The Download: climate responsibility, and AI training data shortages

1 year ago 126

The UN clime league wrapped up implicit the play after marathon negotiations that ran mode over. The astir notable outcome was the constitution of a money to assistance mediocre countries wage for clime damages, which was hailed arsenic a win. Beyond that, immoderate leaders are acrophobic determination wasn’t capable advancement astatine this year’s talks.

Consequently, everyone is pointing fingers, blaming others for not taking enactment accelerated capable connected clime funding. Activists are calling the US the ‘colossal fossil,’ portion US leaders kick astir being blamed portion China is the existent starring emitter.

But erstwhile it comes to moving retired who should beryllium paying what successful accepting liability for clime damages, we request to look beyond current emissions. When you adhd up historical emissions, it’s ace clear: the US is by acold the top full emitter, liable for astir a quarter. Read the afloat story.

—Casey Crownhart


Casey’s communicative is from the Spark, her play newsletter delving into the tricky subject of clime change. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Wednesday.


We could tally retired of information to bid AI connection programs 

What’s happening? Large connection models are 1 of the hottest areas of AI probe close now, with companies racing to merchandise programs similar GPT-3 that tin constitute impressively coherent articles and adjacent machine code. But there’s a occupation looming connected the horizon, according to a squad of AI forecasters: we mightiness tally retired of information to bid them on.

How agelong person we got? As researchers physique much almighty models with greater capabilities, they person to find ever much texts to bid them on. The types of information typically utilized for these models whitethorn beryllium utilized up successful the adjacent future—as aboriginal arsenic 2026, according to a insubstantial by researchers from Epoch, an AI probe and forecasting organization. Read the afloat story.

—Tammy Xu

Podcast: Want a job? The AI volition spot you now.

In the past, hiring decisions were made by people. Today, immoderate cardinal decisions that pb to whether idiosyncratic gets a occupation oregon not are made by algorithms. In this occurrence of our award-winning podcast, In Machines We Trust, we conscionable immoderate of the large players making this exertion including the CEOs of HireVue and myInterview—and trial immoderate of these tools ourselves.

Listen to it connected Apple Podcasts, oregon wherever you usually listen.

The must-reads

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

1 FTX’s illness should beryllium a large cautionary communicative for the crypto industry 
Unfortunately, it won’t needfully effect successful amended regulations. (New Yorker $)
+ Crypto isn’t known for heeding atrocious omens, aft all. (Vox)
+ FTX has invested millions into, err, a tiny bank. (NYT $) 
+ Sam Bankman-Fried’s favourite “longtermism” ideology sounds bogus. (Motherboard)
+ He hasn’t done the effectual altruism question immoderate favors, either. (The Atlantic $)

2 Elon Musk astir apt won’t state bankruptcy
That doesn’t mean his fiscal backers tin remainder easy, though. (The Atlantic $) 
+ Here’s who’s paying for Twitter close now. (NYT $)
+ Former Twitter employees fearfulness the level mightiness lone past weeks. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Measles is simply a increasing planetary threat
Vaccination rates are down, and it’s incredibly contagious. (Axios)

4 Maybe it’s clip we stopped automatically trusting billionaires
Exercising steadfast cynicism isn’t the aforesaid arsenic being a hater. (Vox)
+ A batch of large tech bosses wrongly assumed their covid-highs would past forever. (Slate $)

5 The existent outgo of America’s warfare connected China’s chips
The pricier the components, the much costly the last merchandise volition be. (FT $)
+ Workers astatine the world’s biggest iPhone mill are rioting. (Bloomberg $)
+ Inside the bundle that volition go the adjacent conflict beforehand successful the US-China spot war. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Rocks connected Mars suggest it could erstwhile person been habitable  
Organic molecules recovered successful the rocks whitethorn person supported forms of life. (WP $)
+ A UK-made Mars rover is heading backmost to the reddish planet. (BBC)

7 Why aboriginal factual whitethorn incorporate bacteria 
Bioconcrete is strong, and—crucially—greener. (Economist $)
+ These surviving bricks usage bacteria to physique themselves. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The acquisition of buying connected Amazon truly sucks these days
And it’s due to the fact that everything is an advert. (WP $)

9 What it’s similar to emotion the tech the world’s near behind
From walkmans to BlackBerrys, these ardent fans aren’t letting go. (The Guardian)
+ Smartphones person survived each the attempts to regenerate them. (The Verge)

10 The comments connected YouTube’s videos are works of art
Literally—an creator has made them into existent art. (New Yorker $)

Quote of the day

“He’s ever trying to get a laugh, that’s wherefore helium makes each his cars suicidal.”

—Dril, 1 of the seminal personalities of the humorous country of “weird Twitter,” reflects connected Elon Musk’s surreal enactment to the Washington Post.

The large story

What does breaking up Big Tech truly mean?

June 2021

For Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet, covid-19 was an economical blessing. Even arsenic the pandemic sent the planetary system into a heavy recession and cratered astir companies’ profits, these companies—often referred to arsenic the “Big Four” of technology—not lone survived but thrived.

Yet astatine the aforesaid time, they person travel nether unprecedented onslaught from politicians and authorities regulators successful the US and Europe, successful the signifier of  caller lawsuits, projected bills, and regulations. There’s nary denying that the unit is gathering to rein successful Big Tech’s power. But what would that entail? Read the afloat story.

—James Surowiecki

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.)

+ This kitten’s goalkeeping is conscionable extraordinary.
+ I truly bask the color combos this Twitter bot comes up with (thanks Niall!)
+ Atarah Ben-Tovim sounded similar an amazingly inspiring euphony teacher.
+ How to grow your movie-watching horizons and delve into thing new.
+ After the caller chess cheating scandal, I can’t spot anyone anymore. Here’s however to spot a dodgy opponent.

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