Afrigather Plus: crypto predictions-betting platform Polymarket is beneath investigation
That is right this moment’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what is going on on on the earth of expertise.
Google DeepMind has a brand new method to look inside an AI’s “thoughts”
We don’t know precisely how AI works, or why it really works so properly. That’s an issue: It may lead us to deploy an AI system in a extremely delicate subject like medication with out understanding that it might have vital flaws embedded in its workings.
A staff at Google DeepMind that research one thing referred to as mechanistic interpretability has been engaged on new methods to allow us to peer beneath the hood. It not too long ago launched a software to assist researchers perceive what is occurring when AI is producing an output.
It’s all a part of a push to get a greater understanding of precisely what is occurring inside an AI mannequin. If we do, we’ll have the ability to management its outputs extra successfully, main to higher AI programs sooner or later. Learn the complete story.
—Scott J Mulligan
What’s on the desk at this 12 months’s UN local weather convention
Talks kicked off this week at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Working for a few weeks annually, the worldwide summit is the most important annual assembly on local weather change.
The difficulty on the desk this time round: Nations have to conform to set a brand new aim on how a lot cash ought to go to growing nations to assist them finance the battle towards local weather change. Complicating issues? A US president-elect whose strategy to local weather may be very completely different from that of the present administration (understatement of the century).
It is a massive second that might set the tone for what the subsequent few years of the worldwide local weather world appears like. Right here’s what that you must learn about COP29 and the way Donald Trump’s election is coloring issues.
—Casey Crownhart
This story is from The Spark, our weekly e-newsletter supplying you with the within observe on all issues vitality and local weather. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you right this moment’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 The FBI is investigating crypto predictions-betting platform Polymarket
It’s investigating whether or not the agency allowed US merchants to wager on the election. (Bloomberg $)
+ Doing so would have been a violation of an settlement with the US authorities. (NYT $)
+ Polymarket claims to be a “absolutely clear prediction market.” (WSJ $)
2 OpenAI is looking for the US authorities to put money into AI
With out monetary help, the US might lose essential floor to China, it warns. (WP $)
+ The agency floated the thought of constructing a colossal information middle. (The Info $)
3 AI-generated Elon Musk propaganda is rife on Fb
Professional-Musk inspiration porn is the content material of alternative for spammers. (404 Media)
+ Trump is surrounding himself with terminally on-line edgelords. (The Atlantic $)
4 The web proper has a misogynistic new rallying cry
‘Your physique, my alternative’ is being unfold by younger males in search of to impress. (New Yorker $)+ The upcoming presidency might usher in an age of gendered regression. (The Guardian)
5 China’s human manufacturing facility employees are beneath strain
Robots are creeping into each degree of the manufacturing course of. (FT $)
+ Three causes robots are about to grow to be far more helpful. (MIT Know-how Evaluate)
6 The way forward for chipmaking in America
Efforts to revitalize native services aren’t precisely going to plan. (Wired $)
+ What’s subsequent in chips. (MIT Know-how Evaluate)
7 Blindbox reside streaming is thrilling buyers in China
You by no means know what you’re going to get. (NYT $)
8 What the glacial Earth might have seemed like
Round 700 million years in the past, the whole planet was lined in ice. (Ars Technica)
+ Life-seeking, ice-melting robots might punch by way of Europa’s icy shell. (MIT Know-how Evaluate)
9 Learn how to defend the world’s largest single coral colony
The newly-discovered colony is the dimensions of two basketball courts. (Vox)
+ The race is on to save lots of coral reefs—by freezing them. (MIT Know-how Evaluate)
10 These researchers have reinvented the wheel
This ‘morphing’ wheel can roll over obstacles as much as 1.3 occasions the peak of its radius. (Reuters)
Quote of the day
“Shawty crunk, so contemporary, so clear.”
—Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO-turned rapper, debuts a reworked model of 2002 rap hit Get Low in a tribute to his spouse, the Wall Road Journal experiences.
The massive story
Marseille’s battle towards the surveillance state
June 2022Internationally, video cameras have grow to be an accepted function of city life. Many cities in China now have dense networks of them, and London and New Delhi aren’t far behind. Now France is enjoying catch-up.
Issues have been raised all through the nation. However the surveillance rollout has met particular resistance in Marseille, France’s second-biggest metropolis.
It’s unsurprising, maybe, that activists are combating again towards the cameras, highlighting the surveillance system’s overreach and underperformance. However are they succeeding? Learn the complete story.
—Fleur Macdonald
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.)
+ This 12 months’s gurning championship successful mugshots don’t disappoint.
+ What does it imply to have private fashion, precisely?
+ Amsterdam’s unofficial police cat is totally lovely (and he lives on a ship!)
+ Save the worms—this author definitely is. 🪱
