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December 15, 2023, 9:45 PM
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David Gilbert / Wired:
Researchers: Microsoft Copilot answers some political queries in the US and other countries with conspiracies, misinformation, and out-of-date or incorrect info  —  Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft's AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies and conspiracy theories.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Docs: ByteDance used OpenAI's API to develop its own LLM, codenamed Project Seed; employees discussed “whitewashing” the evidence through “data desensitization”  —  TikTok's entrancing “For You” feed made its parent company, ByteDance, an AI leader on the world stage.
Financial Times:
Sources: Elon Musk verbally guaranteed some US banks that they would not lose money on the Twitter deal; banks face serious losses on the “uninvestable” debt  —  Banks are facing serious losses on the debt as social media platform's business deteriorates
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Cox Media Group claims it can listen to consumers' conversations through microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices and use the data to target ads  —  A marketing team within media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri details Threads' fediverse plans, including following non-Threads accounts, showing replies from other platforms, and follower portability  —  The head of Instagram says a full integration with the fediverse could take ‘the better part of a year.’
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: DocuSign is working with advisers to explore a sale; DocuSign went public in 2018 and now has a $12B+ market cap; DOCU closes up 12.46%  —  Suitors for the $11 billion company could include private equity and technology firms  —  E-signature company DocuSign is working with advisers …
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Days after updating its content policy to permit certain kinds of sexual content, Twitch rescinds the “artistic nudity” portion, citing “community concern”  —  Mere days after Twitch updated its content policy to permit certain kinds of sexual content …
New York Times:
A California state agency drops its 2021 sexual harassment case against Activision Blizzard, saying that no “investigation has substantiated any allegations”  —  The California Civil Rights Department said in a settlement agreement that no “investigation has substantiated any allegations” against the video game maker.
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
The US SEC rejects Coinbase's petition for formal digital asset rules, because the “existing securities regime appropriately governs crypto asset securities”  —  The U.S. exchange had formally petitioned the agency to start writing comprehensive crypto rules, but after “careful” consideration, the SEC said no.
Bloomberg:
Sources: more Chinese government agencies and state-backed firms have ordered staff to stop bringing iPhones, Samsung phones, and other foreign devices to work  —  - Agencies from Beijing to Tianjin instruct staff to go local  — The formal directives follow a general mandate from months ago
Jordan Pearson / VICE:
Some X users report seeing ads for apps that use AI to “undress” women in photos; TikTok and Meta have started to block search terms related to “nudify” apps  —  A week after TikTok and Meta blocked certain search terms related to so-called “nudify” apps, X has not taken the same measures, Motherboard found.
Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central:
Microsoft launches its basic Office suite on the Meta Quest store for free, letting all Quests run Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in a mixed reality environment  —  Now you can tweak spreadsheets while playing Xbox, all in VR.  —  What you need to know  — Meta Quest users can now use Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in VR.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:45 PM ET, December 15, 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.

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

More News

Glenn Fleishman / Retool:
A look back at Yahoo Pipes, which from 2007 to 2015 let users drag and drop elements in a browser to make data feeds, influencing a generation of UI designers
Wall Street Journal:
Some publishers estimate that Google's Search Generative Experience could cut referral traffic by 20% to 40% if the final version resembles recent iterations

Earlier Picks

Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Apple plans to use advanced OLED screens in high-end iPads in 2024 and in a MacBook model in H2 2025, and is also considering making foldable tablets
Stacy Elliott / Decrypt:
Crypto wallet maker Ledger updates Connect Kit to remove some malicious code, live for five hours, after a former employee “fell victim to a phishing attack”
Forbes:
Google says it will no longer respond to geofence warrants after making changes to how Google Maps stores and accesses users' opt-in Location History
Will Knight / Wired:
OpenAI details how its Superalignment research team is exploring ways to control stronger AI models like GPT-4 using weaker supervisor models like GPT-2
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
The US DOJ announces an indictment for four people, two of whom have been arrested, in an alleged international pig butchering crypto scam costing victims $80M+
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Google DeepMind's FunSearch model cracks the unsolved cap set problem in pure mathematics, the first time an LLM has solved a long-standing scientific puzzle
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google launches a Pixel Diagnostic App and repair manuals in English in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and European countries where Pixel devices are sold
Aria Alamalhodaei / TechCrunch:
Amazon validates Project Kuiper's optical inter-satellite links, which use infrared lasers to move data around 30% faster than terrestrial fiber optical cables
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