes beyond everyday fiddling: 

In the last few years, companies and scholars have started to use A.I. to supercharge work they could never have imagined, designing new molecules with the help of an algorithm or building alien-like spaceship parts. Here’s how 35 real people are using A.I. for work, life, play and procrastination.”


No, Elon and Jack are not “competitors.” They’re collaborating. | by Dave Troy | Medium Elon Musk’s deal to buy Twitter has been met with surprise, derision, and gnashing of teeth — and an overwhelming amount of well-intentioned but poorly-informed commentary and analysis.


THIS STRONGLY APPEARS TO BE ELON MUSK'S ALT ACCOUNT ON TWITTER WHERE HE ROLEPLAYS AS HIS OWN CHILD


Inside Elon Musk's Twitter revolution: How six months after billionaire bought tech giant for $44bn he has slashed 80% of workforce, has $12.5BN debts and overseen failed blue tick relaunch


Twitter Has Complied With Almost Every Government Request For Censorship Since Musk Took Over, Report Finds


The $STONKS  The only remarkable thing about the tweet—at least from my perspective—was that it was being retweeted by an account that, until this past Saturday, had been mine.

My Twitter’s Been Hacked. But Hasn’t Everyone’s?


The battle over authenticity — and coolness — following The Great Unverification 


Twitter no longer offers ad services for free, with a new policy requiring accounts pay for a subscription model to continue to run ads.


Twitter’s Seussian blue tick saga eroded trust, without boosting subs

Dr Seuss, when he wrote the 1961 children’s story The Sneetches.

In it, creatures with no stars on their bellies feel left out and ostracised by those who do have stars, until a crafty entrepreneur named Sylvester McMonkey McBean offers to apply stars to anyone for just three dollars. Of course after that stars are no longer cool, and the star-havers remove theirs, leaving the original bare-bellies grumpy still, until both groups realise they’ve been manipulated.


Wshington Post: “Search bots have answers — but can you trust them with your questions? Since OpenAI, Microsoft and Google introduced AI chatbots, millions of people have experimented with a new way to search the internet: Engaging in a conversational back-and-forth with a model that regurgitates learnings from across the web. Given our tendency to turn to Google or WebMD with questions about our health, it’s inevitable we’ll ask ChatGPT, Bing and Bard, too. But these tools repeat some familiar privacy mistakes, experts say, as well as create new ones. 

“Consumers should view these tools with suspicion at least, since — like so many other popular technologies — they are all influenced by the forces of advertising and marketing,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the digital rights advocacy group Center for Digital Democracy. Here’s what to know before you tell an AI chatbot your sensitive health information, or any other secrets…”