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Techmeme
October 12, 2024, 3:25 PM
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Top News

Gary Marcus / Marcus on AI:
Apple AI researchers say they found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models and their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching  —  Important new study from Apple  —  A superb new article on LLMs from six AI researchers at Apple who were brave enough …
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Threads users criticize Meta after the company posted AI-generated images of the Aurora Borealis on its Threads account  —  Meta has a suggestion for folks like me who forgot to go outside and look at the Northern Lights on Thursday night: just use AI to fake it!
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of, and interview with, Meta's Yann LeCun, who says today's AI models aren't intelligent and warnings about AI's existential peril are “complete B.S.”  —  Yann LeCun, an NYU professor and senior researcher at Meta Platforms, says warnings about the technology's existential peril are ‘complete B.S.’
More: AIM and Cafe Hayek
Threads: @yannlecun.  Mastodon: @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social.  LinkedIn: Rahul Chadha and Hilal Lashuel
Mathew Ingram / The Torment Nexus:
Matt Mullenweg's feud with WP Engine not only presents a significant conflict of interest but has also dragged the WordPress community into a legal mess  —  Hi everyone!  Mathew Ingram here.  This is The Torment Nexus (you can find out more about me and this newsletter — and why I chose to call it that — in my inaugural post.)
Dario Amodei:
An essay on what a “powerful AI” may look like and how it could positively transform the world in biology, neuroscience, economic development, work, and more  —  How AI Could Transform the World for the Better  —  I think and talk a lot about the risks of powerful AI.
Rozanna Latiff / Reuters:
TikTok is laying off hundreds of employees globally, including less than 500 in Malaysia, as it shifts focus towards a greater use of AI in content moderation  —  Social media platform TikTok is laying off hundreds of employees from its global workforce, including a large number of staff in Malaysia …
Charlie Warzel / The Atlantic:
The bleak online discourse about hurricanes Milton and Helene revealed not just a misinformation crisis in the US but a cultural assault on reality itself  —  The truth is, it's getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality.
Bloomberg:
Investigation: Uber and Lyft lockouts for 800+ NYC drivers occurred almost every hour of every day, saving the companies hundreds of millions of dollars in pay  —  One August morning in south Brooklyn, Mohamed Mohamed did what he's done almost every day for nine years: He woke up at 5 a.m. …
Hannah Lang / Reuters:
Adobe expects US BNPL spending to grow 11.4% YoY to $18.5B in Q4 2024; the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia says most BNPL users make their payments on time  —  As Amazon's Prime Day kicked off the holiday shopping season this week, U.S. consumers are expected to spend a record $18.5 billion using buy …
Dan Primack / Axios:
PitchBook: VCs in the US invested $37.5B via 2,794 deals in Q3 2024, down 32% QoQ, despite some big AI rounds, as a lack of exits restricts new deal activity  —  Venture capital's lack of exits is restricting new deal activity, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.
More: PitchBook

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Featured Podcasts

The Social Radars:
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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:25 PM ET, October 12, 2024.

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

Salon:
Salon, launched in 1995 to cover politics, culture, and more, says it is closing: “business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly”

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Nielsen: ~31.2M people watched midterm primetime coverage across 13 TV networks; NBC News led with 6.74M, ahead of ABC News with 5.19M and Fox News with 4.32M

Financial Times:
Bomb threats force the evacuation of Irish newsrooms, including national broadcaster RTÉ, which briefly went off air and resumed broadcasts from a mobile unit

More News

Timothy B Lee / Understanding AI:
An interview with Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov on Tesla fans' claims that Waymo's software relies on hand-coded rules, can't handle freeway driving, and more
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sources: Microsoft plans to test the ability to stream games that users own but aren't in the Xbox Game Pass library, starting with Xbox Insiders in November
Mia Sato / The Verge:
X drops Unilever from its “advertiser boycott” lawsuit, after making a deal with Unilever “to continue our partnership” as part of an “ecosystem-wide solution”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Adam Mosseri attributes Instagram and Threads' moderation issues, causing users to lose access to their accounts, to human moderator “mistakes”, not AI systems

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
A look at Elon Musk's unparalleled involvement in the US election; sources: Trump's campaign contacted X to stop the circulation of the hacked JD Vance dossier
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Steam now tells its users that they're buying a license, not a game, ahead of a California law that forces companies to do so when customers “buy” digital media
Business Insider:
Analysts question the feasibility of Tesla's robotaxi plan, citing a lack of rideshare partnerships and Musk's history of missing FSD targets; TSLA drops 8.8%
NPR:
Faulty court filing redactions: TikTok executives were unconcerned with the harms the app poses for US teenagers, despite internal research validating concerns
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