Chaos & Amazement #2349 23andMe Hacked, Google’s Gemini Pro Suprise, and 2024 Trends

No funny bits this week. Instead I talk about the unsettling breach of 23andMe, the AI Alliance, and Google's surprising upgrade to Gemini Pro.

Tech news

• 23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users https://tcrn.ch/47Hzimn .It’s unsettling—6.9M people’s ancestry data is out there. Once shared, it’s a genie you can’t put back in the bottle.

• Meta, IBM, and over 50 organizations unite in the AI Alliance, focusing on open-source AI collaboration. The coalition aims to share technology and mitigate risks. https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-05/meta-ibm-create-industrywide-ai-alliance-to-share-technology

  • Meanwhile, the EU AI Act is at a crossroads, facing challenges from lobbying efforts. A Euractiv report highlights this pivotal moment, emphasizing the need for stringent regulation of AI models like ChatGPT. https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/11/29/europes-ai-act-under-threat-by-lobbyists-experts-and-the-public-say

• TikTok expands its in-app Ticketmaster ticketing feature to users in 20 countries. To me, this signals that true social commerce has finally arrived. https://tcrn.ch/3uJfMaG

• COBOL, the ancient programming language handling $3 trillion transactions daily. Hardly anyone learns it now due to its old-school style and slow pace. It runs 43% of banking systems, but finding skilled COBOL coders is tough. https://www.pcmag.com/articles/ibms-plan-to-update-cobol-with-watson

  

• A new Ofcom study reveals 79% of teens aged 13-17 are into generative AI, using platforms like Snapchat's My AI. For those 16+, ChatGPT leads at 23%. Notably, 69% of internet users haven't tried or don't know about generative AI. Gender gap observed in usage.https://ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/272288/online-nation-2023-report.pdf

  • Workers adopt generative AI at work, as per Salesforce's study - 50% without official permission, 40% utilizing banned AI tools. The internet's adaptability echoes in the corporate realm. CIOs, the chatbot wave is here. https://salesforce.com/news/stories/ai-at-work-research/

Fresh AI

• Google's Bard unexpectedly got a major upgrade with Gemini Pro. It's now better at understanding and reasoning, especially in math tasks. The AI logic is quite impressive, and I'm eager to see where it goes.

  • Google's Gemini showcased in a viral video raised eyebrows for taking artistic liberties: voice was text, moving visuals were still images, quick responses were sped up, and concise model outputs were shortened for brevity.

From my blog

• Mind Uploading: the Modern Day Version of the Brain in a Jar https://bnox.be/2023/12/mind-uploading-modern-day-version-of.html

• Time GPT: Generative AI for Time Series https://bnox.be/2023/12/time-gpt-generative-ai-for-time-series.html

Weird and Wonderful

• 2024 Trends: Explore 90+ recent trend PDFs on Google Drive from global companies, including top consultancies, agencies, TikTok, and Deliveroo. Worth bookmarking. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lgpMutsQkz1PvFTOa5qi3lWTZ74ofE1K/

• The GTA 6 trailer is disturbingly true to life.