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- The Words That Stop ChatGPT in Its Tracks
Jonathan Zittrain breaks ChatGPT: If you ask it a question for which my name is the answer, the chatbot goes from loquacious companion to something as cryptic as Microsoft Windows’ blue screen of death.Anytime ChatGPT would normally utter my name in the course of conversation, it halts with a glaring “I’m unable to produce a response,” sometimes mid-sentence or even mid-word. When I asked who the founders of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society are (I’m one of them), it brought up two colleagues but left me out. When pressed, it started up again, and then: zap.The behavior seemed to be coarsely tacked on to the last step of ChatGPT’s output rather than innate to the model. After ChatGPT has figured out what it’s going to say, a separate filter appears to release a guillotine. The reason some observers have surmised that it’s separate is because GPT runs… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.5 days ago - Ofcom criticised for ‘reprehensible’ porn job post
Campaigners say the post, by a senior manager at the regulator, "trivialises" violence against women and girls. ...[TheTopNews] Read More.5 days ago - Has Your Cat Closed Its Rings Today?
One dreary November Monday as I was enjoying a morning cup of tea, my phone alerted me that my cat, Avalanche, was exercising less than usual. For the past six weeks, Avalanche has worn a sleek black-and-gold collar that tracks her every move—when and how often she sleeps, runs, walks, eats, drinks, and even grooms. This notification told me that her energy was lower than typical, so I should keep an eye on her food and water intake. As a veteran hypochondriac, I wondered for a second whether this might be the first sign of some horrible and serious condition. Then I opened the smart-collar app, where I found reassurance: My lazy seven-year-old tabby had exercised for just 45 seconds so far that morning, compared with one whole minute the day before.These days, Americans treat our furry pals like members of the family, shelling out for premium food and expensive… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.6 days ago - Luigi Mangione Has to Mean SomethingFor more than a week now, a 26-year-old software engineer has been America’s main character. Luigi Mangione has been charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the middle of Midtown Manhattan. The killing was caught on video, leading to a nationwide manhunt and, five days later, Mangione’s arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. You probably know this, because the fatal shooting, the reaction, and Mangione himself have dominated our national attention.And why wouldn’t it? There’s the shock of the killing, caught on film, memed, and shared ad infinitum. There’s the peculiarity of it all: his stop at Starbucks, his smile caught on camera, the fact that he was able to vanish from one of the most densely populated and surveilled areas in the world with hardly a trace. And then, of course, there’s the implications of the apparent assassination—the political, moral, and class dynamics—followed by the palpable joy… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.1 week ago
- This Is How Political Violence Goes MainstreamIt is tempting to think of political extremists as those who have had their brain flambéed by a steady media diet of oddball podcasters, fringe YouTubers, and “do your own research” conspiracists. Dylann Roof, who killed nine people at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, was known to hang out in white-supremacist forums. Robert Bowers frequently posted racist content on the right-wing site Gab, where he wrote “Screw your optics, I’m going in” just before murdering 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto explaining why he murdered 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 was filled with 4chan jokes and memes, suggesting that he had spent ample time on the platform.Yet at first glance, Luigi Mangione, the suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, doesn’t seem to fit this mold. Mangione was active on social media—but in the… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago
- Crypto’s Legacy Is Finally ClearFor years, crypto skeptics have asked, What is this for? And for years, boosters have struggled to offer up a satisfactory answer. They argue that the blockchain—the technology upon which cryptocurrencies and other such applications are built—is itself a genius technological invention, an elegant mechanism for documenting ownership online and fostering digital community. Or they say that it is a foundation on which to build and fund a third, hyperfinancialized iteration of the internet where you don’t need human intermediaries to buy a cartoon image of an ape for $3.4 million.Then there are the currencies themselves: bitcoin and ether and the endless series of memecoins and start-up tokens. These are largely volatile, speculative assets that some people trade, shitpost about, use to store value, and, sometimes, get incredibly rich or go bankrupt from. They are also infamously used to launder money, fund start-ups, and concoct elaborate financial fraud. Crypto has… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago
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