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Mia Sato

Mia Sato

Features Writer, The Verge

Features Writer, The Verge

    More From Mia Sato

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Andreessen Horowitz was behind Kickstarter’s doomed Web3 pivot.

    According to Fortune, the crowdfunding platform got a $100 million investment from the VC firm’s crypto fund — and the 2021 deal was meant to get Kickstarter into the Web3 hype cycle.

    If you recall, the pivot was a disaster: after public outrage, Kickstarter formed a community advisory council, and the company ultimately decided to shift its attention away from the blockchain.

    Correction March 12th 10:56AM ET: The Web3 pivot wasn’t a formal stipulation of the deal, as initially stated.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Marketers are about to infiltrate your favorite subreddits.

    Ahead of its IPO, Reddit announced a set of tools for businesses that want to be more active on the platform — including the ability to see which subreddits are mentioning a brand. For businesses, Reddit says it’s a way to “establish and grow a meaningful organic presence on Reddit.” In other words: the brands are coming.

    Reddit’s free business dashboard showing “Top communities mentioning Camp Glow” and trending topics.
    Image: Reddit
    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    OpenAI’s tools showed bias when used for job recruiting.

    Bloomberg prompted GPT-3.5 to sort equally-qualified resumes for jobs like software engineer and financial analyst. Over the course of thousands of tests, Bloomberg found resumes with names distinct to Black Americans were least likely to be ranked as top candidates.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Google is paying small news outlets to use an AI article writing tool.

    Under the agreement, publishers produce three articles a day, one newsletter a week and one marketing campaign a month using AI. In exchange, outlets get “a five-figure sum” over the course of 12 months.

    First off, that figure seems like a steal for Google. And the service relies on articles from other publishers — who reportedly haven’t consented to their work being used:

    To produce articles, publishers first compile a list of external websites that regularly produce news and reports relevant to their readership. ...

    When any of these indexed websites produce a new article ... the publisher can then apply the gen AI tool to summarize the article, altering the language and style of the report to read like a news story.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    A New Orleans magician says he made the AI Biden robocall telling people not to vote.

    Paul Carpenter told NBC News that he was paid $150 to produce a fake AI-generated voice message from Joe Biden — and that the political operative Steve Kramer hired him to do it. Kramer has worked with Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips’ campaign to gather signatures to get on the ballot. NBC didn’t find evidence that the Phillips campaign was involved in the robocalls.

    The parties reportedly involved apparently were not very discreet. Kramer texted the magician, “Have AI voice project” in September. And then there’s this:

    On Jan. 22, when NBC News first broke the news of the fake Biden robocall, Steve Kramer texted Carpenter a link to the story along with the message, “Shhhhhhh,” to which Carpenter replied, “Gtfooh,” an acronym used to express astonishment.