Week in Review
October 23rd-29th
Welcome to Fragile Practice, where I attempt to make something of value out of stuff I have to read.
My future plan is to do longer-form original pieces on interesting topics or trends. For now, I'm going to make the weekly reviews habitual and see if I have any time left.
Technology
OpenAI forms team to study ‘catastrophic’ AI risks, including nuclear threats - Tech Crunch; Kyle Wiggers
OpenAI launched a new research team called AI Safety and Security to investigate the potential harms of artificial intelligence focused on AI alignment, AI robustness, AI governance, and AI ethics.
Note: Same energy as “cigarette company funds medical research into smoking risks”.
Artists Allege Meta’s AI Data Deletion Request Process Is a ‘Fake PR Stunt’ - Wired; Kate Knibbs
Artists who participated in Meta’s Artificial Intelligence Artist Residency Program accused the company of failing to honor their data deletion requests and claim that Meta used their personal data to train its AI models without their consent.
Note: Someday we will stop being surprised that corporate activities without obvious profit motive are all fake PR stunts.
GM and Honda ditch plan to build cheaper electric vehicles - The Verge; Andrew J. Hawkins
General Motors and Honda cancel their joint venture to develop and produce cheaper electric vehicles for the US market, citing the chip shortage, rising costs of battery materials, and the changing market conditions.
Note: What are the odds this isn’t related to the 7 billion dollars the US government announced to create hydrogen hubs.
'AI divide' across the US leaves economists concerned - The Register; Thomas Claburn
A new study by economists from Harvard University and MIT reveals a significant gap in AI adoption and innovation across different regions in the US.
The study finds that AI usage is highest in California's Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, but was also noted in Nashville, San Antonio, Las Vegas, New Orleans, San Diego, and Tampa, as well as Riverside, Louisville, Columbus, Austin, and Atlanta.
Nvidia to Challenge Intel With Arm-Based Processors for PCs - Bloomberg; Ian King
Nvidia is using Arm technology to develop CPUs that would challenge Intel processors in PCs, and which could go on sale as soon as 2025.
Note: I am far from an NVIDIA fan, but I’m stoked for any amount of new competition in the CPU space.
New tool lets artists fight AI image bots by hiding corrupt data in plain sight - Engadget; Sarah Fielding
A team at the University of Chicago created Nightshade, a tool that lets artists fight AI image bots by adding undetectable pixels into an image that can alter how a machine-learning model produces content and what that finished product looks like.
Nightshade is intended to protect artists work and has been tested on both Stable Diffusion and an in-house AI built by the researchers.
IBM's NorthPole chip runs AI-based image recognition 22 times faster than current chips - Tech Xplore; Bob Yirka
NorthPole combines the processing module and the data it uses in a two-dimensional array of memory blocks and interconnected CPUs, and is reportedly inspired by the human brain.
NorthPole can currently only run specialized AI processes and not training processes or large language models, but the researchers plan to test connecting multiple chips together to overcome this limitation.
Apple’s $130 Thunderbolt 4 cable could be worth it, as seen in X-ray CT scans - Ars Technica; Kevin Purdy
Note: These scans are super cool. And make me feel somewhat better about insisting on quality cables. A+.
The Shifting Web
On-by-default video calls come to X, disable to retain your sanity - The Register; Brandon Vigliarolo
Video and audio calling is limited to anyone you follow or who is in your address book, if you granted X permission to comb through it.
Calling other users also requires that they’ve sent at least one direct message to you before.
Only premium users can place calls, but everyone can receive them.
Google Search Boss Says Company Invests to Avoid Becoming ‘Roadkill’ - The New York Times; Nico Grant
Google’s senior vice president overseeing search said that he sees a world of threats that could humble his company at any moment.
Google Maps is getting new AI-powered search updates, an enhanced navigation interface and more - Tech Crunch; Aisha Malik
Note: These AI recommender systems are going to be incredibly valuable advertising space. It is interesting that Apple decided to compete with Google in maps but not in basic search, but has so far not placed ads in the search results.
Reddit finally takes its API war where it belongs: to AI companies - Ars Technica; Scharon Harding
Reddit met with generative AI companies to negotiate a deal for being paid for its data, and may block crawlers if no deal is made soon.
Note: Google searches for info on Reddit often seem more effective than searching Reddit itself. If they are unable to make a deal, and Reddit follows through, it will be a legitimate loss for discoverability but also an incredibly interesting experiment to see what Reddit is like without Google.
Bandcamp’s Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off - 404 Media; Emanuel Maiberg
Bandcamp’s new owner (Songtradr) offered jobs to just half of existing employees, with cuts disproportionately hitting union leaders. Every member of the union’s eight-person bargaining team was laid off, and 40 of the union's 67 members lost their jobs.
Songtradr spokesperson Lindsay Nahmiache claimed that the firm didn’t have access to union membership information.
Note: This just sucks. Bandcamp is rad, and it’s hard to imagine it continuing to be rad after this. I wonder if Epic had ideas for BC that didn’t work out.
Surveillance & Digital Privacy
Mozilla Launches Annual Digital Privacy 'Creep-o-Meter'. This Year's Status: 'Very Creepy' - Slashdot
Mozilla gave the current state of digital privacy a 75.6/100, with 100 being the creepiest.
They measured security features, data collection, and data sharing practices of over 500 gadgets, apps, and cars to come up with their score.
Every car Mozilla tested failed to meet their privacy and security standards.
Note: It would be great if even one auto brand would take privacy seriously.
EPIC Testifies in Support of Massachusetts Data Privacy and Protection Act -Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Massachusetts version of ADPPA.
Note: While it may warm my dead heart to see any online privacy protections in law, scrambling to do so in response to generative AI is unlikely to protect Americans in any meaningful way from the surveillance driven form of capitalism we’ve all been living under for decades.
Complex Spy Platform StripedFly Bites 1M Victims - Dark Reading
StripedFly is a complex platform disguised as a cryptominer and evaded detection for six years by using a custom version of EternalBlue exploit, a built-in Tor network tunnel, and trusted services like GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket to communicate with C2 servers and update its functionality.
iPhones have been exposing your unique MAC despite Apple's promises otherwise - Ars Technica
A privacy feature which claimed to hide the Wi-Fi MAC address of iOS devices when joining a network was broken since iOS 14, and was finally patched in 17.1, released on Wednesday.
Note: I imagine this bug was reported a while ago, but wasn’t publically reported until the fix was released as a term of apple’s bug bounty program.
What the !#@% is a Passkey? - Electronic Frontier Foundation
Note: I welcome our passkey overlords.
