How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI ResponsesRead more

Photo: Bloomberg.
The Takeaway
facebook

Facebook and Why the Walled Garden Won

Photo: Photo: Bloomberg.

In watching Facebook engulfed in crisis this week, I thought back to where it all began.

It was 2007. The social network had gathered 750 developers and reporters in San Francisco to prove to the world it wasn’t MySpace. Its larger nemesis was getting buzz for its “widgets”—applets you could install on your MySpace profile to play games. Facebook wanted to do one better.

Get access to exclusive coverage
Read deeply reported stories from the largest newsroom in tech.
Latest Articles
 
The AI Age e-commerce ai
How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses
By Chris Stokel-Walker · May 27, 2023 6:00 AM PDT
Art by Clark Miller
When Andy Wilson’s company received its first successful client referral through ChatGPT, he was shaken to his core. The founder and CEO of Logikcull, a San Francisco–based legal technology company, Wilson “had the exact same reaction to ChatGPT as I had to the internet browser in the early ’90s,” he said. “But this time I knew it would be even bigger than...
Latest Briefs
 
Temu Takes on Heavy Losses to Win U.S. Customers
By Ann Gehan · May 28, 2023
Sam Altman Says OpenAI Will Not Leave Europe
By Aaron Holmes · May 26, 2023
Shopify Nominates Bret Taylor For Board Seat
By Ann Gehan · May 26, 2023
Stay in the know
Receive a summary of the day's top tech news—distilled into one email.
Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Microsoft's Satya Nadella, left, and Peter Lee. Photo by Bloomberg, Microsoft
Exclusive
How Microsoft Swallowed Its Pride to Make a Massive Bet on OpenAI
By Aaron Holmes
Satya Nadella didn’t want to hear it. Last December, Peter Lee, who oversees Microsoft’s sprawling research efforts, was briefing Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, and his deputies about a series of tests Microsoft had conducted of GPT-4, the then-unreleased new artificial intelligence large-language model built by OpenAI.
Art by Clark Miller
The AI Age e-commerce ai
How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses
By Chris Stokel-Walker
When Andy Wilson’s company received its first successful client referral through ChatGPT, he was shaken to his core.
Chris Britt, co-founder and CEO of Chime.
Exclusive startups Finance
Chime’s Slowdown Highlights Limits of Bank Disruptors
By Mark Matousek and Erin Woo
Chime found a way to offer zero-fee banking services without being a bank itself. But that approach is starting to show its limits.
Art by Clark Miller
The Big Read markets Finance
The Master of Destruction Rides Again
By Michelle Celarier
In the spring of 2022, the irascible Wall Street short seller Marc Cohodes was in a particularly foul mood.
Art by Mike Sullivan
startups asia
Venture Capitalists Face Pressure to Divest From China
By Kate Clark
Silicon Valley venture capitalists are coming to terms with a new reality: Their once-prized China investments may be victims of a simmering cold war.
Art by Clark Miller.
Social Studies culture
The Day TikTok Went Dark in India
By Amanda Florian
On June 29, 2020, as thunderstorms swept Mumbai and daily Covid-19 cases in India surged by almost 20,000, millions of people began experiencing a flood of network errors on their mobile devices.