👾 We're Already Living in the Metaverse

Plus: Chinese Search Giant Baidu to Launch ChatGPT-Style Bot in March, Europe's crackdown on Big Tech omitted TikTok, and more…

Today’s pick

We're Already Living in the Metaverse. The trend started, as so many do, on TikTok. Amazon customers, watching packages arrive through Ring doorbell devices, asked the people making the deliveries to dance for the camera. The workers—drivers for “Earth's most… (Megan Garber / The Atlantic)

Adrienne LaFrance @AdrienneLaF

The Atlantic's new cover story, out this morning, is by the extraordinary @megangarber. A brilliant indictment of our everything-is-entertainment culture in the tradition of Postman and McLuhan. Must read:

theatlantic.comWe’ve Lost the PlotOur constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives.

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Chinese Search Giant Baidu to Launch ChatGPT-Style Bot in March. Baidu Inc. is planning to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot service similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to a person familiar with the matter, potentially China's most prominent entry in a race touched off by the tech phenomenon. (Zheping Huang / Bloomberg)

Shehzad Qazi @shehzadhqazi

“Baidu has spent billions researching AI in a years-long effort to transition frm online mkting to deeper tech. Its Ernie system—large-scale machine-learning model trained on data over several years—will be the foundation of its upcoming ChatGPT-like tool”

bloomberg.comBloomberg - Are you a robot?

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Europe's crackdown on Big Tech omitted TikTok - but now that's set to change. Unlike its larger American peers, TikTok hasn't faced the kinds of mega fines or legal penalties that Google, Facebook-owner Meta or Amazon have in the EU over the years. TikTok has stayed out of regulatory scrutiny partly because it's kept out of… (Evelyn Cheng via CNBC)

Ryan Browne @Ryan_Browne_

TikTok begins to feel the heat in Europe. 🔥 The short video app hasn't been a target for the mega fines its US Big Tech counterparts have endured. That’s set to change now amid national security concerns over the app's Chinese origins. W/ @chengevelyn: cnbc.com/2023/01/30/tik…

cnbc.comEurope’s crackdown on Big Tech omitted TikTok — but now that’s set to changeTikTok is beginning to feel the sting of political and regulatory pressure in Europe, where the Chinese-owned app has evaded the scrutiny it’s faced in the U.S.

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'Recession Resilient' Climate Start-Ups Shine in Tech Downturn. When Arebeth Pease was laid off from the tech start-up MasterClass last year, she could have had her pick of jobs. But so many tech companies' missions rang hollow, she said, and many were creating more problems than they were fixing. Ms. Pease… (Erin Griffith via The New York Times)

The New York Times @nytimes

As tech companies slash perks and cut jobs, many workers are flocking to start-ups that aim to combat climate change, just as investors pour money into the field. nyti.ms/3kUIikM (

nyti.ms‘Recession Resilient’ Climate Start-Ups Shine in Tech DownturnTech workers and investors are flocking to start-ups that aim to combat climate change.

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Longevity Startup VitaDAO Raises $4.1m, Backed By Pfizer, Balaji Srinivasan. VitaDAO, scientific illustration by Dani Bergey The web transformed life as we know it, allowing new ways of working, solving problems, and distributing currency. The same is true for scientific research, a field traditionally conducted in the… (John Cumbers / Forbes)

John Cumbers @johncumbers

Is science too centralized, or in the words of @balajis, too ossified? Enter #DeSci or decentralized science, a movement to improve scientific research on the blockchain. 1/

forbes.comLongevity Startup VitaDAO Raises $4.1m, Backed By Pfizer, Balaji SrinivasanThe web transformed life as we know it, allowing new ways of working, solving problems, and distributing currency.

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