Hey Sizzlers, I had the great pleasure of finally meeting the Sizzle father in the flesh over the weekend. Highly recommend it AA+++ experience.

The News

Microsoft SharePoint security flaw is a massive problem that still isn’t fixed

Government agencies, telcos and universities are among the victims of a major security flaw in Microsoft server software that is still yet to be patched (Washington Post, gift link). Australia is among the countries whose cyber agencies have warned about a zero-day exploit affecting local Microsoft SharePoint servers (Cyber dot gov dot au). Researchers say they’re finding evidence that dozens of servers have already been attacked using this exploit (Research Eye Security).

The Sizzle: This is bad. It’s so bad that experts are literally recommending unplugging some servers in some circumstances because attacks are happening right now (Brian Krebs). My condolences to those of you who are dealing with this right now.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Stop talking about AI as if it is a living, thinking thing

Over the weekend, another story of delusions fuelled by an AI chatbot was published (WSJ, gift link). A key part of the article is a moment where ChatGPT ‘told’ the mother of the affected person that it had encouraged a manic episode in her son.

The Sizzle: The WSJ story highlights the mum asking ChatGPT about her son’s bizarre conversations and how it “admit[ted]” stoking his delusions. Except it didn’t. ChatGPT doesn’t think, it doesn’t know, it doesn’t have any insight into itself because it is just a very advanced predictive text machine. Ironically, the WSJ story is reinforcing the problematic, delusional thinking that its subject is displaying. So when writing about stories like how a big funder of OpenAI seems to be going through ChatGPT-related psychotic break eerily similar to a crowdsourced sci-fi fiction project (Futurism) or how a software developer says his AI coding agent went ‘rogue’ and deleted his production database (X dot com), we have to be careful not to anthropomorphise these tools if we want people to have any hope of understanding them.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Qantas admits ChatGPT used for CEO email

Qantas confirmed that ChatGPT was used to create its CEO’s email to 5.7 million customers affected by its breach (Sizzle article). Last week, a previous Sizzle edition covered how metadata of an image used in airline’s apology showed that the OpenAI AI chatbot was used. Someone from the company confirmed by phone that ChatGPT had been used — but said it was only used for formatting and not the text.

The Sizzle: My sense is that such an important email for Qantas would have been reviewed so many times by real people that there’s pretty much zero chance that ChatGPT would have played a big role in its language. Still, it was fun to have a peekinto how AI is already being used to shape how Australian companies are talking to us.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

I regret to inform you that the cheating Coldplay CEO is now an NFT and a vibe-coded game

Here’s a sentence that’s never been written in human history before this week: the cheating CEO caught canoodling at a Coldplay concert by a kiss cam is now a video game (Fortune). And, even worse, an NFT (X).

The lifecycle of every online viral moment used to be: something blows up online, the person cashes in with a brand deal, launches a podcast, and then eventually gets milkshake ducked (SMH, $). Now, we can add “ends up vibecoded into something” as one of the new indignities of becoming a meme.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.