Techmeme
December 10, 2023, 9:35 PM

Top News

Associated Press:
X lifts the permanent ban on Infowars host Alex Jones' account, after Elon Musk conducted a poll that resulted in 70.1% voting in favor of restoring the account  —  Elon Musk has restored the X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, pointing to a poll on the social media platform formerly known …
Sara Dorn / Forbes:
In a 2+ hour long talk on X with Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, Jack Posobiec, others, Elon Musk said X should avoid outright bans unless users “do something illegal”  —  Elon Musk and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, newly reinstated to X after a five-year ban, launched a live-streamed chat …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
A look at the Effective Accelerationism movement, which favors open-source AI tech and believes that AI's benefits outweigh its harms and shouldn't be regulated  —  The eccentric pro-tech movement known as “Effective Accelerationism” wants to unshackle powerful A.I., and party along the way.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
A look at L4S, an internet standard finalized in January 2023, aiming to reduce latency, with interest from Apple, Google, Comcast, Nvidia, and other companies  —  A few months ago, I downgraded my internet, going from a 900Mbps plan to a 200Mbps one.  Now, I find that websites can sometimes …
Threads: @richardlawler, @richardlawler, and @ezraMastodon: @jay@cuthrell.com
Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
London-based SumUp, a startup offering ~4M SMBs payments and other financial services, raised €285M at a valuation that's higher than its $8.5B 2022 valuation  —  SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe …
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Comparing the Gemini-powered Bard and ChatGPT for factual retrieval, summarization, creative writing, coding, and more: ChatGPT performs better, but not by much  —  We run the models through seven categories to determine an updated champion.  —  Back in April, we ran a series of useful …
Zack Abrams / The Block:
Tether freezes the wallets of people sanctioned by the US Treasury's OFAC to stop “potential misuse” of its tokens, one of its new CEO's first significant moves  —  - Tether has frozen its coins held in crypto wallets sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Controls, the company announced today.
David Pierce / The Verge:
After Beeper Mini's recent outage, Apple says it took steps “to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials” to gain iMessage access  —  A few days after the team at Beeper proudly announced a way for users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly …
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Paris-based Mistral AI has raised €385M, or about $415M, with investors including a16z and Lightspeed; sources: the deal values Mistral at about $2B  —  The company has publicly released its latest technology so people can build their own chatbots.  Rivals like OpenAI and Google argue that approach can be dangerous.
New York Times:
Sources detail what happened at OpenAI before and after Sam Altman's firing; some board members believed that Altman was trying to pit them against each other  —  Split over the leadership of Sam Altman, board members and executives turned on one another.  Their brawl exposed the cracks at the heart of the A.I. movement.
Bloomberg:
The European Parliament and the EU's 27 member states will need to approve the AI Act, which seeks fines of up to €35M or 7% of global turnover for violations  —  - Region couldn't ‘let the perfect be the enemy of the good’  — Negotiators broke coffee machine working late-night deal
Adam Satariano / New York Times:

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
How to Build Your Agentic Data Foundation with Zoho Analytics and Zoho DataPrep  —  Parts 1 and 2 covered why agents need a data foundation and what the right architecture looks like.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic's Labs Lead On Fable's Capabilities + Building AI-Native Products — With Mike Krieger
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Great Chat:
How much data do we actually want about our bodies?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Training Data:
Memory and Continual Learning: Engram's Dan Biderman and Jessy Lin
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Access:
This AI tells you what your friends won't
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Ad Industry's Weirdest Tradition
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:35 PM ET, December 10, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Elizabeth Napolitano / CoinDesk:
Margi Murphy / Bloomberg:
Erik Hoel / The Intrinsic Perspective:

Earlier Picks

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Daphne Keller / @daphnehk:
ChatGPT / @chatgptapp: