The Download: AI-generated art and YouTube’s algorithm

Those chill AI-generated images you’ve seen crossed the internet? There’s a bully accidental they are based connected the works of Greg Rutkowski.

Rutkowski is simply a Polish integer creator who uses classical coating styles to make dreamy phantasy landscapes. His distinctive illustration benignant has been utilized successful immoderate of the world’s astir fashionable phantasy games, including Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. 

Now he’s go a abrupt deed successful the caller satellite of text-to-image AI generation, becoming 1 of the astir commonly utilized prompts successful the caller open-source AI creation generator Stable Diffusion, which was launched precocious past month.

But this and different open-source programs are built by scraping images from the internet, often without support and due attribution to artists. As a result, they are raising tricky questions astir morals and copyright. And artists similar Rutkowski person had enough. Read the afloat story.

What’s happened: YouTube’s almighty proposal algorithm drives 70% of what radical ticker connected the platform, and the institution has created controls that purport to let radical to set what it shows them. But, a caller survey finds, those tools don’t bash much. Users person small powerfulness to support unwanted videos—including hatred speech—out of their recommendations.

How they did it: Mozilla researchers analyzed 7 months of YouTube enactment from implicit 20,000 participants to measure the ways that YouTube says users tin “tune their recommendations.” The controls had a “negligible” effect connected the recommendations participants received, and that contented that seemed to interruption the platform’s ain policies was inactive being actively recommended to users adjacent aft they’d sent antagonistic feedback. Read the afloat story.

1 The contention to decarbonize Europe’s dense industries
Scaling up promising technologies is among the biggest obstacles—but they’re not insurmountable. (Economist $)
+ Nature documentaries thin to skim implicit quality suffering. (Wired $)
+ Carbon removal is present “essential.”  (MIT Technology Review)

2What we misunderstand astir the termination pill
Medical trials, politicians and the nationalist person focused connected the little important of the 2 drugs. (The Atlantic $)
+ Where to get termination pills and however to usage them. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A instrumentality banning societal media from ‘censoring’ contented has been upheld
The Texas ruling could forestall platforms from moderating idiosyncratic contented astatine all. (Vox)
+ Experts are acrophobic by the law’s extremity. (WP $)
+ Here’s what Big Tech mightiness bash next. (Protocol)

4 AI art’s charm lies successful what it gets wrong 🖼️
When its images go excessively slick and polished, things get weird. (NY Mag $)
+ Stock representation sites are softly removing AI images. (Motherboard)
+ Graphic designers are increasing progressively uneasy. (Slate $)
+ The acheronian concealed down those cute AI-generated carnal images. (MIT Technology Review)

5 These women are speaking retired against Tesla’s toxic culture
Time and clip again, their complaints were ignored. (Rolling Stone $)

6 How Russia’s trolls undermined the US Women’s March movement 
The disinformation machine’s run of societal media exploitation was chillingly effective. (NYT $)
+ Donald Trump’s “big lie” communicative influenced a procreation of creators. (WP $)

7 Electric conveyance makers can’t support up with demand 🚗
But frustrated customers won’t hold forever. (WSJ $)
+ EVs inactive correspond the powerfulness grid’s champion changeable astatine solving its issues. (Wired $)
+ Detroit is besides betting large connected EVs. (Economist $)

8 Myanmar’s absorption groups are embracing integer currency
But concerns implicit its information are hard to shake. (Rest of World)

9 How VR could alteration taxable parks for good 🎢
 Visitors privation cutting-edge tech, but headsets tin lone instrumentality you truthful far. (The Guardian)

10 Gen Z loves captions 
And it’s thing to bash with proceeding loss. (WSJ $)

March 2022

Law enforcement agencies successful Minnesota person been carrying retired a secretive, long-running surveillance programme targeting civilian rights activists and journalists successful the aftermath of the execution of George Floyd successful May 2020.