Curated Commons // Edition 133
Welcome to the 133rd edition of Curated Commons! Thank you for subscribing, reading and sharing.
Generative AI, and how it impacts our understanding of culture
Redditors asked Midjourney to create selfies of various time periods. The pics came out great. All smiling. Why? Because the AI system is likely trained mostly on pictures of Americans who are very used to smiling. And that's algorithmic bias impacting our understanding of culture. Very thoughtful article on AI and the American Smile - Read here
The US has a challenge with life expectancy
Sobering data that shows how life expectancy in the US has been declining over years, in part driven by the young. - Read here ($)
One statistic in particular stood out: one in 25 American five-year-olds today will not make it to their 40th birthday.
Tech, but for surveilling you
When you are a tech enthusiast, but for security. Interesting report from a security conference in the Middle East - Read here ($)
Apps change usage behavior. Can they change social behavior?
Good story on how gig platform apps in India are trying to effect a change in behavior of customers towards gig workers - Read here ($)
Netherlands is getting tough on carbon emissions. And that’s a problem for the data center industry
Big tech companies are facing off with angry local farmers in the Netherlands - Read here
Norway company unable to produce ammunition for Ukraine coz…TikTok
Can’t make this up. TikTok data centre apparently cornering electricity supply so ammo company can’t expand! - Read here
Slowly. And then suddenly.
Levi’s wants to start using AI-generated models. Gone are the days when big fashion brands used to launch new models. - Read here
Amazon now has its own ‘Sidewalk’ across entire US
Built from its Alexa/Echo devices spread across the US, Amazon unveiled its low-power, long range wireless network, Sidewalk. Would be interesting to see the kind of applications that third-parties will leverage this for - Read here
AI-powered age verification is here
Open camera, verify age. What of the data? - Read here
On a related note, Clearview says it now has 30 billion images scraped from around the web - Read here
Meat. Grown from cells
Meat without slaughtering animals. As a demo, a company has created a meatball from a long-extinct mammoth. - Read here
Virtual cloud kitchen brands - not as welcome on Uber eats
Uber Eats is apparently flooded by virtual brands, and they are purging them - Read here ($)
More interesting reads:
Mickey Mouse is not interested in the metaverse, for now - Read here ($)
The Dutch obsession with farming - Read here ($)
Medical insurance and America - sigh! - Read here
What happens when sexting chatbots dump their human lovers - Read here ($)
Wild story on a smear campaign - Read here ($)
And finally
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