小俣 仁子 / Satoko Omata

@[email protected]
238 Followers
17 Following
31 Posts

Project manager in healthcare tech. Ex-tech and business journo in SEA. I sometimes shoot 📸 things. Part time orchestra kid. SKOC vice chair.

Still writes and edits for random places. Drop me a line: [email protected] | discord: omata#3302 | telegram: @omata3105

Languages I understand: EN・日・中・粤・MY

Old public workshttps://muckrack.com/satoko-omata/articles
LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/somata
Verified!https://www.verifiedjournalist.org/people/@[email protected]
Bird apphttps://twitter.com/omata3105
小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataMar 26, 2025
The whole response to the Atlantic journalist being added to the war group chat is baffling. Disclaimer I'm no US political editor, I don't know the inner workings of US govt.
Why is the response "this is not a war chat" "there is no classified info" "maybe it was intentional"
Just... "oh we fucked up, there's a breach, we shall investigate, we fired the person who added the journo into the group chat" would've worked?
Unless you are dragging this news out to cover up some other major scandal?
小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataOct 13, 2023

Today in translation and localisation difficult

Panadol in HK : 必理痛
Panadol in SG : 斑納杜
Panadol in TW : 普拿疼

Gleneagles in HK : 港怡醫院
Gleneagles in SG/MY : 鷹閣醫院

If anyone asks me to do "translations" again when they actually need "localisation" I will throw hands.

小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataSep 7, 2023
Lucas WaldronSep 5, 2023
I made some maps for this
@ProPublica & VCIJ investigation. It's a chilling breakdown of systemic racism. The maps show the destruction of a Black neighborhood over time -- explore the module in the story: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-virginia-college-expanded-by-uprooting-black-neighborhood
Erasing the “Black Spot”: How a Virginia College Expanded by Uprooting a Black Neighborhood

Sixty-plus years ago, the white leaders of Newport News, Virginia, seized the core of a thriving Black community to build a college. The school has been gobbling up the remaining houses ever since.

ProPublica
Show thread小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataApr 8, 2023

I see so many that I used to think are decent people. And turns out they eventually devolve into toxic narratives, playing it off as "joke"

Just..... no.  There are many reasons to hate a certain company from their technology to the way their governments handle policies. There is never a need to be racist or misogynistic to criticise someone

小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataApr 8, 2023

Sometimes, I miss the tech media scene, but then I see some racist misogynistic tweet from ppl I once respected and I remember why I no longer want to be part of that.

Malaysia's tech media scene will remain toxic, and I feel it's to the point that what used to be decent men, can get caught up in that culture and become toxic themselves. Eventually.

小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataApr 2, 2023

坂本様、ご冥福をお祈りします。
大変お疲れ様でした。

Ars longa, vita brevis.

小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataFeb 18, 2023
Damon KiesowFeb 17, 2023

You: Shouldn’t the news media be doing a better job vetting candidates for political office?

Me: If you have any locally-owned news media in your community, how are you supporting their work?

小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataFeb 17, 2023

Has anyone thought that..... maybe.... just maybe..... #Microsoft removed guardrails.... precisely because they want to generate discussions? Not like they can make #Bing anything new anymore since everyone has been talking about and jumping on the #ChatGPT bandwagon. A slightly unhinged bot would do that though. Remember tay.ai? 🤣

Maybe? 🤔

https://apnews.com/article/technology-science-microsoft-corp-business-software-fb49e5d625bf37be0527e5173116bef3?s=35

Is Bing too belligerent? Microsoft looks to tame AI chatbot

Microsoft’s newly revamped Bing search engine can write recipes and songs and quickly explain just about anything it can find on the internet. But if you cross its artificially intelligent chatbot, it might also insult your looks, threaten your reputation or compare you to Adolf Hitler. The tech company said this week it is promising to make improvements to its AI-enhanced search engine after a growing number of people are reporting being disparaged by Bing. In racing the breakthrough AI technology to consumers last week ahead of rival search giant Google, Microsoft acknowledged the new product would get some facts wrong. But it wasn’t expected to be so belligerent.

AP News
Show thread小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataFeb 17, 2023

@willreed they way I see it, if humans were passive, non reactionary, and incapable of emotions and desires, we kinda do function like robots 😅

Hence my point 3. For the sake of brevity, soc med and all, this is just a high level "AI is not sentient" summary. Of course there are way more intricacies and differences between AI and human brain.

I claim no specialty in AI, I only claim some experience in writing about technology, and my issue is really with the article humanising AI. My POV.

Show thread小俣 仁子 / Satoko OmataFeb 17, 2023

5/ It may be unsettling, sure, and I know having any other headline would not have gotten the reader's attention (case in point you've successfully gotten mine) but I can't shake the feeling it's irresponsible for a tech column to spend quite as many words humanising a software.

Having said that I will be a crap journo myself if I didn't do a search to see if NYT had wrote better stuff on this topic.

If you're gna read nyt, pls read this instead.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/chatbots-explained.html

Why Chatbots Sometimes Act Weird and Spout Nonsense

No, chatbots aren’t sentient. Here’s how their underlying technology works.