That is as we speak’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a each day dose of what’s happening on this planet of expertise.
AI can now create a reproduction of your character
Think about sitting down with an AI mannequin for a spoken two-hour interview. A pleasant voice guides you thru a dialog that ranges out of your childhood, your formative reminiscences, and your profession to your ideas on immigration coverage. Not lengthy after, a digital reproduction of you is ready to embody your values and preferences with gorgeous accuracy.
That’s now doable, in keeping with a brand new paper from a workforce together with researchers from Stanford and Google DeepMind.
They recruited 1,000 folks and, from interviews with them, created agent replicas of all of them. To check how effectively the brokers mimicked their human counterparts, members did a collection of exams, video games and surveys, then the brokers accomplished the identical workouts. The outcomes had been 85% comparable. Freaky. Learn our story in regards to the work, and why it issues.
—James O’Donnell
China’s difficult position in local weather change
“However what about China?”
In debates about local weather change, it’s often solely a matter of time till somebody brings up China. Typically, it is available in response to some assertion about how the US and Europe are addressing the difficulty (or how they must be).
Generally it may be executed in dangerous religion. It’s a rhetorical approach to throw up your fingers, and primarily say: “in the event that they aren’t taking accountability, why ought to we?”
Nevertheless, there are some plain info: China emits extra greenhouse gases than some other nation, by far. It’s one of many world’s most populous international locations and a climate-tech powerhouse, and its economic system continues to be creating.
With many difficult components at play, how ought to we take into consideration the nation’s position in addressing local weather change? Learn the total story.
—Casey Crownhart
This story is from The Spark, our weekly e-newsletter providing you with the within observe on all issues power and local weather. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
4 methods to guard your artwork from AI
For the reason that begin of the generative AI growth, artists have been apprehensive about dropping their livelihoods to AI instruments.
Sadly, there’s little you are able to do in case your work has been scraped into a knowledge set and utilized in a mannequin that’s already on the market. You possibly can, nevertheless, take steps to forestall your work from getting used sooner or later. Listed below are 4 methods to try this.
—Melissa Heikkila
That is a part of our How To collection, the place we offer you sensible recommendation on easy methods to use expertise in your on a regular basis lives. You possibly can learn the remainder of the collection right here.
MIT Expertise Evaluate Narrated: The world’s on the verge of a carbon storage growth
In late 2023, considered one of California’s largest oil and fuel producers secured draft permits from the US Environmental Safety Company to develop a brand new sort of effectively in an oil discipline. If authorised, it intends to drill a collection of boreholes right down to a sprawling sedimentary formation roughly 6,000 ft beneath the floor, the place it is going to inject tens of thousands and thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide to retailer it away endlessly.
A whole bunch of comparable initiatives are looming throughout the state, the US, and the world. Proponents hope it’s the beginning of a kind of oil growth in reverse, kick-starting a course of by way of which the world will ultimately bury extra greenhouse fuel than it provides to the ambiance. However opponents insist these efforts will lengthen the lifetime of fossil-fuel crops, enable air and water air pollution to proceed, and create new well being and environmental dangers.
That is our newest story to be was a MIT Expertise Evaluate Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing every week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Simply navigate to MIT Expertise Evaluate Narrated on both platform, and observe us to get all our new content material because it’s launched.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 How the Trump administration may hack your telephone
Spyware and adware acquired by the US authorities in September may pretty simply be turned by itself residents. (New Yorker $)
+ Right here’s how one can combat again towards being digitally spied upon. (The Guardian)
2 The DOJ is making an attempt to drive Google to unload Chrome
Whether or not Trump will maintain pushing it by way of is unclear, although. (WP $)
+ Some monetary and authorized consultants argue that simply promoting Chrome is just not sufficient to deal with antitrust points. (Wired $)
3 There’s a booming ‘AI pimping’ business
Persons are stealing movies from actual grownup content material creators, giving them AI-generated faces, and monetizing their our bodies. (Wired $)
+ This viral AI avatar app undressed me—with out my consent. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
4 Right here’s Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy plan for federal staff
Giant-scale firings and an finish to any type of distant work. (WSJ $)
5 The US is scaring everybody with its response to chook flu
It’s executed remarkably little to point out it’s making an attempt to comprise the outbreak. (NYT $)
+ Virologists are getting more and more nervous about the way it may evolve and unfold. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
6 AI may increase the efficiency of quantum computer systems
A brand new mannequin created by Google DeepMind is excellent at correcting errors. (New Scientist $)
+ However AI may additionally make quantum computer systems much less essential. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
7 Biden has authorised the usage of anti-personnel mines in Ukraine
It comes simply days after he gave the go-ahead for it to make use of long-range missiles inside Russia. (Axios)
+ The US army has given a surveillance drone contract to a little-known provider from Utah. (WSJ $)
+ The Danish army mentioned it’s conserving a detailed eye on a Chinese language ship in its waters after information cable breaches. (Reuters $)
8 The variety of new cell web customers is stalling
Solely about 57% of the world’s inhabitants is related. (Remainder of World)
9 All of life on Earth descended from this single cell
Our “final common widespread ancestor” (or LUCA for brief) was a surprisingly advanced organism residing 4.2 billion years in the past. (Quanta)
+ Scientists are constructing a catalog of each sort of cell in our our bodies. (The Economist $)
10 What it’s wish to reside with a fluffy AI pet 
Strive as we’d, it appears we are able to’t assist however type attachments to cute companion robots. (The Guardian)
Quote of the day
“The free pumpkins have introduced pleasure to many.”
—An instance of the kind of stilted remarks made by a now-abandoned AI-generated information broadcaster at native Hawaii paper The Backyard Island, Wired reviews.
The massive story
How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York city
April 2022
When you had taken of venture in 2017 and bought Bitcoin, as we speak you is likely to be a millionaire many instances over. However whereas the business has offered windfalls for some, native communities have paid a excessive value, as folks began scouring the world for affordable sources of power to run massive Bitcoin-mining farms.
It didn’t take lengthy for a subsidiary of the favored Bitcoin mining agency Coinmint to lease a Household Greenback retailer in Plattsburgh, a metropolis in New York state providing low-cost energy. Quickly, the corporate was commonly drawing sufficient energy for about 4,000 houses. And whereas different miners had been fast to observe, the issues had already taken root. Learn the total story.
—Lois Parshley
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Obtained any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Cultivating gratitude is a confirmed approach to make your self happier.
+ You possibly can’t beat a scorching toddy when it’s chilly exterior.
+ When you like deserted locations and overgrown ruins, Jonathan Jimenez is the photographer for you.
+ Loads modified between Gladiator I and II, not least Hollywood’s model of the male excellent.
