What I'm reading on the AI letter and why Elon Musk's Twitter plans are failing

Read to the end of the roundup to hear Matt Damon's excuse for the Crypto.com ad

A former US president (you know which one!) was indicted this week, but that doesn’t mean there was plenty of tech news happening at the same time. Of course, the TikTok discourse continues to escalate, but this week I took a look at the problems facing Twitter and in this issue I have some more thoughts on that, plus some recommendations if you want to know more about that open letter on AI that’s been circulating and getting some pretty heated responses. (And rightfully so!)

But before that, my time in New Zealand is coming to an end after a great tour of the country with events in four cities. I finished the trip with a visit to Hobbiton the other day — as a Lord of the Rings fan, how could I not! Beyond my comments in a previous issue about all the Starlink ads I’ve been seeing, I learned some other things about tech’s relationship to New Zealand that I plan to share; I just need to decide the best way to do it, then sit down and write it up. So, stay tuned for that!

With that said, enjoy the recommendations and insights in this week’s issue! If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, you can get the full issue and support my work on Disconnect by signing up.

— Paris