The 8 worst technology failures of 2024

More: Israel attacks Lebanese pagers… (Axios), Lebanon mourns 9-year-old girl killed in pager attack (New York Times), Has Israel violated international law? (middle east eye)

23 and me

The company that pioneered direct-to-consumer genetic testing is in rapid decline. The company’s stock price is headed toward zero, and plans to produce valuable drugs are on hold after the team received pink slips in November.

23andMe has always had a celebrity aura and has basked in good press. But now the media coverage is terrible. The troubled company was taken over by controlling founder Anne Wojcicki in September after its independent directors resigned en masse. Customers began to worry about what would happen to their DNA data if 23andMe went bankrupt.

23andMe says it has created “the world’s largest crowdsourcing platform for genetic research.” It’s true. It just never figured out how to make a profit.

More: 23andMe drops from $6 billion to nearly $0 (Wall Street Journal), How to…delete your 23andMe data (MIT Technology Review), 23andMe Financial Report, November 2024 (23 and me)

AI slope

Sewage is the scraps and leftovers eaten by pigs. “AI slop” is something you and I are increasingly consuming online as people flood the web with computer-generated text and images.

The overflow of artificial intelligence is “suspicious”, new york timesand “Dadaism”, according to wired. This is often strange, e.g. Shrimp Jesus (If you don’t know, don’t ask), or deceptive, such as a photo of a shivering girl in a rowboat purportedly showing the U.S. government’s poor response to Hurricane Helene.

AI nonsense is often fun. AI crap usually wastes your time. AI spills are not fact-checked. AI slop exists primarily to get clicks. AI slop is a blue checking account on X that publishes 10-part topics about how great AI is, written by AI.