The Download: the human toll of ethical AI, and lab-grown meat

2 years ago 161

Margaret Mitchell had been moving astatine Google for 2 years earlier she realized she needed a break. Only aft she spoke with a therapist did she recognize the problem: she was burnt out. She ended up taking aesculapian permission due to the fact that of stress.

Mitchell, who present works arsenic an AI researcher and main morals idiosyncratic astatine the AI startup Hugging Face, is acold from unsocial successful her experience. Burnout is becoming progressively communal successful responsible-AI teams, who are improbable to person the aforesaid levels of enactment arsenic colleagues who specialize successful contented moderation, though the enactment tin beryllium conscionable arsenic psychologically draining.

All the practitioners MIT Technology Review interviewed spoke enthusiastically astir their work: it is fueled by passion, a consciousness of urgency, and the restitution of gathering solutions for existent problems. But that consciousness of ngo tin beryllium overwhelming without the close support. Read the afloat story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Will lab-grown nutrient scope our plates?

Would you devour lab-grown meat? Plenty of companies person acceptable retired to make nutrient products from musculus and abdominous cells cultured successful vats—around 80 astatine the past count. The committedness is huge: it could let america to chopped backmost connected intensive carnal farming, which tin beryllium brutal and inhumane, and to sidestep carnal agriculture’s destructive effects connected the environment.

But whether these companies tin present connected that committedness is different substance entirely. And adjacent if companies win successful bringing a inexpensive cultured-meat merchandise to market, would anyone devour it? Read the afloat story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This communicative is from The Checkup, Jessica’s caller play newsletter covering the ins and outs of the biotech and wellness sectors. 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 Elon Musk has bought Twitter
What happens adjacent is anyone’s guess. (FT $)
+ Musk wasted nary time: a fig of executives are acceptable to leave. (NYT $)
+ His archetypal instinct was to reassure advertisers. (Variety $)
+ The European Union has reminded Musk to play by its rules. (Bloomberg $)
+ Here’s however to delete your Twitter account. (WP $)

2 Everyone is sick close now
Flu and different bugs are backmost with a vengeance present we’re mixing again. (Vox)
+ If you’re 1 of the fortunate ones, here’s however to enactment healthy. (The Atlantic $)

3 Ethereum is hard to beat
The botched motorboat of a challenger blockchain demonstrates why. (Wired $) 
+ The Merge has birthed a caller people of blockchain participants. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why Ethereum’s power to impervious of involvement matters. (MIT Technology Review

4 Big Tech is feeling vulnerable
Their quarterly net are down, and executives are nervous. (WP $)
+ Even the largest companies are nary longer immune to the economical downturn. (NYT $)

5 How the detention of a Huawei enforcement worsened US-China relations
The captive speech besides implicated Canada. (WSJ $)
+ Further curbs connected exports to China could beryllium connected their way. (WP $)

6 The aboriginal of online code could beryllium connected this European law
And unit them to overhaul their moderation systems successful the process. (Slate $)

7 Hydroelectricity has an representation problem
It’s businesslike and green, truthful wherefore bash truthful fewer countries privation to put successful it? (IEEE Spectrum
+ World leaders are acceptable to assemble adjacent week for COP27. (Economist $)
+ Droughts are cutting into California’s hydropower. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Here’s what a aboriginal beyond carnal investigating could look like
A projected US measure could propulsion america towards computer-based investigating instead. (Neo.Life

9 Here's however Iranian authorities are controlling protestors’ phones
The SIAM strategy breaks encryption and slows connections. (The Intercept)

10 Anime and manga fans are rising up against DALL-E
Illustrators aren’t thrilled astir text-to-image models, either. (Rest of World)
+ It’s getting harder to differentiate betwixt AI creation and existent photographs. (FT $)
+ This creator is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not blessed astir it. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“The metaverse is ‘living wrong of a computer.’ The past happening I privation to bash erstwhile I get location from enactment during a agelong time is unrecorded wrong of a computer.”

—Evan Spiegel, who founded Snapchat, has zero clip for the metaverse, reports Bloomberg.

The large story

Aging clocks purpose to foretell however agelong you’ll live

April 2022

Age is overmuch much than the fig of birthdays you’ve clocked. Stress, sleep, and fare each power however our organs header with the deterioration and teardrop of mundane life. Factors similar these mightiness marque you property faster oregon slower than radical calved connected the aforesaid day. That means your biologic property could beryllium rather antithetic from your chronological age—the fig of years you’ve been alive.

Your biologic property is apt a amended reflection of your carnal wellness and adjacent your ain mortality than your chronological age. But calculating it isn’t astir arsenic straightforward. Scientists person spent the past decennary processing tools called aging clocks that measure markers successful your assemblage to uncover your biologic age.

The large thought down aging clocks is that they’ll fundamentally bespeak however overmuch your organs person degraded, and frankincense foretell however galore steadfast years you person left. Among the hundreds of aging clocks developed successful the past decade, though, accuracy varies widely. And researchers are inactive grappling with a captious question: What does it mean to beryllium biologically young? Read the afloat story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

We tin inactive person bully things

A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line or tweet 'em astatine me.)

+ Brandi Carlile belting retired A Case of You is conscionable amazing. What a voice!
+ Are you successful interaction with your shadow self?
+ Sorry wedding planners—donut walls are canceled.
+ There’s a batch going connected successful the caller Final Fantasy XVI trailer.
+ Just presume everything’s cake from present on, okay?

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