mat honan ☀️

Editor in chief @techreview. Formerly BuzzFeed News, formerly WIRED. Pro-California. Hella Frisco. Not super active on this site. Signal me: @mat.911

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

Taking a Twitter break

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

Read @antonioregalado on the backstory of @Conception

https://t.co/BosoHo07f9

[Matt Krisiloff @mattkrisiloff]

I’m so excited to share this update on @Conception –

We’ve generated the first early human eggs derived from stem cells.

This is a big deal -- the potential to redefine fertility is real.

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

@mcuban I think it’s more complicated- it can both be about data centers themselves (would you want one next to you?) and also a way to stand in front of the tech bus or drop a cone on a Waymo as a small act of resistance against big forces beyond your control

https://t.co/NQkew68DfF

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

https://t.co/yR1IWAeh2z

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

So sad to see the news about @om. As he was with so many other people, he was so good to me. Generous. Kind. Helpful. Always willing to chat, offer advice - and make a brutally funny point. What an incredible human. Hope there’s is a cigar waiting somewhere for you buddy

[Tim Miller @Timodc]

“Michelle Obama is a man” shouted on the White House lawn in a ring sponsored by Bud Light only available on Larry Ellison’s Paramount Plus. What a way to celebrate America 250 and the twilight of liberal democracy.

[Jorge Ribas @jribas]

The newspaper laid off my entire video department of award-winning journalists so @PostOpinions could make the smarmiest, shittiest engagement slop imaginable.

[Grace Huckins @grace_huckins]

The Android XR sunglasses are pretty cute. I'm surprised they went with such a feminine design, especially given how much more skeptical of AI women seem to be in general.

[Grace Huckins @grace_huckins]

So this is actually a pretty positive development re: online trust and misinformation.

[Grace Huckins @grace_huckins]

One development I really did find interesting: OpenAI, Eleven Labs, and others are taking up Google's SynthID—its watermark technology for AI-generated content. SynthID will only be effective if it's widely adopted; otherwise, people will just switch to other tools to avoid it.

[Grace Huckins @grace_huckins]

I'm @ Google I/O in sunny Mountain View today, and I'll be sharing my thoughts here throughout the day. We're just over halfway through the keynote now, and one thing is already pretty obvious—Google isn't coming for Anthropic and OpenAI's shared agentic coding crown anytime soon

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

@techreview "What was the technology like at that point?" Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asks Sutskever, in a rare interjection, showing genuine curiosity.

Comparing AI in 2018 to now, "it was like the difference between an ant and a cat," says Sutskever. "It's a big difference."

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

Ilya Sutskever and the rest of the OpenAI board briefly fired Sam Altman as CEO in 2023. “This kind of environment, where the executives [don’t] exactly have the correct information, makes the environment not conducive to attaining any difficult, grand goal,” such as “safe AGI," says Sutskever, reflecting on the event. He thought about firing Altman for a year before doing so.

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

Day 9 of Musk v. Altman trial in federal court in Oakland, California. Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI chief scientist, and Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, will testify.

I'm a reporter (and lawyer) at @techreview

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

When asked if Sam Altman was not candid with her by fall of 2023, Mira Murati takes a long pause, sighs, and says, "Not always."

“I had an incredibly hard job to do in an organization that was very complex, and I was asking Sam to lead and lead with clarity," she says.

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

I also wrote this piece, a while ago now, on data centers. And it is also a thing that I hope readddddddds like something a human being wrote. And moreover it's just gotten to be more true and more true and more true.

https://t.co/NQkew69b5d

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

Look, look, look, I'm sorry. Look. I don't do the best job of promoting my own work. So, here I am. Posting.

[mat honan ☀️ @mat]

I wrote this piece on AI Malaise. And I think it's good! Or maybe not. Maybe you will hate it, like licorice. But it's distinctly un-AI. (I hope.)

https://t.co/FysHDtMA4E

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

Shivon Zilis describes her complicated relationship with Elon Musk. Before 2020, "there had been kind of a one-off at the offsite," she says, describing it as romantic. “Then we were friends and eventually colleagues,” she says.

Later, when she wanted to be a mom, "Elon had made the offer around that time [to be a sperm donor] … and I accepted," she says.

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

@techreview Stuart Russell testifies during cross-examination that he's getting paid $235,000 by Elon Musk to testify about AI safety in this trial. He says that will make up 20% of his annual income.

[Michelle Kim @michelletomkim]

Day 5 of Musk v. Altman trial in federal court in Oakland, California. Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at UC Berkeley, will testify about AI safety. OpenAI president Greg Brockman will also testify.

I'm a journalist (and lawyer) reporting on the trial for @techreview.