Casey Newton

@caseynewton.bsky.social

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Email salesman at Platformer.news and podcast co-host at Hard Fork.

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Casey Newton·Jul 29

The number of people who write to me telling me they have made an incredible discovery using ChatGPT, or proved that it is conscious, is now roughly one per day. I wish there were a resource I could send these folks to gently try to steer them away from the brink

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Casey Newton·Aug 25

Regarding the liberal fantasy of saving X by posting on it more — @pbump.com has it exactly right www.pbump.net/o/the-power-...

Nor was it compelling. The central argument was that Twitter — which is no longer the Twitter of five or ten years ago both literally and figuratively — is an important element of the national conversation and that leaving it to the fringe-right and to trolls was ceding important terrain. But this idea that others could swoop in and collectively shift the conversation, beyond imposing an odd job requirement on all of us, misunderstands the nature of the change from Twitter to X. It is owned and directed by a far-right actor who bought it specifically to elevate and amplify right-wing messaging. You might as well argue that people should join the Republican Party in order to redirect it to less extreme terrain; that ship sailed a long time ago and you’re going to encounter some systemic obstacles that are beyond your persuasive powers.

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Casey Newton·Aug 29

A year ago today, Trump threatened to jail Zuckerberg for the rest of his life. Today, Trump is helping Meta win regulatory battles around the world. I wrote about everything that Zuckerberg has gotten from Trump 2.0 so far: www.platformer.news/trump-zucker...

February

Trump issued a memo threatening to retaliate against countries that impose digital service taxes or heavy fines on "cutting-edge American technology companies." "American businesses will no longer prop up failed foreign economies through extortive fines and taxes," he wrote.

The memo had its intended effect. India dropped its tax on digital ads in March. New Zealand dropped its digital services tax in May. Canada, which had imposed a 3 percent tax on Meta and other tech giants, rescinded its tax in June as part of trade negotiations with the United States. Italy may follow.

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Latest posts

Casey Newton·2h

A classic non-denial denial

Casey Newton·4h

ANOTHER crazy allegation: OpenAI tricked one of Apple's partners into showing OpenAI its secret metal-finishing process, telling them that Apple had given them its permission (lol)

81. Former Apple executives at OpenAI including Mr. Tan have confidential knowledge
of Apple’s use restrictions and confidentiality arrangement with this partner. Despite this, OpenAI,
on its own or with or through its partner io, used, without authorization, Apple’s proprietary and
confidential metal-finishing processes, having the partner perform them for OpenAI’s benefit, and in
so doing, obtained products produced by exploiting misappropriated trade secrets. OpenAI and its
cohorts misled the partner to believe they had Apple’s permission to have the partner carry out the
confidential metal-finishing technique for OpenAI’s benefit.

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Casey Newton·4h

Do you know how mad Apple has to be to put this in a legal document about one of its partners

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Casey Newton·5h

This story is bonkers. Alleges that OpenAI told job candidates to steal unreleased product components and BRING THEM TO JOB INTERVIEWS. Assuming it’s true — Did Altman know? Did Jony Ive?

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Casey Newton·1d

Fwiw I have found myself subscribing to even more journalism and newsletters largely in the belief that simply reading long text documents now gives you a simple and definitive advantage in the world

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Casey Newton·1d

Wrote about OpenAI's big launch — and bigger departure www.platformer.news/openai-gpt-5...

I take Simo at her word that the decision to step down was forced by her health. (And I hope she feels better soon.) At the same time, I have long wondered how well Simo and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were getting along. During her brief tenure, Simo pushed OpenAI to cut down on what she called its “side quests,” pushing it to focus on the enterprise use cases that had turned rival Anthropic into a juggernaut seemingly overnight. Altman, on the other hand, has long seemed fond of side quests like Sora and Atlas; ChatGPT itself was arguably one of them.

OpenAI said in April that “Sam and Fidji are aligned on our priorities.” But now it’s fully Altman’s company again, and among the things I’ll be watching most closely is whether OpenAI stays in its current mode of relative focus or whether it starts chasing shiny objects once again. (And for what it’s worth, Simo couldn’t always resist a strange new project, either: the nonsensical $200 million acquisition of tech-news show TBPN was reportedly her idea.)

Casey Newton·1d

Wow: www.wsj.com/tech/openai-...

Casey Newton·1d

Bun creator says he rewrote Bun from Zig to Rust.

Casey Newton·3d

I wrote about using Raycast's new Glaze app to make a superhero-themed to-do app, and other adventures in next-generation vibe coding www.platformer.news/glaze-app-ra...

Is any of this remotely necessary? Of course not. Does it represent a copyright violation and an indictment of the safety guardrails of the LLM provider I am using to generate these images? Almost certainly.

In the meantime, though, my little app has succeeded where no previous to-do app has to date: making my chores fun. For me. Until recently, software development was too expensive to pursue something so stupid. Not anymore!

Casey Newton·4d

wow the new logo sucks

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