11 months ago
160 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.
Inside the little-known radical mounting the firm clime agenda
As thousands of companies trumpet their plans to chopped c pollution, a tiny radical of sustainability consultants has emerged arsenic the go-to arbiter of firm clime action.
The Science Based Targets initiative, oregon SBTi, helps businesses make a timetable for enactment to shrink their clime footprint done immoderate operation of cutting greenhouse-gas contamination and removing c dioxide from the atmosphere. After years of small-scale sustainability work, SBTi is increasing rapidly, and governments are paying attention.
But portion the radical has earned praise for reeling the backstage assemblage into constructive conversations astir clime emissions, its rising power has besides attracted scrutiny and raised questions astir wherefore a azygous enactment is mounting the standards for galore of the world’s largest companies. Read the afloat story.
—Ian Morse
Earth is astir apt harmless from a slayer asteroid for 1,000 years
The news: Breathe a suspiration of relief—no asteroid larger than a kilometer is going to deed the Earth successful the adjacent 1,000 years, a caller survey has found.
How they did it: A squad of researchers modeled erstwhile asteroids cataloged by NASA were expected to travel adjacent Earth successful their orbit, earlier pushing those estimates up to 1,000 years into the future. By identifying “the fraction of the orbit that tin bring the entity adjacent to Earth,” the squad was capable to exemplary interaction risks overmuch farther retired than has been imaginable with different methods.
However… Smaller asteroids, which are overmuch much plentiful, tin inactive origin plentifulness of damage. That’s wherefore it’s inactive important to support an oculus connected thing that could hurtle towards america from outer space. Read the afloat story.
—Jonathan O'Callaghan
How bash you lick a occupation similar out-of-control AI?
Last week Google revealed it is going each successful connected generative AI. At its yearly I/O conference, the institution announced it plans to embed AI tools into virtually each of its products, from Google Docs to coding and online search.
The announcement is simply a large deal, and volition springiness billions of radical entree to powerful, cutting-edge AI models. But it volition astir apt beryllium conscionable a substance of clip earlier things commencement to spell awry. The institution has not solved immoderate of the communal problems with these AI models: they inactive marque worldly up, are casual to manipulate, and are susceptible to attacks.
Because these sorts of AI tools are comparatively new, they inactive run successful a mostly regulation-free zone. But portion calls for regularisation are increasing louder, and regulators are starting to inquire pugnacious questions, we’re inactive a agelong mode from seeing immoderate due rules to rein successful generative AI. Read the afloat story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
This communicative is from The Algorithm, Melissa’s play AI newsletter. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Monday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 The EU has approved Microsoft’s bid to get Activision Blizzard
But the US and UK aren’t blessed astir it. (Vox)
+ If it goes ahead, it’ll beryllium the largest tech mega-merger successful 2 decades. (NYT $)
+ The determination is simply a monolithic triumph for Microsoft, adjacent if it isn’t a done woody yet. (CNBC)
2 Sam Altman is testifying to US Congress today
It’s portion of a subcommittee proceeding astir the risks AI poses to society. (CNN)
+ Regulating AI is famously much easy said than done. (NPR)
+ How OpenAI built ChatGPT. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Human DNA is virtually everywhere
If idiosyncratic collected it deliberately, it’d beryllium a privateness minefield. (NYT $)
4 Google is trying to get generative AI systems connected your smartphone
There’s a large hurdle: the immense computing powerfulness they require. (FT $)
5 China’s biotech gamble isn’t paying off
Despite the immense magnitude of wealth pumped into the country’s cause companies. (Bloomberg $)
6 Carmakers are taking the hunt for EV artillery minerals into their ain hands
Including financing mines and promising to bargain what they unearth. (WSJ $)
+ Inside a artillery recycling facility. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Automated hiring algorithms are inactive discriminating against workers
And it’s not conscionable jobseekers that are losing out. (Wired $)
+ Auditors are investigating hiring algorithms for bias, but there’s nary casual fix. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Archivists are racing to backmost up the internet
Around 1 cardinal images are astatine hazard of deletion from representation big Imgur. (Motherboard)
9 How the Kurdish connection made its mode onto Google Translate
Largely acknowledgment to the efforts of 1 man. (Rest of World)
+ How a assemblage banded unneurotic to sphere the Māori language. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Dodgy AI-generated publication covers person arrived 📚
It’s atrocious quality for talented quality illustrators. (The Verge)
+ This creator is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not blessed astir it. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“STOP CONTACTING ME. I AM NOT SHARING ANY MORE NATO LEAKS.”
—Sikers, a Discord idiosyncratic who inadvertently shared classified documents connected a server dedicated to Minecraft maps, begs to beryllium near alone, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The large story
How Silicon Valley hatched a program to crook humor into quality eggs
A fewer years ago, a young antheral from California’s exertion country began popping up successful the world’s starring developmental biology labs dedicated to deciphering the secrets of embryos.
Matt Krisiloff had a circumstantial involvement successful the artificial-egg technology, and said helium wanted to assistance them.
The institution Krisiloff started, called Conception, is the largest commercialized task pursuing what’s called successful vitro gametogenesis, which refers to turning big cells into gametes—sperm oregon ovum cells.
Their extremity is ambitious, to accidental the least. If scientists tin make supplies of eggs, it would cancel the property limits connected pistillate fertility—and interruption the rules of reproduction arsenic we cognize them. Read the afloat story.
—Antonio Regalado
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.)
+ Celebs, they’re conscionable similar us—and they conscionable love going to gaming events.
+ Wow: this chap has acceptable a satellite grounds for living underwater for a expansive full of 74 days (without immoderate depressurization!)
+ 50 years ago, the US launched its archetypal abstraction station, Skylab.
+ These beauteous illustrations of deep oversea monsters are captivating.
+ How overmuch is simply a smidgen, exactly?
