Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s weekly tech newsletter. If you have feedback or just want to say hello to a real-life human, send me an e-mail.
In this week’s issue:
💥 What happens when AI models are trained on AI-generated content?
🥷 Toronto-based research lab details how far hackers will go to dupe targets
🕺🏻 Yes, that men’s wear Twitter account has some thoughts about your outfit
🤖 Catch up on Apple TV+’s cozy thriller featuring killer robots
What happens when an AI model is trained on AI content? Gibberish and garbage
Generative AI models such as ChatGPT were trained on wide swaths of internet content (resulting in a wide swath of lawsuits from writers, artists and publishers) and they need fresh data to keep improving. As AI-generated data makes its way online, it will invariably get swept into these new models. What would this mean for generative AI’s development? As Joe Castaldo reports, new research has found that “training AI models on AI-generated data renders them useless. Text models spout gibberish, and image models barf garbage.” Even a mix of authentic and AI-generated data still leads to “minor degradation,” the researchers found, which would not pass quality controls. So is this the end of generative AI? Far from it. Read Castaldo’s full story.
A Russian hacking group and spear phishing
Watch out for phish spearersGraeme Roy/The Canadian Press
The e-mail looks innocent enough. A coworker asks you to review a PDF that requires you to “decrypt” the attached file by logging into Gmail or ProtonMail. But the e-mail is actually from a hacker impersonating your coworker, and now they have access to your online account. It’s called spear phishing, and it’s been used in a series of cyberattacks by the Russian hacking group Coldriver. The group is believed to conduct cyberattacks on behalf of Russia’s Federal Security Service and go after individuals who oppose the Russian government. An independent Russian news organization and a former American ambassador to Ukraine both were targeted.
Rebekah Brown, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which recently released a report on Coldriver’s cyberattack campaign, said it was startling to see how sophisticated the attacks were. “They know who these people talk to. They know what events they attend. They know what subjects are interesting to them or what things they might actively be working on at the moment,” Brown told Globe reporter Alexandra Posadzki.
Google unveils new AI-powered smartphones
Google's new AI assistant wants to write your emailsManuel Orbegozo/Reuters
On Tuesday, Google unveiled its next generation of Pixel phones that come equipped with a default voice assistant, Gemini Live. In a demo at the company’s flagship Made by Google event, the assistant carried on real-time conversations and successfully responded to prompts including “write an email to a professor explaining, ‘I’m sick and need an extension.’” But it failed twice when Google presenter Dave Citron took a picture of a Sabrina Carpenter concert poster and asked Gemini Live to check his calendar to see if he was free when she comes to San Francisco – highlighting that the event was indeed live, and that AI assistants still aren’t perfect. The new Pixel phones, which will be available between late August and early September, are the tech juggernaut’s latest attempt to snatch a bigger share of the market. In Canada, Google made up only 4 per cent of the smartphone market in 2023, trailing behind Samsung at 26 per cent and Apple at 59 per cent.
The men’s wear account is what’s keeping me on X
Things I’ve learned about men’s fashion from the X account @dieworkwear: a suit collar that gapes at the neck is the sign of a bad fit; pairing a suit jacket and skinny jeans will give you popsicle stick legs; tan belts never go with charcoal suits. As @dieworkwear, Canadian-born writer Derek Guy has amassed a million followers for his informational explainers on men’s style and his acerbic fashion-related takedowns of politicians, public figures and internet trolls. His rise started two years ago with a post calling out Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy for selling watches for US$2,400 that were made with only $40 worth of components, and he has continued with his sartorial skewering of figures like Piers Morgan and Jordan Peterson. It also helped that his account seemingly ended up on everyone’s “For You” page, a new algorithm-driven feed introduced when Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Guy still doesn’t know why the algorithm favoured his posts, but he’s using his viral fame to help men around the world look their best. As reporter Andrea Woo reports, Guy has heard from people who have found his posts useful, including men who bought their wedding suits based on his advice. A tiny bit of proof that good things still happen on X.
What else we’re reading this week:
At these Texas solar farms, 6,000 sheep help mow the grass (Fast Company)
The biggest moments from Elon Musk’s interview with Trump (Vox)
Popping the bubble of noise-cancelling headphones (The New Yorker)
Adult Money
For upping your java gameDe'Longhi
De’Longhi burr coffee grinder, $100
If you’re a coffee drinker, there’s a certain point in your journey of becoming an adult when you upgrade from buying instant coffee and pre-ground beans to whole beans. (For regular readers of Lately, you know I take coffee seriously, even while camping.) This final evolution, at least for me, happened after going down the rabbit hole of niche coffee blogs, forums and subreddits, becoming radicalized by the notion that unless you like drinking caffeine-infused sewage juice, you need to grind your own beans. And not just any grinder, but a burr grinder, which instead of blades, uses two revolving abrasive surfaces to crush the beans.
Burr grinders can be upwards of $1,000, but there are less expensive options for those less-serious at-home baristas. I’ve been using this De’Longhi burr grinder every morning for five years and have been impressed by the different coarse settings, which I’ve used for drip and French press coffee, as well as the speed and overall consistency of the grind. Now, before all you java heads start flooding my inbox about how this grinder is bad for espresso or has inadequate burrs: I hear you. But if you’re looking for an entry-level grinder that costs around $100, I stand by it.
Culture radar
Rashida Jones stars in the sci-fi drama comedy, SunnyAppleTV+
Apple TV+’s Sunny is your cozy summer watch, featuring killer robots
If you’re looking to add a “sci-fi comedy drama set in near-future Japan that will make you feel emotional about a robot” to your summer watchlist, allow me to recommend Sunny on Apple TV+. Rashida Jones stars as Suzie Sakamoto, who is reeling from the disappearance of her husband and son in a plane crash. Suzie is gifted Sunny, a cheery domestic robot that her husband programmed specifically for her. They form an unlikely friendship and together set out to figure out what really happened to Suzie’s family, and the truth behind a hacker code that could turn companion robots into murderous machines.
Taking place in a not-so distant Kyoto, the show features a lot of tech on the brink of going mainstream, such as ubiquitous homebots, in-ear translating devices and self-driving cars. But showrunner Katie Robbins also purposely envisioned a future with no digital screens: phones are like earbuds and TVs resemble paper-thin Japanese shoji screens. Other than the potentially killer robots, the future looks cozy. The season finale is on Sept. 4, so you still have time to catch up.
More tech and telecom news:
Nuvei CEO Phil Fayer on the perils of running a public tech company – and why he’s taking it private
CRTC expands policy directing certain telecom giants to offer fibre access to rivals
Alphabet expanding AI-generated summaries for Google search queries to six new countries