7/10/24

✨The sparkle emoji means AI now✨

Sparkle emojis use to mean something: excitement, magic, beauty, cleanliness, positivity, whimsy, the indescribable joy of life. Based on their placement within the emoji keyboard among celestial bodies, perhaps even the stars themselves.

Now the tech companies have taken that from us, too.

OpenAI, Google, LinkedIn, Adobe — they’re all using a version of it to connote AI.

It’s a smart marketing move for companies trying to make statistical word prediction sexy, but a travesty for human expression.

Has Artificial Intelligence Co-opted the Sparkle Emoji?

OpenAI, Google, LinkedIn, Adobe — they’re all using a version of it to connote AI.

It’s a smart marketing move for companies trying to make statistical word prediction sexy, but a travesty for human expression.

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“Daddy is very much home”

Rani Molla

19m

Tesla is up 2% today after CEO Elon Musk posted in a response to someone on X, “Daddy is very much home,” before detailing his packed Tesla schedule and involvement with various aspects of the company, including Optimus, where he’s said 80% of Tesla’s value will lie.

Tesla investors generally consider Musk’s involvement with the company to be a good thing, believing as Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has said, “Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk.”

Additionally, new data from Cox Automotive showed Tesla had more US sales than the next four top brands combined in August.

The stock soared yesterday after Musk purchased $1 billion in stock — a move that sent his personal wealth up $17 billion. The stock also jumped earlier this month after Tesla proposed a mammoth $1 trillion pay package for Musk intended to keep Musk at the company.

The phrase “Daddy’s home” is most commonly associated with the 2010 Usher track “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home).”

Jon Keegan

OpenAI building a teen mode that will guess a user’s age and restrict flirtatious and self-harm-related chats

After a series of alarming safety failures in which ChatGPT encouraged self-harm, OpenAI has announced a 120-day plan to roll out new protections for young users and those that may be experiencing a mental health crisis.

In a blog post today, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave an update on the plan, saying that the company was building an “under-18 experience” for teens that won’t engage in “flirtatious talk” or engage in any discussions of self-harm.

The teen mode will also try to contact underage users’ parents if self-harm ideation is detected, and could reach out to law enforcement if the parents can’t be reached, according to Altman.

The plan calls for a new “age-prediction” system that will default to the under-18 safety mode. In a move that could frustrate many ChatGPT users, adults can exit only upon verifying their age by sharing their ID.

Altman acknowledged the trade-off in a post on X, but said the priority is protecting young users:

“I don’t expect that everyone will agree with these tradeoffs, but given the conflict it is important to explain our decisionmaking.”

Young adults make up a substantial portion of OpenAI’s end users. According to a large study of real-world ChatGPT users released yesterday, half of all adult users included in the study were under 26.

Teen safety, freedom, and privacy

The teen mode will also try to contact underage users’ parents if self-harm ideation is detected, and could reach out to law enforcement if the parents can’t be reached, according to Altman.

Altman acknowledged the trade-off in a post on X, but said the priority is protecting young users:

“I don’t expect that everyone will agree with these tradeoffs, but given the conflict it is important to explain our decisionmaking.”

Jon Keegan

Anthropic data: Businesses are using Claude to automate rather than collaborate

Fresh on the heels of a revealing ChatGPT usage research paper from OpenAI, rival AI startup Anthropic released its own detailed look at how consumers and businesses are using its Claude AI chatbot.

While OpenAI’s study analyzed only end users of its ChatGPT chatbot, the Anthropic Economic Index report includes how businesses are using Claude via its API (application programming interface).

In a worrying sign of how AI might replace whole categories of human labor, Anthropic found that 77% of businesses using Claude were automating whole jobs away rather than collaborating with humans while they do their jobs.

The number of Claude users overall is tiny compared to ChatGPT, but its users do way more coding with the tool than with OpenAI’s chatbot.

The report also breaks down Claude usage by geography, showing that in the US, Washington, DC, has the highest Claude usage per capita, where the top tasks were document editing, gathering information, and job applications.

Anthropic Finds Businesses Are Mainly Using AI to Automate Work

The number of Claude users overall is tiny compared to ChatGPT, but its users do way more coding with the tool than with OpenAI’s chatbot.

Rani Molla

Charged up

Tesla still sells a lot more EVs in the US than anyone else

Tesla’s market share is declining but it’s still the biggest EV maker in the room.

Rani Molla

Tesla faces door handle probe after Bloomberg report

A week after Bloomberg published a report called “Tesla’s Dangerous Doors” that detailed instances where people were hurt or injured after accidents reportedly left the flush electronic door handles inoperable, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched a probe into the matter.

“NHTSA’s investigation is focused on the operability of the electronic door locks from outside of the vehicle as that circumstance is the only one in which there is no manual way to open the door,” the NHTSA wrote. It cited reports of parents being forced to break the windows of their Teslas to extract their children locked inside.

The probe adds to a list of headwinds Tesla is facing, including declining sales, the end of the federal EV tax credit, and increased competition. However, Tesla, riding high on news yesterday that CEO Elon Musk purchased $1 billion in shares, doesn’t seem to be dampened by the news. It’s up 1.5% premarket.

Tesla Faces Probe by US Auto Safety Agency Over Door Handles

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