Never back down

October 28, 2024

💬 Never back down: A Utah man was denied a $3,000 payout that’d been confirmed by his home warranty provider’s chatbot. The warranty company claimed its bot was “miscommunicating.” Not having it, the man took his complaint to Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection, which said a chatbot counts as a company representative, making it responsible. PSA: Screenshot every online chat in case you need proof later.

Tags: chatbots, home warranty, Utah

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When a spy takes over IT at your company

John is my “IT Genius.” I trust John, and that’s how it should be when you hire someone who works in IT. They have access to everything.

It’s also the reason North Korean IT workers are infiltrating American companies. Read on to learn how this works. If you know someone who hires IT folks, be sure to share this important information with them by tapping the social media and email icons at the end.

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Tech ahead: AI coming for our cars

Remember “Knight Rider?” The ’80s TV show centered around a detective whose sidekick was a talking car called KITT. This futuristic sassy AI on wheels could maneuver over obstacles, drive itself at high speeds and detect a bad guy’s presence from miles away.

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Passengers in an Arizona Waymo autonomous vehicle get a scare

🧘 Coping skills needed: An Arizona mom and daughter thought the self-driving Waymo vehicle they were in might crash while crossing multiple lanes. They made it through, with mom panicking and her daughter cracking up in the backseat. Waymo’s response? The vehicle kept a “safe distance.” Watch the video and see what you think.

Post when it matters: On Facebook, weekdays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. is best. Wednesday posts get the most eyeballs. Weekends and outside of normal business hours are the lowest engagement times.

17,000 years old

The age of a baby boy’s remains uncovered in southern Italy. DNA analysis shows the child likely had dark skin, blue eyes and curly, dark brown hair. Scientists think he might have died from congenital heart disease. These archaeological findings always astound me.

'Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery' trailer

💸 Is the mystery solved? A new HBO documentary, “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery,” claims Canadian developer Peter Todd is the mystery man behind bitcoin. Todd, of course, has denied he’s the real Satoshi Nakamoto, and he’s now in hiding. If it’s true, though, he holds the keys to over a trillion dollars in crypto. Watch the trailer — it’s so good!

$20 million

That’s the cost for the NASA spaceship currently flying through space uncontrollably. The ACS3 was built to test a new propulsion system, but engineers are now scrambling on the ground to find a fix. Good thing no one’s on board.

32% jump

In full-time, in-person MBA applications. It’s the biggest spike in a decade (paywall link). With college grads facing a tough job market and AI creeping into the workforce, many are banking on business school to give them that extra edge.

31 cats

Took part in a word association test. And guess what? The felines linked words to images twice as quickly as human babies did. Maybe cats are judging us after all.

$180,000

What Sotheby’s hopes to fetch at auction for the first-ever artwork made by a humanoid robot. The piece, called “AI God,” is a portrait of Alan Turing, a key figure in the history of computer science and AI. Pretty fitting, right?