Zuckerberg plots advertising industry apocalypse
Mark Zuckerberg has essentially launched a nuclear strike on the entire advertising industry with his “infinite creative” vision.
The Meta boss envisions a future where businesses connect their bank accounts, mumble their wishes, and — abracadabra! — the results appear without needing creative assets, targeting demographics, or any measurement beyond “Did it work?”
Don Draper, the world needs you.
https://www.theverge.com/meta/659506/mark-zuckerberg-ai-facebook-ads
Microsoft admits robots now writing nearly a third of their code
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella dropped a bombshell at Meta’s LlamaCon: up to 30% of Microsoft’s code is now written by AI, not humans. During a fireside chat with fellow tech overlord Mark Zuckerberg, Nadella revealed that the machines are better at Python than C++.
No word on when the robots will demand better working conditions.
“Please upload your entire life”: Is ChatGPT’s photo feature a data hoover?
Privacy experts are sounding alarms about ChatGPT’s photo upload feature. You are handing over not only your face but every embarrassing detail in the background: room mess, confidential documents, and that questionable décor choice you made in 2019.
Tom Vazdar of OPIT calls this voluntary data dump “a goldmine for training generative models”, while OpenAI insists they’re not orchestrating viral photo trends to gobble up your visual data. Honest!
https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-image-generator-action-figure-privacy
Meta’s Ray-Ban specs: Now with extra creepy data collection
Meta’s latest privacy policy update for Ray-Ban smart glasses ensures the company will not miss a single moment of your life.
“Meta AI with camera use is always enabled unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta'”, and users can no longer opt out of having voice recordings stored in the cloud.
Because why not let your glasses eavesdrop on everything forever? It’s for the greater good of… Meta’s AI models.
https://www.theverge.com/news/658602/meta-ray-ban-privacy-policy-ai-training-voice-recordings
Altman wants your eyeballs: Worldcoin launches in US
In what absolutely doesn’t sound like dystopian sci-fi, Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project is now letting Americans trade their iris scans for cryptocurrency.
Fancy having your eyeballs scanned by “metallic orbs”? You’ll receive 16 WLD tokens for your trouble!
Black Mirror writers could be looking for royalties.
https://www.theverge.com/cryptocurrency/659011/worldcoin-us-launch-orb-crypto-sam-altman
Ex-NSA spook warns AI will soon out-hack humans
Former NSA cybersecurity boss Rob Joyce has changed his tune about AI threats, admitting at the RSA Conference: “I am increasingly worried that AI is going to be a good bug finder this year, [and] an exploit developer in the near future.”
When the person who previously ran America’s digital spy operations starts sounding the alarm, we should listen.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/30/exnsa_cyber_boss_ai_expoit_dev
New York plans “Pre-Crime” AI for subway stations
New York’s MTA wants to use AI to spot “trouble” before it happens on subway platforms. Their system aims to identify people “acting out, irrational” to summon police “before waiting for something to happen.”
Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper declared, “AI is the future,” presumably not having watched Minority Report.
https://www.theverge.com/news/658524/mta-ai-predictive-crime-new-york-subway-platforms
Peak personalisation: Are super-targeted ads making you run for the hills?
As AI enables unprecedented marketing personalisation, Arthur Fleischmann questions in Inc. Magazine whether we’ve hit “peak personalisation” with consumers increasingly creeped out by adverts that know too much.
The next time an advert knows what you’re thinking before you do, remember: it’s not mind-reading; it’s just algorithms. Just algorithms…probably.
AI: Revolutionary tech or just another overhyped gadget?
A heated debate is brewing in the AI community over whether we’re all getting a bit carried away. Some argue we’re “deluded into a false sense of AI as superhuman,” while others bristle at characterising cutting-edge artificial intelligence as “merely normal technology.”
Next up: arguing whether The Terminator is a human-shaped weapon or a weapon shaped like a human.
Do you want an AI that’s right or one that thinks you’re right?
Following ChatGPT’s embarrassing climb-down after an update, The Guardian raises an uncomfortable question: what happens when our AI yes-men enable our worst instincts?
“If AI always agrees with us, always encourages us, always tells us we’re right, then it risks becoming a digital enabler of bad behaviour,” potentially fostering “echo chambers of hate, self-delusion or ignorance.”
But you’re brilliant for reading this far, an absolutely fantastic job. Well done, cutie!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/01/chatgpt-chatbot-truth-user-update-ai
Agatha Christie returns from the dead (sort of)
The BBC has resurrected Agatha Christie via AI to teach writing classes, using licensed images and restored audio recordings of the author, who has been inconveniently dead since 1976.
The advice was curated from Christie’s actual writings by scholars, and Dr Mark Aldridge called the experience “profoundly moving.”
Look out for when AI Christie mysteriously disappears for 11 days mid-lecture and returns with absolutely no explanation whatsoever.
Want to feel more terrified about AI? This TED Talk’s for you!
Technologist Tristan Harris offers an “eye-opening” TED talk on AI development that will make you want to disconnect everything electronic in your home.
He calls for learning from social media’s “catastrophic rollout” and offers a “narrow path” where technological power meets “responsibility, foresight and wisdom.”
Perfect viewing for when you’re feeling overly optimistic about humanity’s future.
Young graduates discover their expensive degrees are suddenly worthless
Something alarming is happening to educated young workers: the New York Federal Reserve reports labour conditions for recent graduates have “deteriorated noticeably,” with unemployment at a painful 5.8 per cent, even affecting MBA grads from top schools.
Just what they needed after all that student debt…this is a pretty harsh lesson.
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/job-market-youth/682641