We start this paper with a World Cup, but it’s not the one that upsets France! This is the true planetary event that is the Microsoft Excel World Cup! Broadcast on YouTube, where 128 players compete with columns and spreadsheets, the championship is so popular that it is even broadcast on the ESPN 3 channel.
Competitors must answer questions as quickly as possible to test their software culture, such as taking up challenges to measure their mastery and of course… they excel!
Elon Musk and Twitter, censorship or freedom of speech?
This Friday morning we learned that Elon Musk has banned many accounts of American journalists who cover the affairs of the billionaire and exercise their critical mind. From the Washington Post to the NYT via Mashable or the Intercept, reporters have all had their accounts deactivated. Before them, the account of “ElonJet” was suspended, followed by 500,000 people. On this account, a student reported live on the movements of Elon Musk’s jet based on public data. Musk saw this as a violation of his privacy and suspended this account mid-flight, contrary to his original promises. In the same movement, he wanted to seek public opinion through a poll on Twitter to justify his action, vox populi expressed his displeasure, he did not take it into account.
Taking advantage of this wave of purges, he also disabled the account of Mastodon, his competitor that bills itself as an ethical alternative. So to summarize, whoever advocated free speech is reactivating hate speech profiles and censoring journalists as well as competitors. But after all, why be surprised? Twitter is not a public service, but a private company in the hands of an all-powerful billionaire. He does what he wants with it and offers us the only alternative: to leave the network or to submit to it.
Artificial intelligence in the service of aesthetics
In any case, millions of users send their selfies to Lensa IA. This top download application that you may have seen on social networks allows you to take stylized portraits of your friends, in manga, fantasy or Van Gogh style! Images made possible thanks to generative art software, a real trend for this year 2022.
But to see yourself more beautiful, that for a price: 4 dollars for 50 photos and transfer of our visual representations, the company reserves the right to do with it what it wants. Creations that have not escaped sexist excesses since portraits of women tend to be particularly sexualized: enhanced breasts, refined waists, white skin, erased wrinkles, etc. The good old-fashioned stereotypes are on full display. Add the denial of copyright, many artists protest to see their style taken without consent to encourage the ego of the users.
Sexist Bias and Exploitation of Artistic Creations, Lensa IA Reveals the Major Problems with Artificial Intelligence Software!
Fans falling in love with Excel, Musk censoring journalists, an AI with sexist excesses… no doubt, you’re in the Brave New World!