Month: August 2024
Eric Ly from KarmaCheck shares his entrepreneurial lessons after decades in the industry
Eric Ly has a storied career: he started as an engineering intern at IBM, and twenty years later found himself co-starting and serving as the founding CTO of LinkedIn. After that, he went on to start a slew of companies, including his most recent one, KarmaCheck, which uses AI-driven technology to make background checks easier.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Eric Ly has a storied career: he started as an engineering intern at IBM, and twenty years later found himself co-starting and serving as the founding CTO of LinkedIn. After that, he went on to start a slew of companies, including his most recent one, KarmaCheck, which uses AI-driven technology to make background checks easier. […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
AI won’t be free forever, and you should be mad about it
Companies charging you for AI access to content created by others is all wrong.
Isn’t it funny that many of the best AI chatbots and content generators are now built on subscription models?
Actually, it’s not funny at all. The majority of these systems were training on content created by others, and most will still use internet searches of fresh content to power their generative responses, all while eventually charging us for those responses.
The good news is that bit by bit, major AI companies like OpenAI are brokering deals with media companies. That addresses some of the content-scraping and training concerns that exist between AI companies and media outlets. However, the AI landscape is still the wild west, and the picture is far muddier for visual artists.
Every time a new system like Ideaogram arrives, it’s clear that the company behind it has no issue reusing intellectual property; and, as far as I can tell, they’re not paying the owners of Superman, Mickey Mouse, and countless other popular characters a dime.
Inevitably, some of what they produce looks, sounds, or reads like their training material.
Don’t even get me started on YouTube creators. There are reports that Apple, Nvidia, and Anthopic trained their AIs on thousands of their videos. Having for a short period been a YouTube creator, I know how much creators depend on video plays (and the ad units that play on them) for their livelihoods.
I’m not claiming that generative AI systems are taking pieces of art and information and regurgitating them untouched as their own. These systems use their training to inform their work, to know which word should come next, and what paint stroke, line, or visual style might be most appealing and make sense in the context of the prompt. Inevitably, though, some of what they produce looks, sounds, or reads like their training material, and that end product would be nothing without everything the AI models were trained on.
The cost of AI
It’s expensive and time-consuming to build quality, generative AIs, and to train the large language models behind them. According to a new Washington Post report, it’s taken Amazon a year to train its massive Alexa AI update. The costs of those efforts will likely be passed along to us.
Unlike most of the chatbots, and image and video generators that launched over the last few years, Alexa AI may launch with a subscription plan in place. It’s not clear if existing Prime Members will get it or at least some form of Alexa AI for free. I pay almost $140 a year for Amazon Prime and I still think it’s a good value. That said, I would expect to get Alexa AI as part of that subscription package. If I don’t, I won’t pay another $10 a month for access to this smarter assistant, and at least I’ll still have the Alexa I’ve known and used for more than a decade.
AI had the briefest honeymoon of free-for-all but that’s changing quickly and the future of AI access is clearly pay-to-play.
Even companies that aren’t charging for AI access now will likely do so in the future. Samsung isn’t charging for Galaxy AI, but when we asked company execs about the possibility of charging in the future, they would only say that it would remain free through the end of 2025.
There are also reports that Apple might charge for some parts of Apple Intelligence. It’s only rolling out small elements of its AI platform next month and into 2025 but considering how many billions Apple makes each year on services, it stands to reason that Apple would like to add AI to its services roster and reap even a small monthly harvest of AI services fees.
A lesson well learned
In some ways, I applaud the AI industry for understanding something that, in the early years of the internet, the established print media didn’t until it was almost too late: you can’t simply give away something for free that stood as the economic foundation of your businesses for decades.
When the Internet arrived, it was regarded as a totally open and ad-free place. Eventually, ads appeared along with the content of almost every media brand on the planet. No one charged a dime because ad views more than made up for lost subscription revenue. Until it didn’t. Display ads became white noise and the media companies watched profits plummet. Eventually, brands started erecting paywalls and found other forms of revenue like e-commerce.
AI had the briefest honeymoon of being free for-all, but that’s changing quickly, and the future of AI access is clearly pay-to-play.
For all its foibles, the beauty of the early internet was its broad availability. If you had a computer or could get access to one and were online, you were on the internet. Yes, initially there was a digital divide between the haves and have nots, but because of the low barrier to entry it was inevitable that eventually the majority of people would have access.
The path for AI access will clearly be different. With the biggest tech companies in the world all deeply involved with developing their own AI, and many considering tiered access to the highest-quality and most useful AI (longer videos, full content writes, more powerful productivity tools), the landscape of future AI may permanently be one of haves and have nots.
Unlike the internet, though, AI’s foundation is still the information and content created by others, most of whom will remain unpaid. It’s an imbalance that I fear will remain until all the AI and model makers figure out how to pay everyone for their assistance in building this AI revolution.
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‘How Telegram Played Itself’
Casey Newton, writing at Platformer:
Telegram is often described as an “encrypted” messenger. But as
Ben Thompson explains today, Telegram is not end-to-end
encrypted, as rivals WhatsApp and Signal are. (Its “secret chat”
feature is end-to-end encrypted, but it is not enabled on chats
by default. The vast majority of chats on Telegram are not secret
chats.) That means Telegram can look at the contents of private
messages, making it vulnerable to law enforcement requests for
that data.
Anticipating these requests, Telegram created a kind of
jurisdictional obstacle course for law enforcement that (it says)
none of them have successfully navigated so far. From the FAQ
again:
To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption,
Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is
stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are
controlled by different legal entities spread across different
jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts
and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As
a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are
required to force us to give up any data. To this day, we
have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including
governments.
As a result, investigation after investigation finds that Telegram
is a significant vector for the spread of CSAM. (To take only the
most recent example, here’s one from India’s Decode last
month, which like others found that criminals often
advertise their wares on Instagram and direct buyers to Telegram
to complete their purchases.) […]
“Telegram is another level,” Brian Fishman, Meta’s former
anti-terrorism chief, wrote in a post on Threads. “It has
been the key hub for ISIS for a decade. It tolerates CSAM. Its
ignored reasonable [law enforcement] engagement for YEARS. It’s
not ‘light’ content moderation; it’s a different approach
entirely.
From the Ben Thompson piece yesterday that Newton links to above, is this description of just how unusual Telegram’s “secret chats” are:
That is why “encryption” in the context of messaging means
end-to-end encryption; this means that your messages are encrypted
on your device and can only ever be decrypted and thus read by
your intended recipient. Telegram does support this with “Secret
Chats”, but these are not the default. Moreover, Telegram’s
implementation has a lot of oddities, including some non-standard
encryption techniques, the fact that secret chats can only be
between two devices (not two accounts, so you can’t access a
secret chat started on your phone from your computer), and that
both users have to be online at the same time to initiate a secret
chat (I’ll come back to these oddities in a moment).
★
Casey Newton, writing at Platformer:
Telegram is often described as an “encrypted” messenger. But as
Ben Thompson explains today, Telegram is not end-to-end
encrypted, as rivals WhatsApp and Signal are. (Its “secret chat”
feature is end-to-end encrypted, but it is not enabled on chats
by default. The vast majority of chats on Telegram are not secret
chats.) That means Telegram can look at the contents of private
messages, making it vulnerable to law enforcement requests for
that data.
Anticipating these requests, Telegram created a kind of
jurisdictional obstacle course for law enforcement that (it says)
none of them have successfully navigated so far. From the FAQ
again:
To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption,
Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is
stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are
controlled by different legal entities spread across different
jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts
and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As
a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are
required to force us to give up any data. […] To this day, we
have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including
governments.
As a result, investigation after investigation finds that Telegram
is a significant vector for the spread of CSAM. (To take only the
most recent example, here’s one from India’s Decode last
month, which like others found that criminals often
advertise their wares on Instagram and direct buyers to Telegram
to complete their purchases.) […]
“Telegram is another level,” Brian Fishman, Meta’s former
anti-terrorism chief, wrote in a post on Threads. “It has
been the key hub for ISIS for a decade. It tolerates CSAM. Its
ignored reasonable [law enforcement] engagement for YEARS. It’s
not ‘light’ content moderation; it’s a different approach
entirely.
From the Ben Thompson piece yesterday that Newton links to above, is this description of just how unusual Telegram’s “secret chats” are:
That is why “encryption” in the context of messaging means
end-to-end encryption; this means that your messages are encrypted
on your device and can only ever be decrypted and thus read by
your intended recipient. Telegram does support this with “Secret
Chats”, but these are not the default. Moreover, Telegram’s
implementation has a lot of oddities, including some non-standard
encryption techniques, the fact that secret chats can only be
between two devices (not two accounts, so you can’t access a
secret chat started on your phone from your computer), and that
both users have to be online at the same time to initiate a secret
chat (I’ll come back to these oddities in a moment).
The Yakuza series is finally coming to Nintendo Switch
Hell has frozen over. The famously violent Yakuza series is coming to the Nintendo Switch. Yakuza Kiwami, a remake of the very first game in the franchise, releases for the console on October 24, as announced at today’s Nintendo Partner Showcase event.
This is notable because the Yakuza series is known for being mature and morally ambiguous, and Nintendo doesn’t always like that kind of thing. Masayoshi Yokoyama, the head of the development team behind the series, once told GameSpot that Yakuza games would likely never come to a Nintendo console.
“First of all, whether our games will run on the Switch is probably the first question,” he said. “And when it comes to the Switch, it’s kind of a system for a younger audience. So do we want to put a title, where we’re going and picking a fight with the world, and doing all this Yakuza stuff, on a Switch?”
It looks like the answer to that last question is a resounding “yes.” Yakuza Kiwami first released for the PS4 and Xbox One back in 2016, though there was a version that ran on the PS3. Given the Switch’s power, it should be able to handle a reworked PS3 port.
As for the console’s kid-friendly image, well, that hasn’t entirely changed in the intervening years, but the Switch has made serious inroads with older gamers. The console is home to all kinds of mature and violent fare, from 2016’s Doom to Red Dead Redemption and Mortal Kombat 1.
The Yakuza franchise is on the upswing. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a sequel to 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon, was a bona-fide hit when it was released earlier this year. There’s also a franchise TV show coming to Amazon Prime Video on October 24. Wait a minute. That’s the same day that Yakuza Kiwami hits the Nintendo eShop. Gotta love that sweet, sweet corporate synergy.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-yakuza-series-is-finally-coming-to-nintendo-switch-164657508.html?src=rss
Hell has frozen over. The famously violent Yakuza series is coming to the Nintendo Switch. Yakuza Kiwami, a remake of the very first game in the franchise, releases for the console on October 24, as announced at today’s Nintendo Partner Showcase event.
This is notable because the Yakuza series is known for being mature and morally ambiguous, and Nintendo doesn’t always like that kind of thing. Masayoshi Yokoyama, the head of the development team behind the series, once told GameSpot that Yakuza games would likely never come to a Nintendo console.
“First of all, whether our games will run on the Switch is probably the first question,” he said. “And when it comes to the Switch, it’s kind of a system for a younger audience. So do we want to put a title, where we’re going and picking a fight with the world, and doing all this Yakuza stuff, on a Switch?”
It looks like the answer to that last question is a resounding “yes.” Yakuza Kiwami first released for the PS4 and Xbox One back in 2016, though there was a version that ran on the PS3. Given the Switch’s power, it should be able to handle a reworked PS3 port.
As for the console’s kid-friendly image, well, that hasn’t entirely changed in the intervening years, but the Switch has made serious inroads with older gamers. The console is home to all kinds of mature and violent fare, from 2016’s Doom to Red Dead Redemption and Mortal Kombat 1.
The Yakuza franchise is on the upswing. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a sequel to 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon, was a bona-fide hit when it was released earlier this year. There’s also a franchise TV show coming to Amazon Prime Video on October 24. Wait a minute. That’s the same day that Yakuza Kiwami hits the Nintendo eShop. Gotta love that sweet, sweet corporate synergy.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-yakuza-series-is-finally-coming-to-nintendo-switch-164657508.html?src=rss
Chinese Hackers Breach US Internet Firms via Startup, Lumen Says
The state-sponsored Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon is exploiting a bug in a California-based startup to hack American and Indian internet companies, according to security researchers. From a report: Volt Typhoon has breached four US firms, including internet service providers, and another in India through a vulnerability in a Versa Networks server product, according to Lumen’s unit Black Lotus Labs. Their assessment, much of which was published in a blog post on Tuesday, found with “moderate confidence” that Volt Typhoon was behind the breaches of unpatched Versa systems and said exploitation was likely ongoing.
Versa, which makes software that manages network configurations and has attracted investment from Blackrock and Sequoia Capital, announced the bug last week and offered a patch and other mitigations. The revelation will add to concerns over the susceptibility of US critical infrastructure to cyberattacks. The US this year accused Volt Typhoon of infiltrating networks that operate critical US services, including some of the country’s water facilities, power grid and communications sectors, in order to cause disruptions during a future crisis, such as an invasion of Taiwan.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The state-sponsored Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon is exploiting a bug in a California-based startup to hack American and Indian internet companies, according to security researchers. From a report: Volt Typhoon has breached four US firms, including internet service providers, and another in India through a vulnerability in a Versa Networks server product, according to Lumen’s unit Black Lotus Labs. Their assessment, much of which was published in a blog post on Tuesday, found with “moderate confidence” that Volt Typhoon was behind the breaches of unpatched Versa systems and said exploitation was likely ongoing.
Versa, which makes software that manages network configurations and has attracted investment from Blackrock and Sequoia Capital, announced the bug last week and offered a patch and other mitigations. The revelation will add to concerns over the susceptibility of US critical infrastructure to cyberattacks. The US this year accused Volt Typhoon of infiltrating networks that operate critical US services, including some of the country’s water facilities, power grid and communications sectors, in order to cause disruptions during a future crisis, such as an invasion of Taiwan.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.