It’s that time of year again, when Las Vegas fills with tech companies presenting mockups of vague promises at CES in the hope of a stock pump! This year’s theme is artificial intelligence — gratuitously bolted on the side.

If you didn’t already want to put a boot through your smart TV, LG unveils “affectionate intelligence” to “better understand and empathize with customers” across devices and “harmonize to create entirely new customer value.” LG is partnering with Microsoft on this, which means it’ll be ChatGPT. [Press release]

Samsung will also be putting ChatGPT in your television, “with the focus of making AI an ‘Everyday, Everywhere’ experience,” in case you didn’t feel like you were getting enough of that already. [Press release]

Google is keeping it in-house and adding a Gemini chatbot to Google TV. This will add far-field microphones that hear everything in the room for your comfort and convenience as they feed every word you say back to Google’s profile of you. [Engadget]

Holoconnects and Mews presents AI avatars for hotel front desks. This is a chatbot with a fancy avatar where complex queries get bounced to a human in Oslo. “We are dedicated to building the right solutions that provide remarkable experiences for guests,” said Mews CEO Matt Welle. We bet they’ll be remarkable. [Press release]

Natura Umana brings us Humanpods earbuds, which feature a chatbot voice with helpful live commentary on everything it hears you doing. Natura Umana calls this “the closest experience to a telepathic connection with your technology,” though most of us call that intrusive thoughts. [Hypebeast]

Halliday’s Wayfarer smart glasses don’t feature an outward-facing camera, which lessens the danger of other people punching you for invading their privacy. The glasses are another gadget that listens in on your conversations and offers helpful live advice. They generate a transcript afterwards, so you can invade others’ privacy in comfort. [Engadget]

It’s not all chatbots. The Dreo ChefMaker was a renowned premium air fryer. The ChefMaker 2 adds AI! A chatbot promises to convert recipes into cooking instructions. Because modern life is cursed, your oven now runs off an app. [TechRadar]

AI may be a pile of poop, but AI solves that too. Petkit has sold AI-powered cat litterboxes for a few years now. This year, they present the Petkit Puro Bot Ultra — an “AI-equipped litter box” with a “180-degree rotating camera that’ll look inside of the litter box.” We could use this to write Pivot to AI! [Press release; 8 News Now]

CES is running until January 11. Expect so much more of this.

OpenAI is a blast furnace fueled by investor cash. But Sam Altman is totally going to replace all your employees this time, honest — with agents: [OpenAI]

We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies.

How’s it going? The Wall Street Journal looked at five “agents” that are totally in real production use, guys. Three of the “agents” generate plans under close human supervision. Two of the “agents” are chatbots — showing how the real future of agents is simply to rebrand existing systems as “agents.” Or they’ll be “AGI” — A Guy Instead. [WSJ]

Why was ChatGPT $20/month? It sounded like a good price point — even though OpenAI loses money on each use. Sam tells all in a mind-numbing Bloomberg puff piece interview. [Bloomberg, archive]

Sam admits that ChatGPT Pro XP Elite+ Ultimate Edition is losing money even at $200/month: “insane thing: we are currently losing money on OpenAI pro subscriptions!” [Twitter; Twitter]

But Sam can build the AGI! Sort of — OpenAI and Microsoft recently redefined “artificial general intelligence” as OpenAI making $100 billion profit. Yes, really. [The Information, paywalled; Verge]

We can usefully define “intelligence” as whatever gets Sam Altman yet more funding. Useful to Sam, anyway.

Für die meisten von uns ist das rein philosophische Frage. Aber der Vertrag zwischen Microsoft und OpenAI brauchte auch ein Kriterium dafür, und hier ist es:

The two companies reportedly signed an agreement last year stating OpenAI has only achieved AGI when it develops AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits. That’s far from the rigorous technical and philosophical definition of AGI many expect.

Auch gut zu sehen, dass die Branche stabil bleibt, wie die Coin-Bros stabil beim Scamming bleiben. Sie haben immer noch nicht den Hauch einer Ahnung, was sie da eigentlich gerade tun.

Aber hey, ihr kennt ja das Gedankenexperiment mit den unendlich vielen Affen an den unendlich vielen Schreibmaschinen, wo am Ende die Werke von Shakespeare rauskommen müssen.

„Deutschland Weltmeister bei Krankmeldungen“: Allianz-Chef für Stopp der Lohnzahlung am ersten Tag

New hotness: Presseabteilung der Uni verbreitet kompletten Bullshit.

The press release: "[our stuff] senses glucose levels for diabetics more accurately than ever before"

The actual research: basically a better antenna that can distinguish between distilled water and a ~25000 mg/dL glucose solution absent any other factors. For context: At around 500 mg/dL you're dead.

FISA ist der "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" und etabliert ein Geheimgericht, das sich im Geheimen trifft und geheime Überwachungsanträge geheim begutachtet (angeblich) und dann geheim durchwinkt. Deren Historie ist, noch nie einen Antrag abgelehnt zu haben, und das natürlich auch gegen Demonstranten einzusetzen und gegen Trump-Mitarbeiter.

Die Chinesen hätten dann also ordentlich Kompromat in der Hand, wenn das Gerücht stimmt.

Update: Stellt sich raus: Das stimmt gar nicht, dass der FISA Court noch nie ein Ersuchen zurückgewiesen hat!

Ein Dutzend hier, ein Dutzend da, nach einer Weile kommen da schnell zwei Dutzend zusammen!1!!