✍️ The False Promise of ChatGPT

Plus: The FBI Just Admitted It Bought US Location Data. Spotify's new design is part TikTok, part Instagram, and part YouTube. And more…

Today’s pick

Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT. Jorge Luis Borges once wrote that to live in a time of great peril and promise is to experience both tragedy and comedy, with “the imminence of a revelation” in understanding ourselves and the world. Today our supposedly revolutionary… (Noam Chomsky / The New York Times)

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

I'm not endorsing any or all of this, but this NYT op-ed by 2 linguists and an AI specialist (one of whom is Chomsky) is very worth reading. It argues that the current AI model of ChatGPT is and always will be a primitive and inferior form of thought:

nytimes.comOpinion | Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPTThe most prominent strain of A.I. encodes a flawed conception of language and knowledge.

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The FBI Just Admitted It Bought US Location Data. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged for the first time that it purchased US location data rather than obtaining a warrant. While the practice of buying people's location data has grown increasingly common since the US… (Dell Cameron / WIRED)

dell cameron @dellcam

NEW: FBI just admitted to buying cellphone location data that US companies told users was for personalizing online ads -- data FBI would've otherwise needed a warrant to obtain Wray says it was purchased for a classified pilot program "some time" ago

wired.comThe FBI Just Admitted It Bought US Location DataRather than obtaining a warrant, the bureau purchased sensitive data—a controversial practice that privacy advocates say is deeply problematic.

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Spotify's new design is part TikTok, part Instagram, and part YouTube. Spotify is redesigning the core homescreen of its app, trying to make it easier for users to find new stuff to listen to — and watch. The new design goes heavy on imagery and vertical scrolling, turning your homescreen from a set of album… (David Pierce / The Verge)

Alex Heath @alexeheath

Here’s @pierce’s writeup on the new design. It’s pretty wild how TikTok’s UI is seeping into nearly every corner of consumer tech.

theverge.comSpotify’s new design is part TikTok, part Instagram, and part YouTubeVertical scrolling, autoplaying everything, podcasts and music and audiobooks everywhere

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Apple's Money and Snoop Dogg's Songs Back This $1 Billion Music Startup. Larry Jackson learned the record business from two of the most influential music moguls ever, Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine. Now, the 42-year-old former Apple Inc. executive is starting a music company of his own called Gamma. Jackson has about $1… (Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg)

Lucas Shaw @Lucas_Shaw

New: Apple, Todd Boehly and @A24 are putting $1 billion into a new music company from @LarryJackson. Jackson has already signed @SnoopDogg, @RickRoss and @Usher. I spoke to Jackson about his plans.

bloomberg.comBloomberg - Are you a robot?

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Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death. Altman spends nearly all his time at OpenAI, an artificial-intelligence company whose chatbots and electronic art programs have been convulsing the tech sphere with their human-like capabilities. But Altman's money is a different matter. He says… (Antonio Regalado / MIT Technology Review)

Antonio Regalado @antonioregalado

Scoop: When Retro Biosciences raised $180mm to increase human lifespan by 10 years, it was a “mysterious startup”, per press reports, “whose investors remain anonymous.” MIT Technology Review learned Sam Altman, the 37-CEO of OpenAI, put up the money.

technologyreview.comSam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay deathCan anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human lifespan? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

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