Hi, I’m Samantha Edwards, an editor at The Globe and Mail. Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s new tech newsletter where every Friday morning I break down the week’s biggest tech stories and how they intersect with – and even change – our world.
In this issue:
👾 What’s the deal with Meta’s new AI chatbot?
😬 A crypto kingpin sentenced to jail
💅 Pinterest reaches half a billion users and nearly half of them are Gen Z
🤺 Another cyberattack hits a Canadian company
Want to know about Aztec history? Meta’s Llama 3 thinks you do
My Llama 3 prompts on Instagram feel random, unless Meta is tapping into a deeper hidden consciousness? No, it's just weird.The Globe and Mail
Two weeks ago, Meta integrated its AI assistant into the search boxes of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger for users in Canada. The open source large language model called Llama 3 can answer your questions, give advice or generate images.
It’s unclear how useful this new tool will be for users. On Instagram, Llama 3′s AI search prompts seem almost random, at least ones suggested to me, which included “timeline of the Aztec empire,” “write a powerlifting routine” and “kitten videos.” (Okay, that last one is pretty apt.)
Meta’s chatbots are finding themselves in trouble already. An official Meta AI chatbot inserted itself into a conversation in a private Facebook group for Manhattan moms, claiming that it, too, had a child in the New York City school district. It later apologized, acknowledging that as a large language model, it does not have experiences or children.
Canadian crypto kingpin sentenced to four months in prison
Looks like CZ got off easy.JASON REDMOND/Getty Images
Former Binance chief executive officer Changpeng Zhao was sentenced Tuesday to four months in U.S. prison for allowing rampant money laundering on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Zhao, also known as CZ, pleaded guilty in November with a deal that required him to step down as a CEO. He was also ordered to pay a US$50-million fine, and Binance was ordered to pay a US$4.3-billion penalty. But this seems like chump change for CZ, who is not required to forfeit the wealth he made from Binance. He’s the world’s richest Canadian, worth US$39.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Gen Z loves Pinterest. Investors can’t get enough
Pinterest surpassed half a billion users this week.DADO RUVIC/Reuters
Pinterest was once ruled by millennials – think chevron throw pillows, boho flower crowns and granola bar recipes. Now the social media platform’s largest growing demographic is Gen Z, who make up 40 per cent of its active monthly users. The company says that’s because Gen Z views the platform as a positive, inspiring space. (In contrast, Instagram has been accused of harming teens’ mental health.) Pinterest reported a 23-per-cent increase in profits in the first quarter, blazing past analysts’ expectations, and surpassed half a billion monthly users. Shares were up 23 per cent to US$40.48 by end of day Wednesday.
London Drugs gets hacked
London Drugs has closed all its stores after a cyberattack.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
B.C.-based pharmacy chain London Drugs has closed all of its stores after a weekend cyberattack. The chain, which has more than 80 stores in Western Canada and the Prairies, is investigating whether employee or customer data was compromised. It’s the latest in a string of attacks on Canadian businesses and organizations such as Indigo, LCBO, Sobeys, and the Toronto Zoo, costing retailers tens of billions of dollars.
Beloved public institutions aren’t safe from hackers either. A ransomware attack forced the Toronto Public library offline for four months, a devastating period for those of us who live and die by our holds list, not to mention people whose personal information was stolen. Hackers have already taken advantage of the rise in remote work and are increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT to manipulate their targets, a trend experts say could lead to even more sophisticated and calamitous attacks.
What else we’re reading this week:
- Inside Ukraine’s killer-drone startup industry (Wired)
- Manufacturing bliss (Asterisk Magazine)
- Bell customers can now keep PVR recordings for only 60 days. How do other providers compare? (The Globe and Mail)
Soundbite
“We humans have always tried to convince others, to persuade them to control them, to play mind games with them, whether we were poets, philosophers, politicians, priests, advertisers, more recently marketeers. But now we have machines that can do that.” – Economist Yanis Varoufakis on why we all became digital serfs, on this week’s Lately podcast.
Adult Money
A photo taken by @brandonl using the mood.camera appSupplied
iPhone cameras are good. In fact, maybe they’re actually too good. Anyone with a phone can now snap a pic that looks like it could be an official default screensaver. That’s why this week’s Adult Money pick is developer Alex Fox’s newly created mood.camera, an iOS app that emulates an analog point-and-shoot. Instead of just adding a sepia filter on top of a photo after you’ve taken it, mood.camera uses a custom ProRAW image processor to recreate the look of film. The results are pretty darn cool. The app is free for seven days, and then costs $2.99 per month or $19.99 for lifetime access.
Culture Radar
During her congressional testimony, FKA twigs said she's created a deepfake of herself.Shannon Finney/Getty Images
Like something out of Black Mirror, musician FKA twigs says she’s developed a deepfake version of herself to handle the more mundane aspects of being an artist in the 21st century, like replying to people on social media. twigs spoke about her AI doppelganger while testifying on Capitol Hill about the importance of legislation to protect the creative and intellectual rights of artists. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property is debating the NO FAKES Act, a bill that would hold deepfake creators liable in civil claims by an artist.
Samantha Edwards