Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
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While empowering artists is obviously a good thing, this feels like an unwinnable arms race to me. Sure, Nightshade can produce incorrect results in image generators, but this will be mitigated, leading to another tool, leading to another mitigation, and so on. For now, this may be a productive kind
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I just don't think advertising is an appropriate way to support this kind of journalism - or, potentially, any kind. This is more evidence, but it's also worth knowing that the private equity firm that owns G/O Media has not been a good steward. Non-profits
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"Speaking as a science fiction writer, I'd like to offer a heartfelt apology for my part in the silicon valley oligarchy's rise to power. And I'd like to examine the toxic role of science fiction in providing justifications for the craziness." #Technology
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On models for journalism: "I wonder if the big problem is that we focused on scale when we should have been focused on nailing down the audience. If we focused on millions when we should have focused on building ourselves a liveable wage. And if we put too much
I’ve been thinking a lot about supporting shared, informal reflection at work. In software development, we do a lot of what I’d call formal reflection. These usually take the form of retrospectives after a development sprint, where the team gets together to discuss what went right and wrong,
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Over time, I think it's becoming more and more likely that Zuckerberg will step down. I strongly suspect he'll be replaced by Adam Mosseri, whose Instagram and Threads products have been doing very well for Meta (in contrast to Zuckerberg's metaverse shenanigans). In any
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At least in Washington State, car manufacturers may record and intercept the text messages of drivers who have connected their devices to their cars via Bluetooth or cable. That data can then be resold or provided to law enforcement without a warrant. #Technology [Link]
I like to test project ideas from time to time to see if there’s some merit to them. This is one of those times. If you work on a team of knowledge workers, and use a communications tool like Slack or Microsoft Teams, I’d love to know how
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"Some critics of Big Tech have argued that leading AI companies like Google, Microsoft and Microsoft-funded OpenAI support regulation as a way to lock out upstart challengers who'd have a harder time meeting government requirements." Okay, but what about regulation that allows people to create
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A fascinating discussion of how authorship has changed, and what the demands of new authors from publishing houses really are. In the old days, an author was someone who created a work. Today, they have to be a brand. But it also turns out that unionization has a big part
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I'm really hopeful for this new generation of worker-owned media outlets. It's a promising model, and obviously hugely empowering. What will be disempowering is if they start to disappear. So let's support them with our full voices. If you're into video
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The technology depends on ingesting copyrighted work, and the business models depend on not paying for it. But just because the models only work if no payment is involved, that doesn't give the technology the right to operate in this way. It's not the same as