Scammers who call one of the numbers in their lists will encounter an “AI granny” who wastes time by talking about knitting. CC-licensed photo by IMLS Digital Collections & Content on Flickr.

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There’s another post coming this week at the Social Warming Substack on Friday at 0845 UK time. Free signup.

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A selection of 9 links for you. Use them wisely. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.

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Meta lobbyist turned regulator says Europe’s Big Tech rules have gone too far • WIRED

Morgan Meaker:

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By 2022, around three-quarters of all Google and Meta lobbyists in Europe previously worked at the European Commission, according to LobbyControl research. [40-year-old Finnish former Meta lobbyist, Aura] Salla once fell into this category, too. Her career in Brussels started at the European Commission before she was hired by Meta in 2020. The company did not respond to WIRED’s request to comment on this article.

Salla is worried that recently passed laws—like the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, or the AI Act—may be stifling potential European rivals to the likes of OpenAI or Apple. “We have very layered regulation on the tech sector, and that’s harming our companies,” Salla says.

The MEP does not oppose the aims of laws like the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which includes rules forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores onto European iPhones. “I hope that the DMA will be enforced so we can enable more companies to enter this field where Apple is—absolutely, I would love to see that,” Salla says. Yet she’s pessimistic the regulation will actually compel Apple to change. “I’m sorry, the company will go around it, go around it, go around it.” Instead, the businesses that will suffer, she claims, will be some of Europe’s most successful—travel company Booking.com and online retailer Zalando. “So, our own companies.”

Salla is becoming an outspoken figure, articulating concern that regulation went too far, too fast. She believes the EU should focus on boosting innovation at home over restraining companies from abroad. “We did it completely the wrong way around,” she says. European companies should be able to collect and feed their AI models data, Salla says, arguing companies are limited by “too many overlapping” rules. She stresses she is advocating for businesses to be able to use traffic and metadata—not private data—to train AI. “Even if [they are] not limited, it takes an army of consultants to make sure everything is correct,” she says.

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There is a strong feeling that the US has been too lax but the EU has been too strict in regulating tech, and getting each back to the ideal point is no easy task.
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Bluesky tops 20m users, narrowing gap with Instagram Threads • TechCrunch

Sarah Perez:

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Bluesky, the social network and X competitor, has been benefiting from a surge of departures from the Elon Musk-owned app formerly known as Twitter. On Tuesday, Bluesky hit a major milestone: it topped 20 million users. What’s more, new data indicates the app’s rapid growth is seeing it close the gap with another prominent X rival, Instagram Threads, across metrics like daily active users and website visits.

Bluesky’s user base is still much smaller than Threads, which recently reported north of 275 million monthly active users. However, if Bluesky’s current rate of growth holds up, it could catch up with Threads in time, market intelligence firm Similarweb believes.

Its data indicates that Threads had five times more daily active users (DAUs) than Bluesky ahead of the US elections, but on November 15, a peak day of activity for Bluesky, Threads’ lead over Bluesky had been reduced to just 1.5x in the US. (Daily active users include the mobile apps on iOS and Android, not website visitors.)

Instagram head Adam Mosseri denied Similarweb’s data is accurate, but Meta does not share DAUs.

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It would be amusing if all Threads’s engagement-baiting (and news-minimisation) has been for naught, and what people wanted was a really vanilla social network.

You can see a real-time update of Bluesky registered users: presently just short of 20.3m users.
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Is Bluesky the new Twitter? • The Atlantic

Ian Bogost:

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Can Bluesky be the fix for all those woes, and a lasting replacement for the site that once was Twitter? I really doubt it.

Woe that people, myself included, have been inspired even to ask the question. Although white supremacy, scams, and porn are real and worsening problems on X and other social media, I have written before in The Atlantic about a problem that I see as superordinate to all of these others: People just aren’t meant to talk with one another this much. The decline of X is a sign that we may soon be free of social media, and the compulsive, constant attention-seeking that it normalized. Counterintuitively, the rise of Bluesky is also a good sign, in that so many people are still trying to hold on to the past. Giving up on social media will take time, and it will inspire relapse.

For all its growth, Bluesky still trails far behind Meta’s Threads—Mark Zuckerberg recently told investors that his Twitter-like app adds 1 million users each day. But numbers alone don’t tell the full story. Meta has added buttons to access Threads from Instagram, so that any of its 2 billion users can slide right over, even if they never end up posting there. Bluesky, meanwhile, seems to be drawing actual users, especially in the United States, who want to post and follow.

…the internet’s media ecosystem is more fragmentary this decade than it was during the last. Uncertainty about social media’s future produces existential questions about the major platforms: Will TikTok be banned? Will X become state media? Will the Bluesky bubble grow beyond this week? Whatever happens, I still hope that social media itself will fade away. In the meantime, though, hundreds of millions of people have become accustomed to this way of interacting with friends and strangers, noshing on news, performing identities, picking fights, and accruing cultural capital or longing to do so.

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One Billion Users: the social media card game • Kickstarter

Mike Masnick

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Have you ever been on social media and thought “I bet I could run this site better than the people in charge”? Well, now’s your chance to test your skills. We’ve created One Billion Users: a fast, fun card game where you’re in charge of your own social network. It’s for 2-4 players and lasts about 30 minutes.

In One Billion Users, players compete to build the most successful social network. Gain users and attract influencers to build your site while playing cards to slow down your rivals and overcome obstacles. But be careful about which communities you attract — the toxicity they bring with them could hurt your platform!

Community cards are the lifeblood of your network. They represent hundreds of millions of users on your path to One Billion and beyond, but they also bring with them different levels of toxicity that can hamper your future growth and hurt your final score.

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Another month to go and about a tenth of the way there. Could be the next Exploding Kittens. Haven’t you always wanted to show Zuckerberg and Musk how it’s done? (Do we think Musk is hurting his final score presently?)
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Nigeria’s Ogun State wants to lead the country’s EV revolution • Rest of World

Jesusegun Alagbe:

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One day in September, Bisi Alade rode past a long line of motorists at a fuel station in Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State in southwest Nigeria. Two weeks earlier, Alade would have been stuck waiting in line with the other motorists. But not anymore — he’d traded his combustion motorcycle for an electric one.

A full charge of his Spiro Commando electric motorcycle is enough to last him for a day and costs just 2,500 naira ($1.53) — half as expensive as fuel, the 42-year-old ride-hailing driver told Rest of World. The savings are significant because since May 2023, when the newly elected Nigerian president Bola Tinubu scrapped fuel subsidies, gas prices in the country have shot up by more than 450%. There are also persistent shortages.

“Life is easier now since I started riding an electric motorcycle,” Alade said. “I pity my friends who are still riding regular motorcycles.”

Alade is among the first wave of drivers to benefit from Ogun State’s push for EVs. In October last year, the state announced the E-Mobility Program, under which it plans to turn its public transportation system electric. This made Ogun State the first Nigerian state with an EV road map. Government officials, including Sa’idu Alkali, the transportation minister, and Mele Kyari, chief of state-owned oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited praised the effort.

“We are not just introducing a new mode of transportation; we are pioneering a movement towards a cleaner, more efficient, and technologically advanced way of life,” Ogun State governor Dapo Abiodun said at the launch.

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EVs! They’re everywhere!
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AI-generated shows could replace lost DVD revenue, Ben Affleck says • Ars Technica

Benj Edwards:

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Last week, actor and director Ben Affleck shared his views on AI’s role in filmmaking during the 2024 CNBC Delivering Alpha investor summit, arguing that AI models will transform visual effects but won’t replace creative filmmaking anytime soon. A video clip of Affleck’s opinion began circulating widely on social media not long after.

“Didn’t expect Ben Affleck to have the most articulate and realistic explanation where video models and Hollywood is going,” wrote one X user.

In the clip, Affleck spoke of current AI models’ abilities as imitators and conceptual translators—mimics that are typically better at translating one style into another instead of originating deeply creative material.

“AI can write excellent imitative verse, but it cannot write Shakespeare,” Affleck told CNBC’s David Faber. “The function of having two, three, or four actors in a room and the taste to discern and construct that entirely eludes AI’s capability.”

Affleck sees AI models as “craftsmen” rather than artists (although some might find the term “craftsman” in his analogy somewhat imprecise). He explained that while AI can learn through imitation—like a craftsman studying furniture-making techniques—it lacks the creative judgment that defines artistry. “Craftsman is knowing how to work. Art is knowing when to stop,” he said.

“It’s not going to replace human beings making films,” Affleck stated. Instead, he sees AI taking over “the more laborious, less creative and more costly aspects of filmmaking,” which could lower barriers to entry and make it easier for emerging filmmakers to create movies like Good Will Hunting.

While it may seem on its surface like Affleck was attacking generative AI capabilities in the tech industry, he also did not deny the impact it may have on filmmaking. For example, he predicted that AI would reduce costs and speed up production schedules, potentially allowing shows like HBO’s House of the Dragon to release two seasons in the same period as it takes to make one.

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I dunno, no point getting the second season of House of the Dragon out faster if it’s not worth watching. Which it wasn’t.
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Thanks to AI, Apple’s China problem is only getting worse • The Hill

Geoffrey Cain:

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For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.

The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.

This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.

The battery partnership reveals a familiar pattern: American innovation flows into Chinese hands, strengthening Beijing’s technological ambitions while weakening America’s competitive edge. 

But BYD isn’t the real story here: It’s about how deeply Apple has become entangled with the Chinese Communist Party’s strategic objectives. The company that once removed the Dalai Lama from its ads to appease Beijing now faces an even more consequential test: artificial intelligence.

As Apple races to roll out Apple Intelligence globally, it faces a stark choice in China. The country’s strict AI regulations require companies to hand over their algorithms for government review and ensure their AI systems “adhere to the correct political direction.” For Apple, this means either walking away from its largest overseas market or creating a separate, censored version of its AI assistant that advances the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance and control objectives.

History suggests Apple will choose accommodation.

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This is an opinion piece rather than a closely researched news story, but it still comes across very solidly. (And you’d forgotten about the BYD deal, which was putatively going to work wonders for Apple’s Car, hadn’t you? I had.)
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O2 deploys AI granny against scammers • The Register

Dan Robinson:

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O2, the mobile operator arm of Brit telecoms giant Virgin Media (VMO2), says it has built the human-like AI to answer calls from fraudsters in real time, keeping them busy on the phone and wasting their time by pretending to be a potential vulnerable target.

“Daisy” is claimed to be indistinguishable from a real person, fooling scammers into thinking they’ve found perfect prey thanks to its ability to engage in “human-like” rambling chat, the biz claims.

For several weeks in the run-up to International Fraud Awareness Week (November 17–23), the AI has already frustrated scam callers with meandering stories about her family and talked at length about her passion for knitting, according to O2.

At this point, many Reg readers are probably feeling they know someone the telco might have used as training data.

But phone scams are an increasingly common threat. Criminals, often working from call centers, cold-call lists of numbers to try to con people out of their money. Common tricks include pretending to be their bank or a courier needing payment to deliver a parcel in order to get them to divulge their bank account details.

Daisy is said to combine various AI models that work together to listen to fraudulent calls and respond immediately, as if engaged in a conversation. Appropriate responses are generated through a custom large language model (LLM) with a character “personality” layer, and then fed back through a custom AI text-to-speech model to generate the spoken answer.

O2 claims it to be so lifelike that it has successfully kept fraudsters sidetracked for up to 40 minutes at a time. Some scammers were even tricked by Daisy offering false personal information, including made-up bank details.

…The AI has its own dedicated number, which the anti-fraud team managed to infiltrate into contact lists used by scammers to target Brits, an O2 spokesperson told us.

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At last, AI used for good! Or against evil! (Thanks John K for the link.)
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No, Apple CEO Tim Cook didn’t say he prefers Logitech’s MX Master 3 over the Magic Mouse • MacRumors

Joe Rossignol:

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While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.

The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge’s Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that day, Davis said he mostly used the MX Master 3, but sometimes switched to a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad.

In other words, it was Davis who said he himself used a Logitech mouse, not Cook.

Unfortunately, The Mac Observer misinterpreted The Verge’s article and ran a since-deleted story claiming that Cook prefers the MX Master 3 over the Magic Mouse. Mistakes happen, but the false claim has since gained traction on Reddit multiple times, so hopefully this helps to clear up the situation before wrong information continues to spread.

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That’s a bizarre mistake; you’ll have noticed that I didn’t pick up the story from the Mac Observer, but maybe I should have followed it back up the river to the source. Even so, I’d probably have ended up at the Mac Observer with its erroneous piece. Just goes to show how far and wide mistakes can go – even when they should make you think “uh?” (Thanks Fabian S and others for the link.)
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• Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more.

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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified