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Elizabeth Lopatto

Elizabeth Lopatto

Senior Reporter

Senior Reporter

    More From Elizabeth Lopatto

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Another look at child influencers on Instagram.

    Following on the reporting earlier this year from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal profiles a teen influencer — whose mom is aware the account’s biggest fans are adult men.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    “That’s it. We’re getting an encyclopedia.”

    A remarkable essay on how an AI-generated video on kung fu led one family to order actual, physical encyclopedias.

    Knowledge is not a market commodity. Moreover, “justified true belief” does not result from an optimization function. Knowledge may be refined through questioning or falsification, but it does not improve from competition with purposeful nonknowledge. If anything, in the face of nonknowledge, knowledge loses.

    Whatever Elon wants, Tesla getsWhatever Elon wants, Tesla gets
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Google still recommends glue for your pizzaGoogle still recommends glue for your pizza
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Inside yet another AI chop shop junking up the internet.

    Inaccurate AI-generated stories were an important part of the BNN business model — “churning out hundreds, even thousands, of stories a day.” Some of BNN’s stories were republished by MSN.com or linked by reputable outlets.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Antitrust enforcer has his eyes on AI, chips.

    In a new interview with The Financial Times, Jonathan Kanter says regulators may need to act urgently to keep AI from being controlled by already-dominant tech companies. Kanter has been leading the antitrust charge against tech intermediaries that are “more powerful than the products and services or the entities they intermediate.”

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    An overview of Apple’s Siri development efforts.

    The Wall Street Journal has published a retrospective of how Apple’s caution in working on its devices has “hobbled its early efforts in the AI arena.” Part of the problem, according to the WSJ, was a group that adopted Google’s loose approach to deadlines.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    A cautionary tale about donating to anons, starring Jack Dorsey.

    Dorsey donated 14 Bitcoins to Nostr’s anonymous founder in 2022. That founder is Giovanni Torres Parra, according to Business Insider. Parra is a devotee of “far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho,” who “claimed that Pepsi-Cola was flavored with stem cells of aborted fetuses.”

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    “As other tech companies follow Google’s lead — and as corporate America turns millions of vague meetings about AI into concrete plans — we can all expect to eat a little bit of glue.”

    Despite Google’s AI expertise, it drastically overestimates how good its tech is — as anyone can see in its search results. And that’s with expertise. This doesn’t bode well for everyone else’s use of AI!