The Obtain: AI for good, and China’s shrinking web
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 know-how.
What I realized from the UN’s “AI for Good” summit
—Melissa Heikkilä
Final week, Geneva performed host to the UN’s AI for Good Summit. The summit’s massive focus was how AI can be utilized to fulfill the UN’s Sustainable Growth Objectives, similar to eradicating poverty and starvation, reaching gender equality, selling clear power and local weather motion and so forth.
The convention managed to convene folks working in AI from across the globe, that includes audio system from China, the Center East, and Africa too. AI might be very US-centric and male dominated, and any effort to make the dialog extra international and numerous is laudable.
However actually, I didn’t go away the convention feeling assured AI was going to play a significant position in advancing any of the UN objectives. In actual fact, probably the most attention-grabbing speeches have been about how AI is doing the alternative. Learn the complete story.
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI e-newsletter. Join to obtain it in your inbox each Monday.
Learn extra of Melissa’s tales concerning the points inside the AI sector:
+ How generative AI has made phishing, scamming, and doxxing simpler than ever.
+ We’re all AI’s free knowledge employees. Fancy AI fashions depend on human labor, which may usually be brutal and upsetting. Learn the complete story.
+ The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—with out my consent.
+ Making a picture with generative AI makes use of as a lot power as charging your telephone. Every time you employ AI to generate a picture, write an e mail, or ask a chatbot a query, it comes at a value to the planet. Learn the complete story.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 The Chinese language web is collapsing
Web sites are being yanked offline, and historical past is being misplaced within the course of. (NYT $)
+ The tip of anonymity on-line in China. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
2 The United Arab Emirates wish to cozy as much as the US over AI
And it’s greater than prepared to spend billions of {dollars} within the course of. (FT $)
3 Google inadvertently collected voice knowledge from kids
Alongside customers’ dwelling addresses and YouTube suggestions. (404 Media)
+ Why baby security payments are popping up everywhere in the US. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
4 Our urge for food for knowledge facilities is at odds with zero-carbon objectives
Demand for electrical energy is rising, and decarbonizing the grid is turning into an excellent larger problem. (Undark Journal)
+ An enormous a part of why we want extra energy? Shock, shock—it’s AI. (Wired $)+ Vitality-hungry knowledge facilities are quietly transferring into cities. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
5 X is formally permitting X-rated content material
NSFW pictures and movies have been rife on it for years anyway. (TechCrunch)
+ It’s supposed to dam under-18s from seeing NSFW materials. (The Guardian)
6 AI is getting significantly better at predicting the climate 
Which is helpful, on condition that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is coming. (Ars Technica)
+ Google DeepMind’s climate AI can forecast excessive climate quicker and extra precisely. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
7 This new startup desires to convey cryonics to the lots
By specializing in the reviving, somewhat than the freezing half. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why the sci-fi dream of cryonics by no means died. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
8 Retailers adore it if you purchase issues in your cell
In the event you’re making an impulse buy, chances are high it’s on a telephone, not a laptop computer. (WSJ $)
9 Dying stars produce glitching radio waves
Scientists are getting higher at reproducing these pulsar glitches. (New Scientist $)
10 Amazon bought faux copies of a significant UFO e book 
Scammers produced false variations of the hotly-anticipated title, a few of which comprise AI-generated textual content. (404 Media)
Quote of the day
“We’re nonetheless behind them, however we’re respiratory down their again.”
—Vladimir Milov, a YouTube creator, tells Wired how he helped to create a direct competitor to Putin’s TV propaganda on the platform.
The massive story
Broadband funding for Native communities may lastly join a few of America’s most remoted locations
Rural and Native communities within the US have lengthy had decrease charges of mobile and broadband connectivity than city areas, the place 4 out of each 5 Individuals stay. Outdoors the cities and suburbs, which occupy barely 3% of US land, dependable web service can nonetheless be laborious to come back by.
The covid-19 pandemic underscored the issue as Native communities locked down and moved college and different important each day actions on-line. However it additionally kicked off an unprecedented surge of aid funding to unravel it. Learn the complete story.
—Robert Chaney
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Bats have extremely candy little toes.
+ Too many gardens aren’t overly hospitable to nature. Right here’s easy methods to make your inexperienced areas into wild wonderlands.
+ Summer time is right here, and honey garlic parmesan biscuits seem to be a good way to have a good time.
+ This sundown ocean portray is admittedly fairly one thing.
