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December 15, 2023, 9:55 PM
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Top News

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Microsoft Copilot answers some political queries in the US and other countries with conspiracies, misinformation, and out-of-date or incorrect info  —  Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft's AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies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
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.’
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 …
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.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:55 PM ET, December 15, 2023.

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From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:
State attorneys general from Iowa and Montana file a motion with the US Supreme Court to have the antitrust suit against the Paramount-WBD deal thrown out

Reuters:
Puck is in advanced talks for an investment from RedBird Capital; sources: the deal will value Puck at around $250M and give RedBird a significant stake

Elsa Keslassy / Variety:
Pedro Pina, YouTube VP for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, defended YouTube against claims it is fueling British TV's decline during a speech in Edinburgh

More News

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
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

Earlier Picks

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
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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