A Finder.com experiment using ChatGPT to pick 38 stocks finds the portfolio rose 4.9% compared to an average 0.8% loss for 10 popular funds over eight weeks (Alf Wilkinson/Financial Times)

Alf Wilkinson / Financial Times: A Finder.com experiment using ChatGPT to pick 38 stocks finds the portfolio rose 4.9% compared to an average 0.8% loss for 10 popular funds over eight weeks  —  Theoretical fund of 38 stocks do better than 10 most popular funds on Interactive Investor, finds finder.com  —  Latest news on ETFs

Shopify offloads its logistics unit to supply chain tech company Flexport, a reversal after years of building the operation and acquiring Deliverr for $2.1B (Annie Palmer/CNBC)

Annie Palmer / CNBC: Shopify offloads its logistics unit to supply chain tech company Flexport, a reversal after years of building the operation and acquiring Deliverr for $2.1B  —  – Shopify is selling its logistics unit to supply chain technology company Flexport.  — The Canadian e-commerce company …

Shopify reports Q1 revenue up 25% YoY to $1.5B, above $1.43B analyst estimates, GMV up 15% to $49.6B, and plans to cut 20% of its staff; SHOP jumps 14%+ (Ilya Banares/Bloomberg)

Ilya Banares / Bloomberg: Shopify reports Q1 revenue up 25% YoY to $1.5B, above $1.43B analyst estimates, GMV up 15% to $49.6B, and plans to cut 20% of its staff; SHOP jumps 14%+  —  Shopify Inc. cut jobs for the second time in less than a year and agreed to sell the majority of its […]

A jury convicts former OpenSea product manager Nathaniel Chastain of insider trading, making $50K+ by buying and selling NFTs he featured on OpenSea’s homepage (Luc Cohen/Reuters)

Luc Cohen / Reuters: A jury convicts former OpenSea product manager Nathaniel Chastain of insider trading, making $50K+ by buying and selling NFTs he featured on OpenSea’s homepage  —  A former product manager at OpenSea, the world’s largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), was convicted on Wednesday …

Striking Hollywood writers have two main AI worries: their work being used as training data and being tasked with just fixing AI-generated “sloppy first drafts” (Benj Edwards/Ars Technica)

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica: Striking Hollywood writers have two main AI worries: their work being used as training data and being tasked with just fixing AI-generated “sloppy first drafts”  —  WGA writers don’t want to train AI or clean up AI-generated “sloppy first drafts.”

FTC’s Lina Khan calls for regulating AI, saying the tech could fuel market dominance and collusion by large firms, increase fraud and discrimination, and more (Lina M. Khan/New York Times)

Lina M. Khan / New York Times: FTC’s Lina Khan calls for regulating AI, saying the tech could fuel market dominance and collusion by large firms, increase fraud and discrimination, and more  —  It’s both exciting and unsettling to have a realistic conversation with a computer.  Thanks to the rapid advance …

Bluesky, which has ~55,000 users, feels absolutely wild, highlighted by the CEO pleading to stop “skeets” and increasingly weird struggles over norms and vibes (Sarah Jeong/The Verge)

Sarah Jeong / The Verge: Bluesky, which has ~55,000 users, feels absolutely wild, highlighted by the CEO pleading to stop “skeets” and increasingly weird struggles over norms and vibes  —  Early last week, barely anyone had heard of Bluesky.  On Wednesday, it was just one of many alternatives vying …

A guide to how quantum computing, qubits, and “quantum algorithms” work, the biggest challenges, government involvement, and potential for hacking, or “Q-day” (Financial Times)

Financial Times: A guide to how quantum computing, qubits, and “quantum algorithms” work, the biggest challenges, government involvement, and potential for hacking, or “Q-day”  —  The next generation of quantum computers will open a new world of possibilities, but also pose enormous risks to our online security

Geoffrey Hinton should have spoken up years ago when others like Timnit Gebru were criticizing Google over LLMs; hopefully Hinton spurs others to speak up now (Parmy Olson/Bloomberg)

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg: Geoffrey Hinton should have spoken up years ago when others like Timnit Gebru were criticizing Google over LLMs; hopefully Hinton spurs others to speak up now  —  It is hard not to be worried when the so-called godfather of artificial intelligence, Geoffrey Hinton, says he is leaving Google and regrets his […]

Roku introduces new ad products, including use of contextual AI for automatically running ads next to relevant moments in shows and movies on The Roku Channel (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Roku introduces new ad products, including use of contextual AI for automatically running ads next to relevant moments in shows and movies on The Roku Channel  —  In Roku’s recent quarter, the company posted better-than-expected revenue of $741 million, but worried investors with its warning …

Q&A with Nick Denton, Jonah Peretti, and also Ben Smith, whose book Traffic details the rise and fall of BuzzFeed and Gawker, on digital media and its reckoning (Peter Kafka/Vox)

Peter Kafka / Vox: Q&A with Nick Denton, Jonah Peretti, and also Ben Smith, whose book Traffic details the rise and fall of BuzzFeed and Gawker, on digital media and its reckoning  —  A conversation with two media pioneers — plus Ben Smith, whose new book chronicles their rise and fall.

The EU’s Digital Markets Act becomes applicable today, after entering into force in November 2022; enforcement on gatekeepers is not expected until spring 2024 (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: The EU’s Digital Markets Act becomes applicable today, after entering into force in November 2022; enforcement on gatekeepers is not expected until spring 2024  —  GAFAM giants will have marked their calendars today as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Union’s plan to curb …

Letters: the US and EU warn Malaysia over national security and foreign investment risks if the government gives Huawei a role in the country’s 5G network (Mercedes Ruehl/Financial Times)

Mercedes Ruehl / Financial Times: Letters: the US and EU warn Malaysia over national security and foreign investment risks if the government gives Huawei a role in the country’s 5G network  —  Kuala Lumpur’s review of tender tests ability to juggle relations with the west and China  —  The EU and US have warned Malaysia […]

Why chatbots are not the future of interfaces for LLMs: the best prompts are not obvious, people will get sick of typing, responses are isolated, and more (Amelia Wattenberger)

Amelia Wattenberger: Why chatbots are not the future of interfaces for LLMs: the best prompts are not obvious, people will get sick of typing, responses are isolated, and more  —  Unfortunately for the countless hapless people I’ve talked to in the past few months, this was inexorable.

Sources detail Amazon’s canceled plan to make Halo a success; the sophisticated AI-based fitness service was undone due to “significant headwinds” and low sales (Chris Welch/The Verge)

Chris Welch / The Verge: Sources detail Amazon’s canceled plan to make Halo a success; the sophisticated AI-based fitness service was undone due to “significant headwinds” and low sales  —  A redesigned Halo service was due this fall with an AI-powered personal trainer, celebrity-led fitness classes, and even Apple Watch support.

In a time of war, a new effort to help

Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, commencing in February 2022, is continuing to cause immense upheaval and destruction, and Ukrainians continue to fight to defend their nation-state. Last fall, MIT launched its MIT-Ukraine program, an effort to find ways to leverage the Institute’s expertise and resources to help a country devastated by war. This has […]