Good Morning! We’re going to try something new today. Let’s start with a fun fact. Did you know Elon Musk once sold a video game he created as a teenager called Blastar to a magazine for $500. It was a simple space-themed game where you fight alien ships, and he coded it using BASIC.

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

Elon vs. EU: The Meme War Heats Up

The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) is cracking down on illegal content and disinformation online. X is in the crosshairs, with ongoing investigations into its content moderation practices and transparency issues.

What's New: EU Commissioner Thierry Breton fired off an open letter to Elon Musk, warning about potential DSA violations on X. The timing? Just before Musk's livestreamed interview with Donald Trump. Breton's concerns? Illegal content, disinformation, and their impact on EU markets.

Musk's response? Pure Elon. He hit back with a meme from "Tropic Thunder," essentially telling the EU to go... well, you know. Classic Musk move, right?

Tech Implications:

• DSA penalties could hit X hard, with fines up to 6% of global annual turnover.

• The EU's threat of "interim measures" is no joke - they could potentially block X across the entire EU.

Musk's personal account is under scrutiny too. With 190 million followers, the EU's watching how he uses his reach, especially around sensitive events.

Read More Here

AI: The Ultimate Homework Cheater?

Remember when we all joked about AI being the perfect homework helper? Well, turns out we weren't far off. Two recent reports have shed light on how ChatGPT and its AI pals are being used in the wild, and it's pretty much what we expected.

What's New:

1. The Washington Post analyzed a dataset of AI chatbot conversations and found that homework help accounts for a whopping 18% of use cases. Only "creative writing and role play" beat it at 21%.

2. OpenAI has developed a tool to detect ChatGPT-generated text with 99.9% accuracy. But, they're not releasing it. Why? Well, 30% of surveyed users said they'd use ChatGPT less if it had watermarks that rivals didn't. Draw your own conclusions there.

Tech Tidbit: OpenAI's detection tool works by creating an invisible "watermark" in the AI's word choices. It's undetectable to humans but crystal clear to machines. Pretty clever, right?

So, what do you think?

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Hackers may have stolen the Social Security numbers of every American.

Remember that data broker, National Public Data (NPD)? Turns out, they might've been sitting on a goldmine of our personal info. Now, a hacking group called USDoD claims they've snagged it all and dumped it online for free. We're talking potentially 2.7 billion records, each packed with names, addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, and yep, Social Security numbers.

What's New: A member of USDoD, going by "Felice," just released what they're calling "the full NPD database" on a hacker forum. While NPD hasn't officially confirmed the breach, they're telling folks who reach out that they're "investigating these issues."

Now, before you panic, here's what the government says you can do to protect yourself:

• Freeze your credit at all three major bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion)

• Use a password manager and enable two-factor authentication everywhere

• Be extra cautious of phishing attempts – they might spike with this leaked data

Read More Here

🔥 More Notes

• SpaceX to launch first human spaceflight over Earth’s polar regions : The Fram2 mission will launch as early as this year and be commanded by Chun Wang, an entrepreneur and adventurer from Malta. The 3-5 day mission will observe Earth's polar regions from an altitude of up to 280 miles and study unusual aurora-like light emissions.

• Are emergent abilities in large language models just in-context learning? : According to a new study led by TU Darmstadt, AI models such as ChatGPT are apparently less capable of learning independently than previously assumed. The study found no evidence that large language models (LLMs) are developing "general intelligent" behavior or complex thinking skills.

• Apple comes under fire for Patreon commission; ‘degrading its brand’ : Apple is coming under fire for its decision to charge a 30% commission on Patreon subscriptions, which will either see creators receive less or supporters charged more.

📹 Youtube Spotlight

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