Techno-politics

You know how to amass a $1 million fortune investing in NFTs? Start with $5 million. If you are trying to “get rich quick,” stop reading now. There’s nothing here for you. If, on the other hand, you want to dig a little deeper into the most popular use cases for NFTs and the transitional technologies empowering web 3, read on. Continue Reading →

Federal judge Robert Pitman blocked a Texas state law that bans "censorship" on social media platforms, ruling that the law violates the social networks' First Amendment right to moderate user-submitted content. Continue Reading →

At the annual Gobble Gobble Wobble 5K run, a family-friendly “Turkey Trot” event that brings the community together to get their “tailfeathers moving,” there were a bunch of retail booths selling food, local produce, homemade goods, and arts & crafts. This year, each local artisan had an easy way for you to purchase with a credit card as well as an easily accessible eCommerce site. Three years ago, this was an all-cash shopping zone. This year (if you knew where to look), customer experience, customer service, customer relationship management (CRM), and relatively sophisticated data-gathering were on full display. Which made me wonder about the impact Web 3 and decentralized finance might have on future Gobble Wobblers. Continue Reading →

There is a significant shortage of employees in the United States. One popular explanation suggests that the pandemic caused a massive realignment of personal values. Some are calling it the "great resignation." Another popular explanation suggests that average Americans are disincentivized to return to work due to overzealous government benefits. Which is correct? There probably isn't a single satisfying sound bite explanation, but this past week, I got schooled by my clients and my students and it made me think deeply about how we will adapt to the new normal. Continue Reading →

We can use our phones to bank, shop, and even validate our vaccine status on our phones... so why can't we vote with our phones? Shelly Palmer talks with Bianca Peters and Dan Bowens about the benefits of letting people vote by phone -- and the perceived drawbacks. Continue Reading →

Addressing some of the recent "headwinds" facing Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "Good faith criticism helps us get better, but my view is that we are seeing a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company." Continue Reading →

The interviewer asked, "Is that image real"? There's no way to tell. "What about this video?" It's hard to say. "You can't tell if that's real or fake either." No. Not without analyzing it. "Well, what about the prose? Did a human write this sentence?" It's possible, but it would not surprise me to learn that it was machine generated. "What about the voice in the video?" It's sonically perfect. I'd say 60/40 it's a machine, but I'd need to hear a few more sentences to be sure. "So, what you're saying is that I can't trust my eyes or my ears?" Yes. That's what I'm saying. "Is this the end of truth?" Continue Reading →

Facebook AI has announced Ego4D, a project that is trying to give AI the ability to understand and interact with the world from a first-person perspective (the way that humans do). AI typically learns from photos and videos captured in third-person, but next-generation AI will need to learn from videos that show the world from the center of action. Continue Reading →

Facebook is proposing a new cryptocurrency called Diem. Backed by U.S. Dollars, Euros, and other hard currencies, Diem will be a stablecoin tied to a permissioned blockchain (that one day may become permissionless). Continue Reading →

If you were Mark Zuckerberg and you wanted to get ahead of potential government regulation of your business, what would you fix first? Would you try to curtail social media addiction, protect privacy, reduce mental health risks, reduce weaponized information, eliminate hate speech, flag misinformation, deal with data governance, or address some other seemingly intractable problem? Here's what I'd fix first. Continue Reading →