Plus: Donald Trump has introduced new tariffs on imported vehicles
That is at this time’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a day by day dose of what is going on on on the earth of know-how.
Inside a romance rip-off compound—and the way folks get tricked into being there
Gavesh’s journey had began, seemingly innocently, with a job advert on Fb promising work he desperately wanted.
As a substitute, he discovered himself trafficked right into a enterprise generally often called “pig butchering”—a type of fraud wherein scammers type romantic or different shut relationships with targets on-line and extract cash from them. The Chinese language crime syndicates behind the scams have netted billions of {dollars}, they usually have used violence and coercion to pressure their employees, lots of them folks trafficked like Gavesh, to hold out the frauds from giant compounds, a number of of which function brazenly within the quasi-lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
We spoke to Gavesh and 5 different employees from contained in the rip-off business, in addition to anti-trafficking consultants and know-how specialists. Their testimony reveals how world corporations, together with American social media and courting apps and worldwide cryptocurrency and messaging platforms, have given the fraud enterprise the means to grow to be industrialized.
By the identical token, it’s Huge Tech which will maintain the important thing to breaking apart the rip-off syndicates—if solely these corporations will be persuaded or compelled to behave. Learn the complete story.
—Peter Visitor & Emily Fishbein
Tips on how to save a glacier
There’s loads we don’t perceive about how glaciers transfer and the way quickly a few of the most important ones might collapse into the ocean. That may very well be an issue, since melting glaciers might result in a number of ft of sea-level rise this century, probably displacing tens of millions of people that dwell and work alongside the coasts.
A brand new group is aiming not solely to additional our understanding of glaciers but additionally to look into choices to avoid wasting them if issues transfer towards a worst-case situation, as my colleague James Temple outlined in his newest story. One concept: refreezing glaciers in place.
The entire thing can sound like science fiction. However when you think about how enormous the stakes are, I feel it will get simpler to grasp why some scientists say we should always not less than be exploring these radical interventions. Learn the complete story.
—Casey Crownhart
This text is from The Spark, MIT Know-how Assessment’s weekly local weather publication. To obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday, enroll right here.
MIT Know-how Assessment Narrated: How monitoring animal motion could save the planet
Researchers have lengthy dreamed of making an Web of Animals. They usually’re getting nearer to monitoring 100,000 creatures—and revealing hidden aspects of our shared world.
That is our newest story to be become a MIT Know-how Assessment Narrated podcast, which
we’re publishing every week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Simply navigate to MIT Know-how Assessment 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 at this time’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Donald Trump has introduced 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and elements
The measures are more likely to make new vehicles considerably dearer for Individuals. (NYT $)
+ Shifting automotive manufacturing operations to the US received’t be simple. (WP $)
+ It’s not simply large companies that may endure, both. (The Atlantic $)
+ How Trump’s tariffs might drive up the price of batteries, EVs, and extra. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
2 China is growing an AI system to extend its on-line censorship
A leaked dataset demonstrates how LLMs might quickly filter undesirable materials. (TechCrunch)
3 Trump could cut back tariffs on China to encourage a TikTok deal
The Chinese language-owned firm has till April 5 to discover a new US proprietor. (Insider $)
+ The nationwide safety considerations surrounding it haven’t gone away, although. (NYT $)
4 OpenAI’s new picture generator can ape Studio Ghibli’s distinctive fashion
Which raises the query of whether or not the mannequin was educated on Ghibli’s photographs. (TechCrunch)
+ The device’s recognition means its rollout to non-paying customers has been delayed. (The Verge)
+ The AI lab waging a guerrilla warfare over exploitative AI. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
5 DOGE deliberate to dismantle USAID from the start
New court docket filings reveal the division’s ambitions to infiltrate the system. (Wired $)
+ Can AI assist DOGE slash authorities budgets? It’s complicated. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
6 Wildfires are getting worse within the southwest of the US
Whereas federal hearth spending is concentrated primarily within the west, the chance is rising in South Carolina and Texas too. (WP $)
+ North and South Carolina have been recovering from Hurricane Helene when the fires struck. (The Guardian)
+ How AI may also help spot wildfires. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
7 A quantum pc has generated—and verified—actually random numbers
Which is sweet information for cryptographers. (Bloomberg $)
+ Cybersecurity analysts are more and more frightened concerning the so-called Q-Day. (Wired $)
+ Amazon’s first quantum computing chip makes its debut. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
8 What’s subsequent for weight-loss medication 
Competitors is heating up, however will sufferers be those to learn? (New Scientist $)
+ Medicine like Ozempic now make up 5% of prescriptions within the US. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
9 No less than we’ve nonetheless acquired memes
Poking enjoyable on the Trump administration’s selections is a type of on-line resistance. (New Yorker $)
10 Are you able to actually be mates with a chatbot?
Persons are beginning to discover out. (Vox)
+ The AI relationship revolution is already right here. (MIT Know-how Assessment)
Quote of the day
“I can’t think about any skilled I do know committing this egregious a lapse in judgement.”
—A authorities know-how chief tells Quick Firm why high Trump officers’ choice to make use of unclassified messaging app Sign to debate warfare plans is so shocking.
The large story
Why one developer received’t stop combating to attach the US’s grids
September 2024
Michael Skelly hasn’t realized to take no for a solution. For a lot of the final 15 years, the power entrepreneur has labored to develop long-haul transmission traces to hold wind energy throughout the Nice Plains, Midwest, and Southwest. However to date, he has little to point out for the trouble.
Skelly has lengthy argued that constructing such traces and linking collectively the nation’s grids would speed up the shift from coal- and natural-gas-fueled energy crops to the renewables wanted to chop the air pollution driving local weather change. However his earlier enterprise shut down in 2019, after halting two of its tasks and promoting off pursuits in three extra.
Skelly contends he was early, not fallacious, and that the market and policymakers are more and more coming round to his perspective. In any case, the US Division of Vitality simply blessed his newest firm’s proposed line with a whole lot of tens of millions in grants. Learn the complete story.
—James Temple
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ Severance’s Adam Scott positive has attention-grabbing style in music.
+ Whereas we’re not 100% positive if Millie is unquestionably the world’s oldest cat, one factor we all know for positive is that she lives a lifetime of luxurious.
+ Mountain climbing trails are coated in stunning wildflowers proper now; simply be sure you tread rigorously.
+ It is a actually charming have a look at how women dwell in America proper now.
