Google CEO Sundar Pichai promises Bard AI chatbot upgrades soon: ‘We clearly have more capable models’
Illustration: The Verge
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has responded to criticism of the company’s experimental AI chatbot Bard, promising that Google will be upgrading Bard soon.
“We clearly have more capable models,” Pichai said in an interview on The New York Times’Hard Fork podcast. “Pretty soon, perhaps as this [podcast] goes live, we will be upgrading Bard to some of our more capable PaLM models, which will bring more capabilities; be it in reasoning, coding, it can answer maths questions better. So you will see progress over the course of next week.”
Pichai noted that Bard is running on a “lightweight and efficient version of LaMDA,” an AI language model that focuses on delivering dialog. “In some ways I feel like we took a souped-up Civic and put it in a race with more powerful cars,” said Pichai. PaLM, by comparison, is a more recent language model; it’s larger in scale and Google claims it is more capable when dealing with tasks like common-sense reasoning and coding problems.
Bard was first released to public users on March 21st, but failed to garner the attention or acclaim won by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot. In The Verge’s own tests of these systems, we found that Bard was consistently less useful than its rivals. Like all general purpose chatbots it is able to respond to a wide range of questions, but its answers are generally less fluent and imaginative, and fail to draw on reliable data sources.
Pichai suggested that part of the reason for Bard’s limited capabilities was a sense of caution within Google. “To me, it was important to not put [out] a more capable model before we can fully make sure we can handle it well,” he said.
Pichai also confirmed that he was talking with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin about the work (“Sergey has been hanging out with our engineers for a while now”) and that while he himself never issued the infamous “code red” to scramble development, there were probably people in the company who “sent emails saying there is a code red.”
Pichai also discussed concerns that development of AI is currently moving too fast and perhaps poses a threat to society. Many in the AI and tech communities have been warning about the dangerous race dynamic currently in play between companies including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. Earlier this week, an open letter signed by Elon Musk and top AI researchers called for a six month pause on the development of these AI systems.
“In this area, I think it’s important to hear concerns,” said Pichai regarding the open letter calling for the pause. “And I think there is merit to be concerned about it ... This is going to need a lot of debate, no-one knows all the answers, no one company can get it right.” He also said that “AI is too important an area not to regulate,” but suggested it was better to simply apply regulations in existing industries — like privacy regulations and regulations in healthcare — than create new laws to tackle AI specifically.
Some experts worry about immediate risks, like chatbots’ tendency to spread mistruths misinformation, while others warn about more existential threats; suggesting that these systems are so difficult to control that once they are connected to the wider web they could be used destructively. Some suggest that current programs are also drawing closer to what’s known as artificial generally intelligence, or AGI: systems that are as least as capable as a human across a wide range of tasks.
“It is so clear to me that these systems are going to be very, very capable, and so it almost doesn’t matter whether you’ve reached AGI or not,” said Pichai. “Can we have an AI system which can cause disinformation at scale? Yes. Is it AGI? It really doesn’t matter. Why do we need to worry about AI safety? Because you have to anticipate this and evolve to meet that moment.”
You can listen to the interview in full and read a transcript here.
Google C.E.O. Sundar Pichai on Bard, A.I. ‘Whiplash’ and Competing With ChatGPT “Am I concerned? Yes. Am I optimistic and excited about all the potential of this technology? Incredibly.”
TechScape: How the world is turning against social media
France has banned not only TikTok from government phones, but Facebook and Twitter, too. Could this be a tipping point for big tech? Plus, AI-generated pictures of the pope signal a new type of viral image
Government workers in the UK, US, Canada and European Union (the list will have grown by the time you read this) are banned from installing TikTok on their phones.
On Friday, France joined that list, preventing its civil servants from installing TikTok – and everything else. From the government’s press release (original in French):
After an analysis of the issues, in particular security, the government has decided to ban the downloading and installation of recreational applications on professional telephones provided to public officials from now on.
Recreational applications do not have sufficient levels of cybersecurity and data protection to be deployed on government equipment. This ban applies immediately and uniformly. Exemptions may be granted on an exceptional basis …
E3 2023: video game industry’s biggest expo cancelled
The annual event, which faced years of Covid disruption, will not return in 2023
E3, the video game industry’s biggest annual expo, has been cancelled.
The show had been due to make a return after years of Covid-19 disruption this June in Los Angeles, but in a joint statement, the US’s Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and events company Reedpop announced it would no longer be going ahead.
Bafta Games Awards: God of War wins six but Vampire Survivors is best game
The were gasps in the crowd as a cult indie shooter beat the blockbusters to the key award of the night
It must be one of the biggest shock wins in the history of the Bafta Games Awards. Up against huge blockbuster titles such as Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök, the best game winner at this year’s ceremony, which took place on Thursday evening, was Vampire Survivors, a shoot-’em-up largely developed by lone coder Luca Galante.
There were gasps in the crowd at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London when the title was read out, with Galante’s small team accepting the award on his behalf and looking shaken. The game, in which players attempt to survive as long as possible in an ever-changing landscape swarming with monsters, had earlier won the game design award.
Best podcasts of the week: The hidden history of the American right’s anti-trans agenda
In this week’s newsletter: The Anti-Trans Hate Machine returns with a second series looking back at America’s record of violence toward transgender people. Plus: five of the best pop culture podcasts
The Lesser Dead
All episodes on Wondery+ now, available weekly elsewhere The life of a vampire in 1978 is a good one, according to this scripted podcast starring Minnie Driver (below) and Jack Kilmer. Spending days watching TV, then partying in underground clubs – they’ve got it all worked out. Joey Peacock (Kilmer) is only out to steal a bit of blood and means no harm, but when he witnesses a disturbing incident on Valentine’s Day his bliss is shattered and an enthralling, atmospheric story starts. Hannah Verdier
Marshall, the iconic amp manufacturer, is being acquired by Marshall speaker maker Zound
Jimi Hendrix with a Marshall amp in 1967. | Image: JJs / Alamy Stock Photo
Marshall Amplification, the 60-year-old company that’s produced iconic guitar amps used by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Slash, and Kurt Cobain, is being acquired by Zound Industries, the Swedish company that’s previously licensed the Marshall brand for its headphones and speakers. Exact financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the resulting company will be the privately owned Marshall Group. The Marshall family will serve as its largest shareholder with a 24 percent stake.
Jeremy de Maillard, who currently serves as Zound’s CEO and who will be CEO of Marshall Group going forward, said in an interview with The Verge that the deal is as much about acquiring Marshall’s engineering expertise as it is about acquiring the brand name. “The way I like to think about it is that Zound has been making products to listen to music, and Marshall has been making products to make music or to play music,” de Maillard says, calling them “very complementary businesses.”
In the immediate future, the CEO doesn’t expect much to change for either company. All of Marshall Amplification’s brands and subsidiaries — including Natal Drums, Marshall Records, and Marshall Live Agency — are included as part of the deal, and the CEO says they’re “100 percent committed” to both the company’s existing UK-based premium amp manufacturing facility and their factory in Vietnam.
Victoria Marshall, who was Marshall CEO from 2002 to 2008, and Terry Marshall, who built the first Marshall amplifier with his father, Jim Marshall, in 1962, will sit on the board of the Marshall Group to help guide the company’s high-level strategy.
There also won’t be any immediate changes to how Zound’s headphones and Bluetooth speakers are developed. “We’ve already been working in close collaboration for the past 12 years,” de Maillard tells me. “We haven’t done a single product from Zound that hasn’t been approved by the acoustic engineer at Marshall Amps… It’s a complete continuation of what we do, except now we’re one and the same.”
Image: Zound Industries
A selection of Zound’s Marshall-style speakers, which draw inspiration from the guitar amps.
“Since my father and I created the original Marshall amp back in 1962, we have always looked for ways to deliver the pioneering Marshall sound to music lovers of all backgrounds and music tastes across the world - and I’m confident that the Marshall Group will elevate this mission and spur the love for the Marshall brand,” Terry Marshall said in a statement.
“Having worked alongside my father during his later years, I know he would be excited at this direction and the potential to reach a larger worldwide audience,” added Victoria Marshall.
Although the Zound name is disappearing in favor of Marshall, the Swedish company doesn’t plan to abandon its other product lines like Urbanears. But de Maillard tells me that Marshall-branded items represent over 90 percent of Zound’s existing sales, so it makes sense to double down on the brand.
In the long term, de Maillard says he hopes the merger will help speed up development, help them approach their product range “more holistically,” and ultimately share the manufacturing and product development knowledge gained from working across two very different industries. “What we are buying is basically the ability to make one entity greater than the sum of its parts,” de Maillard says. But he adds that “nothing has been decided” about the newly formed company’s long-term goals.
When Zound first started licensing the Marshall name back in 2010, it was an unknown startup that had only started shipping products the previous year. It was the iconic Marshall brand that helped put it on the map. But now, over a decade later, de Maillard suspects that Zound’s Marshall-branded speakers and headphones may be the ones helping to promote Marshall’s guitar amps.
“We brought the Marshall brand to over 90 countries through the headphones and the speakers. So it became a much more known brand by the masses than it was before,” de Maillard claims. “Before it was the in-the-know, the musicians, people who were really into music who knew about the brand. But through this partnership, we’ve managed to touch a lot more people.”
“I don’t have the number, but I’m pretty sure that drove a lot of people to start playing guitar as well,” he says.
Caught in the FTX storm: how a crypto high-flyer fell to Earth
The Maps payments app run by British-educated cryptocurrency tycoon Alex Grebnev, who was backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, has lost its Mastercard partnership amid a row over Russian users
As western brands began the stampede out of Russia a year ago, its citizens found themselves unable to pay for the international goods and services with which they had become so familiar.
Among the first firms to sever ties were the credit card companies Visa and Mastercard, leaving Russians struggling to spend their cash on services from Netflix to Amazon.
Elon Musk is now the most-followed person on Twitter
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images
Elon Musk has dethroned former President Barack Obama as the most followed person on Twitter. As of right now, the billionaire has 133,068,709 followers compared to Obama’s 133,042,819, according to the follower counts reported on their respective Twitter profiles.
In between posting random and sometimes offensive memes, Musk uses his account to communicate various changes coming to Twitter. He has also polled followers about some major decisions, like letting Donald Trump back onto the platform and whether or not Musk should step down as CEO of Twitter.
Musk’s posting habits stand in stark contrast to Obama’s, who mainly uses his account for professional purposes, such as promoting an important cause or highlighting some of the work he did as president. The same goes for Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, who occupy the third and fourth most-followed spots, respectively.
Panera to adopt palm-reading payment systems, sparking privacy fears
Bakery is first restaurant chain to use Amazon One biometric technology, which faces scrutiny from lawmakers and activists
The US bakery and cafe chain Panera will soon allow customers to pay with the swipe of a palm, marking the first restaurant chain to implement the new technology and raising alarm among privacy advocates.
The company announced last week it would roll out biometric readers in coming months that will allow customers to access credit card and loyalty account information by scanning their palms. Called Amazon One, the system was developed by Amazon and is in use at some airports, stadiums and Whole Foods grocery stores.
Google denies Bard was trained with ChatGPT data
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Google’s Bard hasn’texactly had an impressive debut — and The Information is reporting that the company is so interested in changing the fortunes of its AI chatbots, it’s forcing its DeepMind division to help the Google Brain team beat OpenAI with a new initiative called Gemini. The Information’s report also contains the potentially staggering thirdhand allegation that Google stooped so low as to train Bard using data from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, scraped from a website called ShareGPT.
But Google is firmly and clearly denying that: “Bard is not trained on any data from ShareGPT or ChatGPT,” spokesperson Chris Pappas tells The Verge.
NEW: Prominent Google AI researcher resigned after warning Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and other senior execs that Bard—Google’s rival to ChatGPT—was *using data from ChatGPT*.
According to The Information’s reporting, a Google AI engineer named Jacob Devlin left Google to immediately join its rival OpenAI after attempting to warn Google not to use ChatGPT data because it would violate OpenAI’s terms of service, and that its answers would look too similar. One source told the publication that Google stopped using that data after his warnings. Perhaps it threw out that portion of the training, too.
Twitter to no longer only promote paid-for accounts after backlash
Elon Musk says he ‘forgot to mention’ other users would be visible on ‘for you’ timeline as well
Twitter has reversed course on plans to limit presence on its “for you” timeline to paying users only, with Elon Musk claiming he “forgot to mention” that other users would be visible as well.
When the company owner first announced the plan on Tuesday he said it would limit the tab that algorithmically curates tweets for users to only display accounts who had paid £8 a month for “Twitter Blue” and linked their account to a working phone number.
How ChatGPT and Bard Performed as My Executive Assistants Google’s Bard chatbot fared far worse than OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but human assistants might soon be out of their jobs.
Rift Between Gaming Giants Shows Toll of China’s Economic Crackdown Activision Blizzard and NetEase could not agree on a new deal to distribute video games in China, cutting millions of players from the games in January.
Key takeaways from TikTok hearing in Congress – and the uncertain road ahead
Lawmakers grilled the social media app’s CEO over its relationship with China and protections for young users
The first appearance in Congress for TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew stretched more than five hours, with contentious questioning targeting the app’s relationship with China and protections for its youngest users.
Chew’s appearance comes at a pivotal time for TikTok, which is facing bipartisan fire after experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years. The company is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, raising concerns about China’s influence over the app – criticisms Chew repeatedly tried to resist throughout the hearing.
WeWork mugs for $500: 10 of the strangest merch items from companies that crashed
FTX fortune cookies and Theranos gift cards offer souvenirs from recent business disasters
You’ve just been laid off from your job at a once mighty startup that was going to change the world. The New York Times has exposed your CEO’s fraudulent business model. Investors have freaked. The stock market is hemorrhaging. Your office keycard doesn’t work. What you do next is very important: go raid the merch closet.
By now, we’ve all seen enough rise-and-fall documentaries to know how this sort of thing plays out. First come layoffs, then lawsuits, and perhaps a prison sentence for bosses like Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes or Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling. One thing we hear less about: the killer resale market that comes with an era-defining financial disaster.
The ugly economics behind Apple’s new Pay Later system
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
This article was originally published in June 2022. We’re reviving it today since Apple hasfinally gone through with its plansto launch the service.
Apple is getting into the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) business with its new Pay Later service built into Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. While Apple bills the service as “designed with users’ financial health in mind,” BNPL is a practice that has come under scrutiny by government regulators as something that could potentially harm customers.
Apple’s Pay Later service, which has been in the works since at least last year, lets users make a purchase with Apple Pay and then pay it back in four equal installments over the course of six weeks. There’s no interest on these installments, but it remains unclear if Apple will charge a late fee, and if so, how much it will cost.
On the surface, BNPL services seem harmless, as some come with no interest and allow for an easy way to pay back a big purchase in chunks. Some BNPL companies have even emerged for payments related to healthcare — with some existing companies, like Affirm, adding support — filling a gap for people who can’t afford to pay healthcare costs upfront. However, this kind of service becomes easy to abuse when used for nonessential purchases.
In May, SFGate published an unsettling report about BNPL services that highlights its popularity among Generation Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012. According to the report, 73 percent of BNPL customers are part of this generation, and around 43 percent of them report missing at least one payment. Another survey from DebtHammer shows that 30 percent of users struggle to make their BNPL payments, and 32 percent report skipping out on paying rent, utilities, or child support to prioritize their BNPL bills. The current state of the economy is likely contributing to some of these struggles.
SFGate also notes that BNPL services can lead to bigger purchases. According to data viewed by the outlet, the average Affirm customer spends $365 on a single purchase, as opposed to the $100 average cart size recorded in 2020. It’s also become a way to buy a wardrobe without footing the costs upfront, with SFGate pointing out that Affirm’s large Gen Z consumer base spends 73 percent of their Afterpay purchases on fashion.
Like other payment systems, BNPL services can incur overdraft fees if users charge them to an account with insufficient funds, and Apple’s fine print makes clear it’s no exception. To make matters worse, BNPL’s rising popularity comes at a time when credit companies like Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are looking to include BNPL loans on credit reports. This means missing a payment on these seemingly benign services will soon come with a consequence — not just for consumers but for BNPL companies, too. And a survey of 2,200 people by Morning Consult reveals BNPL users are twice as likely to overdraft when compared to non-users.
In addition to potential financial issues, BNPL services are catching the attention of government watchdogs around the globe. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is currently investigating BNPL companies, including Klarna, Zip, Afterpay, Affirm, and PayPal, citing concerns about “accumulating debt, regulatory arbitrage, and data harvesting in a consumer credit market already quickly changing with technology.” Last year, the UK announced stricter regulatory policies for BNPL companies.
Apple’s Pay Later is on track to receive the same sort of scrutiny, as it injects itself into an uncertain sector when inflation is spiking and consumers are struggling to pay for everyday goods. But it also normalizes the BNPL practice by building the concept straight into the iPhone, posing a risk to both consumers and competing businesses. Apple has the power to catch the eyes of the millions of iPhone users who use Apple Pay, while companies like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay clearly don’t have that kind of grasp.
Attaching something as risky as BNPL to Apple’s brand puts Pay Later at odds with the company’s goal of providing customers with technology and services they can generally feel good about. As the big quote from Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple’s Ethics and Compliance page reads, “We do the right thing, even when it’s not easy.”
‘Our universe was lost for ever’: what happens when a tech glitch erases your memories?
Photos, emails, playlists: our phones and computers have become hosts for our pasts. What happens when the backups fail?
No matter how much our computers assure us they’re backing everything up to a hard drive in the sky, memory failure remains a hardwired part of our lives. Writers reflect on when a digital loss created an emotional hole – from the college essay that disappeared minutes before the due date to an iPhone update that lost years of photographs.
Apple Music Classical was born from Primephonic, which Apple acquired in 2021 with the intent of launching a classical music-focused app in 2022. The promise of Apple Music Classical is that it will be better at handling the complex metadata often associated with classical recordings, and the app will also have things like curated playlists and composer biographies to help people get more acquainted with the genre.
Apple says the app’s catalog houses more than 5 million tracks and that you can listen to music at up to 192 kHz/24 bit hi-res lossless. However, there are a few caveats with the app. Subscribers to the Apple Music Voice Plan can’t use Classical. And at launch, there won’t be a native iPad version and you won’t be able to download music to listen to offline.
I’m disappointed about the lack of offline downloads, but I’m still looking forward to digging into the app. Even though I have to be online to use it, Apple Music Classical still seems like it could be a good way to learn more about a genre I feel like I should be more versed in — though if I’m being honest, the first thing I’m going to do is look up renditions of Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.”
One of Europe’s largest ammunition manufacturers has said efforts to meet surging demand from the war in Ukraine have been stymied by a new TikTok data centre that is monopolising electricity in the region close to its biggest factory.
The chief executive of Nammo, which is co-owned by the Norwegian government, said a planned expansion of its largest factory in central Norway hit a roadblock due to a lack of surplus energy, with the construction of TikTok’s new data centre using up electricity in the local area.
Musk claims the move is “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over.” Verified users are also going to become the only accounts that can vote in polls for the “same reason,” Musk says.
It’s worth taking this announcement with a big grain of salt, as Musk’s tweets haven’t always turned into enforced policy or features. Perhaps the biggest example is his promise from February that the company was going to start sharing ad revenue with Blue subscribers, something that’s still MIA almost two months later. That same month, he also promised to open-source the company’s algorithm by March 5th, which hasn’t happened yet — though now he says it’ll happen on March 31st, without acknowledging the previous missed deadline.
Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations.
The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.
Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.
Musk has made similar promises in the past. Before he dropped the charade of supposedly asking the community before making major changes to the service, he said that Twitter would only allow Blue Subscribers to vote in policy polls. It’s a bit of a moot point now that he’s not really doing those anymore, though.
The swagged-out pope is an AI fake — and an early glimpse of a new reality
The original viral image (left) and another AI-generated fake from the same batch (right). | Image: via Reddit / u/trippy_art_special
AI-generated images have gone viral before, but none have spread so far and wide as a picture of the pope wearing what can only be described as a swagged-out puffy jacket. Call him the Supreme pontiff. The Balenciaga bishop. The vicar of drip.
The picture seems to have been first posted online on Friday, submitted to a subreddit for the AI image generator Midjourney. Over the weekend, it spread on Twitter and other social networks, first as a meme and then as the subject of debunking. By Sunday, Chrissy Teigen was tweeting about it — a reliable indicator that an internet joke has gone mainstream.
“I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didnt give it a second thought. no way am I surviving the future of technology,” Teigen tweeted, encapsulating the responses of many internet users. In her replies, someone said they thought calling it AI-generated was the joke, and Teigen responded: “Oh man now I’m REAL confused. Is it real?? i hate myself lol.”
The image is definitely fake. Not only was it posted to the Midjourney subreddit alongside three alternatives (Midjourney usually generates four images in response to each prompt) but it also contains telltale signs of AI generation, including a number of areas where details are conspicuously smeared. There’s the not quite hand not quite grasping a not quite coffee cup; a crucifix without proper right angles that depicts Jesus if he’d been sculpted in clay and sat on; and the edge of a glasses lens that somehow transitions into its own shadow — all indicative of AI generation: products of a system that knows the surface of reality but not the underlying rules that govern how physical objects interact.
Collage: The Verge
A smear here, a blur there: telltale signs of an AI-generated image.
And yet, to point all this out seems like pedantry because the image undeniably looksreal —for a certain definition of real, anyway. If you scrolled past it in your feed on Friday, you probably didn’t give it a second thought, perhaps tweeting “dang the pope a dripgod” and then moving on with your day.
But it’s useful to analyze why this particular image went viral, as it reveals a lot about how AI fakes will be shared and spread in the coming months. (No more than that, though: the field is moving too fast for predictions to keep longer than frozen leftovers.) To be more specific, the image went viral because it represents a particular alignment of subject and aesthetic — it works as a fake precisely because it matches ways we already consume images today.
First, there’s the subject: the pope himself. As journalist Ryan Broderick noted on Twitter, there’s something particular about the pope’s image that lends credence to the fake. “My theory as to why it’s fooling so many (myself initially included) is that the pope aesthetically exists in the same uncanny valley as most AI art,” tweeted Broderick. To be more explicit: the pope is known for wearing stylish clothes, and images of him often go viral because of this.
As trend forecaster Ayesha Siddiqi noted, the association between the bishop of Rome and Italian fashion is so strong that the Vatican has been forced to debunk rumors that the pope wears designer loafers. (“The pope, in summary, does not wear Prada, but Christ” was the official rebuttal.) And there are so many swaggy photos of Pope Francis floating around the web that others were able to pair this recent AI fake with real examples, like the pope signing a Lamborghini. It’s this contrast between the pope’s spiritual authority and material swagger that so often makes the man a meme. (That and the fact he tweets real good.)
Just as importantly, though, the fact that the pope is a celebrity makes unbelievable images of him inherently more believable. This is because of the style of image created by AI art generators. It’s a specific look closely associated with Midjourney’s software, which received an update a few weeks ago improving the quality of its output and which has, in turn, created a mini wave of believable AI fakes currently circulating the web. (It also helps that there are lots of pictures of celebrities in Midjourney’s training data, making them easier to generate.)
Let’s call this style hyperrealism. First, because it’s the adjective often used in text prompts to generate such pictures, and second, because it links the aesthetic to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the hyperreal — a culture in which simulations displace reality.
Hyperrealism in the context of AI images is an aesthetic defined by perfect lighting and glossy surfaces, by dramatic poses and saturated colors. It’s stylized and exaggerated — the sort of image we already associate with celebrities, whose likenesses are reproduced with such abundance and deliberation that they often already look fake. What’s interesting (and links the aesthetic of AI hyperrealism to Baudrillard’s philosophy) is that many in the AI art community describe these images as “photorealistic” when they are clearly cartoonish. For these people, what’s real is the output of AI systems: it’s the simulation displacing reality.
Midjourney v5 has pushed into photorealism, a goal which has eluded the computer graphics industry for decades (!)
Insane progression, and all that by 11 people with a shared dream.
Let's explore what these breakthrough in Generative AI mean for 3D & VFX as we know it... pic.twitter.com/GlycHcPQqA
I think it’s these factors together that explain why certain AI images have gone viral recently. The swag pope is not the only one. You may have seen fake pictures of Elon Musk holding hands with AOC; French President Emmanuel Macron running through clouds of tear gas; or Donald Trump being arrested. In each case, the celebrity of the subject primes us to believe our eyes, as does the content, which is often linked to recent events (protests in France, Trump’s rumored indictment, Musk being a creep, etc.).
This is both scary and reassuring — reassuring because it suggests there is currently a limit to what AI fakes are believable but scary because this technology is moving too fast for any current reassurances to hold true for long. In fact, I’d say there’s only one guarantee when it comes to AI images: they’re only going to become believable. They’re certainly not limited to their current aesthetic. And sooner or later, they’re going to become hyperreal as Baudrillard defined the concept: masking the distinction entirely between the imaginary and the real.
Twitter takes legal action after source code leaked online
Elon Musk-owned platform demands that GitHub identifies who posted parts of its code
Twitter has revealed some of its source code has been released online and the social media platform owned by Elon Musk is taking legal action to identify the leaker.
According to a court filing made on Friday, Twitter is demanding that GitHub, a code-sharing service, identifies who released on the platform parts of its source code – the underlying software on which the service operates.
Microsoft says it has stopped its Xbox Game Pass $1 trial offer
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Microsoft has stopped its $1 trial offer for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The trial has been available for years, with brief periods where it wasn’t always available in certain markets, and it now looks like Microsoft is considering new promotions instead.
“We have stopped our previous introductory offer for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass and are evaluating different marketing promotions for new members in the future,” says Kari Perez, head of global communications at Xbox, in a statement to The Verge.
The $1 trial has allowed people to sign up to Xbox Game Pass for a month, before the full Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription kicks in at $14.99 per month or $9.99 a month for the PC- or console-only subscriptions. It’s been a great way to recommend the service to a friend or family member, but we’ll now have to wait to see what these “different marketing promotions” are for new members.
Microsoft has also been working on its Friends & Family plan for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The plan lets you share Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefits with up to four other friends or family members. Pricing in Ireland is set at €21.99 per month (nearly $24), working out to less than $5 per person.
Microsoft expanded this Friends & Family plan to New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Hungary, Israel, and Sweden recently, but it’s still not available in many European markets or the UK and US. This $1 trial removal could be a sign that Microsoft is getting ready to expand Friends & Family even further, after trialing this new subscription for less than a year.
Microsoft also recently opened up its PC Game Pass subscription to 40 new countries. Game Pass is now available in 86 markets in total, with new availability across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia
Tech chief says the development of chatbots is a more worthwhile use of processing power than crypto mining
The US chip-maker Nvidia has said cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society” despite the company’s powerful processors selling in huge quantities to the sector.
Michael Kagan, its chief technology officer, said other uses of processing power such as the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT were more worthwhile than mining crypto.
‘Of course it’s disturbing’: will AI change Hollywood forever?
With the rise of AI-led services to write, voice and provide effects, industry experts express concern over the future
What will AI (artificial intelligence) do to Hollywood? Who better to answer that question than ChatGPT, a thrilling but scary chatbot developed by OpenAI. When the Guardian asked it about AI’s potential impact on the film industry, it made the following points:
Scriptwriting: AI can be used to analyze existing screenplays and create new ones, potentially leading to more efficient and cost-effective screenwriting.
Pre-production: AI can be used to streamline the pre-production process, including casting, location scouting and storyboarding.
Special effects: AI can be used to create more realistic and immersive special effects, potentially reducing the need for practical effects and saving time and money in post-production.
Audience analysis: AI can be used to analyze audience data and preferences, helping studios make more informed decisions about which films to greenlight and how to market them.
Distribution: AI can be used to personalize movie recommendations for viewers and optimize distribution strategies, potentially leading to higher ticket sales and revenue.
ChatGPT started a new kind of AI race — and made text boxes cool again
Tired: the metaverse. Wired: the message-verse? | Image: OpenAI / David Pierce
It’s pretty obvious that nobody saw ChatGPT coming. Not even OpenAI. Before it became by some measures the fastest growing consumer app in history, before it turned the phrase “generative pre-trained transformers” into common vernacular, before every company you can think of was racing to adopt its underlying model, ChatGPT launched in November as a “research preview.”
The blog post announcing ChatGPT is now a hilarious case study in underselling. “ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response. We are excited to introduce ChatGPT to get users’ feedback and learn about its strengths and weaknesses.” That’s it! That’s the whole pitch! No waxing poetic about fundamentally changing the nature of our interactions with technology, not even, like, a line about how cool it is. It was just a research preview.
But now, barely four months later, it looks like ChatGPT really is going to change the way we think about technology. Or, maybe more accurately, change it back. Because the way we’re going, the future of technology is not whiz-bang interfaces or the metaverse. It’s “typing commands into a text box on your computer.” The command line is back — it’s just a whole lot smarter now.
Really, generative AI is headed in two simultaneous directions. The first is much more infrastructural, adding new tools and capabilities to the stuff you already use. Large language models like GPT-4 and Google’s LaMDA are going to help you write emails and memos; they’re going to automatically spruce up your slide decks and correct any mistakes in your spreadsheets; they’re going to edit your photos better than you can; they’re going to help you write code and in many cases just do it for you.
Remember when everybody, even Pizza Hut, was doing chatbots?
This is roughly the path AI has been on for years, right? Google has been integrating all kinds of AI into its products over the last few years, and even companies like Salesforce have built strong AI research projects. These models are expensive to create, expensive to train, expensive to query, and potentially game-changing for corporate productivity. AI enhancements in products you already use is a big business — or, at least, is being invested in like one — and will be for a long time.
The other AI direction, the one where interacting with the AI becomes a consumer product, was a much less obvious development. It makes sense now, of course: who doesn’t want to talk to a robot that knows all about movies and recipes and what to do in Tokyo, and if I say just the right things might go totally off the rails and try to make out with you? But before ChatGPT took the world by storm, and before Bing and Bard both took the idea and tried to build their own products out of it, I certainly wouldn’t have bet that typing into a chat window would be the next big thing in user interfaces.
In a way, this is a return to a very old idea. For many years, most users only interacted with computers by typing on a blank screen — the command line was how you told the machine what to do. (Yes, ChatGPT is a lot of machines, and they’re not right there on your desk, but you get the idea.)
But then, a funny thing happened: we invented better interfaces! The trouble with the command line was that you needed to know exactly what to type and in which order to get the computer to behave. Pointing and clicking on big icons was much simpler, plus it was much easier to teach people what the computer could do through pictures and icons. The command line gave way to the graphical user interface, and the GUI still reigns supreme.
Developers never stopped trying to make chat UI work, though. WhatsApp is a good example: the company has spent years trying to figure out how users can use chat to interact with businesses. Allo, one of Google’s many failed messaging apps, hoped you might interact with an AI assistant inside chats with your friends. The first round of chatbot hype, circa about 2016, had a lot of very smart people thinking that messaging apps were the future of everything.
There’s just something alluring about the messaging interface, the “conversational AI.” It starts with the fact that we all know how to use it; messaging apps are how we keep in touch with the people we care about most, which means they’re a place we spend a lot of time and energy. You may not know how to navigate the recesses of the Uber app or how to find your frequent flier number in the Southwest app, but “text these words to this number” is a behavior almost anyone understands. In a market where people don’t want to download apps and mobile websites mostly still suck, messaging can simplify experiences in a big way.
Image: Microsoft
Bing (and everybody else) is taking the chat interface and running with it.
Also, while messaging isn’t the most advanced interface, it might be the most expandable. Take Slack, for instance: you probably think of it as a chat app, but in that back-and-forth interface, you can embed links, editable documents, interactive polls, informational bots, and so much more. WeChat is famously an entire platform — basically an entire internet — smushed into a messaging app. You can start with messaging and go a lot of places.
But so many of these tools stumble in the same ways. For quick exchanges of information, like business hours, chat is perfect — ask a question, get an answer. But browsing a catalog as a series of messages? No thanks. Buying a plane ticket with a thousand-message back-and-forth? Hard pass. It’s no different than voice assistants, and god help you if you’ve ever tried to even buy simple things with Alexa. (“For Charmin, say ‘three.’”) For most complicated things, a visual and dedicated UI is far better than a messaging window.
And when it comes to ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, and the rest, things get complicated really fast. These models are smart and collaborative, but you still have to know exactly what to ask for, in what way, and in what order to get what you want. The idea of a “prompt engineer,” the person you pay to know exactly how to coax the perfect image from Stable Diffusion or get ChatGPT to generate just the right Javascript, seems ridiculous but is actually an utterly necessary part of the equation. It’s no different than in the early computer era when only a few people knew how to tell the computer what to do. There are already marketplaces on which you can buy and sell really great prompts; there are prompt gurus and books about prompts; I assume Stanford is already working on a Prompt Engineering major that everyone will be taking soon.
The remarkable thing about generative AI is that it feels like it can do almost anything. That’s also the whole problem. When you can do anything, what do you do? Where do you start? How do you learn how to use it when your only window into its possibilities is a blinking cursor? Eventually, these companies might develop more visual, more interactive tools that help people truly understand what they can do and how it all works. (This is one reason to keep an eye on ChatGPT’s new plug-ins system, which is pretty straightforward for now but could quickly expand the things you can do in the chat window.) Right now, the best idea any of them have is to offer a few suggestions about things you might type.
AI was going to be a feature. Now it’s the product. And that means the text box is back. Messaging is the interface, again.
AI expert Meredith Broussard: ‘Racism, sexism and ableism are systemic problems’
The journalist and academic says that the bias encoded in artificial intelligence systems can’t be fixed with better data alone – the change has to be societal
Meredith Broussard is a data journalist and academic whose research focuses on bias in artificial intelligence (AI). She has been in the vanguard of raising awareness and sounding the alarm about unchecked AI. Her previous book, Artificial Unintelligence (2018), coined the term “technochauvinism” to describe the blind belief in the superiority of tech solutions to solve our problems. She appeared in the Netflix documentary Coded Bias (2020), which explores how algorithms encode and propagate discrimination. Her new book is MoreThan a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender and Ability Bias in Tech. Broussard is an associate professor at New York University’s Arthur L Carter Journalism Institute.
The message that bias can be embedded in our technological systems isn’t really new. Why do we need this book? This book is about helping people understand the very real social harms that can be embedded in technology. We have had an explosion of wonderful journalism and scholarship about algorithmic bias and the harms that have been experienced by people. I try to lift up that reporting and thinking. I also want people to know that we have methods now for measuring bias in algorithmic systems. They are not entirely unknowable black boxes: algorithmic auditing exists and can be done.
MoreThan a Glitch by Meredith Broussard is published by MIT Press (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
At Apple, Rare Dissent Over a New Product: Interactive Goggles The company is expected to unveil an augmented reality headset in a few months. Some employees wonder if the device makes sense for Apple.
The professor trying to protect our private thoughts from technology
Prof Nita Farahany argues in her new book, The Battle for Your Brain, that intrusions into the mind are so close that lawmakers should enact protections
Private thoughts may not be private for much longer, heralding a nightmarish world where political views, thoughts, stray obsessions and feelings could be interrogated and punished all thanks to advances in neurotechnology.
Or at least that is what one of the world’s leading brain scientists believes.
Gordon E. Moore, Intel Co-Founder Behind Moore’s Law, Dies at 94 His prediction in the 1960s about rapid advances in computer chip technology charted a course for the age of high tech.
I could end my review there — my take on Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story, “Baby Shoes.” But I’m not Hemingway. All I’m saying is everything that’s good, bad, and in-between about the Band 7 can be traced back to its absurdly cheap price.
Usually, when I buy something this cheap, I’m expecting a lot of tradeoffs. Something that makes me go, “A-ha! That’s why it’s $50.” (Technically, it’s actually $49.99, but let’s not quibble over a penny.) And yes, I had a few of those moments while wearing the Amazfit Band 7 these past few weeks. But as with the $99.95 Fitbit Inspire 3, wearing the Band 7 felt like stepping through a portal to the early days of wearable tech — and it made me realize how rare fitness bands are nowadays.
It makes sense. The line between fitness bands and smartwatches grows ever blurrier, to the point I often wondered during testing if anyone would miss fitness bands if they were to completely disappear. The jury is still out on that one, but it led me to another question. Where did all the budget fitness trackers go?
It’s not a looker, but it’ll do
No one is going to compliment you for wearing the Amazfit Band 7. I doubt anyone would even give it a second glance unless it’s to ask, “Oh, is that a Fitbit?”
I mean, look at this thing. It doesn’t help that black is the most boring color for a gadget, but stylish or distinctive, this is not. There are other color options, like pink and beige, but they’re only interesting in that they’re not black. This is the tracker for utilitarians who purse their lips at premium design flourishes, thinking, “Why would I need any of that?”
The default strap is a bit stiff, but nothing feels like it’s about to fall apart. (It does tend to collect dead skin and dust, however.) The whole thing feels a bit plasticky, but that’s perfectly fine because that’s what you sign up for with a $50 tracker. The Band 7 is light at 28g and is comfortable enough to wear to sleep. It’s “heavier” than the Inspire 3’s 17.7g, but I doubt most people would be able to tell the difference.
The colorful watchface adds a pop of color and personality to the otherwise bland Amazfit Band 7.
It is, however, almost impossible to put on one-handed. I had to brace it against a table to stop it from sliding around my wrist when trying to secure the strap. I suspect this is a problem exclusive to the Tiny Wrist Club, but even when I did get it on, it was still too loose. I had to wear it further up my arm for a good fit as I was on the smallest hole already.
The good news is it’s easy to swap out straps. Like the Garmin Vivosmart 5, there aren’t any pins. You just pop the tracker out. The bad news is you need to get a strap specifically for the Band 7, which mostly limits your options to other colors. I did, however, find this snazzy third-party strap on Amazon for about $13.
The nicest thing about the Band 7 is its 1.47-inch OLED display. The bezels are smaller than its predecessor, and everything on the display looks bright and colorful. Notifications are easy to read, and I had an easy time swiping through menus. Surprisingly, the new watchfaces are cute as well. I was particularly fond of the one you see in these review photos. It added a pop of color and fun that’s missing from the overall design. For the data nerds, there are other watchfaces that’ll display the stats you crave — and those aren’t too bad looking, either.
I’m not a fan of this enclosure. It’s very hard to secure one handed, especially if you have smaller wrists.
And OLED doesn’t totally destroy battery life. The Band 7 lasted a little over two weeks on a single charge, with the always-on display enabled about a third of that time. Be careful, though, as it comes with a proprietary charger. Don’t be like me and forget where you stashed it because you didn’t need it for so long. I swear I stuck it in my work bag, but I can only conclude it fell through an interdimensional portal to the great e-waste graveyard in the sky. At least replacing the charger isn’t quite as bad as with other devices. An extra charger costs $9.99 from Amazfit itself, but you can find a better deal so long as you’re okay rolling the dice with third-party accessory makers on Amazon.
What $50 gets you in 2023
If you’ve never heard of Amazfit, you only really need to know one thing about its wearables. They pack a metric crapton of features at prices that probably leave Fitbit executives gnashing their teeth.
For instance, here’s a list of the Band 7’s main features:
Amazon Alexa
Continuous heart rate, blood oxygen, and stress tracking
Sleep tracking with sleep stages, sleep scores, and breathing quality
Training metrics like VO2 Max, recovery time, training load, and training effect
120 sports profiles, which somehow include parkour, folk dancing, and chess. Yes, chess.
Menstrual cycle tracking
Push notifications, quick replies (Android), find my phone, camera remotes, alarms, timers, and even a Pomodoro timer
Media controls
Stress tracking is still relatively new and not something I expected to see on a tracker this cheap.
Generally, I don’t expect to see these types of training metrics on something under $180 these days unless it’s on sale. I really don’t expect to see abnormal heart rate notifications for under $100. And you get a good level of accuracy for all the basic health metrics. (I can’t say much about the abnormal heart rate and SpO2 alerts other than that I never triggered them.) These features, combined with the OLED display and longer battery life? Pfft. Paying $50 for this feature set feels like you’re getting away with something.
There are a few things that will remind you that this is a budget device, however. The Zepp app — Amazfit and Zepp share a parent company and companion app — isn’t as polished as what you’ll find on bigger-name brands. There are quirks. For instance, it would be great if Zepp could figure out how to make switching to Imperial units stick 100 percent of the time. It’s also overly generous to call Zepp’s 10 mini apps an ecosystem, as its site claims. Occasionally, you have to reconnect with GPS satellites before an outdoor workout, or your data will be wonky. (You’ll be notified before starting, however.) But the app is uncluttered, simple to navigate, and gets the job done.
The features that are missing feel more like sensible compromises than glaring omissions. There are no NFC payments, for example, and it uses your phone’s GPS instead of having its own built-in sensors. And while you can talk to Alexa, there’s a tiny lag, and there’s no speaker, so you have to read whatever its responses are. (Not a terrible loss, however, if you find Alexa annoying.)
Navigating through menus is a breeze, and text is easy to read.
In my day-to-day, I wouldn’t say the Band 7 went above and beyond my expectations. That said, it did exactly what I wanted it to. It told me when to take a break from sitting, notified me when texts came through, and occasionally urged me to chill out. It’s such a lightweight device I often forgot I was even wearing it. As with the GTR 4, I made most use of the Pomodoro timer while puttering around doing chores. It’s not a glamorous device, but it’s not meant to be. Sometimes, it’s a relief to use a device that doesn’t aspire to be more than it is.
Casual activity, not training
The Band 7 is best for people who want to move more. I most enjoyed using it for activities like walking, yoga, and bodyweight strength training. Those are the kinds of exercises where I’ll maybe glance at my wrist to check duration or heart rate. That’s perfect since the display isn’t going to show you as much as a larger smartwatch would, anyway. As for accuracy, metrics like step count and heart rate were right on par with other devices I tested during the same period, including the Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Forerunner 265S.
I’m also a big fan of Amazfit’s PAI system. It gives you an indicator of whether you’re getting enough activity by measuring how many PAI points you get over the course of a week. You earn PAI by raising your heart rate. I go more in-depth into PAI in my Amazfit GTR 4 review, but the gist is it’s a more holistic and beginner-friendly approach to getting your recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.
You won’t see a ton of data on any one given screen, but that’s alright for casual activities.
I’m very much a fan of Amazfit’s PAI system of evaluating your weekly activity. It’s great for beginners or anyone with busy schedules.
That said, I’d never use this to prep for my next race. If I’m going to torture myself with 12-16 weeks of training, I want more precise GPS data than a tethered device can give me. On a 3.03-mile run recorded by my iPhone, it only logged 2.45 miles, while the Apple Watch Ultra logged 3.01 miles. That, in turn, threw off metrics for pace and VO2 Max. (Though some of this was due to a delay in the Band 7 acquiring a GPS signal.) That’s okay for short, casual runs (e.g., 1-4 miles), but it’s not what I wanted during the home stretch of my half-marathon training. Between the Forerunner 265S and the Band 7, you can guess which one I left on my nightstand on race day.
Where have all the fitness bands gone?
These days, there are more smartwatches than fitness bands. That wasn’t always the case. It used to be that I could list several sub-$200 fitness bands off the top of my head. There was the Misfit Ray and Shine, the Fitbit Alta HR (and most Fitbits before the Blaze), the Jawbone UP, and Samsung Gear Fit 2. But aside from the Amazfit Band 7, I can only name a handful of other fitness bands that have come out in the past year — the nearly identical $49.99 Xiaomi Mi Band 7, the $99.95 Fitbit Inspire 3, and the $149.99 Garmin Vivosmart 5.
And now that I think of it, it’s odd.
We have budget phones, laptops, speakers, TVs, and headphones — and I suspect my peers in these categories could probably name more than three from reputable brands that came out in the last year. There are several reasons I can think as to why that is, but the fact is companies are prioritizing premium flagship smartwatches at the expense of affordable, simple fitness trackers. I’m sure profit margins have something to do with it, but it’s a shame.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Affordable fitness bands like this aren’t as common as they used to be.
But perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe this is people voting with their wallets. Maybe fitness bands have had their time, and the vast majority of people don’t find the savings or extra battery life worth it. I somehow doubt that. And even if it were true, that doesn’t negate the need for good budget options. Whatever you think of wearable tech, fitness trackers can be a motivational tool to improve your health or stay connected without staring at your phone 24/7. You shouldn’t need to pay $200 or more for that if all you want are the very basics.
I nearly bought a Framework Laptop, but logistical realities got in the way
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
“My old Dell XPS 15 has gotten sluggish. The battery dies easily. It’s heavy to cart around, anyhow. Now that I’m going out in public again, I need a new work machine.”
These were the thoughts circling my head at yesterday’s Framework event — where the company known for its easily-upgradable laptops announced new chips and a new, longer-lasting battery. “Battery life has consistently been the main negative for the Framework laptop,” said CEO Nirav Patel, hitting on the one reason I’d only ever admired the company’s laptops from a distance. This morning, without that one reason to hold back, it was time to put down a $100 deposit for my own Framework Laptop 13.
But I didn’t — because Framework wouldn’t sell me that battery unless I bought more components than I needed.
Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Even in the “DIY Edition”, you have to pay $320 extra. A prebuilt with the 61Wh battery costs $420 extra but also doubles your memory and storage.
See, while the Framework Laptop 13 starts at $1,049, or $849 for a barebones kit, that model only comes with the old 55Wh battery alongside a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 chip. To get the 61Wh battery inside, Framework makes you spend at least $320 more for a Core i7 or Ryzen 7 instead. Or, I could additionally buy a 61Wh battery to swap into the machine for $69 and have the 55Wh battery sitting around turning into e-waste.
I couldn’t understand it. This is the company that prides itself on modularity, the one that told me yesterday how it’s trying so hard to reduce e-waste that it’s experimenting with external cases for various components so they’re not just sitting around. They’ve clearly got these batteries sitting on the shelf to order separately — why can’t I just pay the difference?
So I emailed Framework’s CEO. I wasn’t expecting him to reply. But he did, and I never would have guessed there were so many different logistical reasons behind the decision.
Here’s the first part of his reply:
Hi Sean, we kept the 55Wh in the Base configurations for 1[3]th Gen and for Ryzen 7040 Series in order to keep the price low. Despite massive inflation over the last year and increases in costs for just about all materials and components aside from memory and storage over the last year, we were able to hold the pre-built base price to the same as 12th Gen, $1049.
This is both because the 61Wh battery is more expensive, and because our cell supplier has a substantial amount of material prepared for 55Wh. We could either pay to purchase and scrap that material, which would be totally against our mission, or find a productive outlet for it, which we did through the Base SKU.
For offering it as a configuration option, each new variable in the configuration that is part of the core laptop assembly multiplies the amount of inventory and supply chain complexity we need to manage (CPU options * keyboard languages [on pre-built] * DIY vs pre-built * any new configurable option = number of SKUs). Since we are a small team, we focus on keeping the assembled SKUs as few as possible, while enabling configuration on items that are not pre-assembled like OS, memory, storage, Bezel, and Input Cover on DIY Edition and Expansion Cards on all configs. We also keep the Marketplace as an “escape valve” for items that aren’t available pre-configured, like alternate speakers, hinges, displays (e.g. glossy now that we default to matte), and battery.
I replied back:
“I understand the 55Wh inventory problem, and the incentives around core laptop assembly SKUs, but I can’t wrap my head around the DIY edition configurator. If you are putting together a box full of parts for me to assemble, and you have both batteries on the shelf from which you are pulling the parts (as you do, in your marketplace) why would you tell me I can have one of the parts on the shelf, but not the other?”
Here’s Patel again:
The end user assembly process for the DIY Edition now involves installing memory, storage, Operating System, and now also Bezel and Input Cover. The laptops themselves are assembled in high volume in a serial production line at our factory, while the items selected in the DIY Edition are added to the package per-order at the fulfillment warehouse.
We define the factory-assembled vs user-installed items based on a combination of ease of assembly (the reason the WiFi card is now pre-installed and a factor for battery, hinges, Mainboard, speakers and display being pre-installed), impacts on packaging size (the most compact is actually pre-assembling everything like on pre-built configs, which also minimizes the carbon footprint of shipping), and also regulatory reasons. For batteries specifically, batteries assembled in equipment are regulated differently than packing them separately. This is part of the reason replacement batteries weren’t available in the Marketplace for a period of time after we launched.
Ultimately, building any product, and especially one as logistically and operationally complex as a DIY Edition laptop, is about balancing hundreds of different tradeoffs to reach a result that delivers a good user experience, minimizes environmental impact, and is also executionally feasible.
As a consumer, this doesn’t quite satisfy me: I’m still not willing to pay $320 extra for a CPU I don’t need, and I’d feel icky paying $69 for the new battery and then having to figure out what to do with the extra battery pack.
But at least I understand the decision. No matter which SKU you buy, the company sticks the battery and almost every other component into the chassis at the factory and does that in a limited number of ways for efficiency’s sake. To give me the machine I want to buy, the 40-person company would have to change how it assembles laptops or swap batteries after the fact — and right now, the incentives apparently aren’t aligned that way.
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Collage: The Verge
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Image: Microsoft
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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
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Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
