The Download: explaining the recent AI panic, and digital inequality in the US

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.

How existential hazard became the biggest meme successful AI

Who’s acrophobic of the large atrocious bots? A batch of people, it seems. Hundreds of scientists, concern leaders, and policymakers person precocious made nationalist pronouncements oregon signed unfastened letters informing of the catastrophic dangers of artificial intelligence, from heavy learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton to California congressman Ted Lieu.

We've been present before: AI doom follows AI hype. But this clip feels different. What were erstwhile utmost views are present mainstream talking points, grabbing not lone headlines but the attraction of satellite leaders.

Has AI truly go (more) dangerous? And wherefore are the radical who ushered successful this tech present the ones raising the alarm? Or is the looming specter of regularisation to blame? Read the afloat story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

If you’re funny successful speechmaking much astir AI existential risk, cheque retired the astir caller variation of The Algorithm, our play AI newsletter written by Melissa Heikkilä—and don’t hide to sign up to person it successful your inbox each Monday.

How clime vulnerability and the integer disagreement are linked

Walking astir low-income neighborhoods passim the US, Monica Sanders has noticed a pattern. The adjunct prof of instrumentality astatine Georgetown University measures Wi-Fi speeds arsenic portion of a task drafting connections betwixt a big of indicators astatine the intersection of net availability, biology risk, and humanities radical inequity.

Sanders has recovered that a deficiency of net entree mirrors different inequities. In neighborhoods shaped by racism and insufficient infrastructure investment, residents tin look disproportionate hazard from clime change, affecting everything from flood vulnerability to the quality to get catastrophe warnings. And she wants to empower them to tackle immoderate adjacent comes their way.  Read the afloat story.

—Colleen Hagerty

This communicative is 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 must-reads

I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.

1 OpenAI lobbied the EU to h2o down AI regulation
And it appears arsenic though its suggestions were heeded. (Time $)
+ Asset managers are freaking retired astir AI and quality rights issues. (FT $)
+ Our speedy usher to the 6 ways we tin modulate AI. (MIT Technology Review)

4 China’s tech manufacture is bouncing back
It’s been a pugnacious year, but the AI roar is lending a helping hand. (Bloomberg $)

5 Apple is going aft intelligence spot rights to pictures of apples 🍏
Switzerland’s largest effect farmer’s enactment isn’t taking it lying down. (Wired $)

6 Transitioning distant from integrative comes with a hidden cost
Millions of discarded pickers are apt to beryllium near without livelihoods. (Slate)
+ In defence of integrative (sort of). (MIT Technology Review)

7 Employers don’t privation to wage for your Ozempic
That’s not stopping pharma companies from trying to transportation them to, though. (Insider $)

+ Weight-loss injections person taken implicit the internet. But what does this mean for radical IRL? (MIT Technology Review)

8 Deadly fungal infections are connected the rise
They tin beryllium hard to treat, but scientists are racing to make the archetypal anti-fungal vaccine. (Inverse)

9 Even carsellers are confused by EVs
Plenty of savings are hiding successful plain sight, but not everyone takes vantage of them. (Vox)
+ China’s an EV leader, but its residents aren’t buying. (Bloomberg $)
+ Europe, meanwhile, is lagging behind. (Reuters)
+ In the clash of the EV chargers, it’s Tesla vs. everyone else. (MIT Technology Review)

10 You tin go a millionaire influencer 💰
Brazilian institution Hotmart has the way grounds to beryllium it—if you tin spend its fees. (Rest of World)

Quote of the day

"There's nary mode to escape, adjacent if you emergence to the aboveground by yourself. You cannot get retired of the sub without a unit connected the extracurricular letting you out."

—David Pogue, a CBS newsman who's antecedently traveled successful the tourer submarine that has disappeared during a dive to the Titanic's wreck, describes the severity of the crew's concern to the BBC.

The large story

House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood

April 2022

When Michael Maxson recovered his imagination location successful Nevada, it was not owned by a idiosyncratic but by a tech company, Zillow. When helium went to instrumentality a look astatine the property, however, helium discovered it damaged by a immense h2o leak. Despite offering to grip the costly repairs himself, Maxson discovered that the location had already been sold to different family, astatine the aforesaid terms helium had offered.

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.)

+ If you’re looking to grow your video crippled repertoire, these 10 hits from lesser-known studios are a large spot to start.
+ Elusive graffiti creator Banksy is back—with a caller show.
+ What amended mode to spot the sights of Boston than by bike?
+ Real life, oregon Black Mirror episode? You beryllium the judge.
+ This ‘primitive hut’ looks beauteous swanky to me.