10 months ago
163 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 quest to technologist climate-saving “super trees”
Biotech startup Living Carbon is trying to plan trees that turn faster and drawback much c than their earthy peers, arsenic good arsenic trees that defy rot, keeping that c retired of the atmosphere.
In February, the startup planted the archetypal wood successful the United States that contains genetically engineered trees. But there’s inactive overmuch we don’t know. How volition these trees impact the remainder of the forest? How acold volition their genes spread? And however bully are they, really, astatine pulling much c from the atmosphere? Read the afloat story.
—Boyce Upholt
Google DeepMind’s game-playing AI conscionable recovered different mode to marque codification faster
The news: A twelvemonth aft DeepMind utilized a mentation of its game-playing AI AlphaZero to find caller ways to velocity up the calculation of a important portion of math, the AI probe laboratory has pulled the aforesaid instrumentality again—twice.
Using a caller mentation of AlphaZero called AlphaDev, it has discovered however to benignant items successful a database up to 70% faster than the champion existing method, and besides recovered a mode to velocity up a cardinal algorithm utilized successful cryptography by 30%.
Why it matters: These algorithms are among the astir communal gathering blocks successful software. Small speed-ups tin marque a immense difference, cutting costs and redeeming energy. Read the afloat story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Instagram is fostering a immense kid enactment maltreatment network
The platform’s algorithms beforehand sickening content, too. (WSJ $)
+ Meta has acceptable up an investigatory task unit successful effect to a caller report. (WP $)
2 The Biden medication is delivering connected its crypto-humbling promises
It looks an atrocious batch similar portion of its program of being seen to beryllium pugnacious connected tech. (Vox)
+ Crypto ads successful the UK volition person to transportation caller hazard warnings. (The Guardian)
3 Solar vigor from abstraction has been beamed to Earth
It could beryllium a existent milestone for renewable vigor efforts. (WSJ $)
+ There’s a batch going connected up successful abstraction these days. (The Atlantic $)
4 Sequoia Capital has created its ain dedicated China firm
It demonstrates however adjacent the monolithic task superior steadfast is struggling to harvester doing concern with some the US and China. (FT $)
5 AI wants to optimize your job
But immoderate workers interest it looks a full batch similar an other furniture of surveillance. (WP $)
+ OpenAI hasn’t adjacent started grooming GPT-5 yet. (TechCrunch)
+ This startup is utilizing AI to springiness workers a “productivity score.” (MIT Technology Review)
6 We can’t disregard the communities surviving connected clime change’s beforehand line
But portion the destiny of the clime looks dire, catastrophe is not a foregone conclusion. (New Scientist $)
+ The UN conscionable handed retired an urgent clime to-do list. Here’s what it says. (MIT Technology Review)
7 What it’s similar to effort and get online successful North Korea
Millions of its residents person ne'er adjacent seen a webpage. (Wired $)
8 Plant burgers person a tropical lipid occupation 🍔
Plant-based nutrient isn’t immune from biology issues, adjacent if it is broadly much climate-friendly. (Vox)
+ The world’s biggest beef supplier is gathering a lab-grown nutrient works successful Spain. (Bloomberg $)
+ Here’s what a lab-grown burger tastes like. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Robots are competing successful canine agility competitions
It’ll beryllium a portion earlier they’re faster than our four-legged friends, though.(IEEE Spectrum)
+ This robot canine conscionable taught itself to walk. (MIT Technology Review)
10 The net has made our birthdays weird 🎂
Congratulatory emails from Uber and airlines… nary thanks. (Rest of World)
+ It’s a sobering reminder that immoderate platforms aren’t made to last. (Wired $)
Quote of the day
“The AI roar has brought the vigor backmost into the Bay that was mislaid during covid.”
—Doug Fulop, a tech entrepreneur who moved to Oregon past year, explains wherefore helium and his spouse are moving backmost to the newly-invigorated San Francisco to the New York Times.
The large story
Yann LeCun has a bold caller imaginativeness for the aboriginal of AI
June 2022Around a twelvemonth and a fractional ago, Yann LeCun realized helium had it wrong.
LeCun, who is main idiosyncratic astatine Meta’s AI laboratory and a prof astatine New York University, is 1 of the astir influential AI researchers successful the world. He had been trying to springiness machines a basal grasp of however the satellite works—a benignant of communal sense—by grooming neural networks to foretell what was going to hap adjacent successful video clips of mundane events. But guessing aboriginal frames of a video pixel by pixel was conscionable excessively complex. He deed a wall.
Now, aft months figuring retired what was missing, helium has a bold caller imaginativeness for the adjacent procreation of AI, which helium thinks volition 1 time springiness machines the communal consciousness they request to navigate the world. But his imaginativeness is acold from comprehensive; indeed, it whitethorn rise much questions than it answers. Read the afloat story.
—Melissa Heikkilä & Will Douglas Heaven
