[KC] DEBRIEF WEEK 19, FRIDAY 2023/13/05
DIGITAL TITANS
_Twitter. Elon Musk appoints Linda Yaccarino Twitter’s new chief. Mr. Musk said Ms. Yaccarino would focus on business operations and he would work on product design and technology at the social media platform.
ALSO
Elon Musk’s plan to reclaim accounts—including those of dead celebrities or failed brands—could start a free-for-all with dangerous and upsetting consequences. Mariann Hardey’s father died unexpectedly a little over a decade ago. But he lives on through his Twitter account. It only has 42 followers, and it was locked by Hardey’s father so no one but those 42 people can see it. And with a common first name and surname-based username, it’s likely a sought-after bit of online real estate.“I regularly check in with him over social media,” says Hardey, a sociology professor at Durham Business School in the UK. The profile—the last tweet of which praised Hardey for her braveness in getting a wisdom tooth removed—is doubly important to the professor because its profile picture is a kitten, Penny, that Hardey’s family lost last year.That could soon change. Twitter CEO Elon Musk has announced a purge of dormant accounts—having previously claimed there are 1.5 billion on the platform. As a result, Hardey’s father’s Twitter account, which hasn’t been updated since March 14, 2012, could soon be wiped from the internet. “He has a granddaughter now who he has never met, and his social media quips and content show her who he was, and what we meant to each other,” Hardey says. “Social media is about connections.”
_Meta is not pivoting away from its signature product, the metaverse. Or at least that’s what the Meta chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is arguing. Despite reports that sales teams at Meta have spent less time pitching the metaverse to advertisers, Zuckerberg claimed on the tech firm’s latest quarterly earnings call that it’s business as usual over at the company formerly known as Facebook. “A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say upfront that that’s not accurate,” the CEO said.
_Disney+ and Hulu to combine content in single app. Disney has announced plans to combine content from its Disney+ and Hulu streaming services in the US.The move comes after Disney+ lost four million subscribers in the first three months of the year, and the firm is under pressure to make its streaming business profitable. The home of Mickey Mouse, Star Wars and Marvel movies intends to link Hulu and Disney+ into a "one-app experience".Plans for the app have met with a mixed reaction from current subscribers.
_Vodaphone. Campaigners have warned that Vodafone turning off its 3G network will lead to people with older and more basic phones falling into "digital poverty." Vodafone will be the first UK telecoms firm to stop providing 3G when it begins a nationwide phase-out in June. This will free up radio frequencies for faster 4G and 5G services, it says. Vodafone says it is working to support vulnerable customers, but campaign group Digital Poverty Alliance has criticised the switch-off.Vodafone UK's chief network officer, Andrea Dona, said 3G use had "dropped significantly" - with less than than 4% of its customers' data being used on its 3G network, compared with more than 30% in 2016.He said that meant it was now "time to say goodbye to 3G and focus on the current benefits and future possibilities of our 4G and 5G networks".
_Google. Adobe's generative AI art tool and Google Bard are joining forces. Adobe Firefly and Express will be coming to Google Bard soon.The AI arms race is heating up. Adobe is bringing its generative art tool, Firefly, to Google Bard This will allow Google's experimental chatbot to generate images based on user prompts, much like OpenAI's Dall-E tool. Aside from being your typical text-to-image generator, it allows users to edit images on the fly. Also coming to Bard is Adobe Express, a free photo editing software that's popular among mobile users because it comes with pre-made design templates you can use to make social posts.This means that you can generate an image from text with Google Bard, then edit and save it in one place. According to the press release, Firefly will become the "premier generative AI partner for Bard, powering and highlighting text-to-image capabilities."
ALSO
Google is introducing a new version of its search engine that incorporates AI-generated answers in full sentences, allowing for more interactive and conversational search experiences. The feature, known as Search Generative Experience (SGE), utilizes generative AI to provide comprehensive responses. Users can follow up with additional queries and receive related source links. The integration of AI into search aims to streamline research and provide more accurate answers. However, concerns about bias, accuracy, and ad placement arise with this new approach. The update represents Google's effort to stay competitive in the AI landscape and maintain its position as a leader in technology innovation.
ALSO
Google is attempting to reclaim its crown as the leader in artificial intelligence with PaLM 2, a “next-generation language model” that the company says outperforms other leading systems on some tasks.Revealing the cutting-edge AI at its annual I/O conference, alongside a foldable Pixel phone and a new tablet, Google said it would be built in to 25 new products and features, as the company races to catch up with competitors after years of producing AI research but few products.Like other “large language models” such as OpenAI’s GPT, PaLM 2 is a general-purpose AI model, which can be used to power ChatGPT-style chatbots but also translate between languages, write computer code, or even analyse and respond to images. Combining those capabilities, a user could ask a question in English about a restaurant in Bulgaria, and the system would be able to search the web for Bulgarian responses, find an answer, translate the answer into English, add a picture of the location – and then follow up with a code snippet to create a database entry for the place.
_UK further restricts Microsoft and Activision merge.
INNOVATION
_US military is testing a smart watch and ring system that detects illnesses TWO days before symptoms arise – and can recognize the coronavirus. US military is using a Garmin watch and Oura ring to detect illnesses . The system uses an AI that can notify users of an oncoming illness two days before symptoms appear. The AI monitors 165 biomarkers of the user and provides an hourly score of the likelihood they will get sick. The system was trained on nearly 250,000 coronavirus cases and other illnesses
PEOPLE, MEDIA, CULTURE
_Gen Z really wants a phone break. Baby boomers? Not so much. In a new survey from Squarespace, younger respondents were the most likely to say they want to take a break from their mobile devices. Gen Z might be known as digital natives, but baby boomers are actually less willing to take breaks from their digital devices.That’s according to a new study by Squarespace, the website-building company, which surveyed 4,000 adults in the United States, Canada, U.K., and Australia about their digital behavior. Here are some of the key insights.The benefits of tech outweigh the downsides: 50% of Gen Z wants to take a break from their phone. This is higher than any other generation. By contrast, baby boomers are the least likely to want a break from their phones, with 20% saying so. However, 62% of respondents agreed that the flexibility smartphones offer outweigh the downsides of always being accessible.Websites are more trustworthy than social media: 55% of respondents said they trust the general internet for finding out information, compared to 12% of respondents who say they trust social media. This still applies to Gen Z, although only 41% of Gen Z say they prefer websites and 20% say they look to social media for information.The great outdoors can wait: Only 15% of respondents said they’d go a day without looking at a website, compared to 18% who said they’d go a day without talking to someone or 19% saying they’d go a day without going outside.
_How one programmer broke the internet by deleting a tiny piece of code. A man in Oakland, California, disrupted web development around the world last week by deleting 11 lines of code.The story of how 28-year-old Azer Koзulu briefly broke the internet shows how writing software for the web has become dependent on a patchwork of code that itself relies on the benevolence of fellow programmers. When that system breaks down, as it did last week, the consequences can be vast and unpredictable.
_AI LA LA LAND
//ChatGPT: Can students pass using AI tools at university. As exam season gets under way, students might be tempted to turn to new artificial intelligence (AI) tools to give them the edge in assessments. Universities have been scrabbling to understand what AI applications such as ChatGPT are capable of and introduce guidance on how they can be used - and now, they're being urged to teach students how to use them. Academics at the University of Bath have been considering the challenges and opportunities. "Our first question was, 'Could this be used by students to answer our assessment questions?'" James Fern says of ChatGPT - an online tool that can answer questions, including producing essays and emails, in human-like language. "Multiple choice questions, for example, it will handle those very well. "We definitely were not expecting it to do as well as it did... it was getting close to 100% correct."But with more complex questions, which require students to think critically and which he says make up the bulk of assessment, it struggles. One example, from a final-year assessment, reads: "Why is it important to understand the timing of exercise in relation to nutrition status in people with [a technical term, according to James] overweight?" And there are tell-tale signs the answer given by ChatGPT was not written by a student. "On first glance, it looks very good - it looks very clearly written, it looks quite professional in its language," James says. But some of the statements are more like those of a GCSE pupil than a university student. It has a habit of repeating the exact phrasing of the question in its introductions and conclusions, "just written in slightly different ways". And when citing sources of information, as is standard in academic work, it simply makes them up. Many students have been unsure when they can and cannot use it. "I might be tempted to use ChatGPT... but currently, I'm too scared to because you can get caught," says one student walking between classes on campus. "It's not clear yet what is considered cheating with ChatGPT," another says. "If you copied your whole assignment from ChatGPT that's cheating - but it can be really helpful to guide." Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said in a speech on Monday that AI was "making a difference in schools and universities already", and suggested it could help school teachers with lesson plans and marking. New advice from Quality Assurance Agency, which reviews standards at UK universities, urges them to equip students with AI skills they can take into the world of work. It encourages them to explain to new and returning students, in September, how and when AI should be used - and to adapt courses where appropriate. Marketing lecturer Kim Watts calls it "another tool in the toolbox". And some students in her department have already started using ChatGPT this term, in coursework that asks them to produce a marketing plan.
//Bringing A.I. Tools to the workplace requires a delicate balance. The DealBook Newsletter Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them. Get it sent to your inbox.By midyear, all of Morgan Stanley’s thousands of wealth advisers are expected to have access to a new artificial-intelligence-powered chat tool.The tool, which is already in use by about 600 staff members, gives advisers answers to questions such as “Can you compare the investment cases for Apple, IBM and Microsoft?” and follow-ups such as “What are the risks of each of them?” An adviser can ask what to do if a client has a potentially valuable painting — and the knowledge tool might provide a list of steps to follow, along with the name of an internal expert who can help.“What we’re trying to do is make every client or every financial adviser as smart as the most knowledgeable expert on any given topic in real time,” said Jeff McMillan, the head of analytics, data and innovation for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.Experts disagree about whether A.I. will wind up destroying more jobs than it creates over time. But it is clear that A.I. will alter work for most knowledge workers, shifting the skills they need and changing the staffing needs of most companies. Now it’s up to business leaders to figure out how to take advantage of the technologies today, while preparing workers for the disruption that the tools present over the medium term.
//The website aihits.co has collected the most listened-to AI-generated pop music.
MMMM OF THE WEEK
_Snoop Dogg on AI risk: “Sh–, what the f—?” The music legend expressed his concerns during a Milken Institute panel with Larry Jackson.On Wednesday, celebrated multi-platinum recording artist Snoop Dogg took part in a panel at the Milken Institute's 2023 Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California. After fielding a question by Variety editor Shirley Halperin about AI in relation to the 2023 WGA writers' strike, Snoop expressed his bemused feelings on AI in a genuinely funny exchange, resulting in convivial laughter from the audience.During his response, Snoop described how conversing with a large language model (such as ChatGPT or Bing Chat) reminds him of sci-fi movies he watched as a kid. Showing that he keeps up with current events, Snoop also referenced Geoffery Hinton, who resigned this week from Google so he could speak of the dangers of AI without conflicts of interestWell I got a motherf*cking AI right now that they did made for me. This n***** could talk to me. I'm like, man this thing can hold a real conversation? Like real for real? Like it's blowing my mind because I watched movies on this as a kid years ago. When I see this sh*t I'm like what is going on? And I heard the dude, the old dude that created AI saying, "This is not safe, 'cause the AIs got their own minds, and these motherf*ckers gonna start doing their own sh*t. I'm like, are we in a f*cking movie right now, or what? The f*ck man? So do I need to invest in AI so I can have one with me? Or like, do y'all know? Sh*t, what the f*ck?" I'm lost, I don't know.Snoop's confusion over today's AI systems reflects what may be a common sentiment among people who are trying to understand and follow the latest developments in generative AI, which have unfolded rapidly over the past year. His unguarded observations on AI are notable coming from a highly respected multi-award-winning musical artist and entrepreneur.