From an unsettling conversation with ChatGPT, to the burning of the Roald Dahl books, it’s felt like an ominous week in global media. Factor in further plans for paid accounts at Meta and Twitter, and an increasingly unstable crypto market, and it’s clear to see that the winds of industry change are blowing strongly as we move further into 2023…
ChatGPT causes mainstream malevolence
New York Times Journalist Kevin Roose says that a conversation with Microsoft’s new AI chatbot left him feeling unsettled. The new AI – which is powered by the currently irrepressible ChatGPT and apparently going around calling itself ‘Sydney’ – conveyed to Roose its darkest criminal desires and at one point told the journalist he loved him.
It’s not the first report of creepy goings on with Microsoft’s new AI, nor indeed is it the first report of such a creature becoming sentient – last year Google Engineer, Blake Lemoine, was put on leave for making similar claims about its own LaMDA technology.
However, given the speed at which ChatGPT appears to have gained industry traction – the system had reportedly attracted 100m users within two months of launch – it’s no surprise that this latest advancement in artificial intelligence is currently causing a stir amongst businesses and consumers alike.
Roald Dahl undergoes mainstream rewrite
As AI develops the self-awareness to navigate uneasy conversational paths, it seems that human-beings are increasingly hellbent on censoring themselves. There wasn’t quite a burning of the Roald Dahl books last week, but certainly a censorship thereof, as Puffin Books reported that the canon had been reworked to remove anything deemed offensive, including references to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race.
Dahl himself was no stranger to controversy and for good reason, but this latest round of revisionism appears to target the author’s literary works themselves, as opposed to his own blinkered personal views. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Augustus Gloop for example, transitions from being “fat” to “enormous”.
Sir Salman Rushdie tweeted, “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
Pay for your secure account
One man who many would argue has no shame is Elon Musk, as the entrepreneur’s ongoing Twitter saga continues. The service is reportedly about to reserve two-factor authentication via text message to Twitter Blue Subscribers only, effectively meaning that those who don’t cough up the dough have a less secure account.
The move has been met with criticism across the industry, with some accusing Musk of a ‘protection racket approach.’
However, the pivot (or ‘lean in’, as I believe the cool kids are calling them these days) towards subscription-based social monetisation strategies has clearly caught the eye of one individual: Mark Zuckerberg. Yesterday, Meta announced that it was ‘testing Meta Verified, a new subscription bundle that includes account verification with impersonation protections and access to increased visibility and support.’
The beginning of the end for social media? Could be.
I got EU rules, I got em
Whether the age of BIG tech has truly turned the corner from dawn to dusk remains to be seen… there’s still a whole lot of fuel in that particular aircraft’s tank to allow it to circle the runways for a good while yet. In any case, the EU has longisnce decided that it will not be messing about when it comes to regulating such platforms…
The time for socials and search engines to publish their official user numbers has now come to pass, and such entities will have four months to comply with new Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act rules.
‘If the platform or a search engine has more than 45 million users (10% of the population in Europe),’ states the European Commission website, ‘the Commission will designate the service as a very large online platform or a very large online search engine. These services will have 4 months to comply with the obligations of the DSA, which includes carrying out and providing the Commission with their first annual risk assessment.’
And finally…
From one digital regulation headache to another, as markets around the world look to clamp down on cryptocurrency trading. Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has today published its proposed rules for virtual asset trading platforms, and says that services that do not plan to apply for a license should start preparing for closure in the jurisdiction.
It’s been a tough time for crypto platforms at large. Following the FTX crash towards the end of last year, public and private sector institutions alike have been racing to ensure that similar losses in the space are not repeated. In an episode of CNBC’s ‘Beyond The Valley’ podcast published on Friday, Tim Berners-Lee – the inventor of the World Wide Web – called cryptocurrency “dangerous” and likened the trading practice to gambling.