Good Monday Morning

It’s June 2nd. The Hajj begins Wednesday with an estimated two million Muslims expected to travel to Saudi Arabia. Extreme heat last year killed more than 1,300 people.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,058 words, just over 4 minutes to read.

3 Headlines to Know

Lopez Sued Over Her Own Paparazzi Pics

Jennifer Lopez faces a new lawsuit for posting photos of herself in designer outfits to social media without the photographers’ permission. Remember, photographers and not subjects, own the photos.

Grammarly Nabs $1B Without Giving Up Equity

Grammarly just scored $1 billion in nondilutive funding, showing that AI giants like ChatGPT and Claude have not pushed it off the map as the company doubles down on marketing and acquisitions without losing any equity.

Gemini Can Now Watch Your Google Drive Videos

Google’s Gemini will now scan your Drive videos and spit out instant summaries or answers, so you can skip the playback and get straight to what matters.

Most Americans See AI Mentions, Few Dig Deeper

By The Numbers

George’s Data Take

Despite 93% seeing AI mentioned online, just 8% actually read a news article that talked about AI in depth. Everyone hears the buzz, like a brood of cicadas, but fewer than 1 in 10 dig deeper to find out where the sound is coming from.

Good & bad: You’re early still if you’re integrating AI, but you’re going to have to educate as you go.

This gets critical in the next piece.

Duolingo’s AI Move Triggers Viral Backlash

Running Your Business

When Duolingo announced it would lean on AI and phase out contractors, users revolted with one-star reviews and TikTok funerals, proving you can’t meme your way out when fans feel wronged.

Silver Beacon Behind the Scene

Even if you’re a tech company, you cannot let the nerds drive the message. The world doesn’t want to know about people losing work to LLMs or generative AI.

That’s a message for your investors, not your customers, and I know you know not to make those the same message. 

Your Tattletale Car

Image by ChatGPT, prompted by George Bounacos

The conveniences inside our cars have also enabled sophisticated data tracking to accompany the constant surveillance of our roads. 

WIRED recently reviewed police training documents teaching agencies how to access data from connected cars. Their biggest data jackpot is from subscription services who often supplement low monthly fees with a booming data business even when vehicles aren’t mapped by our phones, tollbooths, and traffic cameras.

Your Car’s Close-Up

Don’t ignore license plate cameras, though. Last month a county sheriff in Texas performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 automated license plate readers (ALPR) throughout the country. The criminal he was searching for was a woman he accused of performing a self-administered abortion. 

The sheriff told 404 Media that he searched nationwide to “[hit] everything, every possibility.”  But while most forms of abortion are illegal in Texas, the sheriff was able to search for the woman’s car throughout the country, including states where abortion is a fundamental right. 

The ALPR networks continually scan passing vehicles for their license plates, make, model, and color. Coupled with date and time stamps, they’re a nationally accessible permanent record of where the vehicle has been. 

Oregon Keeps Trying To Shut It Down

Car privacy data is big business too. Auto insurers can set rates based on where cars are seen, how often they’re driven, and how fast. Life insurance rates, credit card interest, and even whether you qualify for a mortgage are all informed by behavioral models that are influenced by vehicle data.

And you’re helpless to change that because car companies collect and sell your driving data constantly, but they won’t tell you who they’re sharing it with. When Oregon passed a law allowing residents to request a list of all companies that get their personal data, nearly 400 people asked Privacy4Cars to file these requests with car manufacturers. Despite the law requiring it, not a single car company provided the list.

Oregon’s legislature amended the law last week to strengthen it, but there are still plenty of gray areas and loopholes. The need for comprehensive federal standards is urgent, but states looking out for their citizens could at least follow Oregon’s example in the interim.

Sun-Times Prints Fake AI Summer Reads, Goes Viral

Practical AI

The Chicago Sun-Times ran an AI-generated Summer reading list packed with books and quotes that do not exist, sparking embarrassment, newsroom outrage, and a crash course in the dangers of not fact-checking.

New DMV Text Scam Hits Phones Nationwide

Protip

Fake DMV texts are now sharper and harder to spot thanks to AI, threatening license suspension to scare drivers into handing over personal info as scammers get smarter. I’m getting several of these each week.

Trump’s Harvard Math Claims Flunk the Facts

Debunking Junk

Trump claimed Harvard teaches remedial arithmetic like two plus two, but Harvard’s entry level math course is calculus and its new support class helps students with calculus and higher math. 

I checked the data. Of 800 possible points on the math SAT, the national average score is 521. The average at Harvard is 790. The top quartile has perfect math scores and even the lowest quartile averages 760.

Mads Mikkelsen and Campari’s Cannes Spot

Screening Room

Caltech’s Smart Bandage Spots Infections Before Symptoms

Science Fiction World

A new smart bandage can sense signs of infection and inflammation days before symptoms appear by using real-time fluid analysis and AI to predict healing and offering patients a testing lab on their skin. There is no word on what the bandage AI thinks about this summer’s reading.

New Enzyme Doubles Efficiency of Turning Plant Waste into Biofuel

Tech For Good

Scientists discovered a natural enzyme named CelOCE that unlocks cellulose in agricultural waste much faster than before, which could mean cleaner and more efficient biofuel production.

Roadtrip With Hundreds of Strangers

Coffee Break

Neal Argawal, my favorite web author, is back with Internet Trip,  a crowd based app where you join with hundreds of others to steer a car through Google Street View. They’re deep in Nova Scotia as I write this, lazily making their way towards Halifax and sometimes honking the horn for no reason. 

Sign of the Times