Oil Conspiracies, Online Scams, Siri, Self-Compassion, and Dark UX
Weekly Roundup of News in Technology, UX and AI
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Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:
🕹️ Tech Innovations
🛻 Oil Conspiracy
🛜 Online Scams
🤖 Siri
🗞️ Newspapers
👥 Meta
🥰 Self-Compassion
👿 Dark UX
Podcast
Navigating Tech Innovations and Strategic Partnerships with Varag Gharibjanian
In this episode, I sit down with Varag Gharibjanian, the founding partner of Actuate, a boutique advisory firm. Varag shares his personal journey from an engineering background to pioneering in business strategy and technology partnerships, especially within AR/VR spaces. We delve into his early career challenges, significant milestones at major tech companies, and the lessons learned from merging technology with business. Varag also discusses the current trends in XR and AI technologies, providing insights into future developments. If you're interested in business strategy, the future of technology, or growing a business, you won't want to miss this discussion.
News and Useful Reads
An Oil Price-Fixing Conspiracy Caused 27% of All Inflation Increases in 2021
As if we needed more evidence that large corporations were sticking it to all of us, we just got it. Between 2021 and 2023, shale producers in the US colluded with OPEC to decrease oil production and increase the cost of oil significantly, meaning major profits for oil companies and a major hit to the wallet for the rest of us.
the Federal Trade Commission released evidence confirming that collusion played a serious role in hiking oil prices at that time. Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield, a leader in the fracking field, “exchanged hundreds of text messages with OPEC representatives and officials discussing crude oil market dynamics, pricing and output.” Sheffield was explicit about his goal, saying that “if Texas leads the way, maybe we can get OPEC to cut production. Maybe Saudi and Russia will follow. That was our plan,” he said, adding: “I was using the tactics of OPEC+ to get a bigger OPEC+ done.” He talked to shareholders, publicly threatened rivals, and ultimately achieved output cuts across the industry regardless of price. “Even if oil gets to $200/barrel,” he said, “the independent producers are going to be disciplined.”
These Dangerous Scammers Don’t Even Bother to Hide Their Crimes
It feels like online scams have become incredibly widespread. I have to talk with family almost weekly to ensure they know not to fall for new scams. But the scammers have become so brazen that they don’t even feel like they need to hide.
Inside the groups, there’s a hive of fraudulent activity with the cybercriminals often showing their faces and sharing ways to scam people with other members. They openly distribute scripts detailing how to blackmail people and how to run sextortion scams—that have driven people to take their own lives—sell albums with hundreds of photographs, and advertise fake social media accounts. Among the scams, they’re also using AI to create fake “nude” images of people and real-time deepfake video calls.
Better Siri is coming: what Apple’s research says about its AI plans
Apple has seemed to be behind other companies with AI. But that doesn’t mean they’re not working on it. And maybe soon Siri will catch up?
A group of Apple researchers has been working on a way to use Siri without needing to use a wake word at all; instead of listening for “Hey Siri” or “Siri,” the device might be able to simply intuit whether you’re talking to it. “This problem is significantly more challenging than voice trigger detection,” the researchers did acknowledge, “since there might not be a leading trigger phrase that marks the beginning of a voice command.”
Major U.S. newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft for copyright infringement
Following the lead of the NY Times, other newspapers are suing OpenAI.
Eight prominent U.S. newspapers owned by investment giant Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, in a complaint filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York.
Meta is quietly winning the AI wearable race
Wearable AI has a really low bar right now, so winning that race doesn’t say a lot. But I guess Meta is winning it. When you have billions to put into something, right?
Meta didn’t expect generative AI to play such a large role in the glasses until very recently. When CEO Mark Zuckerberg first revealed that multimodal AI was coming to them in an interview with me last fall, he described it as a “whole new angle” on smart glasses that may end up being the killer feature before “super high-quality holograms.”
Dark UX
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Other Interesting Finds
Studies Show Self-Compassion is the Motivator You’re Missing
“There are a whole lot of ways to be perfect, and not one of them is attained through punishment.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
It is easy to punish ourselves when we make a mistake or when things go bad. I see this in myself. I see it in those around me. Just yesterday my son made a mistake and started saying how dumb he was. So I had to put my arm around him and tell him he’s not dumb and he shouldn’t ever tell himself that. He’s very smart, he just made a mistake, and it happens to all of us.
But how often do each of us do the same thing to ourselves?
Rather than telling ourselves we failed because we’re deficient, we should offer self-compassion by speaking to ourselves with kindness when we experience setbacks.