David Lidsky's Blog, page 144

OpenAI’s nonprofit mission fades further into the rearview

The AI lab founded to serve humanity is restructuring to let investors and employees profit without limits—deepening fears that safety may take a back seat to growth.

OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit with a mission to build safe artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity. For a while, that structure made sense. But in 2019, the company made a discovery that changed everything: Scaling up AI models—with more data, compute, and parameters—led to predictably stronger results.

Target has not changed its self-checkout policy, retailer says, despite recent reports about ‘shrink’

Shoplifting is a perennial issue for retail chains, but Target says it has no plans to scale back its automated registers.

Target Corp. is pushing back on media reports this week that it has changed its policies around self-checkout technology in response to shoplifting or customer dissatisfaction.

The key to better banking customer journeys

From automation to orchestration, AI can help banks win customer loyalty

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.

To realize AI’s potential in the workplace, do one thing

Focus on people.

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.

The first chapter of AI-driven bankruptcy

Amazon and other big tech companies are shedding workers while increasing automation.

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.

This old mine in rural Pennsylvania was used to power crypto—and then it shut down without a word

State inspectors find site abandoned, raising concerns about pollution from unplugged wells across Appalachia.

Just beyond a fenced-off access road in fields of tall grass on public land in Pennsylvania’s northwest sits a natural gas well pad that sat idle for close to a decade. The old fracking site suddenly roared back to life in 2022, spewing noise and pollution and rattling residents who were used to hunting pheasant on the quiet, bucolic terrain.

‘You got to be really careful what you tie your name to’: The Hawk Tuah girl is planning a rebrand

After going viral in 2024, Haliey Welch is clearing her name and stepping back into the public eye.

Haliey Welch, better known as the Hawk Tuah girl, is ready for a rebrand.

This startup wants to optimize your entire life with its new ‘proactive’ AI

TwinMind, which can be downloaded as an iPhone app, functions like ‘JARVIS in your pocket,’ according to founder Daniel George.

Daniel George, the founder and CEO of AI company TwinMind, has quite the résumé.

‘A Million Lives’ shattered: This fantasy ball was just dubbed the Fyre Festival of BookTok—and authors are furious

On TikTok, videos of the Baltimore book event show a huge empty room with rows of plain tables. ‘I planned my pregnancy around this,’ one author said.

A book festival took place over the weekend in Baltimore, but even if you’re local, you likely didn’t hear about it until after the fact. The event, called A Millions Lives Book Festival, is now trending on social media, but for all the wrong reasons—it’s being called “the Fyre Festival of book festivals,” if that’s any indication of just how disappointing it seems to have been.

A Million Lives, organized by author Grace Willows and Archer Management company, came to Baltimore’s Convention Center on May 2 and 3. While the event was allegedly described to authors as an extravagant fantasy-themed ball where they could promote their books to hundreds to thousands of attendees, videos on TikTok and Threads suggest that barely a handful of attendees showed up, and there hardly appeared to have been any setup done in terms of decor.

Anthropic hires a top Biden official to lead its new ‘AI for social good’ team (exclusive)

As director of the U.S. AI Institute, Elizabeth Kelly formed agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic to allow government safety testing of new AI models prior to their release.

Anthropic is turning to a Biden administration alum to run its new Beneficial Deployments team, which is tasked with helping extend the benefits of its AI to organizations focused on social good—particularly in areas such as health research and education—that may lack market-driven incentives.