Reddit blackout
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Reddit blackout
| Social impact | User trust |
| Web 2.0 |
| Social Media |
Some of Reddit's largest communities are going offline to protest API costs. Read more...
- What does this trend of large companies locking out smaller ones by way of exorbitant costs signify?
- What scale of user backlash might reverse such a decision?
- How might third-party apps guard against this going forward?
Private AI
| Privacy | Organizational trust |
| Artificial Intelligence | Cloud computing |
| Data protection and cybersecurity |
AntChain and Intel have collaborated to create a privacy-preserving computing platform. Read more...
- Does slowing down an AI project for the sake of privacy make sense?
- Does privacy for AI projects become another parameter by which data becomes siloed?
- Will access to the right hardware grant further access to data?
In-house ChatGPT
| User goals | Backwards compatibility | Partial automation |
| Artificial Intelligence |
| Enterprise software, B2B software, SAAS |
Alteryx is using AI to generate targeted, detailed reports thanks to ChatGPT-like featureset. Read more...
- How does such a technology affect in-house analysts and external consultants?
- How do internal writing styles and formats influence the performance?
- Does a company eventually ask its workers to modify their output to suit the algorithm better?
Cloud kitchens
| Coordination neglect | Labour |
| Automation |
| Food and drink, restaurants, meal delivery |
CloudKitchen's partners feeling short-changed. Read more...
- While cloud kitchens can generally reduce the barrier to entry, do they offer anything else?
- Is the erosion of margins through delivery going to end sit-down dining as we know it?
- Would a co-operative model better serve the businesses instead?
Democracy and AI
| Algorithmic influence | Regulatory | Incentives |
| Artificial Intelligence | Web 2.0 |
| Government, defense, policing, law |
A stark overview of AI-driven voter influence. Read more...
- Would we accept a limit to the influence placed on voters?
- Could the regulatory framework imposed provide an advantage of its own (making the rules)?
- To what extent do voters realize they are being influenced?
Zoom zume
| Adoption | Consumer trends |
| Other |
| Food and drink, restaurants, meal delivery |
Well funded pizza startup goes bankrupt. Read more...
- Will VCs start caring more about margins than scale?
- Are good making robots proving to still be inadequate generally?
- Is it possibly there was a sound business underlying Zume but that exuberance given the funding got in the way?
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Microsoft's fined
| Privacy | Ethics |
| Web 2.0 |
| Data protection and cybersecurity |
Microsoft has been fined $20m by the US regulator Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for breaching sections of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Read more...
- Is $20 million enough for a company like Microsoft?
- How do such stories influence the purchasing decisions of parents?
- How does the data of children and teenagers influence algorithms that will be applied into adulthood?
Immigration AI
| Data bias | Adversarial behavior | Model bias |
| Artificial Intelligence |
| Government, defense, policing, law |
Canada turns to AI to assist with immigration application surge. Read more...
- Are government agencies equipped to prevent and handle abuse and gaming of these systems?
- Will algorithmic screening itself increase the number of applications?
- Could the goal of reducing the number of applications be achieved in other ways?
Data carbon
| Environmental impact | Costs | Incentives |
| Clean Tech |
| Energy, green tech, utilities |
The first publicly available tool to calculate the CO2 output of their stored data. Read more...
- Will the results of the tool be the subject of debate or bias?
- Will policy makers and governments enforce the use of this, or other, tools?
- Will companies optimize for the tool's measurements, creating unforeseen problems at scale?
Banking Chatbot Concerns
| User goals | Dependability |
| Artificial Intelligence | Algorithms |
| Banking and Financial |
A growing reliance of US banks on chatbots for customer service tasks has raised concerns. Read more...
- How do you program a chatbot to balance efficiency and compliance?
- Does a moderation layer introduce more complex problems?
- Does the responsibility fall on technology providers who aren't as qualified as the bank to ensure consumer protection?
The Crossfactors Newsletter
Each week we look at 10 new uses of technologies from any of the 30+ industries and the 25+ technology domains we watch. Get smart about the tech you bring into your products, your organization and your life. Pig hearts | Ethics | Adoption | | Medical and biotech | | Healthcare, Medicine, Digital Health | Company pioneers gene-edited pig heart transplants, conducting trials on baboons as a potential solution for babies with severe heart defects. Read more... How can parents in a position to...
Lots of food content this week. Not sure why. Maybe I was hungry. Review Response | User goals | Incentives | | Web 2.0 | | Food and drink, restaurants, meal delivery | A discussion of how restaurants should approach online reviews. Read more... Is there a better outlet for retaliatory reviews? Is there a growing or diminishing dependence on online reviews? How should a restaurant maintain an online personality? Cultivated Meatballs | Public trust | Consumer trends | | Agtech and cultured...
Each week we look at 10 new uses of technologies from any of the 30+ industries and the 25+ technology domains we watch. Get smart about the tech you bring into your products, your organization and your life. Metaverse Guardians | User trust | User safety | | Web 2.0 | VR | | Data protection and cybersecurity | Social Media | Undercover content moderators play a big role in ensuring safety and protecting users within the metaverse. Read more... Where does the balance lie between safety and...