California’s AI Act, SB-1047, is opposed by many competent people, including Nancy Pelosi. It puts all responsibility on the model layer instead of responsibility for 'existential risk' on the model layer and for 'use risk' on the application layer. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billComp…

How will AI affect the future of journalism? Earlier this year Open Society Foundations solicited almost 900 possible answers - and then gathered 60 media, tech, law, policy & business experts to hash it out Here's what they said 👇 (h/t StructuredStories) opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/a…

What is the long-term impact of AI on our information ecosystem? Our new report reviews a series of scenarios that seek to broaden and deepen the conversation about AI’s potential impact on journalism and civic information around the world. opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/a…

Here’s a way to think about using LLMs: LLMs for zero shot tasks (i.e. prompt & do) should be compared to humans under the same conditions (i.e. with zero revisions). Nobody works that way. Agent-based techniques like evaluation & revision are far more accurate & repeatable.

This poignant piece from Laura Preston reports from the uncomfortable peak of the AI hype cycle. A must-read. nplusonemag.com/issue-47/essay…

Hey - Engineering and Support, what's going on with X Stories?

"Ironically, if success depends on institutional infrastructure and not individuals, it seems more likely to continue working. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar's blog shares many fresh takes on implementing tech shyamsankar.com/p/there-is-no-…

He's not wrong. Perplexity discover is, IMO, a better implementation of 'machines-in-the-middle' journalism than X Stories, although each has different +'s & -'s.

Post from INMA CEO Earl J. Wilkinson about their invite-only retreat in Vail for news CEOs. GenAI was a core focus, and a big theme was "change is here now, and it’s rapid". linkedin.com/posts/earljwil…

Many people miss the big picture of what Elon Musk is building. It's not only a global low/no-regulation communication platform with transparent ranking. It's also a global ISP out of reach of governments, ultimately using Starlink direct-to-cell. nytimes.com/2024/09/01/wor…

The Economist just increased the addressable market for it's Espresso short-form news product by an order of magnitude by adding AI translation of its content, including videos, and by making it free to students. A smart and strategic use of AI in news. tiktok.com/@economistespa…

I highly recommend this thoughtful and grounded essay by Pier Paolo Bozzano on modular journalism in an LLM world. Pier Paolo began this work in the 2021 Collab run by @polisLSE #JournalismAI, which I was proud to be a part of. blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2021/12/… journalism-engineering.com/modular-journa…