An easy prediction: ChatGPT users will hate ads, the ROI will be low, and OpenAI will make craploads of money. A lizard could make gobs of ad revenue with a platform that has 800 million users. openai.com/index/our-ap...

Secrecy pacts are endemic in technology. When you walk into many tech company offices, you have to sign an NDA. It's that normalized. So if Microsoft starts a trend of nixing NDAs and code names when data centers come to your communities, it's interesting. www.geekwire.com/2026/microso...

Finance bros, remind me: Is $38 of cash burn for each $1 of revenue...good? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Armchair sleuths keep using AI to "enhance" grainy or incomplete images in high-profile events. See: The ICE officer in Minneapolis, the Charlie Kirk murder suspect and the Brown University shooter. It doesn't work. AI may make 10 different faces from 10 partial images. wapo.st/3NAO8py

I've started to call this the Tim Cook Approach to government regulation. Do as little as possible. Probably nothing will happen. TikTok: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Great explanation and advice from Drew.

"what is clear to me from following this Telegram community for a couple of years now is that nonconsensual sexual images of real people, including minors, is the cost of doing business with AI image generators." www.404media.co/inside-the-t...

"the chatbot generated about 6,700 [images] every hour that were identified as sexually suggestive or nudifying, according to Genevieve Oh, a social media and deepfake researcher....Oh calculated that 85% of Grok’s images, overall, are sexualized." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My brilliantly deranged colleague Elena Lacey has...imaginative?...suggestions to reuse your old tech junk. wapo.st/4qybSsO

Almost nothing that says it's a "platform" is really a platform. Related: Every app in the West wants to be a "super app" and almost none of them are. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...

Aha, "competing" to see who can be the biggest NCII machine. From @garbageday.email

I'm mentioning this today for no reason: Nearly everyone in DC and Silicon Valley supported the 2025 law making non-consensual intimate images (including AI faked ones) a federal crime and requiring social media companies to take down such material within 48 hours. How's that going?

Data brokers are the invisible engines of the data surveillance economy. It's hard to escape. Until. California just opened a website to delete (and keep deleting) your information from 500+ data brokers in one fell swoop. Try it if you're in California and LMK how it goes! privacy.ca.gov/drop/

Your periodic reminder that data brokers compile locations of people in or near military bases and will probably sell that data to anyone. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

AI should be "useful, private and optional," contends DuckDuckGo founder @yegg13.bsky.social. It's one reason @shiraovide.bsky.social declares the privacy-focused search engine "the best technology company of 2025" in her year-end column: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Vibes of Uber's Greyball for the people who remember the late 2010s.

It's time again for a favorite moment of joy: Cyndi Lauper and Patti Labelle singing "Time After Time" in 1985. You can feel how much they enjoy the hell out of each other. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Na...

I was snarky about the Anthropic "soul" manual so I appreciate the thoughtful view here: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...

Bless @kashhill.bsky.social for this. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...

There are some simplistic explanations for what went wrong that led to iRobot's bankruptcy and takeover. The reality: Roomba lost ground for years to cheap and innovative Chinese rivals. Most robot vacuum brands are Chinese now. So now what? wapo.st/4s7bCm8

www.semafor.com/article/12/1... "a generation of CEOs used to acting, and being treated, like small gods, seem unused to the everyday crises of running a business. What will happen when they face real crises?"

This long form video about people trapped inside Teslas is phenomenal and awful. www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/...

Your periodic reminder that YouTube is by far the most watched "channel" on American TV. So: The Oscars are moving to YouTube. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/1...

"Because a Truck Driver Spent 21 Years Making an Obsessively Completist City Out of Balsa Wood" I need that guy to become the most famous person in New York City. www.curbed.com/article/reas...

I don't know the details here, but Google ads and organic results are gamed by scammers who want to grab people looking for customer service numbers. Truly you cannot trust a phone number that pops up from a Google search. Just don't. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/b...

Genuine question: What if there are giant startups that never go public. Why would they? A private company like SpaceX and OpenAI can raise infinite money from private investors. They can arrange stock sales to cash out earlier investors/employees. So why? www.ft.com/content/6f00...

I require a 10,000 word investigation on why this gym chain uses these weird pod tubes as gated entry. It seems like the Rube Goldberg of doors. hellgatenyc.com/puregym-entr...

We did it, grownups! We killed a fun thing for kids. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Epic Games has now (probably) forced Apple and Google to make dramatic changes to a highly profitable business that consumers can or will feel. Did even government Big Tech antitrust actions have this big an impact? www.theverge.com/news/843265/...

Petty examples of serious intracompany divisions at Meta in 2025 (NYT today, left) and in 2018 (right) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/t... www.wsj.com/articles/beh...

You know, it feels notable that WhatsApp use among U.S. teens (who love their iMessage blue bubbles) went up from 17% in 2022 to 24%. www.pewresearch.org/internet/202...

We're going to need a new mythical beast if there's a nearly trillion-dollar unicorn. www.wsj.com/business/spa...

What if when Uber's app launched, you had to use VERY SPECIFIC WORDS to summon a car or else it might show up 4 streets over or drive you to Albania? I suspect we would have given up. And yet: www.theverge.com/tech/837287/...

What if A.I. companies just didn't use human metaphors like "soul" and "confessions?"

I'm just a girl. Again standing in front of a megacap tech company. Asking them to stop using the word "factory" for things that are not factories. www.geekwire.com/2025/amazon-...

The only way to kill ragebait marketing is to stop paying attention to ragebait marketing. If you can. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The fed all the world's money and data into AI so it could suggest...a cozy bathrobe for mom, maybe from Victoria's Secret. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

100% on board with dumping the terms "AI agents" and "agentic" (barf) with "AI assistants." (Though I realize that could also describe Siri, Alexa etc) ..."Perplexity says its AI assistants, also called agents by other companies..." www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Aha, the legal response: The boy using ChatGPT to plan his suicide violated the terms of service www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

"In a Venn diagram of people deeply concerned about Michelin ratings and people deeply concerned about cheesesteaks, the overlap is not large." Nope, sorry. That overlap is me and my entire personality. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/d...

Just remembering that the sale of U.S. TikTok got announced two months ago. How's that going?

I talked to researchers about Character AI’s new ban (or “ban?”) on teen users. I don’t know if it will work. But hardly anyone is happy with current approaches to teens and tech. So bans (see also: school phone bans and Australia) are a new experiment. wapo.st/3M3CZgf

AI slop is ruining tamales now. by @davey.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I said an exasperated "oof" out loud after reading the end of this great @kashhill.bsky.social & @jenvalentino.bsky.social piece. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/t...

Girl, you okay? www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

I know this may not FEEL surprising, but I still remember when pay TV subscriber numbers first started to go down just a bit (circa 2010?) and the fall happened very fast. www.businessinsider.com/cable-tv-hou...

This is sound public messaging to scam victims and future victims: www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Hi, I keep having to say that this is not a "factory" www.wsj.com/tech/ai/insi...

"The Post found [ChatGPT] began responses with variations on 'yes' 10 times more often than with versions of 'no.'" Fascinating insights from an analysis of 47,000 ChatGPT chats. wapo.st/3LzQUL2

I know that big numbers have lost all meaning in A.I., and this one is a forecast. But truly: "OpenAI forecasts its operating losses that year to swell to about $74 billion" www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...