Steven Spielberg's wholesome sci-fi classic, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, became a cultural touchstone following its release in 1982. The film's hastily-developed (as in, "you have five weeks to get this to market") Atari 2600 tie-in game became a cultural touchstone for entirely different reasons.
My AI, the in-app digital assistant that rides herd on your Snapchat Plus experience, has suffered numerous breakdowns and technical malfunctions since its debut in February. Tuesday was more of the same as the chatbot took it upon itself to post single-second-long Stories to users' feeds and then go unresponsive for extended periods of time. Thing is, My AI doesn't have the capacity to post to Stories.
Despite being publicly available for less than a year, generative AI technology can already be found all around us, helping us browse the internet, taking the drudgery out of computer coding, and even improving the dialog in popular video game franchises.
It certainly didn't take long for AI's other shoe to drop, what with the emergent technology already being perverted to commit confidence scams and generate spam content.
The modern world of consumer tech wouldn't exist as we know it if not for the near-ubiquitous connectivity that Wi-Fi internet provides. It serves as the wireless link bridging our mobile devices and smart home appliances, enabling our streaming entertainment and connecting us to the global internet.
Our local and state level government systems are hacked and held ransom with disheartening regularity. At the Black Hat USA Conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the Biden Administration revealed its plans to better defend the nation’s critical digital infrastructure: It's launching a DARPA-led challenge competition to build AI systems capable of proactively identifying and fixing software vulnerabilities.
Boeing has rediscovered just how hard space can be in recent months, as its ambitious Starliner program has been repeatedly sidelined by lingering technical issues.
Microsoft wasn't subtle in announcing its plans to add AI functionality to any and all of its existing products.
America didn't get around to really addressing child labor until the late '30s when Roosevelts New Deal took hold and the Public Contracts Act raised the minimum age to 16. Before then, kids could often look forward to spending the majorities of their days doing some of the most dangerous and delicate work required on the factory floor. It's something today's kids can look forward to as well.