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ASCII art elicits harmful responses from 5 major AI chatbots

"Researchers have discovered a new way to hack AI assistants that uses a surprisingly old-school method: ASCII art."

So many LLM exploits come down to finding ways to convince an engine to disregard its own programming. It's straight out of 1980s science fiction, like teaching an android to lie. To be successful, you have to understand how LLMs "think", and then exploit that.

This one in particular is so much fun. By telling it to interpret an ASCII representation of a word and keep the meaning in memory without saying it out loud, front-line harm mitigations can be bypassed. It's like a magic spell.

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“I've Rediscovered A Mode Of Expression That Was Important To Me As A Kid”: A Talk with Jordan Mechner

A lovely interview with the creator of Karateka and Prince of Persia. (Karateka in particular was a formative game for me.)

"If you'd asked me at age 12, I’d probably have said that my dream job would be comics artist or animator." Me too. So much of this resonates.

I'm really excited to read his new book, about Mechner's family history as migrants during WWII and beyond. I strongly suspect that it, too, will resonate strongly.

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The weird world of altruistic YouTube

This is such an interesting trend:

"It seems like a pretty well-worn path at this point. Start a YouTube channel with some compelling videos, and when you amass enough views/revenue, use that money to entice strangers into helping you make more videos that get more revenue."

Mr Beast is the most well-known, but there are lots of them. I feel pretty uncynical about it: although there's definitely something icky about profiting from peoples' poor fortune, there's also real good often being done.

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Four things about threads.net

"We're selling ourselves out by letting Facebook own a new social network and not putting that energy into building something that preserves our choice."

I am worried that this might turn out to be correct.

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FBI sent several informants to Standing Rock protests, court documents show

"Up to 10 informants managed by the FBI were embedded in anti-pipeline resistance camps near the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation at the height of mass protests against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016."

This seems obvious: there are informants in any major protest movement, and have been since there were protest movements. It's not great, and it's a fundamentally undemocratic way to conduct yourself, but it doesn't represent a change from the status quo.

This article talks about surveillance, but of course, there may have been situations where informants and plants actually set out to undermine the protest. This, too, would not have been a change.

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FCC scraps old speed benchmark, says broadband should be at least 100Mbps

"The Federal Communications Commission today voted to raise its Internet speed benchmark for the first time since January 2015, concluding that modern broadband service should provide at least 100Mbps download speeds and 20Mbps upload speeds."

Finally. The previous 25Mbps down 3Mbps up benchmark was pathetic - and even that is above many peoples' actual connections in practice.

The new standard should pull other FCC regulations up with it, which is a welcome change:

"With a higher speed standard, the FCC is more likely to conclude that broadband providers aren't moving toward universal deployment fast enough and to take regulatory actions in response. During the Trump era, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Republican majority ruled that 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds should still count as "advanced telecommunications capability," and concluded that the telecom industry was doing enough to extend advanced telecom service to all Americans."

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CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms

Something I've long suspected is often the case: the founder of a data privacy firm also ran dozens of the people search services the firm was set up to remove people from for a fee.

"Onerep’s “Protect” service starts at $8.33 per month for individuals and $15/mo for families, and promises to remove your personal information from nearly 200 people-search sites. Onerep also markets its service to companies seeking to offer their employees the ability to have their data continuously removed from people-search sites."

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A smackdown over programmatic ads and why reader revenue is crucial

"There’s a reason that some 2,900 newspapers have closed since 2005, and that reason is the ad revenues publishers were hoping for to support what were initially free websites never materialized."

What's left: paywalls and patronage.

I've become much more bullish about patronage than paywalls for journalism content, and working for two non-profit newsrooms with exactly that model has only solidified that opinion. The Guardian is an illustration of how well it can work - as are ProPublica and The 19th.

What the decline of programmatic ad revenue does make me wonder is: what's going to happen to the platforms that are sustained the same way?

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Former Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is putting together an investor group to buy TikTok

"Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued existence in the U.S."

Come on. This is brazen.

Whatever you think of TikTok, I'm not excited about the idea that the US can force a sale of an internet service because it's under the control of another company. It seems to me that this undermines the effectiveness of the internet itself: the idea that anyone can reach anyone.

"There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China," Mnuchin said. Sure - they have the Great Firewall. We don't. We're supposed to be something different.

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Tiktok and the Fediverse

"The House bill, then, is an acknowledgment that algorithmic curation of feeds is a powerful feature that can have a major influence on individuals and society. It at least makes the point that allowing a foreign company, under its own government’s influence, to have some level of control of the algorithm, is a potential danger for domestic security."

I'm honestly troubled by the Tiktok legislation. I think Evan has a partial solution here: decoupling platforms from curation algorithms seems important.

I think there's also a lot to be said for not allowing any platform to get this big, regardless of national origin. If any company is big enough for its curation algorithm to influence national security, isn't that a problem? We saw Facebook influence multiple elections in worrying ways. I'd rather see lots of smaller platforms, linked with common protocols. And I'd support legislation designed to help prevent a small number of platforms from dominating our media consumption.

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EU Parliament passes AI Act in world’s first attempt at regulating the technology

Europe once again leads the way by passing meaningful AI regulation. Banned unacceptable-risk uses of AI include facial recognition, social scoring, and emotion recognition at schools and workplaces.

"The use of real-time facial recognition systems by law enforcement is permitted “in exhaustively listed and narrowly defined situations,” when the geographic area and the length of deployment are constrained."

I'm all in favor of these changes, but it's a little bit sad that this sort of regulation is always left up to the EU. American regulators appear to be sleeping.

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A Seattle Airfield Offers a Rare View of ICE Deportation Flights

"The observation room at Boeing Field offers what is arguably America’s best real-time window into our vast network of privately run deportation flights, a system that has generated troubling reports of passenger mistreatment and in-flight emergencies."

Important work from some pretty brave activists that sheds light on what's being done in our name. Sunlight will hopefully help improve the conditions these immigrants are forced to endure. Ideally the flights would stop completely.

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AI news that's fit to print

"What I thought would be helpful, instead, is to survey the current state of AI-powered journalism, from the very bad to really good, and try to draw some lessons from those examples. I'm only speaking for myself today, but this certainly reflects how I'm thinking about the role AI could play in The Times newsroom and beyond."

A pretty good roundup, including the mistakes, folks using AI for pattern-recognition, and newsrooms that are actually using generative models.

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Doing weeknotes

"Weeknotes are well suited to teams that want to communicate about their work to colleagues or management. But they’re useful in other circumstances, too, such as individuals communicating to the teams they’re part of, or leaders communicating to the people they lead."

This is a pretty great introduction to weeknotes - something that I have to admit I've implemented only sporadically at work, and never on my own site. This page has me reconsidering and thinking about buckling down.

There's a ton of value in both reflecting on and communicating what happened over the last week. Some of my favorite product managers I've worked with, in particular, have done this very well, and it was always a level-setter for the whole team's knowledge.

Something to consider?

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AI gives the news you need

I can't share a quote from this one without ruining it. But you should go read it.

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Make better documents.

"We almost never never actually teach people how to use the ordinary tools of business communication in more effective ways. So, I'm gathering some advice that I regularly share with people, in hopes that this helps you get your messages across more effectively."

This is brilliant: something I wish was part of every computer science curriculum (and every MBA and just about everything else). Perhaps it can be?

I've been thinking a lot about how to help engineers be better storytellers, and these fundamentals are a core piece of this puzzle. There's more, of course, but you can never go wrong by making your writing concrete and ensuring you keep its audience in mind.

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Downpour is out!

"It would not be worth all that to make a game that is a single stupid joke. And I like games that are single stupid jokes, and so I guess I have spent a few years in the hopes that I can let more people make more of them."

Everything about this is lovely.

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A socialist writer skewered the Formula One scene. Then her article vanished.

"It’s almost unheard of for a news outlet to retract an article without explanation, especially a story of this size whose accuracy has not been publicly challenged." And yet, this brilliant article was.

One pet peeve: this article describes Kate Wagner as "socialist". Not that there's anything wrong with that word or with being a socialist, but it seems to be used very freely in America on just about anyone who presents as left-of-center. Similarly, the disclaimer "I'm not a socialist but ..." seems to flow freely.

It was a good article that represented the Formula One scene with a lens that it isn't used to. There's no reason in the world why it should have been pulled. Both the event and the coverage serve as reminders of how conservative this country can unfortunately be.

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Covert racism in LLMs

"Users mistake decreasing levels of overt prejudice for a sign that racism in LLMs has been solved, when LLMs are in fact reaching increasing levels of covert prejudice."

Or to put it another way: AI is wildly racist. Although it has been trained to be less overtly so, it is now covertly discriminatory. For example, if it analyzes text written in AAE rather than Standardized American English, it is more likely to assign the death penalty, penalize job applicants, and so on.

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The App Store, Spotify, and Europe’s thriving digital music market

This is kind of a disingenuous statement from Apple, but also an example of why "consumer harm" as currently defined is not the best yardstick for anti-trust.

It's notable that Apple is calling Spotify out specifically here, with a side order of snark for the European Commission allegedly overreaching by choosing to "enforce the DMA before the DMA becomes law".

But as well-written as the argument is, it doesn't pass the sniff test. For example, this is not true: "When it comes to doing business, not everyone’s going to agree on the best deal. But it sure is hard to beat free." It's not a free deal - in-app purchases carry a 30% surcharge.

The EU is broadly a good thing for competition and for open markets; Apple has been a walled garden. Forcing it to be more open will, indeed, benefit consumers.

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TinyLetter: looking back on the humblest newsletter platform

"That is sort of the original spirit of the internet. [...] What if we made no money? What if money wasn’t even something we were thinking about?"

A lovely tribute to TinyLetter, which was shut down recently after 14 years. It was founded by Philip Kaplan - aka Pud - who has been insanely productive for the decades since he started FuckedCompany. He's described as an entrepreneur, which he is, but everything he's made has been in his own style, under his own rules.

The author here notes that "writers could express their weirdest selves", which seems completely in keeping with that spirit. I wish more of the internet could be that.

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Tapestry: What About?

A pretty good example of clear, transparent communication about product decisions that might not please everyone - particularly when the userbase culture is heavily steeped in open source.

I respect this: "Right now, the core of Tapestry is closed source. We have put some components up on GitHub and are also fully documenting an open API to that proprietary core. Teaching is a part of that openness."

Tapestry should be an interesting app. I'm excited to try it.

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Blogging is the medium of incomplete stories

"Journalists write stories about incomplete events but there is always a mandate to write more. To write the next post that shows the breaking news. Authors write books that, when published, cannot be changed. An author can write another book, but the story is in print. No such mandate exists in blogging."

I am unashamedly a blogger, have been a blogger for over a quarter of a century, show no signs of moving away from this rather worrying disposition, and I truly love this framing.

Blogs are thinking-in-progress. A blog is never done (although you can always choose to walk away). It's lovely. I wish more people had one.

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Generative.

A wonderful playlist from Ethan Marcotte about the state and context of AI and its implications for labor and society. Every quote is a gem; in aggregate it's a strong argument about where we are headed.

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Meditations in a journalistic emergency

"The antitrusters are right. The publishers actually do need more power to maintain a workable bargaining position with the platforms, which now dominate how knowledge is transmitted over the internet."

This is a coherent argument for how the news industry needs to evolve in the face of unprecedented platform power. I think it accurately captures a lot of the power dynamics, both outside of news organizations and within them.

I thought this was an interesting point:

"Regulators should help publishers gain more bargaining power with Big Tech, but in exchange, they have to agree to payroll spending requirements that link these recouped revenues to the continued employment of journalists."

I agree with the need, but I've seen it more as for a collective bargaining entity for news organizations rather than government regulatory support. But perhaps that's the right approach, and there's an interesting hook here to prevent more catastrophic journalism layoffs at the hands of private equity owners.

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