How a bankruptcy judge can stop a genetic privacy disaster

How a bankruptcy judge can stop a genetic privacy disaster

Bankruptcy proceedings involving personal data don’t have to end badly. In 2000, the Federal Trade Commission settled with the bankrupt retailer ToySmart to ensure that its customer data could not be sold as a stand-alone asset, and that customers would have to affirmatively consent to unexpected new uses of their data. And in 2015, the […]

The Download: Peering inside an LLM, and the rise of Signal

The Download: Peering inside an LLM, and the rise of Signal

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 A judge has ordered Trump’s officials to preserve their secret Signal chat While officials are required by law to keep chats detailing government business, Signal’s messages can be set to auto-disappear. (USA Today)+ The conversation detailed an imminent attack against Houthi rebels […]

The Download: China’s empty data centers, and OpenAI’s new practical image generator

3 The US government has hired a vaccine skeptic to conduct a major vaccine studyThe long-discredited David Geier will oversee analysis of whether jabs cause autism. (WP $)+ The White House appears to be targeting mRNA vaccines. (FT $)+ Why childhood vaccines are a public health success story. (MIT Technology Review) 4 Microsoft has unveiled […]

Protecting Kids from AI Chat Apps: Why Trust Trumps Technology

Protecting Kids from AI Chat Apps: Why Trust Trumps Technology

AI character chat apps, such as Character.AI and PolyBuzz.ai, allow kids and pretty much anyone else to chat with virtual characters mimicking celebrities or fictional figures, powered by advanced AI models. These apps are popular among children for their interactive and entertaining nature, offering a sense of companionship and escapism. However, these apps also pose […]

The Download: Microsoft’s quantum chip, and explaining rising energy demand

The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 DOGE has ‘god mode’ access to government systems The risk of harm, abuse, or revenge is clear. But simple, brazen corruption is also a concern. (The Atlantic $)+ Elon Musk is hunting for social security fraud. It’s not very common. (Business Insider $)+ DOGE claimed […]

Your most important customer may be AI

For example, Meta’s Llama model may perceive your brand as exciting and reliable, whereas OpenAI’s ChatGPT may view it as exciting but not necessarily reliable. Share of Model asks different models many different questions about your brand and then analyzes all the responses, trying to find trends. “It’s very similar to a human survey, but […]

Nokia is putting the first cellular network on the moon

Point-to-point radio communications, which need a clear line of sight between transmitting and receiving antennas, have always been a backbone of both surface communications and the link back to Earth, starting with the Apollo program. Using point-to-point radio in space wasn’t much of an issue in the past because there never have been that many […]