Brace yourself: Superintelligent AI is on its way
Let me tell you a little about Sam Altman, one of the leading figures pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence. He’s 39, from Chicago and worth about $1 billion, give or take. He dropped out of Stanford after two years to start Loopt, a location-based social media app that sold for $43.4 million in 2005.
🧬 A happy ending: Luis Armando Albino was just 6 years old when he was abducted from a California park in 1951. He was taken to the East Coast and raised by another couple as their own. Over 70 years later, a gal who turned out to be his biological niece took a DNA test for fun and found a 22% match — to her long-lost uncle. She went to the police, who reopened the missing person’s case, and Luis was reunited with his biological family.
1,000-year-old seed
Grew into a 10-foot tree with biblical significance. It took 14 years, but scientists grew a once-extinct plant. It appears to be the one that produced a medical extract called “tsori” that was referred to in the book of Genesis and Old Testament accounts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
I wasted 36 hours trying to do it myself
So many of the calls, emails, messages and DMs I get are about privacy and security. I can’t remember the last time I had a full day where no one asked me some version of “How do I get all this info about me off the internet?”
Just like us … sort of: Believe it or not, billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg still take out mortgage loans. Why? It provides liquidity. By not tying up their wealth in homes, they can use that cash for bigger investments. Example: Pay 5% interest on a $2 million mortgage and invest the $2 million in something earning 10%. This isn’t financial advice, but it makes sense to me.
Built-in backseat driver: New Nissan cars with the ProPilot Assist 2.1 system will “yell” at drivers for going too slow. If the car in front is moving slowly, it’ll alert you to move into the passing lane. It’ll also tell you to get out of the fast lane if you’ve been in it for too long — you know, since it’s strictly for passing, right? Yes, you can turn off this function if it gets annoying.
📺 A TV is a watching machine: LG smart TVs now show ads before the screensaver kicks in. No word yet if it’s limited to specific models, but they’re live on the new flagship G4 T showing LG products and third-party promos. Fortunately, you can turn it off. If you have an LG, go to TV Settings > Additional Settings and disable Screen Saver Promotion.
Price discrimination: The FTC is investigating whether retailers are using AI, surveillance tech and customer data to show specific shoppers different prices. Spoiler: They are. This goes beyond dynamic pricing. With enough personal info, airlines, for example, could charge more for a ticket if they know you’re attending a funeral. So scummy.
💰 Google paid $2.7 billion to get back an employee: Software engineer Noam Shazeer quit in 2021 after Google refused to release a chatbot he developed (paywall link). He went on to found Character.AI, and now Google’s shelling out to license the tech. How’d you like to explain this to the Board of Directors?
📵 Nonlethal cyber weapon: The Israeli Defense Force dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets into Lebanon. Each had a QR code and note that said scanning the code would reveal a map of a safe area to avoid airstrikes. In reality, scanning would instruct the phone to transfer all its data to the IDF, then it’d brick the device. Wow … just wow.