[Miscellany] Automated news, Deepfake Christmas video, and Innocent newsletter

Automated news It has emerged that, last week, the BBC used computers to compose nearly 700 news articles relating to the election’s results. The news corporation is describing it as "machine-generated journalism", and justifying it as thus: "Using machine assistance, we generated a story for every single constituency that declared last night with the exception … Continue reading [Miscellany] Automated news, Deepfake Christmas video, and Innocent newsletter

Social influence: the question of quantity vs quality

Still thinking about contagion.   I was talking with a friend recently about online influence. In particular, whether - or to what extent - social media influence translates into real world behaviour. You know, things like raising funds through your online social network and blog readers.   That conversation reminded me of a study by … Continue reading Social influence: the question of quantity vs quality