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Sam Altman will be returning as CEO of OpenAI only five days after he was fired, to everyone

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who took a week-long digital detox retreat or got hit in the head with a rock on Friday

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afternoon. Well, you've missed a lot. Luckily for you, we're mostly back where we started, albeit with an entirely new

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board, with the exception of Adam DeAngelo, who will remain to represent the views of

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the former board and to maintain OpenAI leadership's all-important skinny twink quota.

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If you're looking for new info about why Altman was fired in the first place, don't

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ask Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who said even he still doesn't know.

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The prevailing hypothesis so far is that the difference in values between the cautious,

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safety-minded board and Altman's relatively gung-ho attitude towards AI development caught

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relatively. Doesn't know. The prevailing hypothesis so far is that the difference in values between the cautious,

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safety-minded board and Altman's relatively more gung-ho attitude towards AI development

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caused eschism. Altman's jet-setting search for investment in other AI-adjacent projects also led to

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concerns he may prioritize his own interests ahead of the goals of the organization.

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Which wouldn't be that surprising, given that Altman was asked to step down from his

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leadership position at Y Combinator in 2019 due to similar concerns.

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And of course, Altman will be returning as CEO just in time to deal with yet another

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copyright lawsuit, this time by nonfiction book authors against both OpenAI and Microsoft.

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In other words, if you were hit with a rock on Friday and then again at the beginning

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of this video, you haven't really missed anything.

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As you were, Google will resume rollout of its controversial Manifest V3 extension format

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for Chrome, which will block ad blockers even harder.

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You think they're blocked now? On June 2024, Google will turn off Manifest V2, the current format for Chrome extensions

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— Grom? Grom extensions? Meaning they'll be unavailable to install from the Chrome web store and will be automatically

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disabled in users' browsers. Google has argued that Manifest V3, by limiting extensions, will better protect user privacy

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and allow the browser to be lighter on resources. That's potentially a boon to users like this episode's main writer, Jessica, whose workstation

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craps its pants every time she opens more than four tabs in Chrome, seemingly out of

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spite. I don't think it likes you.

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However, civil liberties groups have criticized Google's pitch with the Electronic Frontier

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Foundation calling it deceitful and threatening.

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While Google is limiting potential harm done by malicious extension developers, it's also

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limiting users' ability to protect themselves, especially from Google, by kneecapping web

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filtering, which includes but is not limited to ad blockers.

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Manifest V3 has originally proposed limited web filters to 5,000 filtering rules, which

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it has gracefully loosened — thank you so much — to a limit of 30,000 rules.

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That sounds like a lot, until you realize that a tool like UBlock Origin has over 300,000

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filtering rules available to users. And much like a bicycle, or hair, you can't just remove 90% of something and expect it

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to be the same. Unless and I learned the hard way. I mean, unicycles only have one wheel.

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Warning to all tech news citizens, your Plex account just emailed your mom an itemized

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list of all your favorite adult films. It was inevitable.

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On November 1st, media hosting slash sharing slash streaming service Plex publicly launched

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Discover Together, with several social network-esque features like user profiles, user ratings,

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and personalized recommendations. Plex also altered its Week in Review email that summarizes their weekly activity — feature

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users already hated — so that it also sends users a summary of their friend's weekly activity,

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including media that they uploaded to their own personal server.

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That's a feature that might appeal to some people, people with innocent minds and squeaky

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clean hard drives. But Plex made it opt-out rather than opt-in, meaning that over the past three weeks, many

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users have been unknowingly broadcasting their obsession with Desperate Housewives and Big

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Booty Babes Deluxe Edition to their sweet old Nana.

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You might be doing her a favor, you don't know. So changing your privacy settings now might be prudent, especially for Plex users with

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certain specific tastes. Ah, quick bits.

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One moment they're here, the next they're gone. I'll catch them one day.

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The UK's National Health Service has signed a 330 million pound contract with Pellantier,

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the US-based data management giant founded by billionaire Peter Thiel to build a Central

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Federated Data Platform, or FDP. It's not expensive, it's just really heavy.

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This has triggered concerns overhanding what is reportedly the world's largest single

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repository of health info to a data-hungry company best known for its shoddy human rights

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record and collaboration with spy agencies. Should be fine.

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While Pellantier telling the CIA about your ER visit involving a misplaced jar of marmalade

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might be embarrassing, would you rather have one of the other 11 tech companies tastelessly

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named after Lord of the Rings? I thought it was named after Planter's warts.

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I mean, it's just rude to talk it really, like, have some respect.

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I'm actually a little upset about it, about the naming. Reports indicate a disturbing pattern of accidents and injuries at Tesla's giant factory in

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Austin. According to OSHA data, at least one out of every 21 workers at the factory was injured

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in 2022. And we're not just talking minor boo-boos here.

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Reports describe exploding casting machines, falling overhead beams, and at least one engineer

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who got mauled by a robot. But hey, in lighter Tesla news, some supercharger stations will begin charging users $1 for

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every minute they charge above 90% battery as a way of reducing congestion.

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They could reduce congestion even further by attacking patrons who charge over 95% with

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murderous robots. Just an idea. Sony has completed a field trial in collaboration with the Associated Press for its in-camera

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authenticity technology, which, like similar tech announced by Leica last month, adds a

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digital signature to photos at the moment of capture.

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Seriously though, digital authentication like this is becoming increasingly necessary as

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it gets easier and easier to create photorealistic images with AI.

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Amazon has confirmed that it will be laying off several hundred workers in its Alexa division

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as part of a shift towards generative AI, despite the fact that many of their recent

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efforts involved integrating AI into Alexa.

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Amazon stated that laid off workers only represent a relatively small percentage of the total

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number of people in the device's business, which is a fun way of saying your company

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can casually fire the population of a large village and not even notice.

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These workers joined the over 27,000 employees Amazon has laid off over the course of the

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past year, who, collectively, are a big enough community to deserve their own mayor and post

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office. And NASA is testing ground to space optical communication technology by using lasers to

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transmit information. The hope is this technology will help send higher data rate communications to distant

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places like Mars, as the space agency prepares for more study of the red planet, red also

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being a common color of lasers. So, I ad-lib that, don't blame Jessica.

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Their experiment could even expand the use case for optical data transmission.

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Right now, the only message a laser can accurately convey is, you are in danger from either

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bullets or a cat.

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I liked it, and to make sure the only thing you're in danger of is more tech news, make

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sure to come back on Friday.