Curated Commons // Edition 127
Welcome to the 127th edition of Curated Commons! Thank you for subscribing (if you haven't yet, what are you waiting for?).
Happy reading ($ indicates potential paywall).
Meet the belligerent AI with emotions
Microsoft loves making AI systems that reflect the world we live in. Remember Tay, the chatbot that went full-on racist in a day. And now, their implementation of GPT-3 in Bing Chat is experiencing a range of emotions and subjecting users to quite some anxiety and fun. Lot of good pieces.
Ben Thompson looks at his strange interactions - Read here
Is Microsoft looking to tame its chatbot? - Read here
Bing says it would love to be a human - Read here ($)
“I will not harm you unless you harm me first” - Read here
What is ChatGPT and why does it work. Good long read by the founder of Wolfram Alpha - Read here
Meet Amazon, the big, fat intermediary
Amazon marketplace’s cut of seller revenues is now apparently at over 50% - Read here
AI’s music lessons aren’t going great
AI is marching towards music, and so far, it’s out of tune. How long? - Read here ($)
This technology is generating infinite music that isn’t actually composed by anybody, and that’s a terrible, scary, awful way of thinking about where music could go
When your relationship chatbot abandons you
People are developing strong emotional bonding with AI chatbots. One such case - Replika, an erotic AI chatbot pivoted, and left a trail of broken hearts. Our algorithmic future is going to test the limits of anthropomorphizing algorithms and robots and how emotional we get with them - Read here
CRISPR, but for fighting climate change
If you want to feel good about a science-driven future, look no further than this short piece from Dr. Jennifer Doudna, Nobel laureate and co-inventor of CRISPR-CAS9 on what’s next for the magical tool! - Read here
Couldn’t come sooner given research suggests pesticides impair our senses - Read here
The curator economy is here
Good long read on the emerging curator economy in India, of which this newsletter too is a tiny part. Also features a quote from me, and this lovely illustration on curation - Read here
No good news on global warming
Warming seas are cutting into the underside of the Earth’s widest glacier, risking the rise of major increase in sea levels :-( - Read here
New drugs, brought to you by AI
Fascinating approach to drug design driven by AI and automation that hopefully will cut down the insanely long timeline and expense for new drugs. And identifying the right drug for the right patient. - Read here
ASML and Chinese economic espionage stories continue
Last year, ASML, a key player in the semiconductor industry value chain, came out with accusations around stolen trade secrets by a Chinese firm. They’ve now identified another data breach apparently. - Read here ($)
From Israel, with (fake) love, and real outrage
Musk may believe adding a phone number or a credit card is enough to take care of bots. He hasn’t encountered rich bots, as this Israeli firm apparently has for creating disinformation campaigns for a price. Trust neither the picture, nor the message, nor the intent. Everything is algorithmically generated! - Read here
AI-generated voices, weaponizing your voice against yourself
This was waiting to happen. If there’s a voice clipping of you somewhere, you are fair game to be harassed by AI-generated voices. - Read here
Meet the NYT, the “super app of record”
Neat little phrasing capturing the NYT’s dramatic digital growth. The piece also has some interesting charts - Read here
More interesting reads:
Conversational AI is coming to right into your IDE. Fascinating. - See here
SIM-swapper goes behind Instagram influencers - Read here
Can an ingestible sensor help doctors pinpoint GI difficulties - Read here
Then - interns for tweeting. Now - interns for making viral TikTok hits- Read here ($)
And finally
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