The best, the worst, and the most surprising findings from 584 Netflix movies. — What’s a Netflix Original? movie Movies that had their original production commissioned by Netflix. They include documentaries, comedies, one-off specials, and a whole load of regional programming. How many movies are there? I’ve got 584 in my data set, so let’s say 584. The first went live in December 2014…

When you survive a few waves of tech disruption, you learn a thing or two. Well, maybe just one thing: the hype rarely translates into real, lasting change. The problem is not the technology itself — except for crypto, which continues to look like a scam designed by a teenage…

Why do we think “quite good” is good enough? — “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” — Flannery O’Connor Reader, I changed the title of this post soon after I started writing it. Original title: On Writing in The Age of Generative AI. Writers are “vain, selfish, and lazy”, as Orwell…

It’s always fun to watch a future case study unfold in real-time, isn’t it? Well, maybe not fun, but you know what I mean. Meta’s Chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun, has said that “In terms of underlying techniques, ChatGPT is not particularly innovative.” …

Did you know that over 350 griffon vultures have died in Spain in the last decade because they flew into wind turbines? Vultures are one of the very few species on our planet with better eyesight than humans. And yet, they fly into those giant white monstrosities. Why? Well, they…

As you’ll know by now, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the ability to generate new, original content based on a given prompt. We have all had our fun with DALL-E and ChatGPT, haven’t we? In this article, we will do something a little different. Intrigued by this great article in…

For Christmas. In Camden. With my sister. — My name is Clark Boyd. I am 35 years old and I live in London. My favourite places in the city are Kew Gardens and the Royal Opera House. I drink sherry and fancy teas; I enjoy poetry and ballet; I am a keen cook. I’m also autistic. My genteel…

You know my thoughts on predictions, right? I only like the ones I get right. In 2022, it was tricky to be accurate. People are capricious, you see, and we are ruled by unseen forces. As we amble optimistically into 2023, I’ll stick with my tried and trusted approach. …

Tracking, Retail Media, and a Pivotal Paper from 2019. — 1: In 2019, a group of economists published an article that got people talking — briefly. In reality, it should have had us all talking for a lot longer. The authors had all worked on digital advertising systems for the likes of Google, Yahoo!, and eBay. The crux of their argument was that: “The benchmarks that advertising companies use — intended to measure the number of…