Journals

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: Online card game Balatro, created by a solo Canadian developer who goes by the handle LocalThunk, has sold 500K+ copies on Steam at $15 each in just two weeks  —  When you first see the new… Read More »Online card game Balatro, created by a solo Canadian developer who goes by the handle LocalThunk, has sold 500K+ copies on Steam at $15 each in just two weeks (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)

Bruce Haring / Deadline: Digital Marilyn, an interactive AI avatar of Marilyn Monroe that was created using GPT-3.5 by Soul Machines and Authentic Brands Group, was unveiled at SXSW  —  One of Marilyn Monroe’s most famous quotes was, “I don’t… Read More »Digital Marilyn, an interactive AI avatar of Marilyn Monroe that was created using GPT-3.5 by Soul Machines and Authentic Brands Group, was unveiled at SXSW (Bruce Haring/Deadline)

Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal: Jason Palmer, who beat Joe Biden in American Samoa’s Democratic caucus, used AI-generated texts, emails, and an avatar to communicate with voters  —  Jason Palmer, a self-proclaimed ‘long-shot candidate’ vying for the presidency, uses… Read More »Jason Palmer, who beat Joe Biden in American Samoa’s Democratic caucus, used AI-generated texts, emails, and an avatar to communicate with voters (Isabelle Bousquette/Wall Street Journal)

Anna Mutoh / Financial Times: PitchBook: just 14% of US unicorns have a female cofounder, up from 5% a decade ago, while only 5% have a female founding CEO, up from zero over the same time  —  Women continue to… Read More »PitchBook: just 14% of US unicorns have a female cofounder, up from 5% a decade ago, while only 5% have a female founding CEO, up from zero over the same time (Anna Mutoh/Financial Times)

Simon Willison’s Weblog: The GPT-4 barrier has finally been broken, with Gemini 1.5, Mistral Large, Claude 3 Opus, and Inflection-2.5 benchmarking near or even above OpenAI’s model  —  Four weeks ago, GPT-4 remained the undisputed champion: consistently at the top… Read More »The GPT-4 barrier has finally been broken, with Gemini 1.5, Mistral Large, Claude 3 Opus, and Inflection-2.5 benchmarking near or even above OpenAI’s model (Simon Willison’s Weblog)

Bloomberg: Sources: the Biden admin is weighing sanctions on memory chipmaker CXMT and five other Chinese companies, in response to Huawei’s 5G chip breakthrough in 2023  —  – Huawei’s tech progress alarmed Biden administration officials  — CXMT is a leading… Read More »Sources: the Biden admin is weighing sanctions on memory chipmaker CXMT and five other Chinese companies, in response to Huawei’s 5G chip breakthrough in 2023 (Bloomberg)

Kylie Robison / Fortune: Source: X plans to launch a TV app, which looks “identical” to YouTube’s TV app, for Amazon and Samsung smart TVs next week  —  In a bid to compete with YouTube and recast itself as a… Read More »Source: X plans to launch a TV app, which looks “identical” to YouTube’s TV app, for Amazon and Samsung smart TVs next week (Kylie Robison/Fortune)

Ash Parrish / The Verge: About 600 Activision QA workers form a union with help from the CWA, becoming the largest video game union in the US; Microsoft voluntarily recognized the union  —  Around 600 workers in Activision Publishing’s quality… Read More »About 600 Activision QA workers form a union with help from the CWA, becoming the largest video game union in the US; Microsoft voluntarily recognized the union (Ash Parrish/The Verge)

Bloomberg: OpenAI probe: the board’s decision to fire Altman was because of a “breakdown in trust”, not concerns about product safety, the pace of development, or finances  —  – AI startup recruited WilmerHale lawyers for monthslong probe  — Board previously… Read More »OpenAI probe: the board’s decision to fire Altman was because of a “breakdown in trust”, not concerns about product safety, the pace of development, or finances (Bloomberg)