AI Summary
5 min readHosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton discuss recent court losses for social media platforms over addictive design features, interview Sebastian Mallaby about his book on Google DeepMind's pursuit of superintelligence, and play HatGPT, a roundup of quirky AI news stories.
Social Media Verdicts Challenge Section 230
Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico ruled against Meta and YouTube (Google), finding them negligent in designing harmful features for young users. In LA, a plaintiff won $6 million for harms from beauty filters, infinite scroll, autoplay videos, push notifications, and recommendation algorithms. New Mexico's $375 million verdict cited Meta's violation of the Unfair Practices Act, accusing it of misleading claims about child safety amid predator risks and end-to-end encryption on Instagram. These bellwether cases sidestep Section 230 protections by framing platforms as defective products, not liable for user content but for mechanical designs driving addiction.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:35) **Robotaxi Outage Banter** - Hosts joke about Baidu robotaxis freezing in Wuhan, trapping passengers
- 2 (01:34) **Episode Intro** - Kevin Roose and Casey Newton introduce social media lawsuits, DeepMind book, HatGPT
- 3 (02:16) **Social Media Verdicts Overview** - Juries rule against Meta and YouTube in LA and New Mexico cases
- 4 (03:30) **Bellwether Cases and Section 230 Crack** - Explains precedent-setting trials bypassing immunity for platform design
- 5 (05:27) **Platform Design Flaws Litigated** - Details features like autoplay, notifications, beauty filters, recommendations
- 6 (08:49) **Internal Research Revelations** - Meta studies showed addictiveness to kids, ignored post-Haugen leaks
- 7 (10:04) **Expected Platform Changes** - Debates feasibility of altering features amid appeals and First Amendment
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Show Notes
Last week, two separate juries held social media companies liable for harming young users. We unpack what these landmark decisions mean — not only for the future of social platforms like Meta and YouTube, but also for A.I. chatbots. Then, Sebastian Mallaby, the author of “The Infinity Machine,” joins us to talk about the three years he spent with Demis Hassabis and those closest to Google DeepMind. And finally, we catch up on some of our favorite tech headlines from the week with a round of HatGPT.
Guest:
- Sebastian Mallaby, author of “The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence.”
Additional Reading:
- Juries Take the Lead in the Push for Child Online Safety
- An A.I. Agent Was Banned From Creating Wikipedia Articles, Then Wrote Angry Blogs About Being Banned
- I Met Olaf — the Frozen Robot who Might be the Future of Disney Parks
- Claude’s Code: Anthropic Leaks Source Code for A.I. Software Engineering Tool
- What’s With All the A.I. Videos of Cheating Fruit?
- This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into A.I. Podcasts
- North Korean Hackers Suspected in Axios Software Tool Breach
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