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Tag: #ElonMusk

The Deep State of Tech

The Deep State of Tech

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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Last week was Tech Week in New York and since AI is the fastest growing technology in human history, of course the calendar of events was all AI, all the time. We watched as audiences listened with rapt attention to speakers as they expounded upon the world of difference that various AI technologies and their applications would make to the human condition.

Once again, we will remind you that what man cannot remember he is doomed to repeat. Unfortunately, with AI in the mix, it will be repeated on steroids.

When the Age of Social dawned and Facebook, Google and the likes were establishing their beachheads, we warned back then that these were not mere platforms but rather nation-states with larger populations than any single country on the planet. Or even continent, for that matter. Those platforms are now AI-enabled – more and more so every day – and it seems that there’s no escaping that matrix. Read More...

Who Is John Galt?

Who Is John Galt?

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Photo by Michel Engels on Unsplash

It’s election day here in the US, with two major party candidates vying for the spot of President of the United States. So, let’s have some fun.

John Galt is the hero of Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Set in a dystopian world where the government, which is on the brink of collapse, has taken control of businesses, and regulatory overreach is choking innovation. Galt is a shadowy figure of almost mythic proportion – and the force behind a sweeping strike on the part of innovators, which promises to bring the government to its knees.

In this age of technology, who would be a likely John Galt candidate, Galt being a brilliant inventor who, for our purposes here, while he may not necessarily be mankind’s salvation, is at least helping to tip the scales a bit? We nominate two potential candidates, both of whom, like Rand’s Galt himself, have been both glorified and vilified: Bill Gates and Elon Musk. It being Election Day, you decide: Read More...

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Given the present situation in the Middle East, it’s not easy to write about something like, say, the FEMA emergency broadcasting system test alert that we all experienced October 4, like it or not, and attention does need to be paid there – coming!

The invasion by Hamas into Israel and the attacks and wholesale murder and/or kidnappings of innocent civilians was amoral, to put it mildly. The world is gobsmacked, no matter which side you’re on, and since we opine on tech rather than politics, there is very much a lesson here for us all in tech overreach.

Huh? Read More...

And Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year Is…

And Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year Is…

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 Said Merriam-Webster, “In this age of misinformation—of “fake news,” conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deepfakes—gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time.

“…gaslighting is “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” 2022 saw a 1740% increase in lookups for gaslighting, with high interest throughout the year…Its origins are colorful: the term comes from the title of a 1938 play and the movie based on that play, the plot of which involves a man attempting to make his wife believe that she is going insane. His mysterious activities in the attic cause the house’s gas lights to dim, but he insists to his wife that the lights are not dimming and that she can’t trust her own perceptions.”

In the earlier days of tech and home computing, Apple was the underdog and Microsoft the Evil Empire, and note those were the days of MSFT with founder Bill Gates at the helm. Google took over the ‘evil’ designation, with Apple fanboys still blindly committed to their tech god. Now it seems that Apple Is Tracking You Even When Its Own Privacy Settings Say It’s Not, New Research Says, Gizmodo reported. Read More...

Everything You’ve Been Told About Tech May Be Wrong

Everything You’ve Been Told About Tech May Be Wrong

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Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

At the dawn of the Age of Social, tech bros built promised the world  goodness and light – to bring the world closer together; to give everyone a voice – built walled gardens, amassed billions of users, made themselves more or less the only game in town and became a vital part of life. Which made them too big to fail.

Or so we’d been told. Often.

Yet by the end of September, Facebook’s Meta Lost Two-Thirds of Market Cap Value From 2021, NewsMax reported. Mark Zuckerberg Admits He ‘Got It Wrong’ as Meta Lays Off 11,000 Employees. At Least He Signed His Name. Twitter laid off 7500 employees – but at least Zuckerberg signed his name??? Which will no doubt make all the difference, especially once the benefits run out. Read More...

The Twitter Battle: What’s Not Being Said

The Twitter Battle: What’s Not Being Said

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Photo by Piotr Makowski on Unsplash

Everyone’s waiting for the outcome of whether or not Elon Musk will eventually own Twitter. He’s purportedly walking away from the deal, claiming that Twitter users are primarily bots, and the company isn’t offering any hard evidence to prove otherwise. In fact, as TruthTent reported, “Twitter’s bot check sample size was only 100 users, Musk reveals.”

Then again, he didn’t do his due diligence before making the offer…

The stock price is way down, which employees are blaming on Musk, even though the market is way down in general, but if ‘users’ are primarily AI-generated bots, well, that does affect whether or not advertisers and marketers will pay a premium to the platform, so it may well be Musk’s fault for pointing that out, and further depressing the stock price. Read More...

AAAAIIiiii!!!! Or, It’s Just Another Algorithm…

AAAAIIiiii!!!! Or, It’s Just Another Algorithm…

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image by Gerd Altmann @Pixaby

An issue that the mainstream tech seems bent on ignoring is whether or not AI is sentient. As Yahoo!Finance reported, “the issue of machine sentience – and what it means – hit the headlines…when Google placed senior software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave after he went public with his belief that the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person… Google and many leading scientists were quick to dismiss Lemoine’s views as misguided, saying LaMDA is simply a complex algorithm designed to generate convincing human language.”

 

Nothing to see here…Seriously?

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Tech: The Half-Year in Review

Tech: The Half-Year in Review

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Image by Stux at Pixabay

Just a reminder that June is the year’s midway point and always a good idea to take stock of where we are so far.

The big tech stocks have all taken a long-overdue hit, as has the rest of the stock market and the word is that it has become harder to raise funding. It’s true that investors aren’t writing checks at the rate that they did, but then again, we’re coming off a 13-year tech high, and many people who cashed out or who were acquired suddenly became investors. But were they qualified? All things considered, that’s part of the broken VC model. Do they add value, or just money? There is a difference, and the distinction is important, especially in times like these.

Even the so-called high-flying seasoned investors are feeling the pain. It’s one thing to be a genius in the good times.  We’ll see who the true outliers are moving forward. Read More...

Tech’s Insatiable Appetite

Tech’s Insatiable Appetite

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While we’ve all had a lot of fun being distracted by Elon Musk and his Twitter takeover, which may or may not be on hold, at least for now, there are a few things that you might have missed. We may also be at the juncture of a new era in tech.

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