(Cross-posted here: https://innovation.consumerreports.org/conscious-commerce-building-an-ai-economy-that-works-for-people/) A quiet switch just flipped in the economy. For the first time, large language models can do consumers’ shopping for them. You can now ask ChatGPT to recommend a product and—thanks to a new Instant Checkout feature—buy it right in the conversation, without ever leaving…
(cross-posted here: https://innovation.consumerreports.org/building-consumer-agency/) Agentic AI has profound implications for every part of society. A world in which everyone has access to a personal AI tutor means big changes to education. A world in which everyone has access to a personal medical advisor means big changes to healthcare. And so on. Given our work at Consumer Reports, [ ]
(cross-posted here: https://innovation.consumerreports.org/engineering-loyalty-by-design-in-agentic-systems/) From managing personal data to facilitating complex transactions, AI agents will be acting on behalf of users in new and interesting ways. With these innovations comes a need to examine how these agents can truly serve the interests of consumers, free from conflicting incentives. Consumer…
(cross-posted here: https://innovation.consumerreports.org/reflections-on-two-years-of-operating-an-authorized-agent-service-and-launching-a-paid-upgrade/) When the consumer internet was getting built back in the 1990s, privacy wasn’t part of the design. Almost by accident, the economy of the internet built up around trafficking user data, which Ethan Zuckerman describes as the internet’s…
(Cross-posted here: https://innovation.consumerreports.org/why-are-we-experimenting-with-generative-ai/) Today we launched an invite-only beta of AskCR, an experimental chatbot that helps people get to CR’s trusted information faster. We imagine some people may have questions about why CR is using generative AI when its potential for misinformation and even harm is clear. In this post, we’ll…
Twenty nineteen. The word of the year is impunity. Here s a nice symbol of the moment: the founder of WeWork reportedly wanted to be the world s first trillionaire, the president of the world and live forever — but all he succeeded in doing was evaporating $40bn of market capitalization on a fake business and getting [ ]
2018—just the facts. Internet pioneer John Perry Barlow died—and with him, perhaps some of my internet utopian streak. Stephen Hawking died, leaving warnings about automation and capitalism. Space Force is a thing. Corruption and the murder of journalists in broad daylight. Contemporary writers describe a new dark age and the elite charade of changing the [ ]
Twenty seventeen: Donald s first year. A year of exhaustion and planetary confusion and excess. Bitcoin briefly topped $20,000. Geopolitics is a reality show and no one knows what s real anymore. This year we arrived at, and moved well beyond, some of the foreseen conditions of technological and political dystopia. Civilization-warping crises of public trust. I [ ]
My 100% unironic take: Dwayne Johnson, the former WWE superstar known as The Rock, should run for president of the United States of America. Check it out on Quartz.
I wrote a piece for Quartz Ideas on irony and tragedy of Hillary Clinton, architect of the internet freedom agenda, and the prospects of a splinternet : The open internet, she suggested, could help open up closed societies and support the “peace and security that provide a foundation for global progress.” ( ) Seven years later—and in [ ]