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The Download: hope for renewables, and AI’s function in journalism

The Download: hope for renewables, and AI’s function in journalism



This is right now’s version of The Download, our weekday publication that gives a each day dose of what’s occurring on this planet of know-how.

We have sufficient supplies to energy the world with renewable power

The information: Powering the world with renewable power will take plenty of uncooked supplies. The excellent news is, in the case of aluminum, metal, and rare-earth metals, there’s lots to go round, in response to a brand new evaluation.

Greater repay: Although emissions are an unavoidable facet impact of extracting the supplies, over the following 30 years they add as much as lower than a 12 months’s value of worldwide emissions from fossil fuels. Experts are assured the up-front emissions price will probably be greater than offset by financial savings from clear power applied sciences changing fossil fuels.

But there’s a catch: While we technically have sufficient of the supplies we have to construct renewable power infrastructure, really mining and processing them is usually a problem. If we don’t do it responsibly, getting these supplies into usable kind might result in environmental hurt or human rights violations. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

Could ChatGPT do my job?

—Melissa Heikkilä, senior AI reporter 

There’s been plenty of discuss these days about whether or not journalists or copywriters might or needs to be changed by AI. So far, newsrooms have pursued very completely different approaches to integrating the buzziest new device, ChatGPT, into their work: tech information website CNET secretly used it to put in writing articles, whereas BuzzFeed (extra transparently) introduced plans to make use of it to generate quiz solutions.

But right here’s the soiled secret of journalism: a surprisingly great amount of it might be automated. That’s not essentially a nasty factor if we will outsource among the boring and repetitive elements of the job to AI. The actual issues come up whenever you give AI an excessive amount of management. Read the full story.

Melissa’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly publication supplying you with the within observe on all issues AI. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Monday.

The must-reads

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

1 Elon Musk desires to show Twitter right into a fintech platform
It’s all a part of his plan to look past promoting to earn cash. (FT $)+ Ex-Twitter employees don’t know what to do with their outdated laptops. (Wired $)
+ The firm has made its first curiosity cost on its huge debt. (Bloomberg $)

2 Inside FTX’s shadowy PR affect campaigns
A brand new submitting reveals an undisclosed community of highly effective political figures. (The Intercept)
+ Things are getting even messier for the collapsed crypto change. (NY Mag $) 
+ FTX’s victims are nonetheless livid. (The Atlantic $) 

3 The US has stopped permitting corporations to export to Huawei
It’s simply the newest in a sequence of China-related sanctions. (BBC)

4 The race for AI supremacy is heating up
But whether or not American or Chinese labs will come out on prime is anybody’s guess. (Economist $)
+ Generative AI is altering every part. But what’s left when the hype is gone? (MIT Technology Review)

5 You don’t essentially want a headset to enter the metaverse 
Our on a regular basis actuality is edging nearer to dystopia every day. (The Atlantic $)
+ Kpop might assist to enhance the metaverse’s picture. (NYT $)

6 Celebrity voice deepfakes have been co opted to spew racist hate 
This sadly felt inevitable. (Motherboard)
+ AI voice actors sound extra human than ever. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Boeing has made its final ever 747
Once a logo of accessible journey, it’s prone to find yourself carrying cargo. (NYT $)
+ Hydrogen-powered planes take off with a startup’s check flight. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Social media has a darkish obsession with being #variety
Is it actually a great deed when you’re filming it for clickbait? (The Guardian)

9 Spanish-speaking livestreamers are significantly scorching proper now
Twitch is booming throughout Latin America, creating new alternatives for avid gamers. (Bloomberg $)

10 Dogs love gobbling AirTags
Tracking your furry pal isn’t with out its hazards. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“I might press the crimson button, shut my laptop computer and get underneath my blankets for a pair hours.” 

—Phoebe Gavin, a former government director of expertise and improvement at information website Vox, displays on the upsides of being laid off over video name relatively than in individual to the Wall Street Journal.

The huge story

A non-public safety group often despatched Minnesota police misinformation about protestors

July 2022 

When US marshals shot and killed a 32-year-old Black man named Winston Boogie Smith Jr. in a parking storage in Minneapolis on June 3, 2021, the town was already in a full-blown policing disaster. George Floyd had been murdered by a member of the police power the earlier May. As protests reignited everywhere in the metropolis, the cops couldn’t sustain.

Into the void stepped personal safety teams, employed primarily to forestall injury to properties. But the organizations typically ended up managing protest exercise—a activity normally reserved for police, and one for which most personal safety guards will not be educated.

One firm, Conflict Resolution Group (CRG), often offered Minneapolis police with details about activists that was at occasions unfaithful and deeply politicized. Read the full story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley & Sam Richards

We can nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Got any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)



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