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That is at this time’s version of The Download, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a each day dose of what’s occurring on the earth of expertise.
Why New York Metropolis is embracing low-tech options to onerous issues
It’s a actuality of politics that’s usually missed: as soon as a regulation is handed, it must evolve from an concept right into a plan with a funds and a workers, and from there it wants to truly attain the lives of tens of millions of individuals. Transferring from coverage to implementation has at all times been a tough a part of governing. Right now it’s simple to imagine expertise could make it simpler. However is that truly true?
New York Metropolis is one thing of a take a look at lab for methods to confront some large issues that plague the fashionable state. Akin to a rustic within the funds and bureaucratic complexity of its authorities, it’s, and has been, coping with the important thing query of methods to make authorities work for individuals at this time. However it’s discovering that generally the answer to doing large issues additionally includes doing loads of small issues, generally with the bottom tech potential. Read the full story.
—Tate Ryan-Mosley
Tate’s story is from the subsequent journal version of MIT Know-how Overview, set to go stay on October 25. It’s all about society’s hardest issues, and the way we must always deal with them. Should you don’t subscribe already, sign up now to get a duplicate when it lands.
China’s plan to evaluate the security of generative AI
Ever because the Chinese language authorities handed a regulation on generative AI again in July, it’s been unclear how precisely China’s censorship machine would adapt for the AI period.
Final week we lastly bought some readability. On October 11, the Chinese language authorities launched a draft doc that proposed detailed guidelines for methods to decide whether or not a generative AI mannequin is problematic.
The requirements doc is very detailed: it units clear standards for when an information supply needs to be banned from coaching generative AI. It additionally clarifies what firms ought to contemplate a “security danger” in AI fashions. However, it’s necessary to recollect, these requirements usually are not legal guidelines. Read the full story.
—Zeyi Yang
Zeyi’s story is from China Report, our weekly e-newsletter protecting tech and energy in China. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Tuesday.
This microbe-filled capsule may monitor irritation within the intestine
The information: A blueberry-size capsule that you simply swallow may let medical doctors measure indicators of inflammatory bowel illness (IBD) within the intestine, serving to spot it earlier and measure its development in actual time.
The way it works: The capsule comprises E. coli micro organism which have been genetically engineered to detect molecules which can be produced in extra within the guts of individuals with IBD. A gene cluster was added to the micro organism that causes them to emit mild when they’re uncovered to those inflammatory molecules. The capsule additionally comprises photodiodes, which may detect this mild, and a radio chip that may transmit the sign outdoors the physique.
Subsequent steps: Following profitable trials in pigs, the capsule now must be validated in people to exhibit that the sensors are capable of detect the biomarkers within the concentrations that might be indicative of illness. Read the full story.
—Soumya Sagar
It is a subscriber-only story. Should you haven’t already, sign up now to learn it in full.
2023 Local weather Tech Firms to Watch: ReNew and its bold clear power initiatives
ReNew is taking part in a essential position in India’s power transition by scaling up the nation’s renewable power capability, constructing power storage infrastructure, and—it hopes—finally producing inexperienced hydrogen. Read more about it, and skim the rest of the list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you at this time’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 Hamas is spreading propaganda by unmoderated social platforms
Telegram channels are rife with disturbing movies and pictures of the atrocities in Gaza. (WP $)
+ Banning Hamas from social media hasn’t prevented it from sowing worry. (NYT $)
+ Massive Tech has abdicated its duty for the information. (New Yorker $)
2 AI factories are coming
Due to a brand new deal struck between Nvidia and Chinese language telephone maker Foxconn. (FT $)
3 China’s spies are hellbent on stealing from Silicon Valley
Right now’s tech secrets and techniques are extra compelling than political intel, in accordance with the FBI. (NYT $)
+ How China constructed a one-of-a-kind cyber-espionage behemoth to final. (MIT Technology Review)
4 X is charging some customers $1 a yr to submit
In one more try and differentiate bots from actual human customers. (The Verge)
5 OpenAI is engaged on a brand new AI-generated photos instrument
Whether or not the instrument actually is 99% correct, because it claims, stays to be seen. (Bloomberg $)
+ GPT-4 continues to be fairly simple to trick. (The Verge)
+ AI-text detection instruments are very easy to idiot. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Scientists are bugging the rainforest to guard it
Eavesdropping on creatures is a non-invasive manner of conserving tabs on them. (Wired $)
+ City bushes could possibly be falling sufferer to unhealthy microbiomes. (New Scientist $)
7 New York Metropolis’s mayor has been making audio deepfakes of himself
His workplace has been making eerie robocalls of him talking Spanish, Mandarin, and Yiddish, with out the disclaimer it’s not truly him. (Motherboard)
+ AI voice actors sound extra human than ever—and so they’re prepared to rent. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Even artists’ tech isn’t immune from changing into out of date
And changing long-discontinued {hardware} is changing into more and more tough. (NYT $)
9 Try this superb image of Jupiter’s moon Io
It’s one of the best picture we’ve captured in many years. (New Scientist $)
+ What’s subsequent for the moon. (MIT Technology Review)
10 To construct a greater web, we should concentrate on the place we went improper
We shouldn’t go away it as much as the loudest, most polarizing voices. (The Atlantic $)
+ Methods to repair the web. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“Should you’re capable of construct a rocket quicker than the federal government can regulate it… that must be addressed.”
—Tim Hughes, SpaceX’s senior vp, criticizes the US authorities’s sluggish regulatory processes, the Washington Post reviews.
The large story
How AI helps historians higher perceive our previous
Historians have began utilizing machine studying to look at historic paperwork, together with astronomical tables like these produced in Venice and different early trendy cities.
Proponents declare that the applying of contemporary pc science to the previous helps draw connections throughout a broader swath of the historic file than would in any other case be potential, correcting distortions that come from analyzing historical past one doc at a time.
But it surely introduces distortions of its personal, together with the danger that machine studying will slip bias or outright falsifications into the historic file. Read the full story.
—Moira Donovan
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Go on then—an inventory of all of the great albums this year you might have missed (to this point)
+ What could possibly be higher than tickling a friendly fox? 
+ This assortment of pictures of London through the ages is splendidly nostalgic.
+ Drum machines won’t ever not be cool.
+ Congratulations to Grazer, the fish-loving winner of this yr’s hotly-contested Fats Bear contest!
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