You Probably Can’t Tell the Difference Between a Bot and a Person

Winning Friends and Influencing People How Advanced Socialbots Have Infiltrated TwitterMIT Technology Review

Ah yes, those pesky Twitter bots. While it may seem fairly obvious to you whether a follower is a real person or not, Carlos Freitas and other researchers created 120 socialbots and found that a significant proportion "not only infiltrated social groups on Twitter but became influential among them." Only 38 were suspended by Twitter and more than 20% picked up 100 followers or more. They also received similar or higher Klout scores than "several well-known academics and social network researchers" and were the most successful when generating synthetic tweets (rather than just retweeting).



This suggests that "Twitter users are unable to distinguish between humans and bots," which is concerning in light of the proliferation of services that measure interest and opinion on social networks. "The worry," according to the Tech Review, "is that automated bots could be designed to significantly influence opinion" about such things as politics and products.



Mostly by Arguing How Greylock Partners Finds the Next FacebookNewsweek

When the CEO of Sprig, a start-up focused on meal delivery, finally made it to the boardroom of the VC firm Greylock Partners to pitch his business model, everyone argued about it. But that was a good thing: Intense debate over conflicting views is an accepted part of the process at Greylock and occurred regularly when the company made its biggest and most successful bets on Facebook, Pandora, and Airbnb. Katrina Brooker describes this process and many other inside details in her anatomy of the firm, which is made up of former engineers and start-up founders and is seen as the golden ticket for any fledgling company in Silicon Valley.



And while the competition among VC firms to fund the next big thing is fierce, Greylock has an advantage, as Medium’s Ev Williams notes: "The thing I heard, time after time, was David [Sze, a Greylock partner] was always trying to do the right thing for the entrepreneur." This includes having an in-house recruiting firm to locate the best engineering talent for the start-ups it funds, a huge boon in a wildly competitive job market.



The Comfort of CrowdsAre Smartphone Users the Missing Link in Building Efficiency? Greentech Media

Have you ever been too cold at work and wandered around looking for a thermostat, only to realize that your workplace climate is controlled by unseen microchips that think they’re a lot smarter than you are? They aren’t smarter, of course — you’re the best judge of your own comfort, just as you’re the best judge of your lighting levels. In this piece from Greentech Media, Jeff St. John describes a start-up, Crowd Comfort, whose software allows human beings to talk to their buildings via smart phones about such things as heat, light, and air flow.



Using an app, employees can signal where they’re located in a building and report on their comfort or discomfort. Because they remain anonymous, they have the freedom to report how they really feel. (First the physical climate, next the emotional climate? Wishful thinking.) A big selling point, the start-up hopes, is the energy-saving potential: If you’re a facilities manager, you can lower the temperature by 1 degree and see whether anyone reacts. If people are still comfortable, you’ve saved your firm some heating costs. Buildings consume three-quarters of the all the electricity used in the U.S., so the energy savings could be significant. —Andy O'Connell



George Washington Approved! Spy vs. SpyThe New Yorker

Fellow history nerds, rejoice: James Surowiecki has written a delightful piece on economic espionage throughout history. In particular, he argues that China's recent theft of trade secrets from the United States probably sticks in America's craw because "that's pretty much how we got our start as a manufacturing power, too." He cites examples like Samuel Slater's knowledge of Arkwright spinning frames, Francis Cabot Lowell's infiltration of British mills, and the actions of America’s "most effective industrial spy," Thomas Digges, who was lauded by George Washington for his "activity and zeal." Recently, Surowiecki notes, the U.S. has been all about enforcing stringent intellectual-property rules. But "as our own history suggests, the economic impact of technology piracy isn't straightforward," with examples of patents and trade secrets both helping and hurting innovation.



Above It AllPatek Philippe Crafts Its FutureFortune

The 175-year-old Swiss watchmaking company Patek Philippe gives a whole new meaning to “high end.” It floats in a cloud of superlatives: Last year the company unveiled its most complex wristwatch to date, a timepiece that has 686 parts, is encased in 18-karat white gold, sports a double dial with a cloisonné face, and costs more than $1 million. The company holds the record for a watch sold at auction — $11 million. Owners of Pateks have included Queen Victoria, Pope Pius IX, Joe DiMaggio, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Andy Warhol, Eric Clapton, Jack Welch, and Vladimir Putin.



Yet Patek is also a company of contradictions — while it maintains a reverence for its past, vowing to service any watch dating back to 1839, the company remains focused on the future: In its R&D department, 80 engineers, technicians, and drafts people develop new movements and functions using such technologies as 3D printers. This piece by Stacy Perman, excerpted from a new book, touches on a few modern-day challenges facing the company, such as smart watches, but it’s hard to take those threats seriously. Somehow Patek seems to exist on a different plane from the rest of this grubby world. —Andy O'Connell



BONUS BITSViews from Modern Work

Opportunity's Knocks (The Washington Post)
Friends Without Benefits (The Baffler)
How the Recession Shaped the Economy in 255 Charts (The New York Times)






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Published on June 06, 2014 09:00
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