Fast company - tech

Internet rankings are breaking our brains

Any time I’m unsure of which jacket to buy, or which movie to watch, or which country to visit, I do this one simple trick: take a look at the rankings. 

One need not look very far to come across a ranked list of products and services on any given day. In December, though, they’re practically unavoidable. That’s when the standard U.S. ambient nudge toward consumerism becomes more of a mule-kick to the sternum. Best-of-the-year lists pour out of

Deloitte’s annual tech trends report: AI will soon be in everything

Artificial intelligence is heading toward a future where it’s so embedded in everything we do, we’ll eventually forget it’s even there. 

At least that’s according to Deloitte’s annual Tech Trends report, which pinpoints enterprise technology trends that the firm expects to take off in the coming years. The report, in its 16th year, is meant to help guide business leaders alongside an ever-changing industry. 

This year’s report highlights how artificial intel

‘My personality is being smothered by corporate America’: This controversial OOO is going viral on TikTok

With the holidays around the corner, do you have your OOO prepped and ready to go? If you were in need of inspiration, one employee has gone viral on TikTok for their rather unconventional approach.  

“OOO keeps getting me in trouble,” @chefmoisehere wrote in a caption over the video with over 2.7 million views. “So I keep getting the same talking to fro

Police departments are embracing AI-powered video surveillance. This company is leading the effort

A red Hyundai SUV makes its way through downtown San Francisco on a bright August afternoon. The car looks innocuous, but a day earlier, police had linked it to the break-in of another car and added it to a so-called hot list of wanted vehicles. Now the city’s license plate recognition cameras, or LPRs, are stationed at major intersections, ready and waiting.

One of those LPRs photographs the Hyundai’s plates, matching it with the car on the hot list and sending an automated alert

How philosopher Shannon Vallor delivered the year’s best critique of AI

A few years ago, Shannon Vallor found herself in front of Cloud Gate, Anish Kapoor’s hulking mercury drop of a sculpture, better known as the Bean, in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Staring into its shiny mirrored surface, she noticed something. 

“I was seeing how it reflected not only the shapes of individual people, but big crowds, and even larger human structures like the Chicago skyline,” she recalls, “but also that these were distorted—some magnified, others shrunk or twi

Rose Wang says Bluesky is so much more than an X clone

A huge shift in social media is underway: People are leaving X while millions have flocked to Bluesky, a new upstart powered by a tiny 20-person team. Bluesky’s COO, Rose Wang, addresses this inflection point as dissatisfaction with major platforms continues to grow. Wang emphasizes that Bluesky isn’t merely an X clone, or a haven for liberals, but rather a key player in

Ethical hacker explains the risks of using public internet

In the modern world we are all constantly connected, but this comes with risks. As most cybersecurity specialists will tell you, the biggest vulnerability in any system is the user—whether at home or work.

The most common ways in which hackers break into systems are via attacks on users such as phishing, rather than by breaching tec

GM is pulling the funding for its Cruise robotaxi company

General Motors is pulling funding from robotaxi company Cruise in order to focus on its own autonomous and assisted driving systems.

“Consistent with GM’s capital allocation priorities, GM will no longer fund Cruise’s robotaxi development work given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market,” GM said in a press release.

GM said it will fold Cruise employees into exis

Gentrace makes it easier for businesses to test AI-powered software

As businesses continue to integrate generative AI into their products, many find it challenging to actually test whether the AI is behaving correctly and giving useful answers.

To help address this problem, a startup called Gentrace offers an integrated platform for testing software built around large language models. Whereas traditional software that can be subjected to automated tests to ve

Meta contractor dismissed threats to moderators from Ethiopia rebels

A contractor hired by Facebook’s parent company Meta dismissed threats to content moderators by Ethiopian rebels angered by their work, according to new evidence filed in a case challenging the dismissal of dozens of moderators in Kenya.

Last year 185 content moderators sued Meta and two contractors, saying they had lost their jobs with Sama, a Kenya-based firm co


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