Techmeme
February 27, 2023, 4:05 AM

Top News

Emma Roth / The Verge:
Reports: Twitter laid off “well above 50” staff over the weekend, including Director of Product Management Esther Crawford and Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper  —  Crawford headed up various projects at Twitter, including the company's Blue with verification subscription as well as Twitter's forthcoming payments platform.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Some AI companies are hiring “prompt engineers”, who create and refine text prompts for chatbots to understand the AI systems' flaws and coax optimal results  —  When Riley Goodside starts talking with the artificial-intelligence system GPT-3, he likes to first establish his dominance.
Wall Street Journal:
Some experts, particularly those advocating for “ethical AI” or “responsible AI”, say Microsoft and OpenAI's new Bing experiment is dangerous to the public  —  Even the people behind new artificial intelligence systems say their buzzy products are ‘somewhat broken.’ They're relying on us to fix them.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Inside Apple's Exploratory Design Group, which is working on advanced tech like a glucose monitor and built some of the iPhone's and Mac's chip and battery tech  —  Apple has a secret team working to bring noninvasive glucose monitoring to its smartwatch, but that's not all it's pursuing.
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer:
Sources: the cyberattack on Dish Network was “by an outside bad actor, a known threat agent” and the company is working with an external vendor to fix the issue  —  American TV giant and satellite broadcast provider, Dish Network has mysteriously gone offline with its websites …
Molly White:
Jump and Oasis recovering ~120K stolen ether demonstrates how multisig-controlled upgradeable smart contracts undermine trustlessness and censorship-resistance  —  Wormhole, Jump Crypto, and Oasis demonstrate the centralization threat introduced by multisig-controlled upgradable smart contracts.
Jon Rice / Blockworks:
Kate Lindsay / The Verge:
As AI tools and CGI creations get better at pretending to be human, some creators online are sometimes being asked to prove that they're human  —  Last April, 27-year-old Nicole posted a TikTok video about feeling burned out in her career.  When she checked the comments the next day, however, a different conversation was going down.
Ranjan Roy / Margins:
How the potential of voice as a platform was wasted: closed ecosystems, overly ambitious proclamations, distorted monopolistic incentives, and too much capital  —  Sometimes innovation just ain't enough … I have four Echo devices in my household.  For years, we used them to control …
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Q&A with sci-fi author Neal Stephenson about inventing the metaverse concept, his blockchain startup Lamina1, not using ChatGPT to help write novels, and more  —  Neal Stephenson's science-fiction writing has predicted (and inspired) innovations from cryptocurrency to Alexa.
Tabby Kinder / Financial Times:
Sources: Sequoia resigned from Citizen's board after the startup offered a “pay to play” deal obliging existing investors to participate in a new funding round  —  Investor abandons start-up over fundraising that has massively diluted its shareholding, as Silicon Valley VCs re-evaluate deals

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: Plug&Play AI Email Assistant for Zoho CRM  —  Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps …
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:
Is Something Big Happening?, AI Safety Apocalypse, Anthropic Raises $30 Billion
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.
Hard Fork:
'Something Big Is Happening' + A.I. Rocks the Romance Novel Industry + One Good Thing
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Lenny's Podcast:
"Engineers are becoming sorcerers" | The future of software development with OpenAI's Sherwin Wu
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
The Billionaire Button w/ Tim Wu
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:05 AM ET, February 27, 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

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Politico: