Mentioned in today’s edition: stablecoins, Starlink, Australia's privacy principles, Squarespace, ACCC and Microslop. Plus, deals on Google Pixel Watches, Logitech racing wheels and Optus prepaid plans.

The News

ChatGPT getting ads is an admission that we aren't getting an AI super intelligence any time soon

After Sam Altman once declared advertising as "a last resort", OpenAI has now confirmed that ChatGPT will soon get ads (Mashable). The company posted a blog explaining how it'll introduce advertising into its free and cheap tier subscriptions. TL;DR: it'll be like Facebook: advertisements inserted into ChatGPT conversations, targeted but advertisers can't see actual conversation contents, and the chatbot's answers won't be influenced by ads. 

The Sizzle: Beyond the normal gripes about ads, I think this signals an important change in OpenAI (and the official end of the artificial general intelligence hype). This is OpenAI desperately trying to find any money and an admission that, no, most 800m ChatGPT users aren't about to subscribe. In the long-term, this is an acknowledgement that OpenAI doesn't think it's just around the corner from building digital god. Because, if you were just about to unleash Skynet, why would you waste time serving Squarespace or Koala mattresses?

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Has crypto buttoned up or doubled down? ¿Por qué no los dos?

One of the big questions about the future of the crypto industry is whether it would professionalise and become a normal part of the financial system, or continue to be the Wild Wild West of money. On one hand, Chainalysis estimated that $25 billion was lost to crypto scams in 2025 (Cyber Daily). Meanwhile, 53% of new crypto tokens launched since 2021 — and 86% last year (!) — are dormant (CoinDesk). On the other hand, about $49 TRILLION was exchanged in stablecoins last year (Bloomberg, $) and Bitcoin ETFs are getting more popular (Bloomberg, $). So, uh, maybe the answer to the opening question is, both? 

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Australians have the right to access their personal data, but organisations aren't too friendly about it

Late last year, I wrote about how an ex-charity sector data scientist had investigated how they used third party commercial data profiling services and found out that most do, but few clearly tell their supporters about it (Crikey). She used a little-known right under Australia's privacy principles that allows any person to ask any organisation for their personal data. Unsurprisingly, she found that the charities generally were not very forthcoming, sometimes denied they had data (only to later say they had it) and treated her with a lot of hostility (Crikey, $)

Here's some Sizzle homework: go email the privacy officer of any business or organisation that you deal with regularly, like a bank, telco, etc and ask them for all the information they have about you (cite APP12). Then, tell me what you find out. I'm going to do a few today!

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Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of World:

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Oh, Also

Who does the online bushfire mapping?

I'd never really thought about how the online bushfire mapping sausage is made before I read this nice piece from ABC News.

Turns out satellite mapping is usually later in the process, and that it usually begins with ground observers with GPS walking around fires (now that's a job I'm not envious of), as well as infrared scans and footage taken by aircraft. This is ingested by people who manually map the fire out. Pretty cool! 

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Bargains

Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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