Business

The New Hatred of Technology

People have never been better, here in the Year of Our Simulation 2024, at hating the very forces underlying that simulation—at hating, in other words, digital technology itself. And good for them. These everywhere-active tech critics don’t just rely, for their on-trend position-taking, on vague, nostalgist, technophobic feelings anymore. Now they have research papers to…

Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Is Waiting for Trump to Keep His Word—and Set Him Free

At sentencing, the judge was also permitted to take under consideration the murder-for-hire allegations, despite them never having been charged at trial. “Until the Supreme Court rules otherwise, relevant but uncharged crimes of this sort can be and are regularly considered by judges,” says Richman. Ulbricht has never fully acknowledged the harm inflicted by the…

The Chinese Queen of Cottagecore Has Suddenly Reappeared After Three Years

After more than 1,200 days of silence, Li Ziqi, arguably the most successful internet influencer from China on YouTube, is suddenly posting videos again. Earlier this week, the 34-year-old content creator, who is best-known for sharing soothing, meticulously edited clips of herself cooking traditional Chinese dishes, farming, and working on elaborate art projects, posted three…

Two Upstart Search Engines Are Teaming Up to Take on Google

The companies are open to both raising outside funding for EUSP and licensing its index to other companies, including those that might want to use the data to train AI systems. “We’re bringing together the most experienced search engineers to build sovereign tech in Europe—especially for the French and German language, and we’re supremely confident…

OpenAI Scored a Legal Win Over Progressive Publishers—but the Fight’s Not Finished

Topic, who also represents The Intercept in a similar DMCA case against OpenAI, as well as the nonprofit newsroom the Center for Investigative Reporting in a copyright infringement case against both OpenAI and Microsoft, says he is “confident that these kinds of DMCA claims are permitted under the Constitution.” Not all experts agree. “These claims…