🚨#TechWeenie Alert

“I expected at least a few people to leave the walk-up line immediately, but the only ones who did were two families of #Tesla owners who went back to order from within their cars.

Even if the app didn’t work for them, they would still get their #food faster. The #hierarchy was clear: things were broken for everyone, but owners of #Musk products had to suffer slightly less.”

USA is broken. 🤣😂☺️

#Food / #automation / #dining <https://theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/26/elon-musk-tesla-diner-hollywood

“AI is cutting a swath across a number of #CreativeIndustries — with AI-generated #BookCovers, the Chicago Sun-Times publishing an #AIGenerated list of #books that *don’t exist*, and AI-generated stories at CNET under real authors’ bylines.

The music industry is no exception. But while many of these fields are mired in questions about whether #AIModels are illegally #trained on pirated #data, the #MusicIndustry is coming at the issue from a position of unusual strength: the benefits of years of case law backing #copyright protections, a regimented #licensing system, and a handful of powerful companies that control the industry. #RecordLabels have chosen to fight several AI companies on copyright law, and they have a strong hand to play.”

Note the use of the word DATA. Music isn’t data, it is if you are a #TechWeenie wanting to strip mine artistic music for profit.

#ArtificialIntelligence / #arts / #music / #musicians / #artists / #mining / #StripMining / #technology / #tech <https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/695290/suno-udio-ai-music-legal-copyright-riaa>

“Woodside, the referee da Silva said. Then he lost a second one. His opponent pinned him down and began choking him.

Zuckerberg let out a guttural rasp, indicating that he was losing consciousness. “I can’t forget his eyes,” da Silva recalled. “You know, when someone is looking towards you but they’re not looking at you?”

Da Silva ended the match, calling it in the other fighter’s favour. When he’d recovered, #Zuckerberg loudly disputed the loss”

It is a long gushy article but I didn’t have to read it all to know the #TechWeenie got his arse kicked.

#Tech / #politics / #marketing <https://www.ft.com/content/a86f5ca3-f841-4cdc-9376-304e085c4cfd > (paywall> / <https://archive.md/rzKVN>

“The #AIBoom has led to claims and concerns about a job wipeout caused by companies using AI to replace #work that had otherwise been done by #humans.

#DarioAmodei, the CEO of #Anthropic, the company behind the #GenerativeAI model #Claude, told Axios last week that AI could reduce entry-level #whitecollar jobs by 50% and result in 20% #unemployment in the next five years.

#TechWeenie / #ZeroHourWork <https://theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/09/us-attacks-on-science-and-research-a-great-gift-to-china-on-artificial-intelligence-former-openai-board-member-says>

“Judging by recent controversy around the gamified #language-learning app he co-founded, it is not just #AI that can misjudge communication. Last month, #vonAhn shared on LinkedIn an email he had sent to all staff announcing Duolingo was going “#AIFirst”. “I did not expect the amount of blowback,” he admits.

“Unbelievable,” wrote one LinkedIn commenter, “Cancelling my account NOW.” “Well, there goes my 1,098 day streak,” posted another.

The chief executive says many social media users mischaracterised the changes as though “#Duolingo has no employees, we have fired everyone and everything is being controlled by a massive AI”.

He attributes this anger to a general “#anxiety” about #technology replacing jobs. “I should have been more clear to the external world,” he reflects on a video call from his office in Pittsburgh. “Every #tech company is doing similar things [but] we were open about it.”

A CEO who expresses *surprise* at a call for “AI-first” in a consumer application is an incompetent TechWeenie.

#LuisVonAhn / #WhiteCollar / #Techweenie <https://www.ft.com/content/6fbafbb6-bafe-484c-9af9-f0ffb589b447> (paywall) / <https://archive.md/juvfL>

@Yehuda not unless Mum says yes 🤣

“Musk's mother Maye #Musk has chimed in to decry the idea of her precious son getting bruised by the jiu-jitsu white belt (read: beginner) #Zuckerberg.”

#TechWeenie <https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-mom-not-allowed-fight-mark-zuckerberg>

“The push to develop in-house chips is part of a long-term plan at #Meta to bring down its mammoth #infrastructure costs as the company places expensive bets on #AI tools to drive growth.

Meta, which also owns #Instagram and #WhatsApp, has forecast total 2025 expenses of $US114 billion ($181 billion) to $US119 billion, including up to $US65 billion in capital expenditure largely driven by spending on AI infrastructure.

…Meta’s new training chip is a dedicated accelerator, meaning it is designed to handle only #AISpecific tasks. This can make it more power-efficient than the integrated graphics processing units (GPUs) generally used for AI workloads.”

Move into chip development, to reduce costs 🤣😂☺️

#Facebook / #Zuckerberg / #TechWeenie <https://archive.md/2ibTc> / <https://www.afr.com/technology/meta-begins-testing-its-first-ai-training-chip-to-challenge-nvidia-20250312-p5livs>

🚨 #TechWeenie Alert
Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley

“An influential Silicon Valley publication runs a cover story lamenting the “pussification” of tech. A major tech CEO lambasts a Black civil rights leader’s calls for diversifying the tech workforce. #Technologists rage against the “PC police”.

No, this isn’t #SiliconValley in the age of Maga. It’s the tech industry of the 1990s, when observers first raised concerns about the rightwing bend of Silicon Valley and the potential for “#technofascism”. Despite the industry’s (often undeserved) reputation for #liberalism, its reactionary foundations were baked in almost from the beginning. As Silicon Valley enters a second Trump administration, the gendered roots of its original reactionary movement offer insight into today’s rightward turn.”

#BeccaLewis / #oligarch / #TechOligarch <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/jan/29/silicon-valley-rightwing-technofascism>

“the recent #erasure and #submerging of abortion-related content, so soon after Donald Trump’s return to #power, has caused fear among some abortion rights supporters that a bigger crackdown could be on the horizon – and concerns that the #Meta founder #MarkZuckerberg’s promise to protect “#FreeExpression” may not apply to all speech.”

🚨 #TechWeenie Alert

#tech / #oligarch <https://theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/29/abortion-pills-instagram-shadow-banning>