Business, Spoken

For all their differences, big tech companies agree on where we’re heading: into a future dominated by smart machines. Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple all say that every aspect of our lives will soon be transformed by artificial intelligence and machine learning, through innovations such as self-driving cars and facial recognition. Yet the people whose work underpins that vision don’t much resemble the society their inventions are supposed to transform. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Earlier this year, the executors of #DeleteFacebook engaged in a form of decentralized group therapy. Catharsis came in a zip file downloaded before deletion, containing the data you shared with Facebook—your friends, your photos, your posts—and with it, the data Facebook shared about you: the ads you clicked, the list of businesses that know where you live and where else you shop. A portrait of the modern digital identity—or, at least, part of it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Apple's programming language Swift and the Android developer favorite Kotlin are two of the fastest growing languages of all time. But that growth might be starting to slow according to a new report. The analyst firm RedMonk has tracked programmers' interest in various programming languages since 2011. During that time, Swift and Kotlin grew faster than any other language the firm tracked, including Google's Go and Mozilla's Rust. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A merger that would have given a conservative broadcasting company access to 73 percent of US households is now officially dead. Today, the Tribune Media Company announced that it has terminated its $3.9 billion merger agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group, and is now suing Sinclair for $1 billion for breach of contract. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Earlier this year, Amazon successfully patented an “ultrasonic tracker of a worker’s hands to monitor performance of assigned tasks.” Eerie, yes, but far from the only creative method of employee surveillance. Upwork watches freelancers through their webcams, and a UK railway company recently equipped workers with a wearable that measures their energy levels. By one study’s estimate, 94percent of organizations currently monitor workers in some way. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Patreon, the membership platform that helps online creators make a living, announced Wednesday that it has acquired Memberful, another membership service that caters to larger creators including Gimlet Media and Stratechery. Though they operate in the same, growing field, Memberful and Patreon don't consider themselves direct competitors, and Patreon says that for now, the Memberful platform will remain independent. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Monday, MoviePass announced yet another entirely new model for subscribers. After announcing that it would be raising prices and limiting options for users of its all-you-can-eat movie theater subscription service, they reversed course. Now, users will be able to enjoy three movies per month, with limited restrictions on releases, for the same $9.95 that previously got them all of the movies they wanted to see. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When a political ad goes viral on Facebook, conventional wisdom holds that it was a success. After all, the Golden Rule of advertising in the digital age is simple: Engagement is good. It’s good for Facebook, too. The more time users spend watching, commenting, clicking, and sharing on its platform, the more money the company makes. Little wonder, then, that Facebook allows advertisers to test which ads get the most engagement with a single click. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Once upon a time, a bot deep in a game of tic-tac-toe figured out that making improbable moves caused its bot opponent to crash. Smart. Also sassy. Moments when experimental bots go rogue—some would call it cheating—are not typically celebrated in scientific papers or press releases. Most AI researchers strive to avoid them, but a select few document and study these bugs in the hopes of revealing the roots of algorithmic impishness. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The email blast from the head of my son and daughter’s theater group relayed a frantic plea: “We need to raise $16,000 before the upcoming spring performances,” Anya Wallach, the executive director of Random Farms Kids’ Theater, in Westchester, New York, wrote in late May. If the money didn’t materialize in time, she warned, there could be a serious problem with the shows: nobody would hear the actors. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices