10 months ago
148 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.
Food transportation by drone is conscionable portion of regular beingness successful Shenzhen
—Zeyi Yang
In a buzzy municipality country successful Shenzhen, China, I watched arsenic a drone descended onto a pickup kiosk to present the iced beverage I’d ordered fractional an hr earlier. The transportation work is operated by Meituan, China’s astir fashionable nutrient transportation platform, which has been making regular drone deliveries to the city’s residents for the past twelvemonth and a half.
What differentiates Meituan from its American peers is that it’s flying drones successful perchance the astir challenging environment: dense municipality neighborhoods. For immoderate Shenzhen residents and vendors, transportation by drone is nary longer a novelty—it’s portion of their regular routine. And the company’s advancement shows that regular drone transportation successful cities is possible. Read the afloat story.
Our speedy usher to the 6 ways we tin modulate AI
AI regularisation is hot. Ever since the occurrence of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, the public’s attraction has been grabbed by wonderment and interest astir what these almighty AI tools tin do.
Tech CEOs, US senators and leaders astatine the G7 acme are each agreed successful their tendency for planetary standards and stronger guardrails to govern AI. Melissa Heikkilä, our elder AI reporter, has analyzed six antithetic planetary attempts to modulate the technology, and fixed each of them a people for however influential they are. Take a look astatine what she came up with.
This communicative is portion of our Tech Review Explains series, dedicated to untangling the complex, sometimes messy, satellite of subject and exertion to assistance you recognize what's going on. Check retired the different stories successful the series.
And if you’d similar to perceive much of Melissa’s incisive thoughts connected AI regulation, cheque retired the latest variation of The Algorithm, her play AI newsletter, each astir the prospects for AI regularisation successful the US. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Monday.
Brain waves tin archer america however overmuch symptom idiosyncratic is in
The news: Brain signals tin beryllium utilized to observe however overmuch symptom a idiosyncratic is experiencing, which could overhaul however we dainty definite chronic symptom conditions, a caller survey has suggested. Electrodes implanted successful the brains of 4 radical surviving with chronic symptom helped researchers to way their idiosyncratic levels of pain, and to bid an AI exemplary to accurately foretell its severity.
Why it’s important: Because we inactive don’t truly recognize however chronic symptom affects the brain, it’s precise hard to treat. This probe is the archetypal clip a human’s chronic-pain-related encephalon signals person been recorded, and it could assistance the improvement of personalized therapies for the astir terrible forms of pain. Read the afloat story.
—Rhiannon Williams
Meta’s caller AI models tin admit and nutrient code for much than 1,000 languages
What’s happened: Meta has built AI models that tin admit and nutrient code for much than 1,000 languages—a tenfold summation connected what’s presently available. It’s making them unfastened root to assistance developers moving successful antithetic languages to physique caller code applications—like messaging services that recognize everyone, oregon virtual-reality systems that tin beryllium utilized successful immoderate language.
Why it matters: Meta says the caller task is simply a important measurement toward preserving languages that are astatine hazard of disappearing. Although determination are astir 7,000 languages successful the world, existing code designation models screen lone astir 100 of them. Read the afloat story.
—Rhiannon Williams
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 A verified Twitter relationship dispersed a fake AI representation of an detonation astatine the Pentagon
Once again, it demonstrates the information of allowing users to wage for verification. (WP $)
+ The account, masquerading arsenic Bloomberg, has been suspended. (TechCrunch)
2 TikTok is suing Montana for banning it
It joins a radical of disgruntled creators who are already suing the state. (The Guardian)
+ The app’s unreality supplier has been caught up successful the US-TikTok drama. (The Information $)
3 A large watchdog projected the archetypal planetary crypto rules
It’s urging regulators to halt dilly-dallying and conscionable propulsion guardant with its suggestions. (FT $)
+ Who are memecoins truly for? (Wired $)
+ What’s adjacent for crypto. (MIT Technology Review)
4 The US needs much resilient net networks
The occupation is, authorities aren’t apt to put successful them without the imminent menace of earthy disasters. (The Verge)
5 Big Tech’s representation designation systems inactive person a occupation with gorillas
Eight years aft mislabeling Black radical arsenic apes, they inactive haven’t fixed it. (NYT $)
+ Of people exertion perpetuates racism. It was designed that way. (MIT Technology Review)
6 What chips tin archer america astir US-China relations
The US is progressively tense astir Beijing’s imaginable plans to invade Taiwan. (The Guardian)
+ Why China is truthful acrophobic astir Starlink. (Economist $)
7 We’re getting person to treating familial diseases successful the womb
Preventing diseases earlier they adjacent make is wildly ambitious, yet progressively achievable. (Wired $)
+ Doctors person performed encephalon country connected a fetus. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Amazon volition fto you bargain intoxicant utilizing your palm
And it’s investigating it connected sports fans. Risky. (CNBC)
+ Tencent wants you to wage with your palm. What could spell wrong? (MIT Technology Review)
9 China’s tech-savvy doctors are going viral
They’re truthful popular, doctor-influencers person go a profitable manufacture successful their ain right. (Rest of World)
10 Not everyone successful Hollywood is petrified of AI
The movie industry’s ocular effects artists are intrigued by it. (The Information $)
Quote of the day
“There’s nary specified happening arsenic surviving disconnected the grid.”
—Jack Cooper, a programme manager moving for the Pentagon’s quality branch, explains it’s becoming intolerable to support your privateness successful today’s society, Motherboard reports.
The large story
Uyghurs extracurricular China are traumatized. Now they’re starting to speech astir it
June 2021The Uyghur diaspora person been forced to ticker from afar arsenic their loved ones vanish and a mode of beingness is erased. The trauma has sparked a intelligence wellness situation that leaders successful the diaspora accidental is each excessively apparent.
Many are reluctant to question help, leaving the community’s needs some underassessed and unmet. But a tiny radical of outspoken Uyghurs is trying to alteration that. Using societal media, they’re starting conversations astir grief and intelligence wellness and, done telehealth, connecting radical crossed the state with unpaid therapists. Read the afloat story.
—Andrew McCormick
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.)
+ I had nary thought worm charming was a thing, but needless to say, I present desperately request to cognize more.
+ We cognize that Bloody Marys are an acquired taste, but seriously—a pizza-flavored cocktail?!
+ A caller Las Vegas lodging improvement is naming each its streets aft Pokémon, and Snorlax Lane is looking mighty appealing.
+ A spa connected a train sounds similar a look for disaster, but it works, apparently.
+ This is cool: hundreds of new species person been discovered: but we request to support them.
