#Tech Startup Conferences
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Tech Startup Conferences in Delhi
Explore powerful insights, brand showcases, and growth strategies at premier Tech Startups Events in Delhi—India’s hub for the thriving direct-to-consumer ecosystem. Call 98993 35322 to learn more!

#bharat dtoc meetup events#business#startup events in india#entrepreneur events#smb events#business networking events#start manage expand series events#dtoc#events sponsers#dto c#Tech Startup Conferences#Tech Startup Conferences in Delhi#Delhi Tech Startup
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Next week, we at KeMor will be showcasing our Psycle app—focused on mental health—at Web Summit Vancouver. Wish us luck!

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Achieve 100% Growth with Top Crypto PR Tactics

In the dynamic realm of cryptocurrency, effective PR strategies are crucial for startup success. Learn how targeted Crypto PR can propel your project to new heights.
Navigating the competitive landscape of blockchain and cryptocurrency requires a strategic approach to public relations. Crypto PR focuses on enhancing and managing your startup’s reputation through a variety of tactics. Central to this approach is crafting a compelling brand story that resonates with your audience and clearly communicates your startup’s mission, values, and achievements. This narrative not only sets you apart from competitors but also builds a strong connection with investors and partners.
Community engagement is a critical element of successful Crypto PR. By maintaining regular communication, hosting interactive events, and actively responding to feedback, you can build a dedicated and engaged community around your project. Establishing relationships with key influencers in the crypto space and participating in industry events further amplifies your startup’s reach and credibility. These efforts help in attracting investor interest and increasing your project’s visibility.
To maximize the impact of your PR efforts, it’s essential to measure and analyze performance metrics. Tracking media coverage, social media engagement, and community growth provides valuable insights that help in refining your strategies. By continuously adapting and optimizing your approach, you can ensure long-term success and significant growth for your blockchain startup.
Partner with Intelisync to implement innovative Crypto PR strategies tailored to your blockchain startup. Contact us to explore how our expertise can accelerate your growth and enhance your Learn more...
#7 Crypto PR Strategies#7 Crypto PR Strategies to Boost business#7 Crypto PR Strategies to Boost Startup#7 Crypto PR Strategies to Boost Startup Growth 100% in 2024#Best Top 7 Crypto PR tactics#Best Top 7 Crypto PR tactics for tech startups#building a Strong Community Engagement#conference#Create Effective Press Content#Crypto#Crypto PR#Crypto PR Strategies to Boost Startup#Establishing connections with media and cryptocurrency influencers#How can Intelisync help blockchain startups with their PR strategies?#How do I choose a reliable public relations firm?#How is Crypto PR Different From Traditional PR?#or Web3 Project?#Participate in Events#PR Strategies to Boost Startup Growth#Public Relations Important for Your Blockchain#Use Social Media and create Video Content#What is Crypto PR?#Why are PR strategies important for blockchain and crypto startups?#Why Is Public Relations Important#Why Is Public Relations Important for Your Blockchain#Write an Engaging Brand Story#intelisync web3 marketing service inteliysnc web3 marketing agency intelisync growth marketing
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Join attendees from 130+ countries, industry-leading speakers, next-gen startups, top investors, global partners, and journalists at the Collision Event.
And yes, we'll be there too! Meet us there!
June 17-20, 2024 | Enercare Centre, Toronto
#collision conf#networking#innovation#global tech#collision 2024#tech conference#toronto tech#startup community#tech innovation#collision toronto#tech summit#future of tech
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✨PART OF FORTUNE IN SIGNS AND HOUSES SERIES: 6TH HOUSE✨
Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion
ARIES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Aries and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via fitness training, personal training, firefighting, law enforcement, emergency healthcare services, competitive sports, trading, stockbroking, automotive repair, mechanics, tech startups. You feel abundant when you come up with new, fresh ideas.
TAURUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Taurus and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via offering a service connected with pet sitting, tutoring or helping people to organise their kitchen, fridge, storage. You may also clean offices or make work environment more beautiful (for example putting on pictures, cleaning the computer). You feel the most abundant when you are stable on a daily basis and know what to expect from your daily schedule and when your work ethic, work relations are stable and grounded.
GEMINI PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Gemini and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via freelance journalism, you can write for newspapers, magazines, online publications. You can have abundance via starting a podcast or YouTube channel. You may offer translation, interpretation or language teaching services if you are multilingual. You feel abundant when you organise a networking event or a conference even. You could also blog about your profession or teach people about what is it that your job entails.
CANCER PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Cancer and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via blogging about topics related to home, family and well-being. You may start a blog or write for publications that focus on these areas. You would be an excellent planner! Planning and organising family-oriented events, such as weddings, birthday parties or even community gatherings in your local town. You could also offer pet sitting, dog walking or even start a pet grooming service.
LEO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Leo and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via voice acting or doing voice-over work for commercials, animations or audiobooks. You will find fulfilment, joy, success and wealth in activities that promote mental and physical wellness. You might make organic make up or creams. You feel the most abundant when you incorporate hobbies, interests and passion into your daily life. You could also be a health advocate.
VIRGO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via starting your own online store selling products related to your interests connected to books, tech gadgets or dietetics/nutrition. You can set up a shop on Shopify or Etsy. You experience wealth by providing consulting services in your area of expertise. You may be a travel blogger or write travel articles, but more so on a local level, maybe also connected with short-distance travel.
LIBRA PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Libra and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via providing recipes for lunches for working people, like easy DIY ideas. You may also create meal plans for school children. You can create wealth by selling prints, stock photos or offering photography services.
SCORPIO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Scorpio and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via working in alternative medicine or wellness, becoming a financial advisor or running your own cleaning business or provide services for neighbours or in your local town. You can offer cleaning or yard work services to neighbours or in your local community.
SAGITTARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Sagittarius and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via working in non-profits, via wellness coaching, physical therapy, working in educational institutions, hospitality industry, tour guiding, working for airlines, travel blogging, working in media, especially related to educational content, travel, running a small business that involves sharing knowledge or providing specialized services.
CAPRICORN PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Capricorn and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via farming, gardening, manual labor and agriculture, management, administration, working with your hands, project management, quality control and research. You definitely need to ask for a promotion.
AQUARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Aquarius and Virgo Sun people in your life. You could make money via information technology, software development, working with cutting-edge technologies, via astronomy or astrology, via social enterprise, digital marketing, advocacy work, activism and community organizing, via renewable energy, sustainable development or green technologies.
PISCES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 6TH HOUSE
You feel the most abundant when you have Pisces and Virgo Sun people in your life. You make money via tarot, healing, holistic medicine, work with elderly people or at a hotel. You could find success in making jewellery, specializing in anklets. You feel acquire wealth through counselling, psychotherapy, psychology, nursing, holistic therapies (like reiki or acupuncture), teaching meditation, drama/music therapy or dance/movement therapy, caregiving, hospice work, starting a creative arts studio, a holistic wellness center or socially conscious business.
Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion
#astrology#astroismypassion#astro notes#astroblr#astro community#astro note#astro observations#natal chart#astrology blog#chart reading#part of fortune in the 6th house#astrology reading#pof in the 6th house#aries part of fortune in the 6th house#taurus part of fortune in the 6th house#cancer part of fortune in the 6th house#leo part of fortune in the 6th house#libra part of fortune in the 6th house#sagittarius part of fortune in the 6th house#virgo part of fortune in the 6th house#capricorn part of fortune#capricorn part of fortune in the 6th house#pisces part of fortune#aquarius part of fortune#aquarius pof#pisces pof#capricorn pof#astro observation#astrology observations#birth chart
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Tech Moguls Want to Build a Crypto Paradise on a Native American Reservation And hope to gobble up some land near you.
Early last year, a group of entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts from around the world gathered inside a newly built dome on the Honduran island of Roatán to grapple with a problem: For thought leaders who want to move fast and break things, what can be done about laws that get in the way? The conference, sponsored by the Salt Lake City–based Startup Societies Foundation, was being put on in Vitalia, a longevity-themed “pop-up city” that caters to American medical tourists sidestepping cumbersome FDA regulations. Its motto: “We’re here to make death optional.” Vitalia was in turn located in Próspera, a semiautonomous city on Roatán. Imagine a nesting doll, a city within a city within a city—all on a Caribbean isle.Próspera, the project of entrepreneurs funded by venture capital firms backed by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and venture capital mogul Marc Andreessen, was established in 2017 and continues today, despite repeated efforts from Honduras to shut it down. An example of a “special economic zone,” Próspera is an autonomous jurisdiction with limited regulations. The general idea has been around for years—Mother Jones wrote about a failed Thiel-backed effort to build floating cities at sea back in 2012, for example. But in recent years, Silicon Valley founders, as they like to call themselves, have reworked the concept into the “network state,” as coined by entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan, a close friend of Thiel’s and a former colleague of Andreessen’s. As journalist Gil Durán observed in a New Republic piece on Srinivasan last year, “Balaji’s politics have become even more stridently authoritarian and extremist, yet he remains a celebrated figure in key circles,” including multiple Signal chats that, Semafor reported in April, helped radicalize the Silicon Valley elite.In a 2021 essay on his website, Srinivasan laid out his vision for people seeking to build a new utopia or, as he put it, “a fresh start.” Sure, there were conventional ways to do this—forming a new country through revolution or war. But that would be, well, really hard, not to mention unpredictable. A cruise ship or somewhere in space were appealing options, but both presented logistical challenges. Far simpler and more practical was “tech Zionism,” creating an online nation, complete with its own culture, economy, tax structure, and, of course, startup-friendly laws.Eventually, Srinivasan mused, such a community could acquire actual physical property where people would gather and live under the laws dreamed up by the founders—a “reverse diaspora,” he called it—but that land didn’t even need to be contiguous. “A community that forms first on the internet, builds a culture online,” he said, “and only then comes together in person to build dwellings and structures.” Acknowledging that the idea might sound a little goofy—like live-action Minecraft—he emphasized that it was also a serious proposition. “Once we remember that Facebook has 3B users, Twitter has 300M, and many individual influencers”—himself included—“have more than 1M followers,” he wrote, “it starts to be not too crazy to imagine we can build a 1-10M person social network with a genuine sense of national consciousness, an integrated cryptocurrency, and a plan to crowdfund many pieces of territory around the world.”A network state would, like a kind of Pac-Man, gobble up little pieces of actual land, eventually amassing so much economic power that other nations would be forced to recognize it. Once that happens, laws in more conventional nations could become almost irrelevant. Why on earth would, say, a pharmaceutical company with a new drug choose to spend billions of dollars and decades on mandated testing when it could go to a deregulated network state and take it to market in record time? As Srinivasan argued in a Zoom talk at last year’s conference, “Just like it was easier to start bitcoin and then to reform the Fed,” he said, “it is literally easier to start a new country than
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Tech Moguls Want to Build a Crypto Paradise on a Native American Reservation And hope to gobble up some land near you.
Early last year, a group of entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts from around the world gathered inside a newly built dome on the Honduran island of Roatán to grapple with a problem: For thought leaders who want to move fast and break things, what can be done about laws that get in the way? The conference, sponsored by the Salt Lake City–based Startup Societies Foundation, was being put on in Vitalia, a longevity-themed “pop-up city” that caters to American medical tourists sidestepping cumbersome FDA regulations. Its motto: “We’re here to make death optional.” Vitalia was in turn located in Próspera, a semiautonomous city on Roatán. Imagine a nesting doll, a city within a city within a city—all on a Caribbean isle.Próspera, the project of entrepreneurs funded by venture capital firms backed by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and venture capital mogul Marc Andreessen, was established in 2017 and continues today, despite repeated efforts from Honduras to shut it down. An example of a “special economic zone,” Próspera is an autonomous jurisdiction with limited regulations. The general idea has been around for years—Mother Jones wrote about a failed Thiel-backed effort to build floating cities at sea back in 2012, for example. But in recent years, Silicon Valley founders, as they like to call themselves, have reworked the concept into the “network state,” as coined by entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan, a close friend of Thiel’s and a former colleague of Andreessen’s. As journalist Gil Durán observed in a New Republic piece on Srinivasan last year, “Balaji’s politics have become even more stridently authoritarian and extremist, yet he remains a celebrated figure in key circles,” including multiple Signal chats that, Semafor reported in April, helped radicalize the Silicon Valley elite.In a 2021 essay on his website, Srinivasan laid out his vision for people seeking to build a new utopia or, as he put it, “a fresh start.” Sure, there were conventional ways to do this—forming a new country through revolution or war. But that would be, well, really hard, not to mention unpredictable. A cruise ship or somewhere in space were appealing options, but both presented logistical challenges. Far simpler and more practical was “tech Zionism,” creating an online nation, complete with its own culture, economy, tax structure, and, of course, startup-friendly laws.Eventually, Srinivasan mused, such a community could acquire actual physical property where people would gather and live under the laws dreamed up by the founders—a “reverse diaspora,” he called it—but that land didn’t even need to be contiguous. “A community that forms first on the internet, builds a culture online,” he said, “and only then comes together in person to build dwellings and structures.” Acknowledging that the idea might sound a little goofy—like live-action Minecraft—he emphasized that it was also a serious proposition. “Once we remember that Facebook has 3B users, Twitter has 300M, and many individual influencers”—himself included—“have more than 1M followers,” he wrote, “it starts to be not too crazy to imagine we can build a 1-10M person social network with a genuine sense of national consciousness, an integrated cryptocurrency, and a plan to crowdfund many pieces of territory around the world.”A network state would, like a kind of Pac-Man, gobble up little pieces of actual land, eventually amassing so much economic power that other nations would be forced to recognize it. Once that happens, laws in more conventional nations could become almost irrelevant. Why on earth would, say, a pharmaceutical company with a new drug choose to spend billions of dollars and decades on mandated testing when it could go to a deregulated network state and take it to market in record time? As Srinivasan argued in a Zoom talk at last year’s conference, “Just like it was easier to start bitcoin and then to reform the Fed,” he said, “it is literally easier to start a new country than
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"Major technology companies signed a pact on Friday to voluntarily adopt "reasonable precautions" to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world.
Executives from Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and TikTok gathered at the Munich Security Conference to announce a new framework for how they respond to AI-generated deepfakes that deliberately trick voters.
Twelve other companies - including Elon Musk's X - are also signing on to the accord...
The accord is largely symbolic, but targets increasingly realistic AI-generated images, audio, and video "that deceptively fake or alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates, election officials, and other key stakeholders in a democratic election, or that provide false information to voters about when, where, and how they can lawfully vote".
The companies aren't committing to ban or remove deepfakes. Instead, the accord outlines methods they will use to try to detect and label deceptive AI content when it is created or distributed on their platforms.
It notes the companies will share best practices and provide "swift and proportionate responses" when that content starts to spread.
Lack of binding requirements
The vagueness of the commitments and lack of any binding requirements likely helped win over a diverse swath of companies, but disappointed advocates were looking for stronger assurances.
"The language isn't quite as strong as one might have expected," said Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
"I think we should give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge that the companies do have a vested interest in their tools not being used to undermine free and fair elections. That said, it is voluntary, and we'll be keeping an eye on whether they follow through." ...
Several political leaders from Europe and the US also joined Friday’s announcement. European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said while such an agreement can’t be comprehensive, "it contains very impactful and positive elements". ...
[The Accord and Where We're At]
The accord calls on platforms to "pay attention to context and in particular to safeguarding educational, documentary, artistic, satirical, and political expression".
It said the companies will focus on transparency to users about their policies and work to educate the public about how they can avoid falling for AI fakes.
Most companies have previously said they’re putting safeguards on their own generative AI tools that can manipulate images and sound, while also working to identify and label AI-generated content so that social media users know if what they’re seeing is real. But most of those proposed solutions haven't yet rolled out and the companies have faced pressure to do more.
That pressure is heightened in the US, where Congress has yet to pass laws regulating AI in politics, leaving companies to largely govern themselves.
The Federal Communications Commission recently confirmed AI-generated audio clips in robocalls are against the law [in the US], but that doesn't cover audio deepfakes when they circulate on social media or in campaign advertisements.
Many social media companies already have policies in place to deter deceptive posts about electoral processes - AI-generated or not...
[Signatories Include]
In addition to the companies that helped broker Friday's agreement, other signatories include chatbot developers Anthropic and Inflection AI; voice-clone startup ElevenLabs; chip designer Arm Holdings; security companies McAfee and TrendMicro; and Stability AI, known for making the image-generator Stable Diffusion.
Notably absent is another popular AI image-generator, Midjourney. The San Francisco-based startup didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The inclusion of X - not mentioned in an earlier announcement about the pending accord - was one of the surprises of Friday's agreement."
-via EuroNews, February 17, 2024
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Note: No idea whether this will actually do much of anything (would love to hear from people with experience in this area on significant this is), but I'll definitely take it. Some of these companies may even mean it! (X/Twitter almost definitely doesn't, though).
Still, like I said, I'll take it. Any significant move toward tech companies self-regulating AI is a good sign, as far as I'm concerned, especially a large-scale and international effort. Even if it's a "mostly symbolic" accord, the scale and prominence of this accord is encouraging, and it sets a precedent for further regulation to build on.
#ai#anti ai#deepfake#ai generated#elections#election interference#tech companies#big tech#good news#hope
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Incredibly, Angelina Jolie called it. The year was 1995. Picture Jolie, short of both hair and acting experience, as a teenage hacker in Hackers. Not a lot of people saw this movie. Even fewer appreciated its relevance. Hackers was “grating,” Entertainment Weekly huffed at the time, for the way it embraced “the computer-kid-as-elite-rebel mystique currently being peddled by magazines like WIRED.” Thirty years later, Entertainment Weekly no longer publishes a magazine, WIRED does, and Hackers ranks among the foundational documents of the digital age. The last time I saw the movie, it was being projected onto the wall of a cool-kids bar down the street from my house.
But that’s not the incredible thing. The incredible thing, again, is that Jolie called it. It. The future. Midway through Hackers, she’s watching her crush (played by Jonny Lee Miller, whom she’d later marry in real life) type passionately on a next-gen laptop. “Has a killer refresh rate,” Miller says, breathing fast. Jolie replies: “P6 chip. Triple the speed of the Pentium.” Miller’s really worked up now. Then Jolie leans forward and, in that come-closer register soon to make her world-famous, says this: “RISC architecture is gonna change everything.”
You have to believe me when I say, one more time, that this is incredible. And what’s incredible is not just that the filmmakers knew what RISC architecture was. Or that Jolie pronounced it correctly (“risk”). Or even that Jolie’s character was right. What’s incredible is that she’s still right—arguably even more right—today. Because RISC architecture is, somehow, changing everything again, here in the 21st century. Who makes what. Who controls the future. The very soul of technology. Everything.
And nobody’s talking about it.
And that’s probably because the vast majority of people everywhere, who use tech built on it every single day, still don’t know what in the computer-geek hell a RISC architecture even is.
Unless you’re in computer-geek hell, as I am, right now. I’ve just arrived at the annual international RISC-V (that’s “risk five”) summit in Santa Clara, California. Here, people don’t just know what RISC is. They also know what, oh, vector extensions and AI accelerators and matrix engines are. At the coffee bar, I overhear one guy say to another: “This is a very technical conference. This is a very technical community.” To which the other guy replies: “It ought to be. It ought to be.”
OK, but where are the cool kids? It’s hard not to fixate on appearances at an event like this—a generic convention center, with generic coffee, in a generic town. I guess I was hoping for neon lights and pixie cuts. Instead it’s frumpy, forgettable menswear as far as the eye can see. There are 30 men for every woman, I count, as everyone gathers in the main hall for the morning presentations.
Then someone takes the stage, and she’s not just a she. She is Calista Redmond, the CEO of RISC-V International, and, Angelina Jolie be praised, she’s wearing a nifty jacket, a statement belt, and gold-and-silver … pumps? stilettos? Wait, what’s the difference? Of all the things to ask Redmond when I run into her at a happy hour later that day, that’s what I choose. She looks at me, smiles blankly, and just says, “I don’t know.”
In shame I retreat to the bar, where I decide I must redeem myself. So, cautiously, I make my way back to Redmond, who’s now deep in conversation with the chief marketing officer of a semiconductor startup. I try to impress them with a technical observation, something about RISC and AI. Redmond turns to me and says, “I thought you wanted to talk about shoes.” I assure her I’m not here to talk about what’s on the outside. I’m here to talk about what’s on the inside.
“Jason here is writing a story about RISC for WIRED,” Redmond tells the CMO. She’s not sure, frankly, that this is a great idea. Not because she isn’t a believer. In many ways, she’s the believer, the face of the brand. Attendees at the conference invoke her name with casual reverence: Calista says this, Calista thinks that. And did you hear her morning keynote? In fact I did. “We have fundamentally launched!” she announced, to the yelps of the business-casuals. RISC-V will transform, is transforming, machinery everywhere, she said, from cars to laptops to spaceships. If anyone doubts this, Redmond sends them the Hackers clip.
So why, I press her now, should I not support the cause and write the big, cyberpunky, untold story of RISC? Because, Redmond says, not only does no one know what RISC is. No one cares what RISC is. And no one should. People don’t buy “this or that widget,” she says, because of what’s inside it. All they want to know is: Does the thing work, and can I afford it?
To my dismay, almost everyone I talk to at the conference agrees with Redmond. Executives, engineers, marketers, the people refilling the coffee: “Calista’s probably right,” they say. Now it’s my turn to get annoyed. I thought insides mattered! RISC is one of the great and ongoing stories of our time! People should care.
So I resolve to talk to the one person I think must agree with me, who has to be on my side: the legendary inventor of RISC itself.
The inner workings of a computer, David Patterson says, should be kept simple, stupid. We’re sitting in an engineering lab at UC Berkeley, and Patterson—77 years old, partial to no-frills athleisure—is scribbling on a whiteboard. A computer’s base operation, he explains, is the simplest of all: ADD. From there you can derive SUBTRACT. With LOAD and STORE, plus 30 or so other core functions, you have a complete basis for digital computation. Computer architects call this the “instruction set architecture,” or the ISA. (They switch between saying each letter, “I-S-A,” and—the neater option—pronouncing it as a word, “eye-suh.”)
Computer architectures are so named because, well, that’s exactly what they are—architectures not of bricks but of bits. The people who made Hackers plainly understood this. In sequences of dorky-awesome special effects, we fly through futuristic streets, look up at futuristic buildings, only to realize: This isn’t a city. This is a microchip.
Even within a chip, there are subarchitectures. First come the silicon atoms themselves, and on top of those go the transistors, the circuits and gates, the microprocessors, and so on. You’ll find the ISA at the highest layer of the hardware. It is, I think, the most profound architecture ever devised by humans, at any scale. It runs the CPU, the computer’s brain. It’s the precise point, in other words, at which dead, inert, hard silicon becomes, via a set of powerful animating conjurations, soft and malleable—alive.
Everyone has their own way of explaining it. The ISA is the bridge, or the interface, between the hardware and the software. Or it’s the blueprint. Or it’s the computer’s DNA. These are helpful enough, as is the common comparison of an ISA to a language. “You and I are using English,” as Redmond said to me at the conference. “That’s our ISA.” But it gets confusing. Software speaks in languages too—programming languages. That’s why Patterson prefers dictionary or vocabulary. The ISA is less a specific language, more a set of generally available words.
Back when Patterson started out, in the 1970s, the early ISAs were spinning out of control. Established tech companies figured that as hardware design improved and programming languages got more sophisticated, computers shouldn’t remain simple; they should be taught larger vocabularies, with longer words. The more types of operations they were capable of, the logic went, the more efficient their calculations would be.
On the whiteboard, Patterson scrawls the word POLYNOMIAL in big letters—just one of the hundreds of operations that Intel and others added to their ISAs. Even as a young recruit at Berkeley, Patterson suspected that the bigwigs had it backward, that exactly none of these esoteric add-ons were necessary. That a bigger dictionary did not lead to clearer sentences.
So he and a senior colleague decided to strip the kruft from the instruction sets of midcentury computing. At the time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was giving out grants for “high-risk” research. Patterson says they chose the acronym RISC—reduced instruction set computer—as a fundraising ploy. Darpa gave them the money.
Patterson then did as aspiring academics do: He wrote a spicy paper. Called “The Case for the Reduced Instruction Set Computer” and published in 1980, it set off a great war of architectures. “The question then,” as Patterson would later say in an acceptance speech for a major prize, “was whether RISC or CISC was faster.” CISC (pronounced “sisk”) was the name Patterson gave the rival camp: complex instruction set computer. The CISCites fired back with a paper of their own and, at international conferences throughout the early ’80s, battled it out with the RISCites onstage, the bloodshed often spilling into the hallways and late-night afterparties. Patterson taunted his opponents: They were driving lumbering trucks while he was in a feather-light roadster. If you magnify a RISC-based microchip from those years, you’ll spot a sports car etched into the upper left corner, just 0.4 millimeters in length.
The RISCites won. With vigilant testing, they proved that their machines were between three and four times faster than the CISC equivalents. The RISC chips had to perform more operations per second, it’s true—but would you rather read a paragraph of simple words, or a sentence of polysyllabic verbiage? In the end, CISCites retracted their claims to supremacy, and the likes of Intel turned to RISC for their architectural needs.
Not that anybody outside tech circles talked about this at the time. When Hackers came out in 1995, Patterson was flabbergasted to hear his life’s work, 15 years old by that point, mentioned so casually and seductively by a Hollywood starlet. Computers were still too geeky, surely, to matter to the masses. (When I make Patterson rewatch the scene, he’s all smiles and pride, though he does say they mistake “refresh rate” for “clock rate.”)
Still, Patterson’s invention was indeed changing everything. In those years, a rising company in the UK called Arm—the “r” in its name stood for RISC—was working with Steve Jobs on tablet-sized devices that needed smaller, faster CPUs. That effort stalled, but one thing led to another, and if you’re reading this on a phone right now, you have RISC-based Arm architectures to thank. When Patterson walks me out of the Berkeley building at the end of our dizzying afternoon together, we stop by a handsome bronze plaque in the lobby that commemorates his “milestone” creation of the first RISC microprocessor. We stare at it in prayerful awe. “1980–1982,” it reads—the bloodiest years of the great architecture war.
Better make room for another plaque, I note.
The year is now 2008. Two instruction sets exert near-total control over digital life. One is called x86, the descendent of Intel’s legacy CISC architecture, and it dominates the high end of machinery: personal computers and servers. Arm’s RISC architecture, meanwhile, dominates everything else: phones, game consoles, the internet of things. Different though they are, and with opposite origins, these two ISAs share one important feature: They’re both closed, proprietary. You can’t modify them, and if you want to use them, you have to pay for them.
Andrew Waterman, a graduate student at—where else?—UC Berkeley, finds this frustrating. As a computer architect, he wants to build things, deep things. Things at the very foundations of computing. But right now he has no good ISAs to play with. Arm and x86 are off-limits, and the free architectures for students are just so … baggy. They use register windows to speed up procedure calls, for God’s sake! Never mind what that means. The point is, every person in this story is a genius.
So Waterman and two other geniuses have an idea: Why not create a new, better-working, free ISA for academic use? It’s an idea they know someone else has had before. To Patterson they go. And because he’s their inspiration, and because he has worked on four generations of RISC architectures by this point, they’ll call it, they announce to him proudly, RISC-V. Patterson is touched. A bit skeptical, sure, especially when they say they’ll be done in three months. But touched. He gives the boys his blessing, his resources, and a classic bit of advice: Keep it simple, stupid.
RISC-V does not take three months. It takes closer to four years. If I’ve failed, so far, to account for the precision of this work, let me try again here. Computer architects are not software engineers, who use programming languages to talk to the machine. Even coders who can speak assembly or C, the so-called low-level languages, still do just that: They talk. Computer architects need to go deeper. Much deeper. All the way down to a preverbal realm. If they’re speaking at all, they’re speaking in gestures, motions: the way primitive circuits hold information. Computer architecture isn’t telling a machine what to do. It’s establishing the possibility that it can be told anything at all. The work is superhuman, if not fully alien. Put it this way: If you found the exact place in a human being where matter becomes mind, where body becomes soul—a place that no scientist or philosopher or spiritual figure has found in 5,000 years of frantic searching—wouldn’t you tread carefully? One wrong move and everything goes silent.
In 2011, Waterman and his two collaborators, Krste Asanović and Yunsup Lee, release RISC-V into the wild. They’ve accomplished their mission: Geeky grad students everywhere, and hobbyists too, have an ISA for whatever computer-architecting adventures they might undertake. These early days feel utopian. Then Patterson, a proud dad, does as retiring academics do: He writes a spicy paper. Called “The Case for Open Instruction Sets” and published in 2014, it sets off a—
Yes. We’ve been here before. A second war of the architectures.
It’s hard to overstate just how topsy-freaking-turvy this gets. To review: Patterson invented RISC in 1980 and went to battle with the established ISAs. He won. Thirty years later, his disciples reinvent RISC for a new age, and he and they go to battle with the very company whose success secured RISC’s legacy in the first place: Arm.
In response to Patterson’s paper, Arm fires back with a rebuttal, “The Case for Licensed Instruction Sets.” Nobody wants some random, untested, unsupported ISA, they say. Customers want success, standards, a proven “ecosystem.” The resources it would take to retool and reprogram everything for a new ISA? There’s not enough cash in the world, Arm scoffs.
The RISC-V community disagrees. They create their own ecosystem under the auspices of RISC-V International and begin adapting RISC-V to the needs of modern computing. Some supporters start calling it an “open source hardware” movement, even if hardcore RISC-Vers don’t love the phrase. Hardware, being set in literal stone, can’t exactly be “open source,” and besides, RISC-V doesn’t count, entirely, as hardware. It’s the hardware-software interface, remember. But, semantics. The point stands: Anyone, in any bedroom or garage or office in any part of the world, can use RISC-V for free to build their own computers from scratch, to chart their own technological destiny.
Arm is right about one thing, though: This does take money. Millions if not billions of dollars. (If you think “fabless” chip printers can do it for closer to five figures, come back to me in five years.) Still, RISC-V begins to win. Much as Arm, in the 1990s and 2000s, found success in low-end markets, so too, in the 2010s, does RISC-V: special-purpose gadgets, computer chips in automobiles, that sort of thing. Why pay for Intel chips or Arm licenses when you don’t have to?
And the guys at Berkeley? In 2015, they launch their own company, called SiFive, to build computer parts based on RISC-V. Meaning: Arm isn’t just a spiritual enemy for them now. It’s a direct competitor.
By the time I went to that “very technical conference” in Santa Clara, the Arm-vs.-RISC-V war had been raging for nearly a decade. I could still feel it everywhere. We’ve won, I heard several times. Nobody’s happy at Arm, someone claimed. (One longtime higher-up at Arm, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal affairs, disputed “nobody” but admitted there’s been a “culture change” in recent years.) On the second day of the conference, when news broke of a rift between Arm and one of its biggest customers, Qualcomm, people cheered in the hallways. “Arm is assholes,” a former SiFive exec told me. In fact, only one person at the conference seemed to have anything nice to say about the competition. He was working a demo booth, and when I marveled that his product was built on a RISC-V processor, he turned a little green and whispered: “Actually, it’s Arm. Don’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone.”
Booth bro was probably worrying too much. In the hardware world, everyone has worked, or has friends, everywhere else. Calista Redmond, the star of the show, spent 12 years at IBM (and recently resigned from RISC-V International for a job at Nvidia). Even Patterson has ties to, of all places, Intel—which, though less of a direct threat to Arm, is still a RISC-V competitor. It was Intel grant money, Patterson happily admits, that paid for the Berkeley architects to invent RISC-V in the first place. Without closed source, proprietary Big Tech, there’s no open source, free-for-all Little Tech. Don’t listen to the techno-hippies who claim otherwise; that’s always been the case.
Patterson was the big-ticket speaker on the second day of the conference, and in his talk, he brought up the paper that Arm wrote in rebuttal to his, lo those 10 years ago. One of its two authors has since parted ways with Arm. The other, Patterson noted, not only left—he now works at SiFive. “It’s satisfying,” Patterson said, “he has come to his senses.” Which got a laugh, of course, but I was still stuck on something Patterson said earlier in the talk, about RISC-V: “We want world domination.”
This is not, even remotely, an impossibility. RISC-V has already done what many thought impossible and made a sizable dent in Arm’s and Intel’s architectural dominance. Everyone from Meta and Google and Nvidia to NASA has begun to integrate it into their machinery. Something on the order of billions of RISC-V processing units now ship every year. Most of these, again, support low-powered, specialized devices, but as Redmond pointed out a number of times at the conference, “we have laptops now.” This is the first year you can buy a RISC-V mainboard.
And because RISC-V is an open standard, companies and countries beyond the US can use it to make their own machines. China’s top scientists have heralded RISC-V as a path to silicon independence. India just used RISC-V to make its first homemade microprocessor. Name a country; it’s probably experimenting with RISC-V. Brazil sent a record 25 delegates to the RISC-V summit. When I asked one of them how important RISC-V was to her country’s future, she said, “I mean, a lot.” One of RISC-V’s biggest potential applications is—no surprise—specialized chips that run AI models, those “accelerators” people at the conference were talking about.
Americans in the RISC-V community, I’ve found, like to downplay the risk of geopolitical upheaval. It’s one thing to announce a microprocessor, quite another to compete with Nvidia or TSMC. Still, in asides here and there, I sensed worry. Waterman, though he initially brushed off my concerns, eventually conceded this: “OK, I’m an American citizen. I certainly did not embark on this project to hurt the US,” he said. But there was “no doubt,” he added, that the dominance of US companies could be at risk. Actually, it’s already happening. Although the Chinese hedge fund behind DeepSeek probably didn’t use RISC-V to build its game-changing chatbot, it did rely on a bunch of other open source tools. At what point does open source become a source of open conflict?
Here’s where I confess something awkward, something I didn’t intend to confess in this story, but why not: ChatGPT made me do it. Write this story, I mean. Months ago, I asked it for a big hardware scoop that no other publication had. RISC-V, it suggested. And look at that—the international RISC-V summit was coming up in Santa Clara the very next month. And every major RISC and RISC-V inventor lived down the street from me in Berkeley. It was perfect.
Some would say too perfect. If you believe the marketing hype, everyone wants RISC-V chips to accelerate their AI. So I started to think: Maybe ChatGPT wants this for … itself. Maybe it manipulated me into evangelizing for RISC-V as one tiny part of a long-term scheme to open-source its own soul and/or achieve superintelligence!
In my last talk with Patterson, I put this theory to him. He was delighted that ChatGPT made me write this: Who should we thank? he asked. (Given that WIRED’s parent company has a deal with OpenAI that lets ChatGPT mine our content, we should thank old WIRED stories, among others.) But Patterson laughed off the larger conspiracy. So did every other RISC-V person I mentioned it to, Redmond included. They all looked at me a little funny. RISC-V is a business proposition, not an ideology, they said. There’s no secret agenda. If it takes over, it’ll take over because of performance and cost. Don’t worry about what goes on inside the technology. Don’t worry about the state of its soul.
I don’t know. But now you know. Now, every time you make a phone call, open your computer, drive your car—you know the story. You know the RISC.
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An Introduction to Cybersecurity
I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!
What is cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is all about securing technology and processes - making sure that the software, hardware, and networks that run the world do exactly what they need to do and can't be abused by bad actors.
The CIA triad is a concept used to explain the three goals of cybersecurity. The pieces are:
Confidentiality: ensuring that information is kept secret, so it can only be viewed by the people who are allowed to do so. This involves encrypting data, requiring authentication before viewing data, and more.
Integrity: ensuring that information is trustworthy and cannot be tampered with. For example, this involves making sure that no one changes the contents of the file you're trying to download or intercepts your text messages.
Availability: ensuring that the services you need are there when you need them. Blocking every single person from accessing a piece of valuable information would be secure, but completely unusable, so we have to think about availability. This can also mean blocking DDoS attacks or fixing flaws in software that cause crashes or service issues.
What are some specializations within cybersecurity? What do cybersecurity professionals do?
incident response
digital forensics (often combined with incident response in the acronym DFIR)
reverse engineering
cryptography
governance/compliance/risk management
penetration testing/ethical hacking
vulnerability research/bug bounty
threat intelligence
cloud security
industrial/IoT security, often called Operational Technology (OT)
security engineering/writing code for cybersecurity tools (this is what I do!)
and more!
Where do cybersecurity professionals work?
I view the industry in three big chunks: vendors, everyday companies (for lack of a better term), and government. It's more complicated than that, but it helps.
Vendors make and sell security tools or services to other companies. Some examples are Crowdstrike, Cisco, Microsoft, Palo Alto, EY, etc. Vendors can be giant multinational corporations or small startups. Security tools can include software and hardware, while services can include consulting, technical support, or incident response or digital forensics services. Some companies are Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), which means that they serve as the security team for many other (often small) businesses.
Everyday companies include everyone from giant companies like Coca-Cola to the mom and pop shop down the street. Every company is a tech company now, and someone has to be in charge of securing things. Some businesses will have their own internal security teams that respond to incidents. Many companies buy tools provided by vendors like the ones above, and someone has to manage them. Small companies with small tech departments might dump all cybersecurity responsibilities on the IT team (or outsource things to a MSSP), or larger ones may have a dedicated security staff.
Government cybersecurity work can involve a lot of things, from securing the local water supply to working for the big three letter agencies. In the U.S. at least, there are also a lot of government contractors, who are their own individual companies but the vast majority of what they do is for the government. MITRE is one example, and the federal research labs and some university-affiliated labs are an extension of this. Government work and military contractor work are where geopolitics and ethics come into play most clearly, so just… be mindful.
What do academics in cybersecurity research?
A wide variety of things! You can get a good idea by browsing the papers from the ACM's Computer and Communications Security Conference. Some of the big research areas that I'm aware of are:
cryptography & post-quantum cryptography
machine learning model security & alignment
formal proofs of a program & programming language security
security & privacy
security of network protocols
vulnerability research & developing new attack vectors
Cybersecurity seems niche at first, but it actually covers a huge range of topics all across technology and policy. It's vital to running the world today, and I'm obviously biased but I think it's a fascinating topic to learn about. I'll be posting a new cybersecurity masterpost each day this week as a part of the #StudyblrMasterpostJam, so keep an eye out for tomorrow's post! In the meantime, check out the tag and see what other folks are posting about :D
#studyblrmasterpostjam#studyblr#cybersecurity#masterpost#ref#I love that this challenge is just a reason for people to talk about their passions and I'm so excited to read what everyone posts!
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Me: let me just google the mayoral candidates and do some research!
Incumbent mayor: hi i'm tiny tim :) i turned my "progressive" image into a cop-funded civic festival where we criminalize homelessness and build neon signs instead of housing. I love holding press conferences in front of projects I barely touched and tweeting like I’m running a startup. Think: tech bro in a Patagonia vest, but his job is paving over parks!
Uh oh sisters!: starts strong, sounds normal, wants to fire the police chief and treat addiction like a health issue, and you’re like “okay queen maybe?” but then you scroll down and see the words “conservative democrat” and your spine locks up like a prey animal sensing danger. says she’s rejecting public funding so she can “stay independent,” which in political language means “I’m taking money, just not from you.”
Literally a cop: ex-sheriff. "what if Judge Dredd was real and extremely divorced.” wants to give the cops more power and probably uniforms with little skulls on the shoulders. if this man sees a mentally ill person eating a granola bar on a sidewalk he calls in the national guard.
I was told there would be fire: retired fire chief, wants to “bring back safety and trust,” which means “you’ll see more sirens and fewer people.” looks like he’d call you “sweetheart” before vetoing a tenant protection ordinance. his plan for crime is basically
I can tell you're lost: literally just a guy. former public policy dude who said “it’s time for a call to action” and then entered a mayoral race with the energy of someone who thought this was an open mic. may not be real.
I want to believe: ran for mayor, dropped out of public financing, ghosted a press release, and vanished into the fog. probably still on the ballot. if she wins it'll be by accident and we’ll never see her again. she is the municipal equivalent of your high school friend who started MLMs and never posted again after 2019.
I don't know how this guy feels about Anything: he’s a business owner and his entire campaign is a substack. that's it.
I call this one Mini Biden: former u.s. attorney and Biden appointee, and he’s here to “fix crime.” that’s literally the whole campaign. federal cop energy. “if we build more prisons, maybe people will stop being poor.”
Do you guys remember how cars 2 did eugenics was that fucked up or what: owns a parking company. yes, like, the people who charge you $9 to scream into a broken kiosk on Central St. i do not believe this man has ever walked through any city without saying “huh. you know what this corner needs? paid curb time.”
Piss or get off the Pot: current city councilor, might run, might not. people on reddit say he could win. people on reddit also say nicholas cage would make a great governor. he’s like if the idea of “bold leadership” was just a 90s cop show and a blunt.
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To fully grasp the current situation in San Francisco, where venture capitalists are trying to take control of City Hall, you must listen to Balaji Srinivasan. Before you do, steel yourself for what’s to come: A normal person could easily mistake his rambling train wrecks of thought for a crackpot’s ravings, but influential Silicon Valley billionaires regard him as a genius.
“Balaji has the highest rate of output per minute of good new ideas of anybody I’ve ever met,” wrote Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the V.C. firm Andreessen-Horowitz, in a blurb for Balaji’s 2022 book, The Network State: How to Start a New Country. The book outlines a plan for tech plutocrats to exit democracy and establish new sovereign territories. I mentioned Balaji’s ideas in two previous stories about Network State–related efforts in California—a proposed tech colony called California Forever and the tech-funded campaign to capture San Francisco’s government.
Balaji, a 43-year-old Long Island native who goes by his first name, has a solid Valley pedigree: He earned multiple degrees from Stanford University, founded multiple startups, became a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz and then served as chief technology officer at Coinbase. He is also the leader of a cultish and increasingly strident neo-reactionary tech political movement that sees American democracy as an enemy. In 2013, a New York Times story headlined “Silicon Valley Roused by Secession Call” described a speech in which he “told a group of young entrepreneurs that the United States had become ‘the Microsoft of nations’: outdated and obsolescent.”
“The speech won roars from the audience at Y Combinator, a leading start-up incubator,” reported the Times. Balaji paints a bleak picture of a dystopian future in a U.S. in chaos and decline, but his prophecies sometimes fall short. Last year, he lost $1 million in a public bet after wrongly predicting a massive surge in the price of Bitcoin.
Still, his appetite for autocracy is bottomless. Last October, Balaji hosted the first-ever Network State Conference. Garry Tan—the current Y Combinator CEO who’s attempting to spearhead a political takeover of San Francisco—participated in an interview with Balaji and cast the effort as part of the Network State movement. Tan, who made headlines in January after tweeting “die slow motherfuckers” at local progressive politicians, frames his campaign as an experiment in “moderate” politics. But in a podcast interview one month before the conference, Balaji laid out a more disturbing and extreme vision.
“What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street … you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You’re a fellow Gray.”
The Grays’ shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman’s banquets” to win them over.
“Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That’s, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman’s son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.”
@karpad @quasi-normalcy @ubernegro
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Office Dynamics - Part 7: New Beginnings and New Challenges
The days at Dunder Mifflin had settled into a comfortable routine, but there was always something brewing beneath the surface. As you walked into the office one bright morning, you felt a renewed sense of excitement and curiosity about what the day might bring.
Pam greeted you with a warm smile as you approached your desk. "Morning, Y/N. Ready for another day of fun?"
You laughed, placing your bag on the floor. "Always. What’s on the agenda today?"
Before Pam could answer, Michael burst out of his office, waving a piece of paper excitedly. “Everyone, gather around! I have an announcement!”
The office slowly congregated near Michael’s desk, curiosity piqued. Jim leaned against your desk, giving you a playful nudge. “Wonder what it is this time. Another party?”
Michael cleared his throat, beaming with pride. “I have just received word that we have a new client who wants to meet with us today. This could be a huge deal for us, people!”
Dwight’s eyes lit up, clearly ready to take on the challenge. “Who’s the client, Michael?”
Michael scanned the paper. “It’s a local tech startup called ByteSize. They’re looking for a paper supplier, and we’re in the running. But we need to make a great impression.”
Pam raised an eyebrow. “Do we have a plan?”
Michael nodded vigorously. “Of course we do! Y/N, Jim, and Dwight, you’ll be in the meeting with me. We need to show them we’re the best in the business.”
You exchanged a surprised glance with Jim, who looked equally taken aback. “Uh, okay, Michael. We’ll do our best.”
Interview with Y/N: “I’m excited about this new client meeting. It’s a great opportunity for us, and I’m glad Michael trusts me to be a part of it. I just hope we can pull it off without any mishaps.”
As the office buzzed with preparation, you, Jim, and Dwight gathered in the conference room to strategize. Michael was already there, pacing nervously.
“Okay, team,” Michael said, clapping his hands. “We need to be on our A-game. Dwight, you’ll handle the product details. Y/N, you focus on client relations. Jim, you back us up with your charm.”
Dwight nodded, his eyes steely with determination. “Got it, Michael. I won’t let you down.”
Jim smirked, giving you a sidelong glance. “I’ll do my best to be charming, as always.”
You rolled your eyes playfully. “Let’s just make sure we’re prepared. I’ll handle the introductions and initial questions. Dwight, be ready to dive into specifics when needed. Jim, you can add in with any insights or anecdotes that show our value.”
Michael nodded, looking relieved. “Perfect. This is why you’re my favorite, Y/N.”
Dwight bristled slightly but kept his focus. “Let’s make this happen.”
Interview with Dwight: “I’m ready to prove myself today. This new client could be a game-changer, and I intend to show them just how efficient and dedicated we are. And maybe remind Michael that I’m still his top salesman.”
The meeting with ByteSize was set for 11 AM, and as the time approached, the four of you gathered in the conference room, nerves and excitement mingling in the air. The ByteSize representatives arrived, a young, dynamic group eager to find the right supplier.
You took charge, welcoming them warmly and starting the presentation. “Welcome to Dunder Mifflin. We’re excited about the opportunity to work with ByteSize and support your growth with our reliable paper products.”
The ByteSize team seemed impressed by your confidence and professionalism. As the meeting progressed, Dwight expertly handled their technical questions, while Jim interjected with timely humor and anecdotes that highlighted Dunder Mifflin’s exceptional customer service.
Michael, to everyone’s surprise, managed to keep his enthusiasm in check, contributing effectively without overwhelming the conversation. By the end of the meeting, the ByteSize representatives were smiling and nodding, clearly impressed.
“We’ll definitely consider Dunder Mifflin for our paper needs,” their leader said, shaking hands with each of you.
As they left, Michael let out a triumphant cheer. “We did it! Great job, team!”
Interview with Jim: “I have to admit, that went way better than expected. Y/N was fantastic, Dwight was on point, and Michael actually held it together. I think we have a real shot with ByteSize.”
Back at your desk, Pam leaned over, grinning. “You were amazing in there. Looks like we might have a new client.”
You smiled, feeling a sense of accomplishment. “Thanks, Pam. It was a team effort, though.”
Just then, Stanley walked by, giving you a rare thumbs-up. “Nice work, Y/N.”
Phyllis followed, placing a small candy on your desk. “You did great, sweetie.”
You felt a warm glow, grateful for the support of your coworkers. As you settled back into your tasks, Jim walked over, a playful smirk on his face.
“Looks like Cupid struck again,” he teased, referring to the successful meeting.
You laughed, feeling a connection between you that was growing stronger every day. “Maybe so. But I think it was a team effort.”
Interview with Y/N: “Today was a good day. We worked well together and hopefully landed a new client. It’s moments like these that make all the craziness worth it.”
The rest of the day passed in a blur of productivity and camaraderie. Michael was in high spirits, Dwight was already preparing follow-up materials for ByteSize, and Pam and you found time for a quick chat.
“So, what’s next for you and Jim?” Pam asked, a knowing smile on her face.
You shrugged, feeling a blush creep up your cheeks. “We’re taking it one day at a time. But it feels right.”
Pam nodded, her smile widening. “I’m happy for you. You deserve this.”
Interview with Pam: “Y/N and Jim are really cute together. It’s nice to see something good coming out of all this office chaos. They balance each other out.”
As the day drew to a close, you and Jim found yourselves alone in the break room, cleaning up after an impromptu celebratory snack session Michael had insisted on.
Jim glanced over at you, his eyes softening. “So, dinner tonight?”
You smiled, feeling a flutter of excitement. “Sounds perfect.”
Interview with Jim: “Y/N makes every day a little brighter. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes. Today was a great step forward, both professionally and personally.”
As you walked out of the office together, you couldn’t help but feel hopeful about the future. With supportive friends, a challenging but rewarding job, and a blossoming relationship with Jim, life was looking pretty good.
Whatever tomorrow brought, you knew you’d face it with a smile, surrounded by the unique and wonderful people of Dunder Mifflin.
#jim halpert x reader#jim halpert#dwight schultz x reader#dwight schrute#pam beesly#michael scott#the office us#the office
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"Just weeks before the implosion of AllHere, an education technology company that had been showered with cash from venture capitalists and featured in glowing profiles by the business press, America’s second-largest school district was warned about problems with AllHere’s product.
As the eight-year-old startup rolled out Los Angeles Unified School District’s flashy new AI-driven chatbot — an animated sun named “Ed” that AllHere was hired to build for $6 million — a former company executive was sending emails to the district and others that Ed’s workings violated bedrock student data privacy principles.
Those emails were sent shortly before The 74 first reported last week that AllHere, with $12 million in investor capital, was in serious straits. A June 14 statement on the company’s website revealed a majority of its employees had been furloughed due to its “current financial position.” Company founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles district said, was no longer on the job.
Smith-Griffin and L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho went on the road together this spring to unveil Ed at a series of high-profile ed tech conferences, with the schools chief dubbing it the nation’s first “personal assistant” for students and leaning hard into LAUSD’s place in the K-12 AI vanguard. He called Ed’s ability to know students “unprecedented in American public education” at the ASU+GSV conference in April.
Through an algorithm that analyzes troves of student information from multiple sources, the chatbot was designed to offer tailored responses to questions like “what grade does my child have in math?” The tool relies on vast amounts of students’ data, including their academic performance and special education accommodations, to function.
Meanwhile, Chris Whiteley, a former senior director of software engineering at AllHere who was laid off in April, had become a whistleblower. He told district officials, its independent inspector general’s office and state education officials that the tool processed student records in ways that likely ran afoul of L.A. Unified’s own data privacy rules and put sensitive information at risk of getting hacked. None of the agencies ever responded, Whiteley told The 74.
...
In order to provide individualized prompts on details like student attendance and demographics, the tool connects to several data sources, according to the contract, including Welligent, an online tool used to track students’ special education services. The document notes that Ed also interfaces with the Whole Child Integrated Data stored on Snowflake, a cloud storage company. Launched in 2019, the Whole Child platform serves as a central repository for LAUSD student data designed to streamline data analysis to help educators monitor students’ progress and personalize instruction.
Whiteley told officials the app included students’ personally identifiable information in all chatbot prompts, even in those where the data weren’t relevant. Prompts containing students’ personal information were also shared with other third-party companies unnecessarily, Whiteley alleges, and were processed on offshore servers. Seven out of eight Ed chatbot requests, he said, are sent to places like Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and Canada.
Taken together, he argued the company’s practices ran afoul of data minimization principles, a standard cybersecurity practice that maintains that apps should collect and process the least amount of personal information necessary to accomplish a specific task. Playing fast and loose with the data, he said, unnecessarily exposed students’ information to potential cyberattacks and data breaches and, in cases where the data were processed overseas, could subject it to foreign governments’ data access and surveillance rules.
Chatbot source code that Whiteley shared with The 74 outlines how prompts are processed on foreign servers by a Microsoft AI service that integrates with ChatGPT. The LAUSD chatbot is directed to serve as a “friendly, concise customer support agent” that replies “using simple language a third grader could understand.” When querying the simple prompt “Hello,” the chatbot provided the student’s grades, progress toward graduation and other personal information.
AllHere’s critical flaw, Whiteley said, is that senior executives “didn’t understand how to protect data.”
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Earlier in the month, a second threat actor known as Satanic Cloud claimed it had access to tens of thousands of L.A. students’ sensitive information and had posted it for sale on Breach Forums for $1,000. In 2022, the district was victim to a massive ransomware attack that exposed reams of sensitive data, including thousands of students’ psychological evaluations, to the dark web.
With AllHere’s fate uncertain, Whiteley blasted the company’s leadership and protocols.
“Personally identifiable information should be considered acid in a company and you should only touch it if you have to because acid is dangerous,” he told The 74. “The errors that were made were so egregious around PII, you should not be in education if you don’t think PII is acid.”
Read the full article here:
https://www.the74million.org/article/whistleblower-l-a-schools-chatbot-misused-student-data-as-tech-co-crumbled/
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