The Download: political AI models, and a wrongful arrest

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.

AI connection models are rife with antithetic governmental biases

The news: AI connection models incorporate antithetic governmental biases, according to a caller study. Researchers conducted tests connected 14 ample connection models and recovered that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4 were the astir left-wing libertarian, portion Meta’s LLaMA was the astir right-wing authoritarian.

How they did it: The squad asked connection models wherever they basal connected assorted topics, specified arsenic feminism and democracy. They utilized the answers to crippled them connected a governmental compass, past tested whether retraining models connected adjacent much politically biased grooming information changed their behaviour and quality to observe hatred code and misinformation (it did).

Why it matters: As AI connection models are rolled retired into products and services utilized by millions, knowing their underlying governmental assumptions could not beryllium much important. That’s due to the fact that they person the imaginable to origin existent harm. A chatbot offering health-care proposal mightiness garbage to connection proposal connected termination oregon contraception, for example. Read the afloat story. 

—Melissa Heikkilä

Read next: AI connection models person precocious go mixed up successful the US civilization wars, with immoderate calling for developers to make unbiased, purely fact-based AI chatbots. In her play newsletter each astir AI, The Algorithm, Melissa delves into wherefore it’s a bully concept—but technically intolerable to build. Read it to find retired more, and if you don’t already, 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 A pistillate was wrongfully arrested aft a mendacious look designation match
It’s notable that each idiosyncratic we cognize this has happened to has been Black. (NYT $)
+ The question to bounds look designation tech mightiness yet get a win. (MIT Technology Review)
 
2 AI startups are warring dirty 😈
We’re talking fake names, competitors posing arsenic customers, and adjacent bombing Zoom calls. (NYT $)
+ It’s each starting to look a batch similar a bubble. (WP $) 
 
3 A ballot successful San Francisco could alteration the aboriginal of driverless cars 
All eyes are connected whether the authorities committee volition o.k. a immense enlargement of autonomous taxis connected Thursday. (NBC)
+ Big tech companies are struggling to triumph implicit section residents and nationalist officials. (WSJ $)
 
4 Is Texas’ energy grid going to beryllium capable to grip electrical vehicles?
There are reasons to beryllium optimistic, not conscionable for that authorities but the US arsenic a whole. (The Atlantic $)
 
5 Criminals are enthusiastic aboriginal adopters of AI tools
On the acheronian web, they assertion to person created 2 ample connection models that tin assistance with amerciable activities. (Wired $)
+ Criminals are besides utilizing AI-generated books to scam people. (NYT $)
+ We are hurtling toward a glitchy, spammy, scammy, AI-powered internet. (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 The epoch of plentiful inexpensive worldly whitethorn beryllium coming to an end 
Maybe that’s not a wholly atrocious thing, frankly, for the involvement of the planet. (WSJ $)
 
7 People are keen to recreate Black Twitter elsewhere
There’s been a elephantine exodus from the site. But wherever should folks go? (WP $) 
 
8 Big cities request to change
To thrive, they request to reinvent themselves to beryllium much than conscionable places wherever radical work. (Vox)
+ What cities request now. (MIT Technology Review)
 
9 WhatsApp is moving connected 32-person dependable chats
Sounds similar axenic chaos! (The Verge) 
 
10 Even Zoom is making employees spell backmost into the office
Ironic, perhaps. But not that surprising. (Quartz $)

Quote of the day

“Usually our technologies springiness with 1 manus and benignant of slap america circular the backmost of the caput with the other.”

—Charlie Brooker, the creator of Black Mirror, expresses a amazingly even-handed presumption of tech improvement successful an interrogation with Vox. 

The large story

Meet the wounded seasoned who got a penis transplant

October 2019

Penis transplantation is simply a extremist frontier of modern medicine: highly rare, expensive, and hard to perform. Grafting a penis from a deceased donor onto a surviving recipient is simply a chaotic amalgamation that entails stitching millimeters-wide humor vessels and nerves with minuscule sutures.

Ray, a subject veteran, mislaid his genitals successful a weaponry blast portion helium was connected patrol successful Afghanistan—eight years earlier helium got the telephone to accidental the infirmary had a donor penis acceptable for him. The process would beryllium the astir extended penis transplant ever performed, and the archetypal for a subject seasoned anyplace successful the world. Read the afloat story.

—Andrew Zaleski