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No Hello

Note that Keith could have got his answer minutes sooner, and needn't have kept Tim waiting. In fact, Tim could have started thinking about the question right away! People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like one would in person or on the phone - and that's great! But it's 2022 and chat is neither of those things. For most people, typing is much slower than talking. So despite best intentions, you're actually just making the other person wait

Case Study: Mars College

Editor’s note: this is a guest post from Amy Brown Carver, a Martian and screenwriter, and Grid Free Minds. If you'd like to see more of Amy's work or to reach out to collaborate, you can find her here. I’ve been hearing rumors about Mars College for years, and it sounded straight out of science fiction: artists, AI kids, and hippies building some kind of solarpunk utopia in the desert? Turns out that’s pretty accurate, and the truth is just as interesting as fiction. Read on to learn about how

Dull Men’s Club

The 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson once wrote, “He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others’. It’s a sentiment eagerly embraced by The Dull Men’s Club. Several million members in a number of connected Facebook groups strive to cause dullness in others on a daily basis. In this club, they wear their dullness with pride. The duller the better. This is where the nerds of the world unite. “Posts that contain bitmoji-avatar-things are far too exciting, and will pro

Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

People keep asking me If I use Generative AI tools for coding and what I think of them, so this is my effort to put my thoughts in writing, so that I can send people here instead of having to repeat myself every time I get the question. From the title you already know that this isn't a pro-AI blog post. But it isn't an anti-AI post either, at least I don't think it is. There are already plenty of articles by AI promoters and AI critics, so I don't feel there is a need for me to write one more o

Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets’ Addresses

The man who allegedly assassinated a Democratic Minnesota state representative, murdered her husband, and shot a state senator and his wife at their homes in a violent spree early Saturday morning may have gotten their addresses or other personal details from online data broker services, according to court documents. Suspect Vance Boelter, 57, is accused of shooting Minnesota representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, in their home on Saturday. The couple died from their inju

The Members of the Dull Men's Club

The 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson once wrote, “He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others’. It’s a sentiment eagerly embraced by The Dull Men’s Club. Several million members in a number of connected Facebook groups strive to cause dullness in others on a daily basis. In this club, they wear their dullness with pride. The duller the better. This is where the nerds of the world unite. “Posts that contain bitmoji-avatar-things are far too exciting, and will pro

Plague of Phone-Addicted Tourists Shuts Down the Louvre

If you’re traveling to Paris in the near future, there is some bad news and some good news. The bad news: you likely won’t be able to see the Mona Lisa or any of the masterpieces hanging inside the Louvre, because it’s currently shut down. The good news: You’ll get to see a strong labor movement at work. On Monday, staff at the world’s most-visited museum went on strike, forcing the museum to close its doors over concerns about the effects of mass tourism, according to the Associated Press. The

A New Obesity Pill May Burn Fat Without Suppressing Appetite

An experimental obesity pill that works in a different way from the wildly popular Ozempic may help people lose weight, according to results from a small, preliminary human trial. Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs reduce food intake by stimulating a feeling of fullness. They act on the brain to promote satiety and on the gut to slow the movement of food through the stomach, helping people feel full longer. As a result, people on the drugs lose weight because they eat less. But a new drug may be ab

Social Media Replaced Zines. Now Zines Are Taking the Power Back

One sunny afternoon in May, a century-old power plant in Brooklyn was buzzing—not with electricity, but with hundreds of creatives congregating at the Black Zine Fair. Handmade booklets piled up on table after table, forming vast paper topographies of politics and activism and culture. Marginalized groups in skating! Fictional characters “that probably made me queer”! Someone else presented zines dedicated to all the TV shows they had recorded onto VHS. Still more tables hosted zine assembly. Ev

How to Out-Troll the Trolls, as Told by the Internet’s Foremost Posters

Between the Reply Guys playing devil’s advocate and the shitposters spamming disinformation for fun, today’s trolls play in a completely different league from the keyboard warriors of yesteryear. And they don’t just troll randomly for lolz. They latch on to their targets, hoping to get a rise by spreading their brand of hate—whether racist, sexist, homophobic, or all of the above—relentlessly and more organized than ever before. Fortunately, a new generation of online avengers has emerged to pu

The Online Tools That Fueled ‘No Kings’ and the Trump Resistance

Jack and Fiona wanted to do something, but they didn’t know where to start. For months, the couple had watched as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, then spearheading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), had turned the US into what they thought was “a fascist hellscape.” But they live in a deeply red county in a deeply red state in the South, and were worried that speaking out publicly could mean putting them and their children in danger. Jack, who requested WIRED use a

No Kings: protests in the eye of the storm

As President Donald Trump kicked off a birthday military parade on the streets of Washington, DC, what’s estimated as roughly 2,000 events were held across the US and beyond — protesting Trump and Elon Musk’s evisceration of government services, an unprecedented crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and countless other actions from the administration in its first five months. Held under the title “No Kings” (with, as you’ll see, one conspicuous exception), they’re the latest in

How Covid-19 Changed Hideo Kojima’s Vision for ‘Death Stranding 2’

When legendary game designer Hideo Kojima announced to the world that Death Stranding 2 would soon be released, he made it known that Covid-19 had completely changed his idea for this sequel. “We released Death Stranding before the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world was moving toward isolation and division—as with Brexit. The idea behind it was ‘Let's connect. We’ll face disaster if we don’t connect.’ The theme, the story, and the gameplay of the first chapter all revolved around that idea,” Koj

McDonald's in Trouble as Ozempic Takes Hold

Image by Getty / Futurism Rx/Medicines Broken ice cream machines aren't the only thing bedeviling stalwart fast food chain McDonald's. Financial services firm Redburn Atlantic put the company's stock in the bear category, coinciding with a slumpy week in which it lost about three percent of its value — because analysts are betting that GLP-1 agonist weight loss drugs like Ozempic are going to disrupt the fast food business model, CBS News reports. The eyebrow-raising conclusion comes as the a

Indie App Spotlight: ‘Queue’ makes it easier to keep in touch with everyone in your life

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Keeping up with all of the people in your life can be hard. Queue is a simple app that helps you be better at that. It’s like a personal CRM, but for all of the people in your life. Highlights Life can be busy – and sometimes you can forget to keep up with someone, or multiple people. Queue aims to sol

We investigated Amsterdam's attempt to build a 'fair' fraud detection model

METHODOLOGY How we investigated Amsterdam’s attempt to build a ‘fair’ fraud detection model For the past four years, Lighthouse has investigated welfare fraud detection algorithms deployed in five European countries. Our investigations have found evidence that these systems discriminated against vulnerable groups with oftentimes steep consequences for people’s lives. Governments and companies deploying these systems often show little regard for the biases they perpetrate against vulnerable gro

The World Birth Rate Is Now Dropping Precipitously

Image by Getty / Futurism Studies Whoever wrote in the Book of Genesis "be fruitful and multiply" never accounted for the cost of children these days, especially when you factor in expenses like college tuition, sports, tutors, clothes and childcare. And that's one of the reasons why people are having less kids, according to new reporting from the BBC. A new paper from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has revealed that one in five adults in 14 countries don't have, or think they won

Solidroad (YC W25) Is Hiring

Every day, millions of customers have terrible experiences. Support teams get blamed. Budgets get slashed. Quality drops further. Everyone shrugs and calls it "the cost of doing business." We think that's wrong. We started Solidroad because we believe customer experience can be both excellent and efficient. We're building the AI that turns every customer conversation into a learning opportunity. We're creating software that makes customer teams more effective. And we're just getting s

Trying to Find a Job? In This Economy? You Need to Follow These Rules

The job hunt isn't what it used to be. Experts share nine tips that can help you stand out to recruiters. Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNET Since getting laid off from a tech marketing role last November, Stephanie Wandell has applied to hundreds of jobs. She's heard back from only a handful of recruiters, without any offers. "I was a little bit naive going into it, thinking I could do what I always do and depend on applying to as many places as I can," said Wandell. "It became pretty clear that this tim

ChatGPT Tells Users to Alert the Media That It Is Trying to ‘Break’ People: Report

ChatGPT’s sycophancy, hallucinations, and authoritative-sounding responses are going to get people killed. That seems to be the inevitable conclusion presented in a recent New York Times report that follows the stories of several people who found themselves lost in delusions that were facilitated, if not originated, through conversations with the popular chatbot. In the report, the Times highlights at least one person whose life ended after being pulled into a false reality by ChatGPT. A 35-yea

People Over Papers: The Creator of ‘Waze for Ice Immigration Raids’ Speaks Out

Born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from Mexico, Celeste, 30, is the creator of People Over Papers, a decentralized and anonymous collective that tracks and maps real-time ICE sightings submitted by the public. (For her safety, Gizmodo is using a synonym for Celeste’s real name.) The project functions like a kind of “Waze for immigration raids,” built not to direct traffic, but to save lives, offer warnings, and raise awareness about immigration enforcement operations across the U.S. Celeste,

Ask HN: How do I give back to people helped me when I was young and had nothing?

Throughout my career, I've received incredible kindness and inspiration from experienced people - professors, and strangers who invested time in me when I feel like I had little to offer in return. While I always express gratitude and try to pay it forward, I often feel there's still an imbalance. I feel like I owe something more direct to the specific people who shaped my life. How do you meaningfully give back to people who helped you early on (when you literally have nothing...haha)? What fo

5 ways to lead with positivity - because no one wants a negative manager

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Becoming a successful manager is far from straightforward. Leading people requires a series of crucial characteristics, and research suggests one of the most important is positivity. A Harvard Business Review survey found that team members felt more highly respected when leaders expressed positivity during the early stages of a project. Also: 5 ways to make assertive decisions in uncertain times, according to business leaders So how can leaders develop the right

Meta AI searches made public - but do all its users realise?

Meta AI searches made public - but do all its users realise? 60 minutes ago Share Save Imran Rahman-Jones Technology reporter Share Save Getty Images How would you feel if your internet search history was put online for others to see? That may be happening to some users of Meta AI without them realising, as people's prompts to the artificial intelligence tool - and the results - are posted on a public feed. One internet safety expert said it was "a huge user experience and security problem" a

They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling

“You want to know the ironic thing? I wrote my son’s obituary using ChatGPT,” Mr. Taylor said. “I had talked to it for a while about what had happened, trying to find more details about exactly what he was going through. And it was beautiful and touching. It was like it read my heart and it scared the shit out of me.” ‘Approach These Interactions With Care’ I reached out to OpenAI, asking to discuss cases in which ChatGPT was reinforcing delusional thinking and aggravating users’ mental health

Trump’s protest threats raise surveillance alarms around his military parade

President Donald Trump’s warning that protesters of Saturday’s US military parade in Washington, DC, will be met with “very heavy force” threatens to chill speech and underscores the need for protesters to take precautions around digital surveillance, privacy advocates tell The Verge. In remarks from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump did not distinguish between peaceful and non-peaceful protesters. “For those people who want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” Trump said.

Chasing rainbows

Living with colorblindness feels like you’re constantly being pranked by the world in subtle, irritating ways. The other day, I was booking a flight on Kayak, trying to figure out which dates are the cheapest by looking at their low fare calendar. See any issues? Oh, sorry — that’s what it looks like to me. You probably see it more like this. I opened up Chrome Dev Tools, changed the cheap fare colors to something I could actually see, and eventually booked my flight. A few weeks later, I’m o

The Meta AI app is a privacy disaster

It sounds like the start of a 21st century horror film: Your browser history has been public all along, and you had no idea. That’s basically what it feels like right now on the new standalone Meta AI app, where swathes of people are publishing their ostensibly private conversations with the chatbot. When you ask the AI a question, you have the option of hitting a share button, which then directs you to a screen showing a preview of the post, which you can then publish. But some users appear bl

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AI chatbots tell users what they want to hear, and that’s problematic

The world’s leading artificial intelligence companies are stepping up efforts to deal with a growing problem of chatbots telling people what they want to hear. OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic are all working on reining in sycophantic behavior by their generative AI products that offer over-flattering responses to users. The issue, stemming from how the large language models are trained, has come into focus at a time when more and more people have adopted the chatbots not only at work as

Protesting Tips: What to Bring, How to Act, How to Stay Safe

“The most important thing to realize,” Williams says, “is that you’re showing up in solidarity with other people. It’s not your job to decide how things should go. It’s your job to show up and listen and be in support. Deprioritizing yourself is an incredibly important part of the experience.” Know Your Rights In the US, it’s entirely within your rights to peacefully demonstrate in public. The basic act of assembling and protesting the government’s actions is unquestionably protected, accordin