Priyaa

Building graphic design AI models that actually listen to you. Founder @world_lica. Fellow @southpkcommons. Ex-@waymo, @snapchat, @microsoft. Lurking on X.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

Much of today’s AI-generated graphic designs look like slop because there is a lack of high-quality, open datasets. This space is a cluster of walled gardens (@figma , @canva , @Adobe ). We’ve built one of the largest graphic design dataset, 1.5 million compositions spanning several categories. LICA is an order of magnitude larger than existing datasets and enables tasks like layer-aware inpainting, structured layout generation, and temporally-aware generative modeling. @huggingface link below.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@antoniogm it is 1000000x better than MUNI/BART 😶

[Priyaa @pritopian]

What's the story behind VFS monopolizing visa services? they are the absolute worst! the website does not work half the time. shocking that every government will hand them contracts over and over. why haven't they been disrupted?

[Backpacking Daku @outofofficedaku]

Here are the details:

Key Points from the Articles on VFS Global Visa Operations

- European Union inspection reports (2020–2025) from 20 member states identified multiple operational lapses at VFS Global visa application centres, particularly in India (New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, and Jalandhar).

- Personal and biometric data were mishandled, including storage on unencrypted CDs, transmission via open email, and failure to destroy records older than the stipulated period, resulting in non-compliance with GDPR data-protection requirements.

- Communication regarding optional value-added services (such as premium lounges, courier delivery, and extended hours) was deemed misleading, with fees not clearly presented as non-mandatory and unrelated to visa approval.

- Additional irregularities included visa shopping by agents, sale of fake appointments and documents, high no-show rates, and improper retention of passports.

- A separate investigative report characterises VFS Global as a “visa empire” that outsources visa processing for 71 governments, deriving significant revenue growth—profits quadrupled from 2017 to 2024—primarily from high-margin optional services (approximately 30 % of total revenue).

- Staff sales incentives and aggressive upselling practices have been linked to pressure on applicants, especially from countries with weaker passports, raising concerns about profiteering and the privatisation of border-control functions.

- VFS Global has rejected allegations of improper conduct, stating that its operations are subject to rigorous governmental oversight and that remedial measures have been implemented where required.

Statement of VFS: https://t.co/DflnvW99Bs

Source:
https://t.co/mdsrsoDGvp

https://t.co/IGDHtt7cpj

CO-PUBLICATIONS:

The Indian Express: https://t.co/TKyxM4T1lT
The Indian Express: https://t.co/mdsrsoDGvp
The Indian Express: https://t.co/L24Z6bf1Zi
News24: https://t.co/wpnXmNpPSL
Politico: https://t.co/VsjtWCHZQ7
Kisa Dalga: https://t.co/3TNQptj8aS

[Priyaa @pritopian]

a lot of folks are using Claude credits at work for personal projects too 😂

[Techmeme @Techmeme]

Sources: Amazon has shut down an internal leaderboard that tracked employees' use of AI tools after workers tried to boost their scores with needless tasks (@rafeuddin_ / Financial Times)

(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@vamsibatchuk hope the flight + move is seamless and not super stressful for him! he is adorable.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

Harvey should/will become an AI-native law firm soon. Forward Deployed Lawyers!

[Financial Times @FT]

Kirkland & Ellis to spend $500mn building its own AI technology https://t.co/vGctyXTMRr

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@ashebytes never heard of anyone using incense papers this way but it makes a tonn of sense!

[Priyaa @pritopian]

What even qualifies as "made by AI"? what if you take footage from your camera roll and add an AI generated sticker in one of the frames? this is futile because in the future everything will be made/edited by AI. we’re probably better off labeling camera shot footage instead, like how Kodak used to imprint timestamps on photos. we may have to bring that back.

[The Hollywood Reporter @THR]

YouTube Is Making AI Labels More Prominent on Videos https://t.co/9Aqepd0XH4

[Priyaa @pritopian]

sorry this looks like nissan leaf and lucid had a baby 😭

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

Ferrari has just officially unveiled its first ever all-electric car, called the Ferrari Luce.

• Starting price: $640,000
• Interior co-designed with Apple's former head of design, Jony Ive
• Range: 280 miles (expected EPA)
• Peak charging speed: 350kW
• 122 kWh battery
• 1,050 horsepower
• 0-60mph: 2.4s
• 800v
• Four-door four-seater
• Four electric motors
• OLED screens
• Weight: 4,982 lbs
• Front motors spin to 30,000 rpm, rears hit 25,500 rpm
• Car uses an accelerometer to capture real vibrations from the electric motors & rear chassis. An algorithm filters out unpleasant frequencies and amplifies only the more “musical” sounds. This can be heard inside and outside the car.
• Paddle shifter on steering wheel changes how aggressively torque is delivered, with five different levels
• The trunk has 21.1 cubic feet of space, the largest luggage capacity the company has ever offered
• 197.6 inches long, about as long as a Tesla Model S

U.S. deliveries start in Q2 2027. More photos in the thread below:

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@seekingyaga @dwarkesh_sp Yes @dwarkesh_sp make it happen!

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

They did, it was called America

[Priyaa @pritopian]

sorry to report that devil wears prada 2 was mid.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

every single day.

[Joanne Jang @joannejang]

does anyone else type "co" to get to codex but then remember you have to type chatgpt instead

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@amrevveejnas Pushing smart and talented people who legally immigrated here and invested in the growth of America into a state of permanent disarray is a dumb move.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

what is the alternative here? you try to renew your O1 forever (hope it gets renewed) and live in limbo?

[Daily Caller @DailyCaller]

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Closes Loophole Letting Migrants Stay In US While Awaiting Green Cards: 'We're returning to the original intent of the law' https://t.co/zZyyMaZBZo

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@amrevveejnas i am not on a visa.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@ShashankDe5535 i don't know, i don't work there.

[Priyaa @pritopian]

how many normies are anti-AI because they are force fed copilot and that is the only AI exposure they have? I wonder what the reactions would be like if they are given the latest models from Ant or open AI.

[Joe Weisenthal @TheStalwart]

This was an amazing and incredibly damning experiment using Microsoft Copilot, by @adamjkucharski https://t.co/r3WvNMF9jD

[Priyaa @pritopian]

You can only reserve a table for two or more. Justice for people who have to dine alone 🤷‍♀️

[Priyaa @pritopian]

@benhylak same at Microsoft. if you look at the toolbar in any office product, you can trace it to a promo within the team. https://t.co/dYdy165lfH

[Priyaa @pritopian]

At Microsoft, for the PMs there was a performance review rubric for each level. To get promoted to the next level, they had laid out the scope of work and collaboration you must have driven to justify your readiness to get to that level. If you look at the toolbar in Word/Excel/PPT, you can clearly see this performance review framework play out. It is a hot mess of buttons, with no clear alignment or thinking from first principles, keeping the customer at the center of product design. Because the higher you need to climb, you’re rewarded for “creating a new product” and “driving new collaborations.” More often than not, it’s easier to add new buttons and call it a day, as larger holistic improvements involve a lot of dependencies with other teams. And that has a direct impact on your shipping timelines. It does not matter if the customers would likely benefit from improvements to the current flows or rethinking them. The incentive structure in big tech really rewards the behavior of empire building with complete disregard for customer value. There’s a lot of attribution to performative plays and vanity metrics. And this is quite evident in the kind of products millions have to deal with, but such empires are also hard to topple overnight. But slowly and then suddenly, a small and determined startup eventually does.