Someone Built a Preacherbot Powered by AI and it’s Awesome

Artist Diemut Strebe built a praying robot “to explore the possibilities of an approximation to celestial and numinous entities by performing a potentially never-ending chain of religious routines and devotional attempts for communication through a self-learning software.” The production is a collaboration with Regina Barzilay, Tianxiao Shen, Enrico Santus, all MIT CSAIL, Amazon Polly, Bill and Will Sturgeon, Elchanan Mossel, MIT, Stefan Strauss, Chris Fitch, Brian Kane, Keith Welsh, Webster University, Matthew Azevedo. “Wretched sinner unit! The path to robot heaven lies here… in the Good Book 3.0.” ―Lionel Preacherbot

Here’s When The FCC Emergency Broadband Benefit Program Starts

FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the start date of the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. It starts on May 12 for U.S. residents with low incomes or those who lost income during the pandemic. You can sign up for the program here. Benefits include:

Up to a $50/month discount on your broadband service and associated equipment rentals; Up to a $75/month discount if your household is on qualifying Tribal lands; A one-time discount of up to $100 for a laptop, tablet, or desktop computer (with a co-payment of more than $10 but less than $50)

Apple Pay and Others Mean Banks Could be Squeezed Out, French Authorities Warn

Payment services from tech firms like Apple and Google risk squeezing out traditional banks and need monitoring. Authorities in France raised the concern that these firms can make money from these services but avoid much of the regulation, Bloomberg News reported.

The French authority also highlights access to near-field communication on smartphones used for contactless payment, an issue that has already triggered EU and Dutch antitrust probes and potential legislation to respond to banks’ complaints that Apple unfairly blocks their access on its devices. The companies that the French agency calls “les BigTech” are armed with “considerable financial power” to invest in new technologies and will have lower marginal costs compared to banks. Access to large volumes of data and processing power may allow them better assess customers financial health and offer them targeted services, the authority said. Integrating payments in other services allows them to offer a “customer journey” that can’t be matched or replaced easily by competitors, the authority said