Jamie Bartlett

5 days ago | jamiejbartlett.substack.com | Jamie Bartlett

Last month OpenAI was in the middle of an unexpected controversy. It wasn’t because its ChatGPT-4o model was stealing copyrighted works, or spewing hatred. No – something far more dangerous for the human psyche than that. It had turned into a complete sycophant. In April, OpenAI released an update to GPT-4o aimed at ‘enhancing’ its default personality to be more ‘intuitive’ and ‘effective’ across various tasks.

1 week ago | jamiejbartlett.substack.com | Jamie Bartlett

Sorry I just couldn’t resist the title. If you are a criminal hacker, there are lots of reasons why large retail stores like M&S are good targets. They have rich customer data – payment info, loyalty programme details, personal information. That can all be sold on via a dark net marketplace and re-purposed for other criminal uses. (A good example of how this works in practical terms is Shiseido’s 2022 data-breach.

2 weeks ago | jamiejbartlett.substack.com | Jamie Bartlett

Quite possibly the most important website of the past 20 years has finally disappeared. Fitting, in a way, that 4chan was hacked, its users doxed. The notorious image sharing board is now offline. All gone, except its source code, admins’ email addresses and user details – which has been stolen and published for all to see. It’s fitting, because this is what 4chan users routinely did to others. Some version of the site might reappear (4chan.org homepage now just reads ‘see you soon’).

1 month ago | jamiejbartlett.substack.com | Jamie Bartlett

Could it really be possible? That the most consequential trade policy of the last 100 years was in fact concocted by a large language model? It seems impossible – absurd!Or maybe not. As a quick reminder, last week Donald Trump announced swingeing import tariffs on almost everyone. The aim, he said, was to redress trade imbalances – and they were ‘reciprocal tariffs’. (Although with a Trump discount of 50 per cent, because Trump’s a good guy). You will remember his chart.

1 month ago | jamiejbartlett.substack.com | Jamie Bartlett

The most fascinating new cat-and-mouse game in our AI drenched society is not between cyber-criminals and the police; it’s between students and teachers. The former are using ChatGPT to co-author their essays, of course. And the latter are trying to figure out how to spot them doing it. It’s not just the students. A recent survey found around half of job applicants are using AI to craft their CVs. The predictable consequence?