In today’s news:

• On this day
• 2 AI Truths and a Lie
• ChatGPT Defamation Leads to OpenAI Lawsuit
• Twitter, Inc. Has Become X Corp.
• NextTech Mergers, Funding, and Acquisitions
• Latest NextTech reads from LXA Stories

This week's NextTech news is the talk of the town.

Ever thought your life was controlled by some sort of gamer hiding out in a dark room, making your life as wacky as possible? Well, you'll be able to understand how these AI feel. 

A group of researchers at Stanford and Google have created a mini RPG-style virtual world where 25 AI-controlled characters live their lives independently. Check out the demo, here.

"Generative agents wake up, cook breakfast, and head to work; artists paint, while authors write; they form opinions, notice each other, and initiate conversations; they remember and reflect on days past as they plan the next day," write the researchers.

The paper, titled Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior (which sounds like an amazing metal album), can be read here. 

🤫 One AI Project and Two Lies

Play along at home. Out of these three wacky AI projects, two are fake, and one is real. So, which of these new AI projects is unreal, and which is ugh, for real?! (Check at the bottom of the newsletter for the reveal!)

Brush Brush Brush

An AI toothbrush is trained for several brushing styles and also comes with a deep learning algorithm that remembers the brushing behaviour of a particular user and adopts its nature.

Floss Floss Floss

Based on previous dental records, AI floss can remind users when to use floss, and how. The floss then learns where food might be hidden in the user's gnashers, based on how they eat.  

Swish Swish Swish

Using age, location, professional status and more, the AI mouthwash tracks how long a person will need to use the mouthwash, and which mouthwash works best for them. The bottle also has a system which beeps when almost empty. 

📰 ChatGPT Defamation Leads to OpenAI Lawsuit

In an unprecedented situation, OpenAI might face a lawsuit over ChatGPT running its mouth.

Basically, an Australian mayor named Brian Hood is accusing the AI chatbot of defamation. ChatGPT is being accused of wrongfully identifying him as a guilty party in a "foreign bribery scandal involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 2000s." 

The thing is this: yes, Brian was involved. But as the whistleblower. 

So, Brian's lawyers sent a "letter of concern" to OpenAI demanding the company fix the error within 28 days, or he's suing. 

"It would potentially be a landmark moment in the sense that it's applying this defamation law to a new area of artificial intelligence and publication in the IT space," James Naughton, a partner at Hood's law firm Gordon Legal, told Reuters.

"He's an elected official, his reputation is central to his role," he continued.

"It makes a difference to him if people in his community are accessing this material."

 Dall.e Prompt: a robot being sentenced in a courtroom, courtroom sketch

📰Twitter, Inc. Has Become X Corp.

Twitter has undergone a serious makeover into (the much more ominously-named) X Corp, according to a recent court filing in California. This unexpected move was spotted in legal documents related to a lawsuit filed by Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, against Twitter and Facebook.

Elon Musk who bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, has been dreaming of creating a super app called "X, the everything app." It's supposed to be like WeChatn- a one-stop shop for messaging, payments, food delivery, ridesharing, and anything else you can think of. Musk is a big fan of WeChat, but let's be real, replicating its success outside of China is a tall order.

The X Corp name is a nod to Musk's PayPal roots with X.com, his former financial services startup. While it's unclear if the new name will help Musk's super app plans come to fruition, we do know he loves vertical integration, just like how Tesla has more subsidiaries than your crazy uncle has conspiracy theories.

So, here's hoping Musk's super app plans don't crash and burn like a SpaceX rocket, but at least we can all agree that X Corp is a way cooler name than Twitter, Inc. I mean, if he’s planning on a looming skyscraper, evil drones, and wearing a cape 24/7. 

Dall.e prompt: twitter bird flying away, geometric art

This Week in Numbers 

$30,000

Bitcoin's price broke through the psychological threshold of $30,000 for the first time since June.

$1B

Per data pulled from Dune, the cumulative volume for borrowing against NFTs has just hit $1 billion.

$750M

How much Ethereum users paid in fees over the last 6 months 
That’s more than double what Ethereum’s closest competitor TRON generated ($282M).

💰Graph Of The Week

Twitter has the largest gender gap of any social platform. That gap is only getting wider in 2023. In 2022, 56.4% of Twitter users identified as male and 43.6% identified as female — a much closer ratio.

📖 The State of B2B Digital Event Experience

This report discusses the State of B2B Digital Event Experience, highlighting the growing role of virtual events in B2B marketing.

Through intense research, the eBook provides insights into the current state of the industry, such as 44% of CMOs see virtual events and webinars as their most important demand generation tactic, and most CMOs expect to do the same or even more virtual events in the coming 12 months.

Get your copy here!

✍️ NextTech Mergers, Funding, and Acquisitions

Who's making dough, who's laying low, and who's in a constant state of "Oh, God, no"? It's time to find out, with LXA's NextTech News Round. 

🗣️ Final Word

Some strange stories today, especially for you dear reader. 

But weird as they are, they're also useful in seeing where we are with AI. The tiny town shows an instance of using the tech for anthropological or sociological research.

Plus, the defamation suit shows the ability of AI to spread dangerous information. Remember, some people take everything AI says to be true, which tends to go hand-in-hand with ChatGPT's self-confident delivery. 

Basically, we're getting a view of the potential usages, and consequences, of AI adoption this week. Pretty cool. 

- Sarah O.

🤫 One AI Project and Two Lie Reveal

Brush your teeth twice a day, or the robot will know about it. The toothbrush AI is real!

✒️ The Latest NextTech Reads from LXA