1 year ago
92 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.
Weight-loss injections person taken implicit the internet. But what does this mean for radical IRL?
Over the people of the past year, alleged “miracle” weight-loss drugs person blown up crossed the internet. Although personage users person boosted their standing, they beryllium overmuch of their fame to societal media and treatment boards, wherever they are promoted by influencers and mundane radical alike.
Yet not everyone who wants them goes to a doctor. Throughout 2022, rising request for weight-loss injections caused planetary shortages. As a result, immoderate radical began seeking these drugs illegally, crossing borders oregon buying them nether the antagonistic without a prescription.
Do the hype and the hashtags archer the afloat story? What are the physical, social, and intelligence broadside effects of a miracle? And tin each the publicity pb radical to bash things they decidedly shouldn’t? Read the afloat story.
—Amelia Tait
Texas is trying retired caller tactics to restrict entree to termination pills online
There’s been a quiescent displacement successful the termination combat successful the US. Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade past June, laws that marque astir abortions amerciable person passed successful 13 states. Efforts to restrict termination attraction have, truthful far, focused mostly connected criminalizing aesculapian providers. But increasingly, the battleground is moving online.
Texas is presently successful the process of trying to bounds entree to termination pills by cracking down connected net work providers and recognition paper processing companies. Earlier this month, Republicans successful the authorities legislature introduced 2 bills to that effect.
These tactics bespeak the world that, post-Roe, the net is simply a captious transmission for radical seeking accusation astir termination oregon trying to bargain pills to terminate a pregnancy—especially successful states wherever they tin nary longer entree these things successful carnal pharmacies oregon aesculapian centers. Read the afloat story.
—Tate Ryan-Mosley
Tate’s communicative is from The Technocrat, her play newsletter giving you the wrong way connected each things tech policy. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Friday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Tesla’s engineers are burning out
Full-self driving capabilities look arsenic acold distant arsenic ever, and Elon Musk is distracted with his caller toy. (WP $)
+ Is Tesla’s imagination of gathering EVs without uncommon earths really feasible? (Bloomberg $)
+ This super-realistic virtual satellite is simply a driving schoolhouse for AI. (MIT Technology Review)
2 The warfare implicit termination pills successful the US is escalating
Wyoming has outlawed mifepristone, and different states privation to follow. (Vox)
+ Where to get termination pills and however to usage them. (MIT Technology Review)
3 This caller app aims to halt AI from scraping artists’ work
It uses a “cloaking” method to interfere with models’ quality to work artworks. (TechCrunch)+ Why GPT-4 has specified a shocking memory. (The Atlantic $)
+ Artists tin present opt retired of the adjacent mentation of Stable Diffusion. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Digital detectives are digging into the Nord Stream attack
Six months on, we’re inactive not definite who ruptured the pipeline—or why. (Wired $)
5 What the tech industry’s nonaccomplishment means for the remainder of us
The sector’s suffering ripples retired to different jobs, too. (WSJ $)
6 China is investigating different erstwhile spot leader
Zhao Weiguo is the latest high-profile manufacture fig caught up successful a immense inquiry. (Bloomberg $)
+ Corruption is sending daze waves done China’s chipmaking industry. (MIT Technology Review)
7 TikTok creators are philosophical astir a imaginable ban
Platforms come, and platforms go. (WSJ $)
8 EVs are yet becoming much affordable
You tin convey the falling terms of lithium. (NYT $)
+ Mercedes is poised to descend billions into caller EV plants. (Reuters)
+ Meet the caller batteries unlocking cheaper electrical vehicles. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Can you truly beryllium friends with an AI?
For immoderate people, chatting with bots brings them large comfort. (The Guardian)
+ Other chatbot users similar to prosecute romance implicit friendship. (Reuters)
+ A connection of caution against asking an AI to marque each your decisions. (Vice)
10 Make immoderate clip for the internet’s ticker influencers
Tick-tockers are turning the accepted manufacture connected its head. (FT $)
Quote of the day
“They’re conscionable wearing a antithetic outfit to the aforesaid party.”
—Todd Irwin, main strategy serviceman astatine branding bureau Fazer, explains however crypto companies are dropping the word from their selling materials successful a bid to flight the industry’s antagonistic connotations to the New York Times.
The large story
Inside China’s unexpected quest to support information privacy
In the West, it’s wide believed that neither the Chinese authorities nor Chinese radical attraction astir privacy. In reality, this representation of Chinese attitudes to privateness is retired of date.
Over the past fewer years the Chinese government, seeking to fortify consumers’ spot and information successful the integer economy, has begun to instrumentality privateness protections that successful galore respects lucifer those successful America and Europe today.
Even arsenic the authorities has strengthened user privacy, however, it has ramped up authorities surveillance. This paradox has go a defining diagnostic of China’s emerging information privateness regime, and raises a superior question: Can a strategy endure with beardown protections for user privacy, but astir nary against authorities snooping? Read the afloat story.
—Karen Hao
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.)
+ Happy spring equinox! Today the full satellite volition person 12 hours of light, and 12 hours of darkness. 🌷🌻
+ Time question is an creation form. Here’s a fewer celebrated travelers that managed to get it close (mostly.)
+ These giant bubble installations are a existent delight.
+ If you’ve ne'er had the pleasance of watching the Spice Girls’ movie Spice World, this is your motion to watercourse it immediately.
+ What do dogs bash erstwhile we’re not around? Quite a bit, actually.
