News

David Pierce / The Verge: A look at robots.txt, a good will-based social contract governing the behavior of web crawlers, as experts call for more rigid tools for managing AI crawlers  —  For decades, robots.txt governed the behavior of web… Read More »A look at robots.txt, a good will-based social contract governing the behavior of web crawlers, as experts call for more rigid tools for managing AI crawlers (David Pierce/The Verge)

Damilare Dosunmu / Rest of World: Omdia: South African streaming company Showmax had 2.1M subscribers in Africa at the end of November 2023, ahead of Netflix’s 1.8M and Amazon Prime Video’s 300K  —  Showmax sits at the top of the… Read More »Omdia: South African streaming company Showmax had 2.1M subscribers in Africa at the end of November 2023, ahead of Netflix’s 1.8M and Amazon Prime Video’s 300K (Damilare Dosunmu/Rest of World)

Financial Times: A look at OpenAI’s business model as the company believes it can more than double the yearly run rate by 2025; ChatGPT enterprise now has 300+ paying customers  —  The AI startup is one of the fastest-growing companies… Read More »A look at OpenAI’s business model as the company believes it can more than double the yearly run rate by 2025; ChatGPT enterprise now has 300+ paying customers (Financial Times)

Zoë Schiffer / Wired: Extremely Hardcore book excerpt: how Elon Musk’s decision to impose rate limits on Twitter in summer 2023 helped upsell Blue, as he prepared to launch xAI  —  Last summer, Elon Musk began rate-limiting the number of… Read More »Extremely Hardcore book excerpt: how Elon Musk’s decision to impose rate limits on Twitter in summer 2023 helped upsell Blue, as he prepared to launch xAI (Zoë Schiffer/Wired)

Owen Walker / Financial Times: The CEO of Greek payments company Viva Wallet, co-owned by JPMorgan, sues the bank for allegedly suppressing Viva’s growth, as JPMorgan files a counter claim  —  Wall Street bank accused of trying to drive down… Read More »The CEO of Greek payments company Viva Wallet, co-owned by JPMorgan, sues the bank for allegedly suppressing Viva’s growth, as JPMorgan files a counter claim (Owen Walker/Financial Times)

Brian Fung / CNN: Prospects of a wide-ranging AI bill in the US this year are rapidly dimming, despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s push to put AI regulation at the top of the agenda  —  Artificial intelligence is already sowing chaos… Read More »Prospects of a wide-ranging AI bill in the US this year are rapidly dimming, despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s push to put AI regulation at the top of the agenda (Brian Fung/CNN)

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: Some European entrepreneurs believe the EU’s scrutiny of deals involving tech giants will lead to less M&A activity, reducing exit routes from their business  —  Some entrepreneurs believe there will now be less deal activity,… Read More »Some European entrepreneurs believe the EU’s scrutiny of deals involving tech giants will lead to less M&A activity, reducing exit routes from their business (Javier Espinoza/Financial Times)

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal: A look at The Shotline, a project using ElevenLabs’ tech to create audio deepfakes of kids killed in gun violence, to place AI-generated calls to US lawmakers  —  Grieving parents made these audio deepfakes… Read More »A look at The Shotline, a project using ElevenLabs’ tech to create audio deepfakes of kids killed in gun violence, to place AI-generated calls to US lawmakers (Joanna Stern/Wall Street Journal)

Oliver Darcy / CNN: Meta struggles to precisely define what political content is, offering only a vague statement, after saying it wouldn’t amplify political content on Threads  —  What constitutes “political” content?  —  It’s an important question that Meta has… Read More »Meta struggles to precisely define what political content is, offering only a vague statement, after saying it wouldn’t amplify political content on Threads (Oliver Darcy/CNN)

The Information: Sources: Meta is reducing payments to news orgs that fact-check potential WhatsApp misinformation, including on elections, and has cut funding for CrowdTangle  —  Meta Platforms is reducing payments to news organizations that fact-check potential misinformation on WhatsApp, including… Read More »Sources: Meta is reducing payments to news orgs that fact-check potential WhatsApp misinformation, including on elections, and has cut funding for CrowdTangle (The Information)