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v3.1_bonus: Techin’ eejits and techin’ legends

A throng of gulls take flight, preparing to migrate.
Bots to scare off birds, and other stories. Photo by Hari Nandakumar / Unsplash

It’s our first bonus episode of this season which means it’s time to sort the techin’ eejits from the techin’ legends in the recent tech news.

Listen now

Let’s start with the CTO of OpenAI, Mira Murati. 🥴

Mira Murati makes an exaggerated thinking face during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
If the shrug emoji were a face. Via The Wall Street Journal

Following the announcement of Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video generation engine, Murati was interviewed by Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal and this face 👆was her response to the question of whether YouTube videos were used in the model’s training data. The CTO claims she doesn’t know.

Yes, this story is a few weeks old, but it’s relevant again because of recent comments from YouTube’s CEO Neal Mohan, who said that if videos on its platform were used to train Sora, that would be a “clear violation” of its terms of use. Fight! 🥊

Sticking with the AI news, we have this remarkable headline from The Verge:

Headline reads: Meta's AI image generator can't imagine an Asian man with a white woman
Via The Verge

And, since recording, there’s been a follow-up from reporter Mia Sato.

Headline reads: AI-generated Asians were briefly unavailable on Instagram
Via The Verge

And while we continue to follow Mia Sato’s quest to make fake Asian people, we’ll count her among the legends of the week.

She’s joined by Aurora, a Boston Dynamics robot that is being put to work at Alaska’s busiest airport, warding off wildlife. It’s about time scarecrows got an upgrade!

Aurora, a four-legged robot, poses on the foothills of the Alaskan mountains with a human operator standing nearby.
Via The Washington Post

And then we have another legend from The Verge, editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, for this work of art.

Headline reads: Best printer 2024, best printer for home use, office use, printing labels, printer for school, homework printer you are a printer we are all printers
Via The Verge

From the headline to the low-res lead image to the AI-generated content padding it out, this article is just chef’s kiss. 😙👌

And we came to this gem via this thread on the “enshittification” of Google by Cory Doctorow, which was recommended on X by AI researcher Abeba Birhane – who loyal listeners might remember from our first series. When Abeba suggests something to read on her feed, you read it. She is well worth a follow.

Until next time! 🫡