Techmeme: Docs: ByteDance used OpenAI's API to develop its own LLM, codenamed Project Seed; employees discussed “whitewashing” the evidence through “data desensitization” (Alex Heath/The Verge)

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December 16, 2023, 3:40 AM

Top News

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.’

More: Hindustan Times, Daring Fireball, Digiday, and NewsBytes

Mastodon: @Gargron@mastodon.social, @ricmac@mastodon.social, @shantini@techhub.social, @blaine@mastodon.social, @blaine@mastodon.social, and @blakereid@mastodon …

See also Mediagazer

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.

More: The Verge, Yahoo News, Benzinga, and Analytics India Magazine

Threads: @alexheath and @alexheath

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to and @researchbuzz@researchbuzz …

X: @revhowardarson, @alexeheath, @petergyang, @iankar_, @minimaxir, and @armanddoma. Forums: Hacker News

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.

More: CRD, Axios, Wall Street Journal, The Information, IGN, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and The Verge

Bluesky: @docrevan.xyz. X: @michaelguimarin, @stephentotilo, and @stephentotilo

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Apple agrees to pay $25M to settle a class action lawsuit alleging Apple misrepresented the way that third-party app subscriptions worked with Family Sharing — Apple has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over Family Sharing, and will pay out $25 million to put an end to the case.

More: KCC Class Action Services LLC, The Economic Times, 9to5Mac, Business Times, The Verge, TechCrunch, Engadget, AppleInsider, and Cord Cutters News. Forums: MacRumors

Bradley Keoun / CoinDesk:

Polygon Labs discontinues contributions to Edge, the OSS used for Dogechain, and shifts towards the Polygon CDK, which is powered by zero-knowledge cryptography — Polygon Labs, a developer of scaling networks for Ethereum, has shifted toward “Polygon CDK,” a blockchain-development kit powered by zero-knowledge cryptography.

More: Polygon Blog, CryptoSlate, CoinGape, The Block, and Cryptopolitan

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 …

More: SiliconANGLE, PYMNTS.com, The Information, CNBC, Bloomberg, Investor's Business Daily, and Reuters

Mastodon: @NIH_LLAMAS@mastodon.social. X: @joshuaogundu, @howardlindzon, and @buccocapital

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.

More: Washington Post, AlgorithmWatch, AIForensics, Mashable, The Verge, Neowin, Cointelegraph, and TNW

X: @salv_romano, @daithaigilbert, @fabiochiusi, @algorithmwatch, @aiforensics_org, @jodyserrano, @textually, @leahfeiger, @jeffjarvis, @algorithmwatch, and @daithaigilbert

Bloomberg:

Memo: Weibo sent notices warning users to “avoid expressing pessimism about the economy” and “avoid crossing the red lines” around economic or financial topics — - The social media service sent warning notices to users — China has stepped up control on online discourse in past years

X: @haifeng_huang and @wexler. LinkedIn: Ethan Tan

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

More: Ars Technica, Business Insider, and The Messenger

Threads: @game_m0le, @jjackyliang, @jjackyliang, @kalihays1, @esqueer_, and @jjackyliang

X: @tomcoates and @edzitron. Forums: Ars OpenForum

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

More: Huawei Central, Reuters, Stock Market News, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, Sammy Fans, and Benzinga. X: @lord_fed

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / ZDNet:

iOS 17.2 closes off Flipper Zero devices' ability to carry out DoS attacks on iPhones within a 30-foot radius by continuously sending Bluetooth pairing requests — Apple has finally closed off the ability of the Flipper Zero pen-testing tool to flood iPhones with so many popups that the handset would lock up and require a reboot.

More: 9to5Mac, iThinkDifferent, MacRumors, The Verge, Supercharged, and Gizmodo. Forums: MacRumors Forums

Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg:

Tesla's Autopilot recall threatens to hurt the company's defense in six high-profile lawsuits set for 2024 over crashes linked to the driver-assistance program — - Recall bolsters claims Autopilot is defective, plaintiffs say — Carmaker plans over-the-air update to prevent driver misuse

More: CNET, Associated Press, Electrek, The Messenger, and eeNews Europe

Threads: @gablova. X: @technology

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:

YouTube creators MrBeast and Chucky Appleby launch ViewStats, which uses the YouTube API to unveil detailed stats about channels for creators and fans, in beta — The top YouTuber in the U.S., MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) co-founded the new analytics platform ViewStats, which is now available in beta.

Mastodon: @kierkegaank@mastodon.sdf.org. X: @nickadobos, @alexisohanian, @gregisenberg, and @bria_sullivan. LinkedIn: Justin Gerrard

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:40 AM ET, December 16, 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

Sara Fischer / Axios:

60 Minutes' CECOT segment, pulled by Bari Weiss, was mistakenly aired in Canada via an app owned by Global Television, which airs 60 Minutes in the country

Ali Watkins / New York Times:

Channel 4 says Jimmy Kimmel will share a message on Christmas Day as part of its Alternative Christmas Message show, emphasizing the importance of free speech

Reuters:

Israel's cabinet votes to shut down popular national radio station Army Radio, saying it has become a platform for views that “attack” its armed forces

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More News

Alex Williams / New York Times:

Vera Molnar, considered the godmother of generative art for her computer-aided paintings and drawings that started in the 1960s, died on December 7 at age 99

Josh Ye / Reuters:

CGIGC: China's video games market returned to growth in 2023 with domestic revenue up 13% YoY to ~$42.6B and the number of gamers up 0.61% YoY to a record 668M

More: Xinhua, GamesIndustry.biz, and Tech in Asia

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

More: 404 Media. Threads: @info_rosalie and @mattnavarra. Bluesky: @janety.bsky.social

X: @kevinish, @thechildweb3, @davidthewid, @athundt, @jason_koebler, @bumblejack_, @thatstarwarsgrl, @theebonymaw, @maria_antoniak, @davbatz, @neuwaves, and @eshumarneedi

James Titcomb / Telegraph:

The UK approved Google's selfie scanning tech to estimate a user's age, per the Age Check Certification Scheme registry, ahead of Ofcom's rules for adult sites

X: @serveaugustina, @mikestabile, @matthfield, and @mikestabile

Financial Times:

A look at the complex Microsoft-OpenAI alliance structure, which sources say entitles Microsoft to up to 49% of the earnings from OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary

X: @tim and @davidclinchnews

Tyler Pathe / FinTech Futures:

Toronto Stock Exchange owner TMX acquires the rest of US-based analytics company VettaFi for $848M, taking ownership after buying 22% for $175M in January 2023

More: TMX Group, FinTech Global, Pulse 2.0, and Canadian Press. X: @mebfaber

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”

More: Twitch, Engadget, NBC News, TweakTown, Tubefilter, PetaPixel, Neowin, PC Gamer, Decrypt, TechCrunch, PCMag, Dot Esports, Gizmodo, The Messenger, Kotaku, MSPoweruser, UPROXX, and TheGamer

X: @morgan_sung, @morgan_sung, @wonni__, and @freyaholmer. Forums: Hacker News

Earlier Picks

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”

Eduardo Baptista / Reuters:

China proposes a four-tier, color-coded system for data security incidents; for red and orange warnings, companies must notify the government within 10 minutes

More: Metaverse Post, ITPro, Bitcoin Insider, and The Hacker News. Forums: Slashdot

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

More: Pixel Envy. Threads: @susanbeebe, @theromit, @chambararenaissance, @mshobe, @j_lewis, @elatable, @sugarfreejones, @pavelsurmenok, @codedrift.social, and @jank0

Mastodon: @jay@cuthrell.com and @PizzaDemon@mastodon.online

X: @panzer, @stammy, and @ryanlucas

LinkedIn: Pasha Sadri and Luke Wroblewski. Forums: Hacker News

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

More: The Verge, ExtremeTech, The Register, Android Headlines, RestorePrivacy, SamMobile, Electronic Frontier Foundation, SiliconANGLE, Mashable, TechSpot, Gizmodo, MediaNama, Metro.co.uk, emptywheel, Silicon Republic, The Keyword, Bloomberg, Reason, and Bloomberg Law

Threads: @carnage4life. Mastodon: @chetwisniewski …, @Colarusso@mastodon.social, and @cfarivar@journa.host

X: @orinkerr, @orinkerr, @emptywheel, @joesphwiegand50, @bastionbucks, @cfarivar, @matthew_d_green, @daveyalba, @orinkerr, @iblametom, @iampaulgrewal, and @sarahfrier. LinkedIn: Thomas Brewster

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

More: OpenAI, Gizmodo, BGR, The Decoder, The Messenger, Metaverse Post, SiliconANGLE, MIT Technology Review, Baseline, TechCrunch, and IEEE Spectrum

X: @miramurati, @sama, @swarnanlp, @alextmallen, @leopoldasch, @nabla_theta, @collinburns4, @gdb, @binarybits, @_akhaliq, @stephenlcasper, @openai, and @adrienle. Forums: Hacker News

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+

More: US Department of Justice, The Daily Hodl, Trend Micro, The Record, CCN.com, Infosecurity, Bankless Times, SiliconANGLE, NBC News, Cryptonews, Cryptopolitan, and BleepingComputer

Mastodon: @brianstorms@mastodon.social. LinkedIn: Gary Warner

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

More: Nature, Google DeepMind, Politico, Synced, The Independent, The Decoder, TNW, Tech Xplore, Cybernews.com, Gizchina, Silicon Republic, Simon Willison's Weblog, SiliconANGLE, Nature, The Guardian, and New Scientist

Mastodon: @dkalintsev@infosec.exchange. Bluesky: @epro.social and @lakewitchhouse.bsky.social

X: @demishassabis, @johnjnay, @barekatainamin, @googledeepmind, @mfigurnov, @sashavnovikov, @pengmingwang, @alhusseinfawzi, @pushmeet, @wtgowers, @matejbalog, @ber24, @gfodor, and @emollick

Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot