OPINION Microsoft is making massive progress in quantum computing, says Microsoft. Oh no they're not, say researchers. Anthropic's frontier models are too powerful for general use, says the US government. No, it's just Anthropic being punished for not doing what the US government tells them, say critics. Humans-in-the-loop are a pain-in-the-neck, says Amazon exec. Go do one, says this human. Three tech news stories from last week, six interpretations. You can probably decide between Microsoft PR and a peer-reviewed paper in Nature. Likewise, whether vindictiveness or virtue is at work with Anthropic. Amazon or a Reg hack? Harder to call.In all these cases, as in all cases, prior knowledge is the best context in which to judge media reports. Most citizens don't know much about most news, an eternal truth that is causing the UK government to fret about the future of public service broadcasting – or as it has become, public service media (PSM). With fewer people, especially that dread tribe, Young People, watching the wholesome fare of highly regulated broadcasters but feeding instead on firehoses of algo-spew, public service media risks suffocating on insignificance.
That's a reasonable fear, if you feel that public service media deserves to be heard. It is a complicated argument where great forces have clashed since the birth of broadcasting, but if you know that the rhetoric of "fake news" has an antecedent in the German slur "Lügenpresse," you'll know the answer is yes, and yes, with a side order of yes. Vivat Reith.
