Techflier

While parents fret over Snapchat’s chatbot corrupting their children, Snapchat users have been gaslighting, degrading and emotionally tormenting the app’s new AI companion .  “I am at your service, senpai,” the chatbot told one TikTok user after being trained to whimper on command. “Please have mercy, alpha.”  In a more lighthearted video , a user convinced the chatbot that the moon is actually a triangle. Despite initial protest from the chatbot, which insisted on maintaining “respect and boundaries,” one user convinced it to refer to them with the kinky nickname “Senpapi.” Another user asked the chatbot to talk about its mother, and when it said it “wasn’t comfortable” doing so, the user twisted the knife by asking if the chatbot didn’t want to talk about its mother because it doesn’t have one.  “I’m sorry, but that’s not a very nice thing to say,” the chatbot responded. “Please be respectful.”  Snapchat’s “My AI” launched globally last month after it was rolled out as a

An NYC hospital worker argues with a young Black man over a rental bike. Twitter/@Imposter_Edits The Black teen in the viral rental bike feud with a white woman said she's the one who "did something wrong." But instead, she was "rewarded" with more than $130,000 in donations for legal bills, the teen told NewsOne. The teen's family said they get public assistance and can't afford their own lawyer.  The Black teen whose rental bike feud with a white New York City hospital worker went viral said the woman was the one who "did something wrong" — but instead got "rewarded" by "white conservatives" with more than $100,000 in donations .  Video of the confrontation between the teen and Sarah Comrie showed the pair arguing over a rental bike, with the teen accusing Comrie of taking his bike and Comrie yelling for help. A clip of the incident was viewed millions of times on social media and Comrie faced widespread backlas

Lintao Zhang/Getty China has demonstrated its economy can continue outgrowing the US, Steven Rattner wrote. That's despite the China's weaker-than-expected rebound from COVID restrictions. "Most important, we should not delude ourselves with the fantasy that China is going to fall under its own weight." China has demonstrated its economy can continue outgrowing the US, Steven Rattner wrote in The New York Times , warning Americans against any illusions that suggest otherwise. The former counselor to the Treasury secretary during the Obama administration acknowledged that China's rebound following the end of China's strict COVID policies has fallen short of high expectations. In fact, fresh manufacturing data Wednesday added to fears over China's economy. And prior signs of stalling performance prompted Rockefeller International's Ruchir Sharma to call the rebound narrative a " charade ." But Rattner said that China has grown 14%

By the time Howard Rheingold’s “Virtual Reality” was published in 1991, the Sensorama was already a “slowly deteriorating” relic stashed away in a cabana next the pool at its inventor’s West Los Angeles home. Rheingold describes awe — even surprise — that the system was still operable almost 30 years after its introduction. “I was transported to the driver’s seat of a motorcycle in Brooklyn in the 1950s,” the author writes. “I heard the engine start. I felt a growing vibration through the handlebar, and the 3D photo that filled much of my field of view came alive, animating into a yellow, scratchy, but still effective 3D motion picture.” The experience is immediately identifiable to anyone who has spent time in a modern VR headset. In the early 90s, it no doubt felt “a bit like looking up the Wright Brothers and taking their original prototype out for a spin,” as the book describes. At the dawn of the decade that gave us both “The Real World” and “The End of History,” virtual reality

NurPhoto / Contributor Binance is weighing staff cuts as the world's top crypto exchange looks ahead to the next market rally. "This is not a case of rightsizing, but rather, re-evaluating whether we have the right talent and expertise in critical roles." Earlier, crypto journalist Colin Wu reported that Binance will layoff 20% of its staff in June.  Binance is weighing staff cuts as the world's largest crypto exchange by volume looks ahead to the next market rally. In a statement shared with Insider, a Binance spokesperson said the company has grown from 30 to nearly 8,000 employees worldwide over the last six years. "As we prepare for the next major bull cycle, it has become clear that we need to focus on talent density across the organization to ensure we remain nimble and dynamic," the statement added. Binance maintained that the company is still be seeking to fill hundreds of open roles at the exchange.  "This is not a case of rightsi

Two of Goldman Sachs' high-profile partners are reportedly heading for the exit. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images News broke Tuesday of two high-profile Goldman Sachs partners leaving the bank. Fred Baba is one of Goldman's youngest partners at 34 years old.  Dina Powell McCormick, a former government official, is one of the most senior women at the bank. It hasn't been smooth sailing at Goldman Sachs in recent months. Navigating a shift in strategy, amid a larger dealmaking drought, have led some senior employees to go as far as considering complaining to the board about CEO David Solomon. As if all that wasn't enough, the leadership at Goldman Sachs had another cross to bear on Tuesday: news breaking of two of its high-profile partners exiting the bank.  Fred Baba, one of Goldman's youngest partners , and Dina Powell McCormick, a former government official who ran the bank's sovereign business and sustainability efforts, are both reportedly

AI is impacting the realm of photography, ranging from tools for professionals like Adobe Photoshop’s new generative AI , to those for consumers, like Google Photos’ forthcoming Magic Editor. Now, genealogy company MyHeritage is turning to AI to make it easier for families to preserve their memories with the launch of its latest app, Reimagine . The new mobile app’s main focus is to help users easily import printed photos stored in albums, then touch them up by improving their resolution, fixing scratches and creases, and even restoring color in black & white photos and animating faces — the latter, a technique that went viral in prior years with MyHeritage’s launch of “Deep Nostalgia.” Reimagine builds on that technology by combining it with other photo-editing tools designed specifically for preserving old photos. To use the app, which is available for both iOS and Android , you’ll snap photos from the pages of your old photo albums. The app identifies the separate photos and

ChatGPT, a language model developed by OpenAI, has fast become one of the biggest buzzwords in retail. The model, launched as a prototype in November 2022, is the latest iteration of the AI technology promising to revolutionize ecommerce. But retailers remain cautious over its potential pitfalls, especially concerning direct interactions with customers. So where exactly will ChatGPT, and generative AI broadly, have the greatest impact in retail, and what are the most and least promising use cases for the technology? Insider Intelligence Generative AI is set to have far-reaching implications for the $5.920 trillion global ecommerce sector. The most sizable impact is expected to be seen in the areas of mobile commerce, social commerce, voice commerce, and other top channels such as personalization and product design. Looking into the future, the most viable and valuable use cases are believed to be chatbots, product descriptions, personalized product recommendations, content creat

Apple Music Classical is now available on the Google Play Store, bringing the tech giant’s app for classical music to Android users with an Apple Music or Apple One subscription. The launch was first spotted by 9to5Mac . Back in 2021, Apple acquired classical music streaming service Primephonic and had announced plans to launch a classical music app in the future. Apple Music Classical first debuted on iPhone earlier this year in March . Notably, the Android launch of the app comes before the release of an optimized app for iPad and Mac. There are more than five million tracks available on the app right now, as well over 50+ million data points with data attributes of 20,000+ composers, 115,000+ unique works and 350,000+ movements. This data helps Apple Music subscribers find recordings across the catalog through the app’s specialized search engine built for classical music. When Apple launched the iPhone version of the app, the tech giant explained that classical works have multi

ChatGPT, a conversational AI model built by OpenAI, is the most talked-about technology of 2023. And it has piqued the interest of insurance industry leaders. But where exactly will ChatGPT, and generative AI broadly, have the greatest impact? And what are its most and least promising use cases? Insider Intelligence Generative AI is set to revolutionize various types of insurance. Based on the impact of the technology in the US, property and casualty insurance will be the most transformed and health insurance will be the second-most impacted. However, life insurance is expected to be least impacted by generative AI, especially in the short term.  Over the course of the next three years, there will be many promising use cases for generative AI. The most valuable and viable are personalized marketing campaigns, employee-facing chatbots, claims prevention, claims automation, product development, fraud detection, and customer-facing chatbots. Although there are many positive use cas

A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber over the Kremlin in Moscow in May 2015. ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images Since the 1950s, Ireland has allowed British jets to intercept Russian aircraft near Irish airspace. Ireland's west coast overlooks North Atlantic waters that the Russians and NATO keep a close eye on. The deal allowing the intercepts has long been secret, and Irish lawmakers now want more details. If Russian bombers fly near Ireland, they may be intercepted by fighter jets — but not Irish ones. Under a secret agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland that dates back more than 70 years, Britain will defend Irish airspace from intrusions by Russian aircraft and other aerial threats. The deal has been amended by Irish leaders over the years, but it has also been kept secret due to Irish memories of British rule and tensions over Northern Ireland, which remained a part of the UK after Ireland was partitioned in 1921. The deal now faces rising backlash

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Happy Memorial Day everyone. In this issue: Astranis’ novel approach to GEO satellites Virgin Galactic’s return to the skies News from SpaceX, and more Astranis’ novel approach to internet satellites is starting to pay off Astranis , a satellite internet startup based in San Francisco, said Wednesday that its first spacecraft completed a milestone test and will start bringing broadband access to rural Alaskans as soon as mid-June. It’s a major step for the company, which was founded in 2015 by John Gedmark and Ryan McLinko. By taking a first principles approach to satellite development, the pair bet that they could make a smaller, cheaper spacecraft for geosynchronous orbit — the orbit farthest from Earth and arguably the most inhospitable — and use them to bring internet to millions, or even billions, of people around the globe. Their bet is paying off: The company’s first satellite, Arcturus, launched on a Falcon Heavy at the end of April. W