More: Israel carried out a pager attack in Lebanon… (Axios), 9-year-old girl killed in pager attack mourned in Lebanon (New York Times), Has Israel broken international law? (Looking at the Middle East)
23andMe
MITTR / ADOBE STOCK
The company that pioneered direct-to-consumer genetic testing is rapidly going under. Its stock price is trending toward zero, and a project to create valuable drugs was abandoned after that team received pink slips in November.
23andMe has always had an aura of celebrity, bathed in good press. But today, the press is all bad. It is a company in difficulty, in the hands of a majority founder, Anne Wojcicki, after the mass resignation of its independent directors in September. Customers are starting to worry about what will happen to their DNA data if 23andMe goes bankrupt.
23andMe claims to have created “the world’s largest participatory platform for genetic research”. It’s true. He just never figured out how to turn a profit.
More: 23andMe goes from $6 billion to almost $0 (Wall Street Journal), How to… delete your 23andMe data (MIT Technology Review), 23andMe financial report, November 2024 (23 and me)
AI slope
AUTHOR UNKNOWN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Slops are the leftovers and leftovers that pigs eat. “AI slop” is what you and I increasingly consume online now that people are flooding the Internet with computer-generated text and images.
AI failure ‘doubtful,’ says New York Timesand “dadaist”, according to Wired. It’s often weird, like Jesus shrimp (don’t ask if you don’t know), or misleading, like the photo of a shivering girl in a boat, supposedly showing the US government’s poor response to Hurricane Helene.
The AI’s slops are often entertaining. AI slops are generally a waste of time. AI slops are not checked. Slop AI exists primarily to get clicks. AI slop is this blue checking account on X that posts 10 part threads about how good AI is, threads written by AI.