Techmeme: DoNotPay plans to use its AI-based legal advisor to coach a defendant via an earpiece to fight a speeding ticket in an unnamed US courtroom in February 2023 (Lauren Leffer/Gizmodo)

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January 7, 2023, 11:20 PM

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Lauren Leffer / Gizmodo:

DoNotPay plans to use its AI-based legal advisor to coach a defendant via an earpiece to fight a speeding ticket in an unnamed US courtroom in February 2023 — The AI legal assistant has helped people contest parking tickets, now it's leveling up to the courtroom—and the judge doesn't know.

More: New Scientist, Interesting Engineering, WRAL TechWire, TechSpot, Slashdot, and Popular Science. Mastodon: @ernie@writing.exchange

New York Times:

PitchBook: investors pumped $1.37B+ into generative AI companies across 78 deals in 2022, almost as much as was invested in the previous five years combined — An investment frenzy over “generative artificial intelligence” has gripped Silicon Valley, as tools that generate text …

More: Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Staying Drunk on Writing, Female Foundry, Insider, Financial Times, and Metaverse Post

Tweets: @tomphilpott, @pstasiatech, @parismarx, @spencerrascoff, @zoecello, @scottlincicome, and @cademetz

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

PitchBook and NVCA report: in 2022, US VC deal count fell 14% YoY to 15,852, deal value fell 30% YoY to $238.3B, and exit value fell 91% YoY to $71.4B

More: TechCrunch, Governor Kathy Hochul, and PitchBook

Tweets: @rahaeli, @dominicmadori, @michaeldtubbs, and @carnage4life

Tony Ho Tran / The Daily Beast:

GPTZero, a Princeton student's app that uses perplexity and burstiness metrics to help detect whether a human or ChatGPT wrote an academic essay, goes viral — “Humans deserve to know when the writing isn't human.” — Deputy Editor, Innovation & Tech … Edward Tian was fast asleep when his bot broke a website.

More: The Guardian, Gizmodo, Insider, Mashable, Entrepreneur, Polygon, VICE, BuzzFeed News, Neowin, and Engadget

Mastodon: @johntimaeus@sysad.ninja, @andybaio@xoxo.zone, and @bibliotecaria@blacktwitter.io

Tweets: @edward_the6, @edward_the6, @tonyhowashere, @sezekwesili, @christintweets, @goodside, @bbacktesting, @kalenjordan, @princeton, @adrianweckler, @aparanjape, @goodside, @tonyhowashere, and @revkin

Aaron Holmes / The Information:

Sources: Microsoft is working on incorporating existing and future versions of OpenAI's GPT into Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and its other productivity apps — In a move that could change how more than a billion people write documents, presentations and emails, Microsoft …

More: Thurrott, BetaKit, and AppleInsider

Mastodon: @teledyn@mstdn.ca. Tweets: @amir, @amir, @pitdesi, @ldrogen, @pjbrown_iii, @warmoth, @alex, @annbordetsky, @amir, @martinsfp, @ejwalters, @aerocles, and @adrianweckler

Ina Fried / Axios:

Mojo Vision, which demonstrated a working AR contact lens prototype in March 2022, pivots to focus on its micro-LED display tech and lays off 75% of its staff — Mojo Vision, a startup that had embarked on a years-long effort to create a smart contact lens with a built-in display …

More: Mojo Vision, The Verge, TechCrunch, and Silicon Valley Business …. Thanks:@inafried

Kylie Robison / Fortune:

Sources: some former US Twitter employees finally received their severance agreements, offering only one month of base pay as severance and no prorated bonuses — Following further delays this week, some former Twitter employees finally received their official severance agreements on Saturday …

More: New York Post, Insider, Bloomberg, and Forbes

Mastodon: @cfarivar@journa.host. Tweets: @gergelyorosz, @kyliebytes, @kyliebytes, @gergelyorosz, @kate__duffy, @laurengoode, @bismahmalik, @alistairmbarr, @javavvitch, @lexnfx, @telliotter, @brokep, and @kyliebytes

Financial Times:

Despite a recent pledge by Chinese officials to support tech to boost growth, VCs and foreign investors remain wary after a brutal, two-year regulatory campaign — Beijing about-face met with caution after brutal regulatory campaign to tame large internet groups

Josh Nicholas / The Guardian:

The number of active users on Mastodon dropped from a peak of over 2.5M in early December 2022 to about 1.8M in the first week of January 2023 — More than 130,000 people were joining the new independent social media network a day in November. So why hasn't it taken off?

Mastodon: @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, @thegrugq@infosec.exchange, @juddlegum@journa.host, @tob@hachyderm.io, @DenialShown@c.im, @thebostonlol@urbanists.social, @GregNilsen@mastodon.social, and @dalias@hachyderm.io

Tweets: @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @conradkbarwa, and @tan123

Callum Cyrus / Tech.eu:

Marseille-based Volta Medical, whose AI assistant helps surgeons in cardiac ablation procedures, raised a €36M Series B, bringing its total funding to over €70M — Marseille-based Volta Medical is preparing for additional clinical trials, after successfully winning CE and FDA-approval …

More: Volta Medical, PitchBook, Gilde Healthcare, FinSMEs, PYMNTS.com, and Silicon Canals

Brandy Zadrozny / NBC News:

A doctor says she faced a wave of anti-vaccine harassment after Twitter ignored her pleas to stop the spread of a fake image of a nonexistent tweet in her name — Growing concerns over impact of medical misinformation on public health — When Dr. Natalia Solenkova woke up Monday morning …

More: New York Post. Tweets: @ragesheen, @politicussarah, @brandyzadrozny, and @dwuhlfelderlaw

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From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”, after CBS aired a Late Show rerun in which Colbert mocked Trump

Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:

Sources: Bari Weiss skipped five 60 Minutes CECOT screenings; after her edits were added on Thursday, she asked on Friday to add a Stephen Miller interview

Rebecca Rubin / Variety:

Disney crosses the $6B milestone at the box office for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic; no other studio has managed to reach $6B since 2015

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More News

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Mandiant: Russian cyberespionage group Turla piggybacked on other hackers' decade-old malware that spread via USB drives to stealthily access victim networks

More: Wired UK, Dark Reading, Axios, CyberScoop, ComputerWeekly.com, and SecurityWeek

Tweets: @inteltweet, @780thc, and @mandiant

Sam Sutton / Politico:

The SEC is readying a rule, which may be finalized as soon as Q1 2023, to make it easier for investors to sue VCs for bad behavior, negligence, or recklessness

More: Bloomberg and The Information

Tweets: @carnage4life, @iankar_, @abrams, and @samjsutton

Reuters:

Ant Group says founder Jack Ma will give up control as the fintech giant nears the completion of its two-year restructuring driven by Chinese regulators

Earlier Picks

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:

Irish DPC's €390M Meta fine, issued at the behest of European Data Protection Board, is a harbinger of how EU may crack down on Big Tech in the next two years

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:

Kuo: Apple canceled its fourth gen iPhone SE, in which it planned to debut its own 5G modem; the cancelation could be due to poor sales of mid-to-low-end phones

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:

Researchers: cybercriminals have started using ChatGPT to create hacking tools and AI-generated malware code, and are testing the tool for dating scam chatbots

More: Check Point Research, Ars Technica, HackRead, Metaverse Post, The Register, SC Media, and Tech Monitor

Mastodon: @malwaretech@infosec.exchange. Tweets: @mhdempsey, @mmitchell_ai, @julianmoncadany, @julianmoncadany, @levie, @iblametom, @kylebrussell, @taylorannberg, and @iblametom