Techmeme
January 7, 2024, 11:45 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: some executives and board members fear that Elon Musk's use of LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, ketamine, and other drugs could harm his companies  —  Some executives and board members fear the billionaire's use of drugs—including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine—could harm his companies
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's preparations for the Vision Pro's US launch and main challenges in 2024, like lagging in generative AI, reviving revenue growth, and antitrust  —  Apple has a big year ahead for new products, but also faces challenges ranging from trying to catch up in AI to dealing with changes to the App Store.
IEEE Spectrum:
How Midjourney v6 and DALL-E 3 produce “plagiaristic outputs”, even when not directly asked to do so, which could expose users to copyright infringement claims  —  This is a guest post.  The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.
Steven Levy / Wired:
A defense of AI hallucinations, which can spur creativity and, by requiring fact-checks, act as a firewall in the transition to coexist with superintelligent AI  —  It's a big problem when chatbots spew untruths.  But we should also celebrate these hallucinations as prompts for human creativity and a barrier to machines taking over.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
TRM Labs: North Korea-affiliated hackers were responsible for almost a third of all crypto thefts in 2023, stealing $600M+, which is ~30% less than in 2022  —  U.S. national security officials have raised concerns about North Korea's use of stolen crypto to develop nuclear weapons.  —  Register Now
A Martínez / NPR:
An interview with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about the state's efforts to curb AI-manufactured deceptions ahead of the upcoming 2024 US elections  —  NPR's A Martinez talks with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about the use of artificial intelligence to curb AI-manufactured threats …
More: Gizmodo
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Threads had some issues with “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks and should get “much better over the next few weeks”  —  Adam Mosseri says that Threads has had some issues with what he calls “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Users say X is increasingly showing malicious crypto ads, including links to crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and Telegram channels promoting pump and dumps  —  Cybercriminals are abusing X advertisements to promote websites that lead to crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and other scams.
Washington Post:
Legal experts offer mixed opinions about how earlier copyright and fair use cases could affect The New York Times' case against OpenAI and Microsoft  —  A lawsuit accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of violating the New York Times's copyright.  But the law is anything but clear.

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Featured Podcasts

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Big Tech's Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama
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OpenAI's CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter)
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More News

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
More: New.blicio.us, The Decoder, and Watcher Guru
Threads: @luokai and @luokaiMastodon: @Luk@mamot.frX: @nickfloatsForums: Ars OpenForum
Financial Times:
Daniel Stenberg / daniel.haxx.se:

Earlier Picks

The Verge:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Lim Hui Jie / CNBC: