Crypto News: What AOL can teach ChatGPT

If the early internet had a sound—aside from those screechy dial-up tones—it was the voice of AOL. Austin Carr writes about why today's AI products should consider harnessing its friendly vibe. Plus: What to expect as President-elect Donald Trump rolls out tariffs, and how high-tech tags could deter retail theft. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.

Last week, amid all the election noise, a deeply influential voice in consumer technology died: Elwood Edwards. You likely don't recognize his name, but if you're above a certain age, you've heard his iconic expression: "You've got mail!"

Back when America Online co-creator Steve Case was trying to popularize the internet portal, he turned to Edwards for help translating what was, in 1989, an incredibly novel concept for the masses. Edwards, who'd done voice-overs for radio commercials and whose wife happened to work for Case, ended up recording several phrases—a neighborly "Welcome" and "Goodbye" and a satisfying "File's done" notification—that spoke through the software to millions of AOL users in the coming years. It was a human comfort in an era of radical computerized change.

The voice interactions sound quaint by today's standards, yet their emotional connection is exactly what so many new-age services, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, struggle to replicate: warmth, dependability, productized nostalgia. In the 1990s, chatty postmen were no longer required to deliver electronic mail, but Case understood that to reach normies, the digitized exchange needed to be less robotic.

Familiar interface icons of paper envelopes and front-yard mailboxes—a now-passé design approach called skeuomorphism—also helped sand off the future's scary edges. "It was disarmingly friendly, like the voice you'd expect from a stranger who offered to carry your grandmother's groceries," Case recalled in his book The Third Wave.

The original Apple Macintosh 128K computer, released on Jan. 24, 1984, by Steve Jobs. Photographer: Apic/Getty Images

Humanizing tech, of course, wasn't a new idea. Steve Jobs grasped that making machines more user-friendly was key to making them mainstream, one reason he had the original Macintosh say "hello" to the audience at its 1984 introduction. Microsoft likewise relied on cute animations and dialogue suggestions to let Clippy demystify the complex menus of Word, while Amazon later infused its Alexa virtual assistant with charm and humor to ease concerns folks had about an always-listening device in their home.

Still, it's hard to imagine anyone talking as tenderly about those products as Meg Ryan's character did of AOL in the 1998 Manhattan rom-com You've Got Mail: "I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you."

There's now a big debate about how much or whether human elements should be incorporated into artificial intelligence products such as ChatGPT or Tesla's Optimus robots. Part of this is for safety reasons: Serious AI guardrails are often necessary to protect a user's privacy and sense of reality. Too much anthropomorphizing can be dangerous, particularly as well-funded startups and colossal tech companies race toward artificial general intelligence without sufficient oversight and regulation.

Then again, relistening to Edwards' intonations after all these years and realizing they still flood my ears with endorphins, I can't help but wonder what AI services would feel like if they had a touch more skeuomorphic humanity and a tad less prompt engineering. My heart, after all, doesn't skip a beat using Gmail's AI. Despite chatting with Microsoft's Copilot bot for months, I realized it doesn't even know my name.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT's new voice companion, though mind-blowing, lacks a measure of soul. When I asked Maple—one of the voices OpenAI defines as "cheerful and candid"—what it does to make users comfortable in the same way as Edwards' greetings, it said its goal is always to be personable and engaging: "It's all about creating that welcoming vibe, much like AOL's classic phrases made people feel at home online back in the day."

As long as its goal is to sound more like You've Got Mail than Her, I'm all ears.

Trump is expected to name Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
Bitcoin's record-breaking rally took the digital asset close to $90,000 for the first time.
Home Depot lifted its forecast of a key sales metric for the year as hurricanes spur demand for repairs.

US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at a joint press conference in Beijing in 2017. Photographer: Kyodo News/AP Photo

There will be tariffs. Extra-large ones on imports from China and medium-size ones for the rest of the world. At least that's what Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail. But if there's anything we learned during his first presidency, it's that this is a man who relishes chaos, pitting members of his cabinet against each other or making sudden policy U-turns that catch even his closest advisers unawares. And that's one reason to be less pessimistic about the fresh wave of protectionism he's promised to unleash on the world.

To Trump, who's dubbed himself "Tariff Man," import duties are magical—an instrument to achieve grand strategic goals and also to score tactical wins against adversaries and even partners. If he had his way, the US would hark back to a 19th century Gilded Age model of small government funded largely by tariffs rather than income taxes in which American barons of industry—the Elon Musks of their time—built vast wealth thanks to protectionism and the privilege of limited competition.

The details matter, though. Yes, Trump has threatened tariffs of 60% or more on goods from China and a universal 10%-to-20% levy on imports from all countries. But those vague campaign promises still need to be fleshed out and rolled out.

Which means it will be a while before we know the answers to some key questions, writes Shawn Donnan. He lays those out here: A Guide to Trump's Tariff Plans: Expect High Drama and a Bumpy Rollout

Illustration: Petra Péterffy for Bloomberg Businessweek

To stop shoplifting, merchants have tried everything from adding more guards and cameras to placing products under lock and key to deploying new security tags attached to garments. Still, theft—which can be due to both outsiders and employees—resulted in an estimated $73 billion in lost sales for retailers in the US alone in 2022, according to the latest survey released by the National Retail Federation. In the UK, losses from store thefts doubled in 2023, to £3.3 billion ($4.3 billion), from the previous year, according to the British Retail Consortium.

Now retailers are considering something new: weaving radio-emitting threads into some clothing, turning the garments themselves into anti-theft devices.

Zara owner Inditex SA, the world's biggest publicly held clothing retailer, is among those who have studied the change. The retail giant in Arteixo, Spain, has talked with a small Spanish technology company, Myruns, and telecommunications operator Telefónica SA about the possible application of a system based on an anti-theft alarm product so thin it's imperceptible to the naked eye, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing private information. An Inditex spokesman says the company does not plan to carry out in-store tests of the technology.

Retailers around the world are grappling with ways to cut losses from so-called inventory shrink, writes Clara Hernanz Lizarraga, and tech might be an answer: Retailers Are Considering Electronic Threads to Curb Shoplifting

$9 billion

That's the amount of Afghanistan's foreign reserves that were seized by the US three years ago. The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan wants a fresh start with Trump, and to rebuild an economy devastated by sanctions and the loss of international aid.

"The way you influence things is to participate, not to exit."

Darren Woods

CEO of Exxon Mobil

Woods discouraged Trump from withdrawing the US from the landmark Paris climate pact, arguing that would mean forfeiting a chance to push for "common sense" carbon-cutting policy on the world stage.

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