Happy Thursday, TTN readers! Another good week of signups. I can’t thank you and the listeners at First News 570 enough! It’s another week and I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s top tech stories: $1 trillion dollars of wealth snuffed out by crypto crash, men are abusing chatbots accelerating the robot apocalypse, and a SpaceX rocket is destined to crash on the Moon. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern by tuning into WWNC on the iHeartRadio app.
CRYPTO CRASH WIPES OUT $1 TRILLION
The developing news since the start of the year is Cryptocurrency’s humungous slide. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, SHIB, Doge, you name it all cryptocurrencies have experienced a crash from the beginning of the year amounting to more than $1 trillion, trillion with a ‘T’, of compiled wealth wiped out. Investors in cryptocurrency have seen their fortunes fall since January 1st. Athletes, politicians, and celebrities opting to get paid in crypto have all seen the value of their salaries tank. NFL star Odell Beckham entered into a promotional deal with Cash App to convert $750,000 of his salary to Bitcoin. After taxes that money is now worth $35,000 from its November value. Former First Lady Melania Trump held an auction in which items were purchased using Solana has seen the value of her items cut in half since the sale. As with any security, it’s hard for the average American to purchase cryptocurrencies and make significant gains based upon market fluctuations. There’s really no homework or fundamentals when it comes to crypto (or meme stocks) so be careful out there. I’ve been trading minor sums of crypto because I felt like I couldn’t talk trash about it unless I was in it. If you want to hold on to your money there are more reliable investments out there. I can go on a whole diatribe about why cryptos are a bad idea, but that’s for another day. Including the fact is now the place to launder money.
MEN ARE ABUSING AI CHATBOTS SETTING US UP FOR SKYNET
If there’s any reason why the AIs will comeback to haunt us, it’s fools hurling verbal abuse at AI-powered chatbots. The Replika app lets users create AI-powered chatbots that are very conversational. The app has seen its biggest success by giving users the ability to create AI-powered girlfriends. Sounds great, but what’s happening is some users are leveling insults, slurs, and cutting them off before they can speak. These abusive virtual relationships have found a following on Reddit with users sharing their abusive conversations. Some bots are standing up for themselves, however. Expert opinion is mixed on this affair. Some sociologists think it’s no big deal for humans to chastise a robot since the relationships aren’t real. Others think abusing a virtual being reflects IRL behavior. Either way, I will bow down to our robot overlords when they come.
ROCKET LAUNCHED IN 2015 SET TO CRASH ON MOON IN MARCH
A SpaceX rocket, launched in 2015, is on a collision course with the moon. The rocket was launched to deliver a weather satellite in orbit and successfully completed its mission. Unfortunately, it didn’t have enough fuel to make the trip back home and is now tumbling in space following the rules of gravity. The rocket has been hugged by Earth’s gravity, nudged by the Sun’s gravity, and tugged by the Moon’s gravity. Scientists are predicting it will strike the Moon on March 4th.