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In a move chillingly reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 496 (SF 496), which enacted sweeping changes to the state's education curriculum and banned books that are not deemed "age appropriate” or that contain "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act," per Iowa Code 702.17. Continue Reading →

My Sunday essay was a review of Gary Gensler's admonition that an AI-driven stock market will be a ticking time bomb. Algo-trading isn't anywhere near new, but it is newly relevant as generative AI and autonomous agents weave themselves into the fabric of our lives. Continue Reading →

As we stand on the precipice of an overwhelmingly AI-driven financial world, we must ask ourselves: Are we prepared for the potential fallout? Gary Gensler, the SEC chair, has sounded the alarm bells, suggesting that AI could be at the heart of future financial crises. His insights, drawn from a paper he penned in 2020, shed light on the risks of AI in financial markets and the limitations of regulatory bodies in addressing these challenges. Continue Reading →

Despite its rapid expansion, the underlying economics of streaming remain challenging, with major media companies grappling to achieve profitability. As always, subscription costs are trending upwards… but this feels like a pivotal moment. Continue Reading →

The ongoing strike by SAG-AFTRA, now nearing its fourth week, has brought to the forefront the significance of interim agreements in the entertainment industry. At its core, an interim agreement is not a "waiver"; it's a binding contract that productions must adhere to, aligning with all of the contract terms SAG-AFTRA is seeking from the AMPTP. Continue Reading →

OpenAI will now allow website operators to block its web crawler by updating their site's robots.txt file or by directly blocking the IP address for OpenAI's GPTBot. Either technique will ensure that a site is not scrapped for AI training by OpenAI. Continue Reading →

Meta AI has introduced AudioCraft, a text-to-music AI model that does an impressive job of composing, arranging, orchestrating, and playing in a wide range of musical styles. Not only can it create or mimic a melody, but it also engineers and produces fully finished work, some of which is already suitable for commercial use – and this is only V1. Imagine where the state-of-the-art will be a year from now. Continue Reading →

In a stunning display of AI prowess, Meta AI has introduced AudioCraft, a single-stop code base that does an impressive job of composing, arranging, orchestrating, producing and playing music. AudioCraft is not just an AI that can mimic a melody. It's a sophisticated system that can create music, sound effects, and even handle audio compression. Continue Reading →

At CES 2017, wearing complexity as a badge of honor, Mark Fields (Ford Motor Company CEO) told a room full of tech analysts and reporters that the onboard computers in a Ford GT 25 were running 10 million lines of code – more than Lockheed used in an F-35 fighter jet. He proudly announced that all Ford motor vehicles were going to be, "computers on wheels." Continue Reading →

Can you name the three most famous Impressionist artists? Or describe the color palette and techniques that define Color Field Painting or Naive Art? Your ability to answer these questions will have a big impact on your experience with text-to-image generators like Midjourney. But what if you haven’t been to art school or spent years studying art history? Continue Reading →