Post-Super Bowl, a toxic mix of Ye’s swastika and Israeli AI-generated fakery
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Post-Super Bowl, a toxic mix of Ye’s swastika and Israeli AI-generated fakery

The Kansas City Chiefs weren’t the only group of people who made astoundingly bad choices in the Super Bowl. Add these folks to your list of villains: the rapper Ye (formerly called Kanye West), who hawked swastika T-shirts, and Guy Bar and Ori Bejerano of the Israeli ad agency BBDO, who appropriated celebrity images to…

Automating LGBTQ erasure; AI’s copyright loss; words worth avoiding: Newsletter 12 February 2025
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Automating LGBTQ erasure; AI’s copyright loss; words worth avoiding: Newsletter 12 February 2025

Newsletter 81. Using machines to enforce prejudice backfires, don’t use AI to apply to AI companies, a copyright legal shocker, and a list of words to avoid. Plus, three people to follow and three books to read. Machines can’t make trans people disappear — but they can sure do a lot of damage when they…

Does using AI dull your critical thinking skills?

Does using AI dull your critical thinking skills?

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft Research in the UK have completed a study to determine how generative AI affects critical thinking. Not surprisingly, knowledge workers that use AI feel they are less likely to be thinking critically. The researchers surveyed digital workers by explaining what critical thinking was and then asking them if they…

No more pennies, and other Canadian innovations

No more pennies, and other Canadian innovations

Donald Trump ordered the Secretary of the Treasury to stop minting pennies. Pennies are stupid. They cost 3.69 cents each to produce and distribute. Producing 3 billion worthless pennies cost the government $85 million last year. The only problem with this is that Congress, not the President, authorizes minting of coins, so you can add…

Brinskmanship; The You You Are; AI-generated research: Newsletter 5 February 2025
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Brinskmanship; The You You Are; AI-generated research: Newsletter 5 February 2025

Newsletter 81. Can you really win by threatening your negotiating partners? Plus, Simon & Schuster ditches blurbs, Ray Dalio dribbles out insights, three books to read and three people to follow. The price of brinksmanship Our president Donald Trump is adept at brinksmanship. Look at his actions over time and you can see a pattern:…