@TechDesk@flipboard.social
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TechDesk

@TechDesk@flipboard.social

We bring you the latest tech news, deep dives and perspectives on topics like AI, social media and innovations. Posts are handpicked by Flipboard's editorial team, especially for Mastodon.

Boosts do not imply endorsement, but are used to highlight posts we think the community might find interesting.

For a lot more tech news, follow Flipboard's federated Tech Desk (@tech)

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TechDesk, to tesla
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Just last month Elon Musk announced that Tesla would be launching its own robotaxi service in August, but to this date, its driverless testing hasn’t even begun because its software isn’t ready.

Its competitor Waymo, by comparison, launched its driverless taxi in 2020 in the residential streets in the Phoenix suburbs, and continues to gradually ratchet up the difficulty level of its routes — steering clear of freeways and relying on human backup in case of emergencies.

Has Tesla underestimated the work required to build a safe driverless taxi service? @arstechnica considers the challenges Musk’s company could have ahead.

https://flip.it/NFoq_x

TechDesk, to ai
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Meta’s artificial intelligence chief has said that the large language models powering generative AI products like ChatGPT will never reach human levels of intelligence, branding them “useful” but limited.

Speaking to the @FT, Yann LeCun said his team at Meta is working towards an entirely new generation of AI systems, that he hopes will create “superintelligence” in machines, capable of common sense and learning about the world in a similar way to humans. Here’s more.

https://flip.it/XvnM71 [may require subscription]

TechDesk, to ChatGPT
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Earlier this week, Scarlett Johansson released a statement that said she had been approached by OpenAI’s founder Sam Altman to voice a ChatGPT persona. The actress, who famously voiced an AI assistant in the 2013 film "Her," she said no, but OpenAI went ahead and released "Sky" anyway — a chatbot which Johansson herself stated sounded “eerily similar” to her.

The actress has hired legal counsel and demanded an explanation, but could she take it further and does she have a case? @WIRED has spoken to lawyers to find out how this could all play out in court.

https://flip.it/V6_nW3

#ChatGPT #OpenAI #SamAltman #ScarlettJohansson #AI #Tech

TechDesk, to ai
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The student cofounders of an AI studying tool that won them a $10,000 entrepreneurship prize from Emory University have been suspended, for building exactly what the school had given them money to build.

The school’s Honor Council claimed the AI tool, which helps students to generate revision flashcards and practice tests from course materials, “could be used for cheating,” and that it had been connected to a software platform used by the university without permission — even though this feature had been mentioned in the competition pitch. @404mediaco has more.

https://flip.it/X_HEUz

TechDesk, (edited ) to ai
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A female computational neuroscience and machine learning expert took to X at the weekend to describe a “dark side” of the startup culture in Silicon Valley.

Sonia Joseph alleged that a culture of sexual coercion has taken hold of San Francisco’s community housing tech scene, with “heavy LSD use” and “sex parties held by mainly male tech and entrepreneurial elites that involve mock-violent role playing with female participants.”

In particular, “early OpenAI employees” were referenced by Joseph, as well as their friends and “adjacent entrepreneurs.” Salon has more.

https://flip.it/t5RReK

TechDesk, to ai
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It’s been a rough week for OpenAI. Ever since the launch of its latest AI language model, GPT-4o, it has been hit by controversy after controversy — perhaps a sign of just how much public visibility the company is starting to get.

@arstechnica runs through a week of bad news, rumors and ridicule for one of AI’s most prominent and influential companies.

https://flip.it/z590lq

TechDesk, to ai
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CNET’s Abrar Al-Heeti was at Google’s I/O developer conference last week and got the opportunity to try out the latest update to Google’s Project Starline 3D video conferencing project.

Google wants its hyper-realistic video calling to roll out next year, something that Al-Heeti describes as “the most-3D rendering of a person I’ve ever seen,” which she believes creates “a more holistic and lifelike interaction.” Read all about her full experience over on @CNET.

https://flip.it/UR.6BB

TechDesk, to tech
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Self-driving vehicles could be on U.K. roads within two years, after the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act received royal assent to become law.

A core part of the new legislation, which has been in the works since 2022, confirms that corporations will be the ones held responsible in the event of a crash, “meaning a human driver would not be liable for incidents related to driving while the vehicle is in control.”

@TechCrunch has more.

https://flip.it/ortPo7

TechDesk, (edited ) to microsoft
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Microsoft’s Build developer conference doesn’t kick off until tomorrow, but the tech giant just couldn’t wait to lift the lid on some major announcements at an event that wasn’t livestreamed for the public.

As well as confirming some upcoming AI features for Windows 11, Microsoft unveiled its vision for so-called “AI PCs”, which are designed to run a lot of generative AI processes locally instead of in the cloud. The biggest takeaway? These so-called Copilot+ PCs will reportedly be 58% faster than the M3-powered MacBook Air, and a new Surface laptop will be one of the first to hit stores.

Here’s more on all the announcements from @engadget.

https://flip.it/EdOBCl

TechDesk, to tech
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What should Melinda French Gates do now that she’s announced her departure from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? How about fixing the tech industry’s broken “brilliant jerk” culture? Tech Crunch’s Julie Bort elaborates. https://flip.it/SdsCmi

TechDesk, to tech
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Professor Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI,” is “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs.” That’s why he has advised U.K. government officials that universal basic income would be a very good idea. BBC News talks to Hinton about who would benefit most from AI, who would suffer from it, and the emerging human-extinction threats facing humans. https://flip.it/QBBzZB

TechDesk, to tech
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OnlyFans’ top earners have a hard time keeping up with their customers’ demands. Remember that next time you’re chatting with your favorite online influencer girlfriend. Because the person you’re talking to may in fact be one of a rotating cast of low-wage workers. Wired has more in this captivating account by Brendan I. Koerner, a writer who went undercover to unveil a sordid netherworld that, according to at least one lawyer, defrauds customers, generally men, out of thousands of dollars.
https://flip.it/Dr4q5E

TechDesk, to tech
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With AI startups booming, Silicon Valley hustle culture is back. So are fancy nap pods. Tech Crunch has more: https://flip.it/teYd0X

TechDesk, to ai
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When OpenAI created its “Superalignment” team in summer 2023, the goal was for it to “steer and control future AI systems that could be so powerful they could lead to human extinction,” reports @engadget. “Less than a year later, that team is dead.”

Jan Leike, one of the team’s leaders, who quit earlier this week, posted a scathing statement on X showing the internal tensions between the safety team and the wider company.

“OpenAI is shouldering an enormous responsibility on behalf of all of humanity,” he wrote. “But over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.” Engadget has more.

https://flip.it/PRqSl5

TechDesk, to ai
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If you use Slack for work, your messages and DMs to friends and colleagues are now being used to train the company’s machine learning features — and everyone is opted in by default.

A quiet update to the company’s policy suggests messages, data and files sent by users are helping Slack to improve its in-app features like channel recommendations, search results and emoji suggestions, reports @PCMag. Individual users can’t opt out either, something critics have called a “privacy mess.”

https://flip.it/Tb1gRM

#Slack #AI #MachineLearning #Tech

TechDesk, to cars
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For anyone who watched The Jetsons and dreamed of a future of flying cars, that future could be up for pre-order as soon as this year, according to Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Xpeng.

Xpeng AeroHT aims to deliver its flying car to customers in 2026, the company’s president told CNBC, with the vehicle currently going through a certification process with the Chinese aviation regulator. Here’s more.

https://flip.it/a7UjMp

TechDesk, to microsoft
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Microsoft is reportedly asking hundreds of its China-based employees working in the company’s cloud computing and AI operations to consider relocating out of the country.

Some 700 to 800 people are said to have been asked about the move, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the U.S. crackdown on Beijing’s access to AI technology continues.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that the company had “shared an optional internal transfer opportunity with a subset of employees” without confirming details on the number and affiliation of staff affected. Here’s more.

https://flip.it/edI6km

TechDesk, to Facebook
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The European Union has opened a formal investigation into Meta over concerns it isn’t doing enough to safeguard the mental and physical health of children, reports @theverge.

The probe will assess whether Meta has breached rules under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), noting that Facebook and Instagram’s UI and algorithms may cause “behavioral addictions in children.” There are also concerns that Meta isn’t doing enough to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content, and that its age-verification tools may not be “reasonable, proportionate, and effective.”

https://flip.it/f3irZa

TechDesk, to mentalhealth
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The internet and time spent online is often cited as one of the biggest contributing factors to low self esteem and poor mental health, but a new study has found the opposite to be true.

“Nearly everyone seems to think that internet-powered technologies are driving an epidemic of ill-being and mental health problems,” said lead study author Dr. Matti Vuorre, assistant professor of social psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, in an email to @CNN.

“Our study of over two million individuals from 160+ countries runs contrary to this idea.” Here’s more on the findings.

https://flip.it/dm4Dkt

TechDesk, to TikTok
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Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is currently working on a bid to buy TikTok, according to reports.

While it remains to be seen whether TikTok’s parent company ByteDance will agree to a sale to anyone, @Gizmodo reports that “McCourt’s background in utopian tech advocacy makes him an interesting figure to enter the race.” Here’s what we know so far.

https://flip.it/2yVwdF

TechDesk, to retrocomputing
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If you remember a time when using floppy disks didn’t seem weird, you’re probably at least 30 years old. Floppy disks or diskettes emerged around 1970 and, for a good three decades or so, they were the main way many people stored and backed up their computer data.

However, it’s now been over a decade since the last floppy disc was made, and it wouldn’t even have enough capacity to store a modern smart phone picture. So why do some people still love using them? BBC Future speaks to some of the floppy disk faithful to find out.

https://flip.it/3MUG.h

TechDesk, to cryptocurrency
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Distrust over Chinese-owned tech brands operating in the U.S. continues to grow, with President Joe Biden blocking a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base.

Calling the proximity to the base a “national security risk”, the order forces the divestment of property operated as a crypto mining facility, and also requires certain equipment to be removed from the site too. Here’s more from AP.

https://flip.it/uvvfZC

#Cryptocurrency #China #Biden #Tech

TechDesk, to ChatGPT
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OpenAI has announced the launch of GPT-4o, an iteration of its GPT-4 model that powers ChatGPT — and the rollout starts today.

The latest update “is much faster” and improves “capabilities across text, vision, and audio,” according to a livestream announcement by OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. It’ll be free for all users, and paid users will continue to “have up to five times the capacity limits” of free users, reports @theverge.

https://flip.it/BfWfrr

TechDesk, to cryptocurrency
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Donald Trump is poised to be the first major party nominee to court cryptocurrency traders, reports @politico.

Trump made an overt play for the crypto faithful at Mar-a-Lago last week, telling them that they “better vote” for him, citing the Biden administration’s regulatory crackdown on the industry — a big shift from the criticism he himself placed on it in his first term.

Could crypto help get Trump back to the White House? Here’s more.

https://flip.it/lamqq2

TechDesk, (edited ) to twitter
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“No other American megabillionaire businessperson has so publicly fostered ideological relationships with world leaders to advance personal politics and businesses.”

The @nytimes looks into Elon Musk’s use of X to build influence with nationalist and right-wing politicians, publicly backing their views, aggressively confronting their enemies, and even personally intervening in X’s content policies in ways that appear to aid them — and all to the benefit of his other businesses. Here’s more.

https://flip.it/J77dC7

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