A great long-read from Ars Technica, providing an overview of Facebook’s history in AI and what the future holds for it. Unlike most tech companies, Facebook has taken an AI-first approach to everything it builds. The idea, outlined in this piece from Forbes last year, is to have an AI agent for every single Facebook user. From the Forbes piece:

Why? Well, its all good and well to use AI to determine what users in general want to see, or to detect inappropriate content in general. But the key words there ‘in general’, apply to everyone. As individuals, we all have different ideas and interests about what interests us. Facebook wants to address that by using AI on an individual-level. My understanding from the Ars Technica article is that the real challenge here is actually on the hardware side. Breakthroughs like using GPUs (instead of CPUs) have helped, but there’s still a long way to go.

Scary. It’s not surprising that the government is keeping an eye on everything, but I was concerned to read that pretty much anyone can get data on others for a price. And even more concerning - it’s not a very high price.

Yes, I know I share Ben’s articles in almost every issue, but they really are that good. This piece is no exception and well worth your time.

More Facebook! I think the first changes to Facebook videos we’ll see include longer videos, better content, and more significantly, a lot of the content creators we’re used to seeing only on YouTube making the move to Facebook. Competition is often good for consumers, and in this case, should be really good for creators, so I’m excited to see how this goes.

This is genuinely very cool and usable, unlike similar products I’ve seen over the past few years. Excited to watch it grow!

I was on Product Hunt! It was my 5th time having a product up there and was definitely a lot of fun. The feedback was good, a bunch of new stores signed up, and I can’t wait to get some new products up there soon!

I’ve recently been getting more and more into home automation. There’s so much already out there but the biggest problem I’ve found is connecting everything together. Fortunately I have the ability to code and can make most things work in unison, but it can be very difficult and time-consuming, and adding another device or making a change can take days.

Recently I discovered Home Assistant through a friend. It’s a free, open-source platform for connecting all of your home’s ‘internet of things’ devices. I’m planning on getting it set up over the next few weeks! Have you had much experience using it? Would love to hear about it and how you’re automating your home. I’ll definitely be sharing more on my experience with it.