(Photo by Anna Keibalo on Unsplash)

My main newsletter, Complex Machinery, includes a section called "In Other News..." It's where I list one-liners about interesting articles that didn't fit into any segments.

You can think of this list as a version of In Other News, but with a wider remit than Complex Machinery's "risk, AI, and related topics."

Above the fold

1. In my other newsletter, Complex Machinery, I wrote about the eerie parallels between the 2008 mortgage crisis and today's genAI wave. How much exposure do we all have to subprime genAI products? (Complex Machinery)
2. The headline of this article focuses on OpenAI missing key growth targets, but the real news is the growing friction between the CEO and CFO. (WSJ)
3. The Chinese government allegedly employs hackers to target dissidents and journalists with phishing attacks. (Der Standard 🇩🇪 , CitizenLab, ICIJ)
4. In today's episode of Risk Controls: You Need Them (no srsly you really need them), yet another genAI code-writing agent zaps a company's database. (Tom's Hardware)
5. When your life goes from selling spy gadgets to becoming a spy: Ben Jamil sold listening devices and wound up having to run his own. (FT)
6. A few years ago, I figured that "simulation" would be the next step in the data field after ML. LLMs derailed that conversation but ... with world models, simulation is back on the menu. (Goldman Sachs)
7. Insurers make their money by collecting more money in premiums than they pay out in claims. So when they refuse to provide coverage for a certain activity, that's a sign. And lately, insurers have been hesitant to cover AI-related losses. (FT)
8. Reality might just be catching up to genAI's overhyped, unsustainable economics. (The Verge, Futurism)
9. Tele-therapy platform Talkspace is reportedly collecting clients' chats with therapists to train a genAI bot. We now know this because one patient's therapy session transcripts wound up in a court case. (Proof News)
10. AI-generated CSAM has criminal investigators stretched thin and chasing ghosts. (Bloomberg)

The rest of the best

• Under the guise of protecting its trademark, SXSW used an automated tool to flag and take down Instagram posts critical of its flagship event. (404 Media)
• Manitoba joins the growing movement to keep adolescents away from social media, and adds a new twist: no genAI chatbots. (CBC)
• Brazil's PCC went from advocating for prisoner rights to running a worldwide cocaine operation. (WSJ)
• On the one hand, this genAI bot is doing a poor job of running a business. On the other hand, is it that much worse than, say, your typical startup founderbro? (New York Times)
• South Korea takes AI-generated photos very seriously. Someone who posted fake images of an escaped wolf may serve time behind bars. (Gizmodo)
• How far will a person go to shift a Polymarket bet in their favor? At least as far as tampering with a weather station at Paris's Roissy/Charles de Gaulle airport, apparently. (Le Monde 🇫🇷, New York Times)
• Anthropic's Mythos model has made news for its ability to surface long-hidden software bugs. Is its too-dangerous-to-release label grounded in truth? Or is it more of a marketing stunt? (Flyingpenguin)
• The purported safety record of Waymo autonomous taxis is in question. (NYC Streetsblog)
• Not all genAI chatbots are created equal. Some are worse for mental health than others. (Futurism)
• Meta will lay off a portion of its workforce in order to fund its genAI habit. Tell me this hasn't reached "problem gambler" territory. I'll wait. (Le Monde 🇫🇷)
• Those who survive the Meta layoffs will be subject to keystroke logging and mouse tracking to train their AI replacements. (Ars Technica, Der Spiegel 🇩🇪)
• Generative AI + thirsty men = profit. (Wired)

Did I miss anything?

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