Adi Robertson

A purportedly leaked memo started going around Tumblr last night, suggesting much of the site’s staff is getting moved to other parts of Automattic (its parent company) after it failed to boost its audience. The screenshot has spread to other sites through people including Waxy’s Andy Baio, but I haven’t seen any official confirmation — we pinged Automattic several hours ago and have yet to receive a response.

If any Tumblr employees happen to have more details, our tips are open.

A fitting use of transformer models: using AI to Michael Bay-ify any movie scene! But as the fine users of Metafilter note, you can give anything a dose of Old Bay. The possibilities are endless and filled with robot arms.

I just finished watching it, and as a longtime fan of Naoki Urasawa’s manga — a somber murder-mystery adaptation of a 1960s Astro Boy arc, set in a world where robots are grappling with their own humanity and the aftermath of a war — I wholeheartedly endorse Joshua Rivera’s praise of the recent adaptation. It’s lovely! Maybe the best new thing I’ve seen appear on Netflix all year.

I’ll lay my cards on the table: I disagree with tech policy luminary Tim Wu’s support for a lot of the child safety bills being proposed in the US right now. But his Atlantic story on their failure underscores just how bad Congress has been at passing any regulation (or even empowering tech oversight agencies to function) amid a bunch of grandstanding about “Big Tech”:

It would almost be reassuring if we could blame partisanship or corporate lobbyists for the outcome. But this is a story of culture war, personal grievance, and petty beefs so indefensible as to be a disgrace to the Republic.

At midnight ET tonight, the US Copyright Office will close its extended public comment period for how copyright should play with AI. And while I’m not seeing the absolute circus that we got with 22 million (mostly fake) net neutrality comments, it’s received a respectable number so far! I’m looking forward to digging into them.

The resolution doesn’t offer many specifics, but it’s the latest sign that AI-generated images of child sexual abuse are becoming a priority for platforms and law enforcement — even if it’s still framed as an “emerging” problem.

The UK announced the agreement ahead of an AI safety summit later this week, and agencies from Italy, Germany, the US, Korea, and Australia signed it, as did OnlyFans, Snapchat, and a variety of child safety nonprofits.

Pichai will be one of the first witnesses Google calls for its antitrust defense, which started officially today. He’ll help make the case that Google’s search success is due to its own innovation and missteps by competitors, not big deals with companies like Apple (which it allegedly paid $18 billion in 2021).

The open source intelligence site has been fact-checking information about the Israel-Hamas war during a seismic shift in social media practices, and it outlines some of the most common tells of a false report, alongside a useful reminder for watching disturbing videos:

Ask yourself if there is a genuine reason you need to view this footage.