The Obtain: an intro to AI, and ChatGPT’s bias

Plus: Meta is not treating political posts as a precedence

That is right now’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a every day dose of what is going on on on the planet of know-how.

Intro to AI: a newbie’s information to synthetic intelligence from MIT Expertise Evaluate

It feels as if AI is transferring 1,000,000 miles a minute. Each week, it appears, there are product launches, contemporary options and different improvements, and new considerations over ethics and privateness. It’s so much to maintain up with. Possibly you want somebody would simply take a step again and clarify a number of the fundamentals.

Look no additional. Intro to AI is MIT Expertise Evaluate’s first publication that additionally serves as a mini-course. You’ll get one electronic mail every week for six weeks, and every version will stroll you thru a special matter in AI.

Enroll right here to obtain it without spending a dime. Or for those who’re already an AI aficionado, ship it on to somebody in your life who’s curious in regards to the know-how however is simply beginning to discover what all of it means. Learn on to study extra in regards to the matters we’ll cowl.

OpenAI says ChatGPT treats us all the identical (more often than not)

Does ChatGPT deal with you a similar whether or not you’re a Laurie, Luke, or Lashonda? Virtually, however not fairly.

OpenAI has analyzed hundreds of thousands of conversations with its hit chatbot and located that ChatGPT will produce a dangerous gender or racial stereotype based mostly on a consumer’s identify in round one in 1000 responses on common, and as many as one in 100 responses within the worst case.

These charges sound fairly low. However with OpenAI claiming that 200 million folks use ChatGPT each week, it will possibly nonetheless add as much as loads of bias. Learn the complete story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

Tremendous-light supplies that assist suppress EV battery fires simply obtained an enormous increase

What’s new: An organization known as Aspen Aerogels, which makes supplies to go inside EVs’ batteries to cease fires spreading, simply obtained a $670.6 million mortgage dedication from the US Division of Power. The corporate will use the cash to complete constructing a brand new manufacturing unit in Georgia to provide its supplies.

Why it issues: As extra EVs hit the roads, concern is rising in regards to the comparatively uncommon however harmful downside of battery fires. Supplies like Aspen Aerogels’ thermal limitations might assist enhance security. Learn the complete story.

—Casey Crownhart

MIT Expertise Evaluate Narrated: Inside the hunt to engineer climate-saving “tremendous timber”

Biotech startup Residing Carbon is attempting to design timber that develop sooner and seize extra carbon than their pure friends, in addition to timber that resist rot, preserving that carbon out of the environment.

Final yr, the startup planted the primary forest in america that accommodates genetically engineered timber. However there’s nonetheless a lot we don’t know. How will these timber have an effect on the remainder of the forest? How far will their genes unfold? And the way good are they, actually, at pulling extra carbon from the environment?

That is our newest story to be was a MIT Expertise Evaluate Narrated podcast. In partnership with Information Over Audio, we’ll be making a choice of our tales accessible, every one learn by an expert voice actor. You’ll have the ability to hearken to them on the go or obtain them to hearken to offline.

We’re publishing a brand new story every week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, together with some taken from our most up-to-date print journal. Simply navigate to MIT Expertise Evaluate Narrated on both platform, and comply with us to get all our new content material because it’s launched.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to search out you right now’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 How Meta suppresses your political posts
Democracy dies on Instagram. (WP $)+ The corporate is going through a number of lawsuits over social media habit amongst teenagers. (Reuters)

2 Methods to safeguard the Europa Clipper from failure
The spacecraft is on a multi-year mission, and the stakes are excessive. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is about to search for life-friendly circumstances round Jupiter. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

3 The chip business’s taking longer to bounce again than anticipated
Demand for AI chips remains to be there, however producers are nonetheless working via their stockpiles. (WSJ $)

4 The place all of it went unsuitable for 23andMe
The genetic testing firm is going through an ideal storm. (FT $)
+ Methods to delete your 23andMe knowledge. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

5 Google has backed a authorized transparency invoice
It needs to know who’s paying for—and benefiting from—taking authorized motion. (Bloomberg $)

6 Anybody could make an AI chatbot in your likeness
The dangerous information is, it’s nearly unattainable to cease them. (Wired $)
+ A bereaved father found that his murdered daughter has been was a bot. (WP $)
+ An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

7 Far-right Hindu nationalists are conspiring over WhatsApp
In a bid to transform Christians by power. (Remainder of World)

8 This man is suing a Welsh council for half a billion kilos
He unintentionally recycled a tough drive containing 8,000 bitcoin again in 2013. (Wales On-line)
+ His Welsh hometown would “seem like Dubai” if he might discover it, he claims. (The Register)

9 What it’s wish to journey in a robotaxi for six.5 hours
Surprisingly uneventful, apparently. (Insider $)
+ What’s subsequent for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

10 It’s time to rawdog iPhone images
Free from AI optimization. (New Yorker $)

Quote of the day

“I’m at a high London hospital and but at instances I really feel as if we’re working within the stone age.”

—A pediatrician tells the Monetary Instances in regards to the challenges of working inside the Nationwide Well being Service’s fragmented technological programs.

The massive story

Recapturing early web whimsy with HTML

January 2024

Web sites weren’t at all times slick digital experiences.

There was a time when browsing the net concerned opening tabs that performed music towards your will and sifting via partitions of textual content on a coloured background. Within the 2000s, earlier than Squarespace and social media, web sites have been manifestations of individuality—constructed from scratch utilizing HTML, by customers who had some information of code.

Scattered throughout the net are communities of programmers working to revive this seemingly outdated strategy. And the motion is something however a superficial enchantment to retro aesthetics—it’s about celebrating the human contact in digital experiences. Learn the complete story.

—Tiffany Ng