bribery
The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery
IBM, which has a $20 billion consulting business, ran into some of those issues on its work with McDonald’s. The companies developed an A.I.- powered voice system to take drive-through orders. But after customers reported that the system made mistakes, like adding nine iced teas to an order instead of the one Diet Coke requested, McDonald’s ended the project. […] McKinsey’s A.I. group, QuantumBlack, built a customer service chatbot for ING Bank […] The chatbot now handles 200 of 5,000 customer inquiries daily. ING has people review every conversation to make sure that the system doesn’t use discriminatory or harmful language or hallucinate. […] Over a four-month period this year, Reckitt worked with Boston Consulting Group to develop an A.I. platform that could create local advertisements in different languages and formats. With the push of a button, the system can turn a commercial about Finish dishwashing detergent from English into Spanish. Reckitt’s A.I. marketing system, which is being tested, can make developing local ads 30 percent faster. [NY Times]
The Joy of Reading Books You Don’t Entirely Understand
The triplets (whose abilities at walking, cycling, and donkey riding are identical) always leave home together at the last possible minute and arrive at school together on the last stroke of the bell.
a photo by Stephen Shore titled “Kingston, New York, November 8, 2020, 41°56.9443167N, 74°1.7406167W.” The image is from Shore’s fabulous new show of photographs shot from drones, at 303 gallery in New York.