1. Review: Hidden Gems in ‘22
2. Preview: Forecasting the Future ‘23
3. Updates & conferences: MediaFutures & Eagle Alpha
If you’ve been on the internet in the last few weeks, you’ve probably seen the buzz around Chat GPT3. The model from OpenAI has opened up society-wide conversations about models that produce text, images and more, with whole industries potentially disrupted. It is a subject that Overtone cares deeply about, and Christopher offered his own predictions on two years ago.
It is also fitting that the hype cycle came at the end of the year, a time of reflection but also a time of looking forward to the new year. GPT-3 and similar models function essentially through prediction, predicting the next word in a sentence, with the result being human-passable text. It bases those predictions off of its mountains of training data, what one writer summed up as including “news articles, recipes, and poetry, but also coding manuals, fan-fiction, religious prophecy, guides to the songbirds of Bolivia and whatever else you can imagine“. It pulls in pretty much everything, and because of that wide scope of training the model struggles with biases on race and gender when it comes to its predictions.
Overtone has far more control over what goes into its models, and uses those models to differentiate various articles as to what they are bringing to the table. The past may be prologue, but there are different ways to view it and different stories to be told from it, including pieces that you may have not seen in a world based on virality, clicks and shares. For this week’s newsletter we focus on in-depth stories you might have missed for popular topics in 2022, as well as five articles predicting on those same themes for 2023.
Review: Hidden Gems in ‘22
War in Ukraine
The largest global story this year was the war in Ukraine, though there are many unexplored aspects you might have missed. Here Coda Story, a smaller outlet which focuses on topics such as Rewriting History, digs into the people keeping information available:
The race to save everything as war threatens the internet in Ukraine and Russia
Rise of the Machines
As we mentioned above, 2022 became the year of Generative AI, with models capturing the attention of the wider public. However, Rest of the World, which specialises in under-covered stories, wrote about how GAI used to replicate art disrespected a South Korean illustrator less than a week after his passing:
AI-generated art sparks furious backlash from Japan’s anime community.
Economic Uncertainty
Economic questions including inflation, purchasing power and more were a broader theme in 2023, with the growth of countries around the world interconnected. Here The China Project, which specialises in coverage of the People’s Republic, dissects how to make sense of the stats:
How to understand China’s notoriously dodgy economic statistics in 2022
Fall of Crypto
For some, 2022 might be remembered as the moment when heady predictions of cryptocurrency fortunes smacked into reality. While there are many stories on the whole industry, here The Information speaks to those who foresaw the particularly dramatic tale of FTX:
Energy Takes Off
In 2022, we saw energy prices hit an all-time high as a consequence of the Ukraine war. While it was an international story, it was also local. Here The Salt Lake Tribune covers how the FORGE project could be the answer to the energy shortage:
Is the future of energy sitting below this small Utah town?
Previews 2023
Looking back also brings us to the question of what we think will happen in 2023. Here are some in-depth pieces and what they have to say about the year ahead. Enjoy!
War in Ukraine
Since the start of the Ukraine war, the west have struggled to curb Russia’s oil cashflow. Chatham House theorises how an oil price cap could hinder Russia and how’d they’d react:
Will an EU oil price cap limit Russian aggression?
Rise of the Machines
ChatGPT, the latest creation of OpenAI, gives an inking of where AI can grow. Here Canada’s a trio in Global and Mail write how advances could one group in particular, those who grapple with language:
ChatGPT, AI can boost the economy by removing language barriers for immigrants seeking employment
Economic Uncertainty
Predictions about the future often get lumped broadly into categories like positive or negative. This piece from Wharton Business Daily falls firmly in the former, interviewing a finance professor about his view:
Why Jeremy Siegel Is Cautiously Optimistic About 2023
Fall of Crypto
The cratering of some crypto assets also means that there will be fallout beyond the industry, from celebrities to politicians. Here Alexander Sammon digs into donations and the legal case against FTX’s SBF that will unfold next year:
Uhh … What’s Going to Happen to All That Money Sam Bankman-Fried Gave Politicians?
Energy Takes Off
The closing of 2022 saw excitement about the possibilities of a new type of energy, nuclear fusion. Looking at the details, however, reveals more nuance. Here Grant Hill, for the Philadelphia-based WHYY, digs into what the development really means:
Why the nuclear fusion ‘net energy gain’ is more hype than breakthrough
Updates & conferences
Overtone has been selected for the MediaFutures programme, funded as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020. As part of a small group of startups, we’ll be looking at the qualitative characteristics of articles that can help us define which texts carry the most risk of harm. We’re grateful to receive grant funding to explore how to bring our technology into better service for society, while furthering the mission of respect for data privacy.
As part of that process, we are looking to work with institutions throughout the EU and associated countries such as the UK as we build out a new taxonomy for types of articles. If you are active in this space in Europe, please read this participation document and reach out to us.
In January 2023, we’ll also be presenting at the Eagle Alpha conference (held in New York). If you want to learn more about our work exploring how qualitative content metrics relates to financial analytics, look out for our updates on Twitter (if it still exists next year) and LinkedIn.