Meta Knows How to Argue: The Ad Hominem Tactic
May 20, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zillennials.
This is exciting for me, the dinobaby. Meta (a Telegram inspired outfit) is now going after “real” media people. Yep, individuals as in ad hominin just like the old times in Greek discourse. Cool. A blast from the past. Check out the title from the pay-to-read outfit, The Verge:
Now that is a headline: Meta, antitrust trial, attorney, failed, and the ultimate “real” journalist pejorative “blogger.” A blogger. Wow. Harsh.
The write up says, which for the purpose of this short essay, as the sacred truth:
In court, he [Meta’s lead attorney] projected a headline about her [Kara Swisher] recently calling Mark Zuckerberg a “small little creature with a shriveled soul.”
But who is the failed blogger because Ms. Swisher is no longer just a blogger; she is a media personality? It is Om Malik. Before you say, “Who?” Here’s a snapshot: Mr. Malik is the founder of Gigaom. He is a venture capitalist.
The Verge story asserts:
Malik critiqued Facebook’s intentions for offering free access to its apps and others in India, after board member Marc Andreessen blamed local resistance to the program on “anti-colonialism” in a later-deleted tweet. “I am suspicious of any for-profit company arguing its good intentions and its free gifts,” Malik wrote at the time.
How will this trial play out? I have zero idea. I am not sure the story with the “failed blogger” headline will do much to change opinions about Meta and its “bring people together properties.”
Several observations:
- What types of argumentative strategies are taught in law school? I thought the ad hominem method was viewed as less than slick.
- Why is Meta in court? The company has been chugging along for 21 years, largely unimpeded by regulations and researchers who have suggested that the company has remarkable influence on certain user cohorts? Will a decision today remediate alleged harms from yesterday? Probably not too much in my opinion.
- With Meta’s increasing involvement in political activities in the US, won’t other types of argumentative techniques be more effective and less subject to behaviors of the judicial processes?
Net net: Slick stuff.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2025
Salesforce CEO Criticizes Microsoft, Predicts Split with OpenAI
May 20, 2025
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is very unhappy with Microsoft. Windows Central reports, “Salesforce CEO Says Microsoft Did ‘Pretty Nasty’ Things to Slack and Its OpenAI Partnership May Be a Recipe for Disaster.” Writer Kevin Okemwa reminds us Benioff recently dubbed Microsoft an “OpenAI reseller” and labeled Copilot the new Clippy. Harsh words. Then Okemwa heard Benioff criticizing Microsoft on a recent SaaStr podcast. He tells us:
“According to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: ‘You can see the horrible things that Microsoft did to Slack before we bought it. That was pretty bad and they were running their playbook and did a lot of dark stuff. And it’s all gotten written up in an EU complaint that Slack made before we bought them.’ Microsoft has a long-standing rivalry with Slack. The messaging platform accused Microsoft of using anti-competitive techniques to maintain its dominance across organizations, including bundling Teams into its Microsoft Office 365 suite.”
But, as readers may have noticed, Teams is no longer bundled into Office 365. Score one for Salesforce. The write-up continues:
“Marc Benioff further indicated that Microsoft’s treatment of Slack was ‘pretty nasty.’ He claimed that the company often employs a similar playbook to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals while referencing ‘browser wars’ with Netscape and Internet Explorer in the late 1990s.”
How did that one work out? Not well for the once-dominant Netscape. Benioff is likely referring to Microsoft’s dirty trick of making IE 1.0 free with Windows. This does seem to be a pattern for the software giant. In the same podcast, the CEO predicts a split between Microsoft and ChatGPT. It is a recent theme of his. Okemwa writes:
“Over the past few months, multiple reports and speculations have surfaced online suggesting that Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar partnership with OpenAI might be fraying. It all started when OpenAI unveiled its $500 billion Stargate project alongside SoftBank, designed to facilitate the construction of data centers across the United States. The ChatGPT maker had previously been spotted complaining that Microsoft doesn’t meet its cloud computing needs, shifting blame to the tech giant if one of its rivals hit the AGI benchmark first. Consequently, Microsoft lost its exclusive cloud provider status but retains the right of refusal to OpenAI’s projects.”
Who knows how long that right of refusal will last. Microsoft itself seems to be preparing for a future without its frenemy. Will Benioff crow when the partnership is completely destroyed? What will he do if OpenAI buys Chrome and pushes forward with his “everything” app?
Cynthia Murrell, May 20, 2025
Behind Microsoft’s Dogged Copilot Push
May 20, 2025
Writer Simon Batt at XDA foresees a lot of annoyance in Windows users’ future. “Microsoft Will Only Get More Persistent Now that Copilot has Plateaued,” he predicts. Yes, Microsoft has failed to attract as many users to Copilot as it had hoped. It is as if users see through the AI hype. According to Batt, the company famous for doubling down on unpopular ideas will now pester us like never before. This can already be seen in the new way Microsoft harasses Windows 10 users. While it used to suggest every now and then such users purchase a Windows 11-capable device, now it specifically touts Copilot+ machines.
Batt suspects Microsoft will also relentlessly push other products to boost revenue. Especially anything it can bill monthly. Though Windows is ubiquitous, he notes, users can go years between purchases. Many of us, we would add, put off buying a new version until left with little choice. (Any XP users still out there?) He writes:
“When ChatGPT began to take off, I can imagine Microsoft seeing dollar signs when looking at its own assistant, Copilot. They could make special Copilot-enhanced devices (which make them money) that run Copilot locally and encourage people to upgrade to Copilot Pro (which makes them money) and perhaps then pay extra for the Office integration (which makes them money). But now that golden egg hasn’t panned out like Microsoft wants, and now it needs to find a way to help prop up the income while it tries to get Copilot off the ground. This means more ads for the Microsoft Store, more ads for its game store, and more ads for Microsoft 365. Oh, and let’s not forget the ads within Copilot itself. If you thought things were bad now, I have a nasty feeling we’re only just getting started with the ads.”
And they won’t stop, he expects, until most users have embraced Copilot. Microsoft may be creeping toward some painful financial realities.
Cynthia Murrell, May 20, 2025
Google Makes a Giant, Huge, Quantumly Supreme Change
May 19, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
I read “Google’s G Logo Just Got Prettier.” Stunning news. The much loved, intensely technical Google has invented blurring colors. The decision was a result of DeepMind’s smart software and a truly motivated and respected group of artistically-inclined engineers.
Image. The old logo has been reinvented to display a gradient. Was the inspiration the hallucinatory gradient descent in Google’s smart software? Was it a result of a Googler losing his glasses and seeing the old logo as a blend of colors? Was it a result of a chance viewing of a Volvo marketing campaign with a series of images like this:
Image is from Volvo, the automobile company. You can view the original at this link. Hey, buy a Volvo.
The write up says:
Google’s new logo keeps the same letterform, as well as the bright red-yellow-green-blue color sequence, but now those colors blur into each other. The new “G” is Google’s biggest update to its visual identity since retiring serfs for its current sans-serif font, Product Sans, in 2015.
Retiring serifs, not serfs. I know it is just an AI zellenial misstep, but Google is terminating wizards so they can find their future elsewhere. That is just sol helpful.
What does the “new” and revolutionary logo look like. The image below comes from Fast Company which is quick on the artistic side of US big technology outfits. Behold:
Source: Fast Company via the Google I think.
Fast Company explains the forward-leaning design decision:
A gradient is a safe choice for the new “G.” Tech has long been a fan of using gradients in its logos, apps, and branding, with platforms like Instagram and Apple Music tapping into the effect a decade ago. Still today, gradients remain popular, owing to their middle-ground approach to design. They’re safe but visually interesting; soft but defined. They basically go with anything thanks to their color wheel aesthetic. Other Google-owned products have already embraced gradients. YouTube is now using a new red-to-magenta gradient in its UI, and Gemini, Google’s AI tool, also uses them. Now it’s bringing the design element to its flagship Google app.
Yes, innovative.
And Fast Company wraps up the hard hitting design analysis with some Inconel wordsmithing:
it’s not a small change for a behemoth of a company. We’ll never knows how many meetings, iterations, and deliberations went into making that little blur effect, but we can safely guess it was many.
Yep, guess.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2025
Scamming: An Innovation Driver
May 19, 2025
Readers who caught the 2022 documentary “The Tinder Swindler” will recognize Pernilla Sjöholm as one of that conman’s marks. Since the film aired, Sjöholm has co-developed a tool to fend off such fraudsters. The Next Web reports, “Tinder Swindler Survivor Launches Identity Verifier to Fight Scams.” The platform, cofounded with developer Suejb Memeti, is called IDfier. Writer Thomas Macaulay writes:
“The platform promises a simple yet secure way to check who you’re interacting with. Users verify themselves by first scanning their passport, driver’s license, or ID card with their phone camera. If the document has an NFC (near-field communication), IDfier will also scan the chip for additional security. The user then completes a quick head movement to prove they’re a real person — rather than a photo, video, or deepfake. Once verified, they can send other people a request to do the same. Both of them can then choose which information to share, from their name and age to their contact number. All their data is encrypted and stored across disparate servers. IDfier was built to blend this security with precision. According to the platform, the tech is 99.9% accurate in detecting real users and blocking impersonation attempts. The team envisions the system securing endless online services, from e-commerce and email to social media and, of course, dating apps such as Tinder.”
For those who have not viewed the movie: In 2018 Sjöholm and Simon Leviev met on Tinder and formed what she thought was a close, in-person relationship. But Simon was not the Leviev he pretended to be. In the end, he cheated her out of tens of thousands of euros with a bogus sob story.
It is not just fellow humans’ savings Sjöholm aims to protect, but also our hearts. She emphasizes such tactics amount to emotional abuse as well as fraud. The trauma of betrayal is compounded by a common third-party reaction—many observers shame victims as stupid or incautious. Sjöholm figures that is because people want to believe it cannot happen to them. And it doesn’t. Until it does.
Since her ordeal, Sjöholm has been dismayed to see how convincing deepfakes have grown and how easy they now are to make. She is also appalled at how vulnerable our children are. Someday, she hopes to offer IDfier free for kids. We learn:
“Sjöholm’s plan partly stems from her experience giving talks in schools. She recalls one in which she asked the students how many of them interacted with strangers online. ‘Ninety-five percent of these kids raised their hands,’ she said. ‘And you could just see the teacher’s face drop. It’s a really scary situation.’”
We agree. Sjöholm states that between fifty and sixty percent of scams involve fake identities. And, according to The Global Anti-Scam Alliance, scams collectively rake in more than $1 trillion (with a “t”) annually. Romance fraud alone accounts for several billion dollars, according to the World Economic Forum. At just $2 per month, IDfier seems like a worthwhile precaution for those who engage with others online.
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2025
Which Browsers Devour the Most User Data?
May 19, 2025
Those concerned about data privacy may want to consider some advice from TechRadar: “These Are the Worst Web Browsers for Sucking Up All Your Data, So You May Want to Stop Using Them.” Citing research from Surfshark, writer Benedict Collins reports some of the most-used browsers are also the most ravenous. He tells us:
“Analyzing download statistics from AppMagic, Surfshark found Google’s Chrome and Apple‘s Safari account for 90% of the world’s mobile browser downloads. However, Chrome sucks up 20 different types of data while being used, including contact info, location, browsing history, and user content, and is the only browser to collect payment methods, card numbers, or bank account details. … Microsoft‘s Bing took second place for data collection, hoovering up 12 types of data, closely followed by Pi Browser in third place with nine data types, with Safari and Firefox collecting eight types and sharing fourth place.”
Et tu, Firefox? Collins notes the study found Brave and Tor to be the least data-hungry. The former collects identifiers and usage data. Tor, famously, collects no data at all. Both are free, though Brave sells add-ons and Tor accepts donations. The write-up continues:
“When it comes to the types of data collected, Pi Browser, Edge, and Bing all collected the most tracking data, usually sold to third parties to be used for targeted advertising. Pi Browser collects browsing history, search history, device ID, product interaction, and advertisement data, while Edge collects customer support request data, and Bing collects user ID data.”
For anyone unfamiliar, Pi Browser is designed for use with decentralized (blockchain) applications. We learn that, on mobile devices in the US, Chrome captures 43% of browser usage, while Safari captures 50%. Collins reminds readers there are ways to safeguard one’s data, though we would add none are total or foolproof. He also points us to TechRadar’s guide to the best VPNs for another layer of security.
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2025
Grok and the Dog Which Ate the Homework
May 16, 2025
![dino-orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_[1]_thumb_thumb_thumb](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dino-orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_1_thumb_thumb_thumb-1.gif "dino-orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_[1]_thumb_thumb_thumb")
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zillennials.
I remember the Tesla full self driving service. Is that available? I remember the big SpaceX rocket ship. Are those blowing up after launch? I now have to remember an “unauthorized modification” to xAI’s smart software Grok. Wow. So many items to tuck into my 80 year old brain.
I read “xAI Blames Grok’s Obsession with White Genocide on an Unauthorized Modification.” Do I believe this assertion? Of course, I believe everything I read on the sad, ad-choked, AI content bedeviled Internet.
Let’s look at the gems of truth in the report.
First, what is an unauthorized modification of a complex software humming along happily in Silicon Valley and— of all places — Memphis, a lovely town indeed. The unauthorized modification— whatever that is— caused a “bug in its AI-powered Grok chatbot.” If I understand this, a savvy person changed something he, she, or it was not supposed to modify. That change then caused a “bug.” I thought Grace Hopper nailed the idea of a “bug” when she pulled an insect from one of the dinobaby’s favorite systems, the Harvard Mark II. Are their insects at the X shops? Are these unauthorized insects interacting with unauthorized entities making changes that propagate more bugs? Yes.
Second, the malfunction occurs when “@grok” is used as a tag. I believe this because the “unauthorized modification” fiddled with the user mappings and jiggled scripts to allow the “white genocide” content to appear. This is definitely not hallucination; it is an “unauthorized modification.” (Did you know that the version of Grok available via x.com cannot return information from X.com (formerly Twitter) content. Strange? Of course not.
Third, I know that Grok, xAI, and the other X entities have “internal policies and core values.” Violating these is improper. The company — like other self regulated entities — “conducted a thorough investigation.” Absolutely. Coders at X are well equipped to perform investigations. That’s why X.com personnel are in such demand as advisors to law enforcement and cyber fraud agencies.
Finally, xAI is going to publish system prompts on Microsoft GitHub. Yes, that will definitely curtail the unauthorized modifications and bugs at X entities. What a bold solution.
The cited write up is definitely not on the same page as this dinobaby. The article reports:
A study by SaferAI, a nonprofit aiming to improve the accountability of AI labs, found xAI ranks poorly on safety among its peers, owing to its “very weak” risk management practices. Earlier this month, xAI missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework.
This negative report may be expanded to make the case that an exploding rocket or a wonky full self driving vehicle is not safe. Everyone must believe X outfits. The company is a paragon of veracity, excellent engineering, and delivering exactly what it says it will provide. That is the way you must respond.
Stephen E Arnold, May 16, 2025
Google Advertises Itself
May 16, 2025
- The signals about declining search traffic warrant attention. SEO wizards, Google’s ad partners, and its own ad wizards depend on what once was limitless search traffic. If that erodes, those infrastructure costs will become a bit of a challenge. Profits and jobs depend on mindless queries.
- Google’s reaction to these signals indicates that the company’s “leadership” knows that there is trouble in paradise. The terse statement that the Cue comment about a decline in Apple to Google search traffic and this itty bitty ad are not accidents of fate. The Google once controlled fate. Now the fabled company is in a sticky spot like Sisyphus.
- The irony of Google’s problem stems from its own Transformer innovation. Released to open source, Google may be learning that its uphill battle is of its own creation. Nice work, “leadership.”
Apple AI Is AImless: Better Than Fire, Ready AIm
May 16, 2025
Apple’s Problems Rebuilding Siri
Apple is a dramatist worthy of reality TV. According to MSN, Apple’s leaders are fighting each other says the article, “New Siri Report Reveals Epic Dysfunction Within Apple — But There’s Hope.” There’s so many issues with Apple’s leaders that Siri 2.0 is delayed until 2026.
Managerial styles and backroom ambitions clashed within Apple’s teams. John Giannandrea heads Siri and has since 2018. He was hired to lead Siri and an AI group. Siri engineers claim they are treated like second class citizens. Their situation worsened when Craig Federighi’s software team released features and updates.
The two leaders are very different:
“Federighi was placed in charge of the Siri overhaul in March, alongside his number two Mike Rockwell — who created the Apple Vision Pro headset— as Apple attempts to revive its Siri revamp. The difference between Giannandrea and Federighi appears to be the difference between the tortoise and the hare. John is allegedly more of a listener and slow mover who lets those underneath him take charge of the work, especially his number two Robby Walker. He reportedly preferred incremental updates and was repeatedly cited as a problem with Siri development. Meanwhile, Federighi is described as brash and quick but very efficient and knowledgeable. Supposedly, Giannandrea’s “relaxed culture” lead to other engineers dubbing his AI team: AIMLess.”
The two teams are at each other’s throats. Projects are getting done but they’re arguing over the means of how to do them. Siri 2.0 is caught in the crossfire like a child of divorce. The teams need to put their egos aside or someone in charge of both needs to make them play nicely.
Whitney Grace, May 16, 2025
Retail Fraud Should Be Spelled RetAIl Fraud
May 16, 2025
As brick-and-mortar stores approach extinction and nearly all shopping migrates to the Web, AI introduces new vulnerabilities to the marketplace. Shocking, we know. Cyber Security Intelligence reports, “ChatGPT’s Image Generation Could Be Driving Retail Fraud.” We learn:
“The latest AI image generators can create images that look like real photographs as well as imagery from simple text prompts with incredible accuracy. It can reproduce documents with precisely matching formatting, official logos, accurate timestamps, and even realistic barcodes or QR codes. In the hands of fraudsters, these tools can be used to commit ‘return fraud’ by creating convincing fake receipts and proof-of-purchase documentation.”
But wait, there is more. The post continues:
“Fake proof of purchase documentation can be used to claim warranty service for products that are out of warranty or purchased through unauthorised channels. Fraudsters could also generate fake receipts showing purchases at higher values than was actually paid for – then requesting refunds to gift cards for the inflated amount. Internal threats also exist too, as employees can create fake expense receipts for reimbursement. This is particularly damaging for businesses with less sophisticated verification processes in place. Perhaps the scenario most concerning of all is that these tools can enable scammers to generate convincing payment confirmations or shipping notices as part of larger social engineering attacks.”
Also of concern is the increased inconvenience to customers as sites beef up their verification processes. After all, the write-up notes, The National Retail Federation found 70% of customers say a positive return experience makes them more likely to revisit a seller.
So what is a retail site to do? Well, author Doriel Abrahams is part of Forter, a company that uses AI to protect online sellers from fraud. Naturally, he suggests using a platform like his firm’s to find suspicious patterns without hindering legit customers too much. Is more AI the solution? We are not certain. If one were to go down that route, though, one should probably compare multiple options.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2025
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