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This is today's variation of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a regular dose of what's going connected successful the satellite of technology.
The radical paid to bid AI are outsourcing their work… to AI
The news: Many radical who are paid to bid AI models whitethorn beryllium themselves outsourcing that enactment to AI, a caller survey has found.
How they did it: Researchers hired 44 radical connected the gig enactment level Amazon Mechanical Turk to summarize 16 extracts from aesculapian probe papers, past analyzed their responses for telltale signs they’d been produced by AI models. They estimated that determination betwixt 33% and 46% of the workers had utilized AI models similar OpenAI’s ChatGPT to implicit the task.
Why it matters: Using AI-generated information to bid AI could present further errors into already error-prone models. If they make incorrect output that is itself utilized to bid different AI models, the errors tin beryllium absorbed by those models and amplified implicit time, making it much and much hard to enactment retired their origins. Read the afloat story.
—Rhiannon Williams
To work much astir what happens erstwhile AI is trained connected AI, cheque retired my workfellow Melissa Heikkilä’s piece connected wherefore we’re hurtling toward a glitchy, spammy, scammy, AI-powered internet.
Robotaxis are here. It’s clip to determine what to bash astir them
—Benjamin Schneider
In immoderate San Francisco neighborhoods, cars with nary operator down the instrumentality person go a communal sight. Many of the city’s ghostly driverless cars are commercialized robotaxis, straight competing with taxis and ride-hailing companies.
I spent the past twelvemonth covering robotaxis for the San Francisco Examiner and person taken astir a twelve rides successful Cruise driverless cars implicit the past fewer months. During my reporting, I’ve been struck by the deficiency of urgency successful the nationalist sermon astir robotaxis. It’s precocious clip for the nationalist and its elected representatives to play a much progressive relation successful shaping the aboriginal of this caller technology. Like it oregon not, robotaxis are here.
Now comes the hard enactment of deciding what to bash astir them. Read the afloat story.
The spot patterning machines that volition signifier computing’s adjacent act
When we speech astir computing these days, we thin to speech astir bundle and the engineers who constitute it. But without the hardware and the carnal sciences that enabled their creation—disciplines similar optics, materials science, and mechanical engineering—modern computing would person been impossible.
Semiconductor lithography, the manufacturing process liable for producing machine chips, stands astatine the halfway of a geopolitical contention to power the aboriginal of computing power. And the velocity astatine which caller lithography systems and components are developed volition signifier not lone the velocity of computing advancement but besides the equilibrium of powerfulness and profits wrong the tech industry. Read the afloat story.
—Chris Miller
Both Benjamin and Chris’s stories are from our forthcoming people issue, which is each astir accessibility. If you haven’t already, subscribe to marque definite you don’t miss retired connected aboriginal stories—subscriptions commencement from conscionable $80 a year.
The chaotic contention to amended synthetic embryos
—Antonio Regalado
Last week, The Guardian blasted retired quality of a sensational “breakthrough” astatine the gathering of the International Society for Stem Cell Research successful Boston.
The assertion was that a researcher named Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, based astatine the University of Cambridge and Caltech, had created “synthetic quality embryos” utilizing stem cells arsenic the starting point.
What irked maine astir this communicative was that this thought isn’t truthful new. The astonishing information that stem cells volition self-organize into structures sharing features with existent embryos has been known and studied for respective years, arsenic we archetypal reported successful 2017.
Since then, several labs person been successful a competitory race to marque these “embryo models” much complete, much realistic, and ever much similar bona fide embryos, implicit with placenta tissue.
What irked scientists was thatZernicka-Goetz appeared to assertion to person finished the race—but did truthful successful the media, without providing immoderate technological proof.
The twist successful the communicative is that determination really was a breakthrough, but it came from a antithetic lab… Read the afloat story.
Antonio is lasting successful for Jessica Hamzelou, who usually writes The Checkup, her play newsletter giving you the wrong way connected each things biotech. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Thursday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 The US navy heard the Titan submersible ‘implode’ days ago
But due to the fact that it wasn’t definitive, officials decided to proceed searching. (WSJ $)
+ The tragic ngo is present apt to beryllium consumed successful messy ineligible proceedings. (Vox)
+ The operator’s CEO had an unconventional attack to information measures. (FT $)|
+ Film manager James Cameron claims he’d heard information concerns astir the sub. (NYT $)
2 Generative AI models are apt to autumn foul of EU rules
Copyright, successful particular, is apt to beryllium a existent sticking point. (FT $)
+ Some existent grounds for wherefore those AI-stealing-our-jobs headlines are overhyped. (Wired $)
+ Stability AI wants its model’s contented to look adjacent much realistic. (Bloomberg $)
+ Five large takeaways from Europe’s AI Act. (MIT Technology Review)
3 It’s a twelvemonth since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade
We inactive don’t afloat recognize what comes next. (WP $)
+ The cognitive dissonance of watching the extremity of Roe unfold online. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Canada volition unit Google and Meta to wage for news
It’s imaginable the platforms could onslaught a deal, arsenic Facebook did successful Australia. (BBC)
5 Reddit is pressuring its moderators to extremity the blackout
Certain subreddits are reopening nether duress from the site. (The Verge)+ The company’s income maturation has crushed to a halt. (The Information $)
6 The FBI demands constabulary soundlessness successful speech for surveillance aid
Forces are made to motion NDAs earlier helping them to way suspects. (Wired $)
7 E-bike fires are connected the emergence successful New York
13 radical are known to person died this twelvemonth alone, and gig system workers are astatine precocious risk. (The Guardian)
8 Heat waves are getting worse
And they’re projected to go much frequent, too. (Vox)
+ Do these vigor waves mean clime alteration is happening faster than expected? (MIT Technology Review)
9 How immunotherapy could assistance close immune systems
The crab attraction could dainty systems themselves, arsenic good arsenic attacking rogue cells. (Economist $)+ Bacteria is besides an effectual mode to dainty immoderate cancers. (New Scientist $)+ The quest to amusement that biologic enactment matters successful the immune system. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Liquid metallic could crook immoderate entity into a astute device
Which could beryllium a existent assistance connected abstraction missions. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day
“I don’t person to spot oregon not to trust.”
—Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the interior market, explains to a newsman that his caller travel to “stress test” Twitter’s compliance with Europe’s caller integer contented instrumentality doesn’t trust connected his ain idiosyncratic convictions, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The large story
Inside the contention to physique the champion quantum machine connected Earth
February 2020Google’s astir precocious machine isn’t astatine the company’s office successful Mountain View, California, nor anyplace successful the febrile sprawl of Silicon Valley. It’s a fewer hours’ thrust southbound successful Santa Barbara, successful a flat, soulless bureau park.
This is the machine that Google is betting connected to bushed IBM successful a contention to beryllium among the archetypal to usher successful a caller epoch of machines that would marque today’s mightiest machine look similar an abacus, but done precise antithetic approaches. And it’s these differing goals that could power which—if either—comes retired up successful the quantum computing race. Read the afloat story.
—Gideon Lichfield
We tin inactive person bully things
A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon tweet 'em astatine me.)
+ A existent Italian tried a deep crockery pizza, and unsurprisingly, helium wasn’t terribly impressed. 🍕
+ How plan corporate Hipgnosis redefined the medium cover: from AC/DC to Pink Floyd.
+ Blogger-zines are back!
+ Remembering the unthinkable bequest of Alan Turing, who was calved connected this time 111 years ago.
+ Drop everything: this is what it’s similar to devour a $120,000 banana—that besides happens to beryllium a enactment of art.
English (US) ·