Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year 2024

12 Days of OpenAI News, Live | “Brain Rot", Word of the Year 2024 by Oxford University Press

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Ismael Nafría & Clara Nafría
December 13, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Good morning!

Welcome to "On the Net Today". Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we bring you a handpicked selection of three valuable and interesting online resources to help you get the most out of the internet and optimize your browsing time.

Here are the three resources we've prepared for today:

  • Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year 2024

  • 12 Days of OpenAI News, Live

  • “Brain Rot", Word of the Year 2024 by Oxford University Press

Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year 2024 

The TIME magazine announced this Thursday that the recently re-elected president of the United States, Donald Trump, is the Person of the Year 2024 and occupies the traditional annual cover dedicated to the "Person of the Year".

This is the second time the Republican politician has been named "Person of the Year" by TIME: he was previously selected in 2016, when he was first elected president of the United States.

Trump succeeds singer Taylor Swift, who was TIME's "Person of the Year" in 2023.

TIME magazine has taken advantage of this announcement to launch a new tool for readers: an AI chatbot that, for now, is linked to the "Person of the Year" special:

Here's how it works:

TIME magazine has also recently chosen basketball player Caitlin Clark as the 2024 athlete of the year, singer Elton John as the 2024 icon, and Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, as CEO of the year.

Links: 

12 Days of OpenAI News, Live

Since last Thursday, December 5, and until next Monday, December 23, the generative artificial intelligence company OpenAI is celebrating the "12 Days of OpenAI", during which they present a new feature live through their YouTube channel each day.

For example, this past Monday they launched the highly anticipated public version of their video creation tool Sora:

Another already released launch has been the Pro version of ChatGPT:

The live broadcasts are made at 10 in the morning (Pacific time), from Monday to Friday, and are then made available on both the YouTube channel and the OpenAI website dedicated to these 12 days of launches, where additional information about the presented innovations is also offered.

Links:

“Brain Rot", Word of the Year 2024 by Oxford University Press

The prestigious British publisher Oxford University Press has chosen the term "brain rot" as the word of the year 2024.

And at On The Net Today we have celebrated this because we believe our editorial mission is precisely to fight against what this term helps to denounce: the effects of excessive consumption of low-quality online content on people.

The publisher defines "brain rot" as the "supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially as a result of excessive consumption of material (now particularly online content) considered trivial or unchallenging".

"Brain rot" was the winning term after more than 37,000 votes received and the analysis and debate of the publisher's experts, who detected that this "brain rot" gained prominence throughout the year "as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media". Between 2023 and 2024, "brain rot" increased its frequency of use by 230%.

The first recorded use of "brain rot" dates back to 1854, in Henry David Thoreau's book "Walden", and as the Oxford English Dictionary explains, "it has acquired a new meaning as an expression in the digital era".

"Brain rot" competed with five other finalists: demure, dynamic pricing, lore, romantasy, and slop.

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