Can Twitter Alternatives Escape the Enshittification Trap?

Can Twitter Alternatives Escape the Enshittification Trap?

Is it possible for a social media platform to plan for its own death? I’ve been thinking about that while enjoying Bluesky’s “fizzy, fuck-around energy,” as my WIRED colleague Kate Knibbs described the (still) invite-only Twitter alternative a few months back. The shitposting, the earnestness, the bad takes from novices trying to figure out the…

London Wants American Crypto Refugees
| WIRED

London Wants American Crypto Refugees | WIRED

The Sunak government’s desire to attract crypto could give impetus to attempts to build a more comprehensive regime for the industry. But it could also create competing incentives. Critics of the government’s approach say they fear that expediting regulations and giving the crypto industry too much room to maneuver could lead to decisions that expose…

5 Uses for ChatGPT that Aren’t Fan Fiction or Cheating at School

5 Uses for ChatGPT that Aren’t Fan Fiction or Cheating at School

AI is so powerful that it will inevitably destroy the world—at least, that’s what the people who sell AI software keep saying, and I can’t think of any reason why they might lie about how amazing they are. Still, I can’t help but wonder: What is AI useful for right now, before it ends civilization? I’ve done…

Generative AI in Games Will Create a Copyright Crisis
| WIRED

Generative AI in Games Will Create a Copyright Crisis | WIRED

AI Dungeon, a text-based fantasy simulation that runs on OpenAI’s GPT-3, has been churning out weird tales since May 2019. Reminiscent of early text adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure, you get to choose from a roster of formulaic settings—fantasy, mystery, apocalyptic, cyberpunk, zombies—before picking a character class and name, and generating a story. Here…

A Crypto Micronation’s Future Hangs on a Border Dispute
| WIRED

A Crypto Micronation’s Future Hangs on a Border Dispute | WIRED

Shooed away, the Liberty parked up on the opposite riverbank, on the Serbian side, just outside Liberland territory. Its passengers disembarked on a makeshift ramp made of planks and a ladder. The others had already arrived. “You haven’t been arrested yet?” said Štern-Vukotić. “Well, the day is still young.” In spite of the police presence,…

Porto Digital Is the Quixotic Tech Hub That Actually Worked

Porto Digital Is the Quixotic Tech Hub That Actually Worked

Cristiano Lincoln Mattos, CEO and cofounder at Tempest, which also spun out of Cesar, attributes the very existence of his company to the ecosystem’s ability to translate expertise from the academic world into market needs. “We wouldn’t even be able to create the company if we didn’t have Cesar’s support at the start, especially considering…

The Huge Power and Potential Danger of AI-Generated Code

The Huge Power and Potential Danger of AI-Generated Code

In June 2021, GitHub announced Copilot, a kind of auto-complete for computer code powered by OpenAI’s text-generation technology. It provided an early glimpse of the impressive potential of generative artificial intelligence to automate valuable work. Two years on, Copilot is one of the most mature examples of how the technology can take on tasks that…