Discord has become the place for gaming communities on the internet. The company just celebrated its 10th anniversary, and its impact is now big enough that it’s available directly on PlayStation and Xbox and was ripped off by Nintendo for the Switch 2’s GameChat.
Technology
Jacob Wohl is running an AI lobbying company under a fake name, Politico reports
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23891680/acastro_illo_226067_0002.jpg "Jacob Wohl is running an AI lobbying company under a fake name, Politico reports")
LobbyMatic claims on its website that its AI-powered software can do everything — like automatically monitor congressional hearings or “supercharge research” into legislative and regulatory issues.
Jumping on the AI hypewagon is a perfectly respectable career move. The problem is that sources have told Politico that Wohl and Burkman are running the firm under the pseudonyms “Jay Klein” and “Bill Sanders.”
LobbyMatic has no leadership listed on its official website. A company by the name of LobbyMatic that is registered in Delaware lists its registered agent as “A Registered Agent, Inc.” When reached for comment, LobbyMatic emailed The Verge with a link to a video featuring a man who looks like Jacob Wohl. In the video, he admits that “years ago I was involved in partisan politics.” Later in the video, he adds, “I don’t want my past in partisan politics half a decade ago to distract from a phenomenal product.”
The man does not explicitly identify himself as Wohl at any point or address the claims that he is running the company under a false name.
Politico’s report is based mostly on four former employees they are keeping anonymous. Its case can be summarized as follows:
When The Verge emailed LobbyMatic, we received an email with nothing but a hyperlink to a post on X by an account called @TheLobbyistGuy. The post reads, “Explaining the situation” and features a four-minute and forty-one-second video of a man who looks like Jacob Wohl. “There’s a news story out today I’d like a chance to respond to,” says the man. “It’s no secret that years ago I was involved in partisan politics. It’s certainly no secret in Washington, D.C. It was about half a decade ago, I was a young man, and since then, I have taken my energy in a new direction.”
He then proceeds to give a sales pitch for his software.
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Graduation is one of those unique milestones in life that’s both exciting and nerve-wracking. It’s worth celebrating, but it also marks a new chapter that can feel overwhelming. That’s why your grad will surely appreciate a little support as they step into the next phase of their life, whether that be college or their first job.
Lucky for you, we’ve put together a list of gifts that are designed to make the transition into post-grad life a little smoother. Our picks cover essentials they might need for their first apartment or dorm — from kitchenware to tools — along with a few gifts to remind them of home. We’ve also sprinkled in a ton of gadgets to set them up for success, including e-readers and portable chargers. And because they’ve certainly earned some downtime, we’ve included a selection of other ideas to help them unwind and celebrate a job well done.
Update, May 23rd: Adjusted pricing / availability and added several new gift suggestions, including Apple’s latest MacBook Pro 13 and Lovepop’s colorful Black-Eyed Susan Bouquet.
Whether it’s powering your phone’s autocorrect or helping someone create a new recipe with a few words, artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere right now. But if you’re still nodding along when someone mentions “neural networks” or “generative AI,” you’re not alone.
Today I am breaking down five buzzy AI terms that you’ve probably seen in headlines, group chats or app updates, minus the tech talk. Understanding these basics will help you talk AI with confidence, even if you’re not a programmer.
Stay tuned for more in this series as we dive deeper into privacy-related tech terms and other essential concepts, answering the top questions we get from readers like you.
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Visual Illustration of AI (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
1. Artificial intelligence (AI)
The big umbrella term
Artificial Intelligence is a broad term for computer systems that can do tasks normally requiring human intelligence. That includes understanding language, recognizing images, making decisions and even learning from experience.
You’re using AI when:
- Your email suggests replies
- Your phone transcribes your voice
- Netflix recommends what to watch next
Think of AI as the category; everything else on this list is a branch of it. It’s the foundation for all the smart tools we use today, from voice assistants to facial recognition. As AI continues to evolve, it has the power to make everyday tasks easier, faster and more personalized. But as it becomes more embedded in our lives, understanding the basics is key to using it wisely and protecting your digital autonomy.
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2. Machine learning (ML)
How AI learns patterns
Machine Learning is a type of AI that learns from data instead of being explicitly programmed. It improves over time by finding patterns and making predictions.
For example: You like action movies. You watch a few. Over time, the algorithm learns your preferences and recommends similar titles, even if you didn’t say anything directly.
Common uses of ML:
ML is how AI “gets smarter” by itself, and it’s a big part of how tech becomes more helpful and intuitive. From catching suspicious charges on your credit card to curating your favorite music, machine learning can make life more seamless and even safer. But as with any technology, it’s important to stay aware of how your data is being used and who’s doing the learning. The more we understand how it works, the better we can decide how and when to trust it.
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3. Neural network
The tech that mimics your brain
Neural Networks are a special kind of machine learning designed to mimic how the human brain works, at least loosely. They’re made up of layers of “neurons” that process data and make decisions.
They’re particularly good at recognizing complex patterns, like identifying faces in photos or translating languages.
Use cases include:
- Face ID unlocking your phone
- Speech-to-text apps
- Translating text in real time
If AI is the brain, neural networks are the brain cells doing the work. Neural networks are the part of AI that actually processes information. They’re designed to mimic how human brains work, taking in data, learning patterns and making decisions. So, when AI recognizes a face, writes a sentence or makes a suggestion, it’s neural networks making that happen behind the scenes.
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Illustration of humans and machine learning (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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4. Generative AI
AI that creates, not just predicts
Generative AI doesn’t just analyze data, it creates new stuff: text, images, videos, code, music, even voices. It’s trained on huge amounts of content and learns how to generate something new that mimics the original.
You’ve seen it in action if you’ve used:
- ChatGPT or similar bots to write messages
- AI art generators like Midjourney or DALL·E
- Auto-generated captions or social media copy
It’s like giving a machine a vibe and watching it invent something that fits. Generative AI is creative, fast and sometimes uncannily realistic, which is what makes it both exciting and a little unsettling.
Think you can tell the difference?
Be sure to play my game to guess which photo is AI and which one is real. It’s harder than you think and a good reminder that as these tools get more advanced, staying alert and informed is more important than ever.
WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?
Find the fake kitten. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
FIND THE FAKE: KITTENS
5. Prompt
The magic words that make AI work
A prompt is the input you give to an AI system, usually a question, command or description. It’s how you talk to tools like ChatGPT or image generators.
The better your prompt, the better the result.
Examples:
- “Write a birthday message in the style of Shakespeare”
- “Create a recipe using only chickpeas and chocolate”
- “Make an image of a robot drinking coffee in Paris, 1920s style”
Prompts are to AI what questions are to Google, but with more creativity and conversation. Unlike a search engine that simply points you to existing content, AI can generate entirely new ideas, images and text based on what you ask. It’s more than a search box; it’s a creative tool. Whether you’re drafting a story, designing a logo or planning a vacation, learning how to prompt effectively lets you tap into AI’s full potential as a collaborator, not just an information source.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
You don’t need a computer science degree to understand AI, just a few solid definitions. From machine learning and neural networks to generative AI and prompts, these tools are no longer reserved for tech labs; they’re becoming part of your everyday life. Whether it’s helping you write an email, organize your photos or get dinner ideas based on what’s in your fridge, AI is already working behind the scenes to make life a little easier (and sometimes a lot more interesting).
Now that you’ve got the lingo down, you’ll be better equipped to navigate the AI-powered world with confidence and curiosity.
Want to go deeper? Interested in how AI can improve your daily routine or looking for creative prompt ideas to get the most out of tools like ChatGPT? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter.
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But as it tries to grow, one of the big challenges Discord faces is that, for big or longer-running communities, it can be hard to know where to start, hard to catch up to the speed of real-time conversations, and hard to sift through the potentially huge amounts of conversations and channels. A lot of communities used to form around forums, but Discord just isn’t a good replacement for that kind of structured messaging, as covered by Aftermath’s Luke Plunkett.
“This is something we want to solve,” Peter Sellis, Discord’s SVP of product, tells The Verge. “It is not our intention to lock a bunch of this knowledge into Discord.”
One way Discord wants to tackle the problem is add features that are “more amicable to structured knowledge sharing, like forums, that we could probably do a better job of investing in and is something we want to do for game developers,” Sellis says.
Another involves LLMs. “There’s an incredible opportunity now with large language models and their ability to summarize conversations,” he says. That could help Discord take a long conversation between multiple people — “what is essentially a really poorly structured shareable object,” he says — and boil it down to “something that could be more shareable and then potentially syndicated to the web.”
Sellis couldn’t share many other details, and couldn’t give a timeline for when any of this might be ready: “I haven’t seen a solution that we feel great about yet.”
Discord wants to do it right, he says — especially because a solution that makes information more easily accessible outside of Discord could involve a lot of work for server moderators and admins. “We have a very sensitive radar for stuff that causes them a bunch of work that doesn’t give them the return they need,” he says. (It’s wise not to piss off your moderators.)
None of this was imminent, if it even happens at all. That said, “I assure you that this is something that people within Discord feel the pain of themselves,” Sellis says. “And when our engineers and product designers and product managers feel it personally, they generally want to solve it.”
Another big challenge Discord faces is how to build the product to serve both the needs of giant community servers and the tiny servers where groups hang out — especially when, according to Discord, 90 percent of “all activity on Discord” happens in “small, intimate servers.”
Sellis calls it “one of the biggest challenges for the team” — but also says that it’s “honestly the biggest opportunity.” He says that Discord thinks about how it can make people “feel comfortable in both these spaces, understand that there are different types of spaces, and the technology is familiar, but still different in both of these places.”
Sellis says that the biggest Discord server is Midjourney, a key company in text-to-AI image generation that lets you generate visuals right inside Discord. Midjourney became popular because it turned the “single-player game” of generating AI images into a multiplayer community. “You can just watch people try things, experiment, fail, succeed, embarrass themselves, etc. And that made it kind of like a collective action.”
He says Discord is seeing something similar with the recently launched Wordle app on the platform, too, which lets you compete with your friends.
That all speaks to some of Discord’s larger vision. Sellis is seeing a trend that “everything is starting to kind of look like a game” and “Discord can be used as a social layer on any game to essentially improve its engagement, its socialness, and its multiplayer capacity. That’s something we like and are going to lean into.”
And as for Nintendo’s GameChat? “I would say imitation is a very sincere form of flattery,” Sellis says. “Hard to imagine being more flattered than being copied by Nintendo.”
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