Can AI responses be influenced? The SEO industry is trying

Can AI responses be influenced? The SEO industry is trying

Let’s pretend you work in IT and you’re looking for a new digital service desk platform to help your employees reset passwords or onboard new hires. You use Google’s AI Mode to search for suggestions, which quickly spits out a detailed answer listing companies to explore, their pricing, and what each option is best for. … Read more

Fake or real, the “inside traders” on Polymarket are great engagement bait

Fake or real, the “inside traders” on Polymarket are great engagement bait

In mid-March, conspiracy theories swirled claiming Benjamin Netanyahu had been replaced by an AI clone. Though there was no actual proof that the Israeli Prime Minister had been injured or killed, on X this spurred a flurry of posts promoting prediction markets where people bet on whether he would be out of office by March … Read more

Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me

Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me

Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, who is CEO of Superhuman — that’s the company formerly known as Grammarly, which is still its flagship product. Shishir also used to be the chief product officer at YouTube, and he’s on the board of directors at Spotify. He’s a fascinating guy, and we actually scheduled this interview … Read more

Marc Andreessen is a philosophical zombie

Marc Andreessen is a philosophical zombie

I admit, this is an innovation I did not see coming: Silicon Valley has invented the philosophical zombie from the classic thought experiment “lol how crazy would it be if there were a philosophical zombie.” Until recently, the philosophical zombie was a concept closely associated with Australian philosopher David Chalmers, who defines it as “someone … Read more

Can Paramount break the Warner Bros. curse?

Can Paramount break the Warner Bros. curse?

Today, let’s talk about the big Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. This deal could reshape all of media and entertainment if and when it closes. That’s still an if, which we’ll come back to — right now Paramount head David Ellison is very much acting like he’s over the finish line after outbidding Netflix, which walked … Read more

Oh, you think the government will regulate Kalshi and Polymarket? Wanna bet?

Oh, you think the government will regulate Kalshi and Polymarket? Wanna bet?

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has a problem: It’s not very good at policing insider trading. And insider trading has become a pressing concern for prediction markets. Even Kalshi’s recently publicized fines for insider trading — levied against a politician and an employee of YouTube influencer MrBeast — were effectively self-policing. The exchange says it’s … Read more

Prediction markets want to eat the news

Prediction markets want to eat the news

Substack has updated its partnership with betting platform Polymarket, “introducing native tools that make it easier to share, discuss, and debate prediction market data directly on Substack.” Additionally, Polymarket will effectively pay “a cohort of creators,” including Matt Yglesias, to use its data though the newsletter platform’s pilot sponsorships program. This is just the latest … Read more