June 12, 2023

what we're excited about...

empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines

Law & Order

AI Libel: ChatGPT (or OpenAI) is being sued for defamation in a first-of-its-kind legal case, after the chatbot went on one of its “AI hallucinations” and accused a man of embezzling money. A journalist asked ChatGPT to summarize an existing case: The Second Amendment Foundation v. Robert Ferguson, and the chatbot provided detailed documentation regarding the “defendant Mark Waters,” all of which was made up. Waters in fact has nothing to do with the case, and is suing OpenAI for libel. Tech platforms have been traditionally protected from liability due to Section 230, but that protection hinges on what other humans post on their platforms, not what fabrications their technologies create and defend.

Another Indictment: Nicola Sturgeon, the former leader of the Scottish National Party, has been taken into custody, arrested, and released without charges in the probe of the misuse of funds by the SNP. Sturgeon was a staunch supported of Scottish independence and stepped down in February after eight years on the job. Donors complained in 2021 that more than £600k donated to the party during the special independence referendum fundraising appeals in 2017 and 2019 had been misspent. Sturgeon, the former CEO of the SNP (who is also Sturgeon’s husband) and the former Treasurer have all been arrested, and are awaiting further investigation. The SNP has been in control of Scotland’s government, but now will face another controversy, and despite the mess of Brexit, may have an uphill battle for independence going forward.

Crypto use case: Cryptocurrencies have fallen out of favor since the collapse of FTX, and last week the SEC filed charges against Coinbase and Binance (some of the largest remaining crypto exchanges) for trading unregistered securities. Crypto.com also announced that it will be shutting down institutional trading of crytpo assets in the US due to limited demand (although the Lakers arena retains the name). But one area that continues to benefit from crypto: “North Korean hackers have stolen more than $3 billion in crypto over the last 5 years, and their heists are now funding fully half of its ballistic missile program.” Finally an articulated use case.

Taking Montana to Court: Youth activists are suing the state of Montana after the legislature passed several fossil fuel friendly bills. Montana’s 1972 Constitution requires officials to maintain a “clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations,” and experts say that if the judge rules in favor of the 5-22 year old plaintiffs, it will just be a slap on the wrist, a declaratory statement, saying the lawmakers violated the state Constitution, rather than immediate policy changes in the state. The trial begins today, and several other states (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York) have similar environmental protections in their state charters.

Night time governance: New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Amsterdam is “the first city to formally recognize the night as a space and time that requires special attention from elected officials, citizens and civil servants.” Yes, Amsterdam has a night mayor, NYC has an Office of Nightlife, Boston has a night czar, and Atlanta has a night division. Cities across the globe are starting to appoint divisions of government dedicated to thinking through what citizens need and want outside of traditional "awake" hours. These new offices have the interesting tasks of navigating our safety in the late night hours after a party or night at the pub, coupled with the logistics of trash pick-up, road repairs, and moving late night workers around.

Technology

Superchargers: General Motors has become the most recent major car company to adopt the Tesla standard for electric vehicle charging, following Ford Motors. Tesla already has a network of more than 12k Superchargers across the US and Canada, and GM will work to integrate its cars into the system by 2025, making adoption of electric vehicles more tenable in the US.

Deep Space: The James Webb Space Telescope just released another extraordinary picture of deep space. At first glance, you might just think it looks like the night sky. But take another look — there are more than 45,000 galaxies in this field of view or put another way, 45 quadrillion stars, 45 million billion. Yup. 🤯🤯

Too good to be true

These headlines had us laughing out loud, and in the age of AI, deep fakes and misinformation, we honestly weren’t sure if they were parodies or not, but for entertainment and information’s sake, we thought we’d share.

UFOs are real: A former US intelligence official who was in charge of investigating UFOs (or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena as we call them now) has turned whistleblower and is claiming that the US actually possesses an intact craft of non-human origin. “The material includes intact and partially intact vehicles.” We are of the belief that the universe is vast and massive and unimaginably old, and while we don’t believe that we are alone, we don’t believe that we are that special that the aliens would be hiding. We’d expect a more Independence Day type of welcome.

The Fans are Unionizing: The Taylor Swift Fans are forming a union, asking for formal bargaining power to guide the “celebrity we collectively created.” The Swifties are not fans of her new ex-boyfriend, the lead singer of The 1975 (with controversial beliefs and onstage antics), and they are asking for health benefits and compensation. NB - apparently, the Union is parody and Taylor and Matt Healy have actually split, but we are still awaiting confirmation.

Preparing for the Apocalypse: We, like reviewer Marques Brownlee, thought these were the “dumbest product” ever made, but the Dyson air purifying headphones may be a must buy for anyone preparing for the upcoming wildfire season. We thought no one would want to wear the Apple Vision Pro on their face, but the Dyson Zone…it’s a look. (PS it’s $1000 and not as good as an N95 mask.)

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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