As the Israel-Hamas war broke out, misinformation and fake imagery surged on X, the platform formerly known at Twitter. Can Meta’s Threads fill the real-time news hole that X created? Should it?
Then, Kevin debriefs us on his reporting on Manifold Markets, where Silicon Valley Rationalists bet on the likelihoods of different events.
Plus: The company digit ... Show More
Jul 31
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
This week, we break down the arguments about open-weight models unfolding in Silicon Valley right now. Nvidia released an open letter signed by over 230 companies opposing “premature restrictions,” but will the Trump administration listen? Then, we’re joined by the author Claire ... Show More
1h 6m
Jul 17
The A.I. Trade Secrets War + Economists Say ‘We Must Act Now’ + HatGPT
This week, feuding between some of the biggest tech companies spilled into public view. We discuss Apple’s accusation that OpenAI tried to steal secrets about Apple’s hardware business, as well as share our reactions about OpenAI’s new model, Sol, and Anthropic’s decision to exte ... Show More
1h 9m
Oct 2023
Farewell HANF, Hello Gadget Lab
Misinformation lives everywhere. False accounts of events, doctored photos, and purposely misleading news stories are quickly shared and passed around on social media, usually by well-meaning people who don’t know they’re sharing incorrect information. It's a big problem in the b ... Show More
45m 5s
Oct 2023
The 'algorithmic fog of war' with Israel and Hamas
Avi Asher-Schapiro, tech reporter with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, takes us through some of the reasons fake news or misleading content about the fight between Israel and Hamas is being amplified on social media feeds. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://ww ... Show More
26m 1s
Jun 2023
Tesla’s Rising Value, Meta’s AI, and Twitter’s Ad Problem
Kara and Scott are live at Cannes! They discuss Tesla’s market value going up a quarter of a trillion dollars, and Meta letting advertisers know how it’s competing in the AI space. Plus, Twitter’s Head of Ad Sales attended Cannes to assure brands their ads wouldn’t appear near al ... Show More
50m 23s
Jul 2016
Daily: Influence online, from jihad to kawaii. Cybercrime. Industry updates.
In today’s podcast we hear about the doxing of a major ISIS forum, and we take a look at the state of play with respect to online information operations in the war with ISIS. We ask whether jihad and kawaii offer contrasting case studies of inspiration. In Turkey, did coup plotte ... Show More
15m 55s
Nov 2023
UAE Changing The Game in Tech!
In todays episode, The UAE's Economic Space Zone, 14 companies are making waves. WhatsApp introduces a game-changing voice note feature, and we delve into privacy concerns around an app claiming to reveal Instagram profile visitors. Plus, join the cyber warfare as Google fights s ... Show More
22m 16s
Jul 2023
Elon Musk's Twitter: More changes and more competition
Bruce Daisley, a former European vice president of Twitter, talks to Tech Life. We report on scammers using artificial intelligence, bots and books to cash-in. An international firm is measuring clicks and keyboard strokes to make work more productive. And the boss of the global ... Show More
27m 21s