The wide availability of image generators has caused not only an explosion of experimentation but also discussion around the implications of the technology. One knotty problem is that the images created can inherit biases from the data they are fed; another that they could be used to generate harmful content. The copyright and trademark implications of AI art
Month: January 2023
It started with a charity shop off London’s Portobello Road, and the perfect pinstripe suit. Well, almost perfect. “I totally loved it, but it didn’t fit me. So I had the idea for building an app,” explains Josephine Philips, the founder of Sojo, a startup that wants to bring tailoring “into the modern age.” Nicknamed “the
The United States Federal Aviation Administration today halted flights taking off across the country beginning early this morning and continuing until 9 am ET. The pause—the first of its kind in the US since the September 11, 2001 attacks—delayed thousands of flights and created a cascade of further delays and cancellations throughout the day. Those
Five years ago, investors wouldn’t return Nazim Salur’s calls. Now his company, Getir, is the biggest rapid grocery delivery company in Europe. After the Turkish startup acquired its German rival Gorillas last month, the company was valued at $8.8 billion. Getir first expanded into Europe via London in 2021, when a post-pandemic gold rush for instant
In the two years since, a collection of startups and large crypto companies have set up shop in the Bahamas, among them FTX and OKX, another large crypto exchange. Separately, Tether, whose dollar-pegged stablecoin is central to the smooth operation of crypto markets, holds its reserves with a Bahamian bank, Deltec Bank & Trust. But already,
Deere’s new agreement states that it will ensure that farmers and independent repair shops can subscribe to or buy tools, software, and documentation from the company or its authorized repair facilities “on fair and reasonable terms.” The tractor giant also says it will ensure that any farmer, independent technician, or independent repair facility will have
The problem, says Santos, is that often platforms do not appreciate the potential impact of “anti-democratic” content. “They’ll take down content that incites violence,” she says. “But when people are calling for a military intervention, for example, they do not clearly associate military intervention with violence.” While every expert who spoke to WIRED noted that
Novelist Ning Ken first saw Beijing’s Zhongguancun neighborhood in 1973 as a 14-year-old on a school trip to the Summer Palace, former imperial gardens looted by European troops during the Opium Wars. “At that time, once you passed the zoo, Beijing was just countryside and farmland,” he says, recalling the bus ride heading northwest. Out the
Shortly after taking over Twitter, Elon Musk laid off around 50 percent of the company’s staff. On the same day, he tweeted that all those laid off would receive three months of severance pay. But, after two months of waiting for the company to say what kind of severance and benefits will be available, several former Twitter
Genesis Global Trading, one of crypto’s oldest and most storied institutions, is in dire straits. In November, in the wake of the implosion of the crypto exchange FTX, the company’s lending unit was forced to freeze customer withdrawals—never a good sign. Almost two months later, Genesis is reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy. Although Genesis has
Late last year, I attended an event hosted by Google to celebrate its AI advances. The company’s domain in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood now extends literally onto the Hudson River, and about a hundred of us gathered in a pierside exhibition space to watch scripted presentations from executives and demos of the latest advances. Speaking remotely from
It’s a rhetorical question, but LeBeau’s statements when we met in Workrooms for an interview several weeks ago suggest he objects to the premise. For one thing, people don’t spend their lives in VR—typically sessions last 15 minutes to an hour, rarely more than two, he says. The cost is on average less than many
Surveillance capitalism just got a kicking. In an ultimatum, the European Union has demanded that Meta reform its approach to personalized advertising—a seemingly unremarkable regulatory ruling that could have profound consequences for a company that has grown impressively rich by, as Mark Zuckerberg once put it, running ads. The ruling, which comes with a €390 million
Not everyone is impressed with Mastodon. Some call it clunky and slow, some in the security world say it’s far from perfect, and because different servers may be run differently, there’s no consistency to moderation and rules. And you may be philosophically opposed to the fact that instead of “tweets,” messages on Mastodon are called “toots.” The Case
The chaos begins at 5 am. The markets open, the traders arrive, and the auction floor heaves. Over the next six hours, gambles are taken, hands are shaken, and deals are made in a flurry of brinkmanship, shouting, and testosterone. But this isn’t a Wall Street trading floor, and the commodity isn’t financial assets. Instead,
That’s a lot of lawyers. They [Big Tech] are throwing literally hundreds of millions of euros at this problem. And as much as Ms. Vestager is committed to fighting this, she is facing an uphill battle against enormous resources of entrenched powers. So it will be a tough fight. But what is making me very