The latest hearing on Instagram and teen mental health was the depressing work of a legislature that can’t legislate. Toward the end of Thursday’s hearing on Facebook and teen mental health, Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) alluded to the Chinese government’s recent decision to impose strict limits on kids’ video game time. “They have told teenagers
Month: September 2021
The decentralized technology clashes with the government’s plans for a state-dominated economy—one that includes its own digital currency. Every time Beijing announces a crackdown on their industry, the running joke among the crypterati is that China has already banned cryptocurrency 18 times. Chinese government agencies have issued a string of increasingly restrictive but never conclusive
With the help of AI, you’ll be able to take a picture of a shirt, then ask Google to find socks with the same pattern. In May, Google executives unveiled experimental new artificial intelligence trained with text and images they said would make internet searches more intuitive. Wednesday, Google offered a glimpse into how the
Airplanes taxiing isn’t just annoying—it’s a big source of emissions. The FAA and NASA created a new system to save time and fuel. Fastening the seat belt buckle and knowing your flight is on its way to its destination: Nice. Getting stuck in a tarmac traffic jam and waiting for your flight to take off:
Machines can print textiles, cut fabric, and fold clothes. But it’s hard to train them to sew as fast and precisely as humans. SoftWear Automation is a robotics company that wants to make T-shirts. “We want to make a billion T-shirts a year in the US, all made on demand,” says SoftWear CEO Palaniswamy Rajan.
A handful of companies are pursuing airborne seeding, but there’s little evidence so far that the tactic will succeed. Last year’s Castle Fire in California’s Sierra Nevada is estimated to have killed more than 10 percent of the world’s giant sequoias, the tallest trees on earth. Sequoias can live through many fires over life spans
Students whose parents didn’t go to college often work instead of joining extracurricular activities, and can lag peers on skills like résumé writing. Christelle Louis’ single mother, a Haitian immigrant and certified nursing assistant at a nursing home, never went to college. But she always pushed her daughter to get the education she needed for
A key backer of a 2018 Oakland law to rein in tools like automated license plate readers says the city is not following the rules. In 2018, Oakland enacted an innovative law giving citizens a voice in police use of surveillance technology. The Electronic Frontier Foundation called it “the new gold standard in community control
The prior algorithm adjusted calculations for Black patients—making it harder for them to qualify for transplants and other treatments. For decades, doctors and hospitals saw kidney patients differently based on their race. A standard equation for estimating kidney function applied a correction for Black patients that made their health appear rosier, inhibiting access to transplants
Government regulation will never fix everything wrong with online discourse. The industry needs to develop professional norms—just as journalism once did. On October 10, 1999, The Los Angeles Times published a special issue of its Sunday magazine devoted entirely to the opening of the Staples Center arena in downtown LA. Apparently unbeknownst to the Times
Players of online games can be harassed when their voices don’t match their gender identity. New AI-fueled software may help. Fred, a trans man, clicked his mouse, and his tenorful tones suddenly sank deeper. He’d switched on voice-changing algorithms that provided what sounded like an instant vocal cord transplant. “This one is ‘Seth,’” he said,
New tools that help developers write software also generate similar mistakes. Some software developers are now letting artificial intelligence help write their code. They’re finding that AI is just as flawed as humans. Last June, GitHub, a subsidiary of Microsoft that provides tools for hosting and collaborating on code, released a beta version of a
This November, some of the most interesting thinkers, technologists, and artists in the world will convene to discuss how tech is shaping our future. Everything, it seems, is on the line right now. Is mRNA technology on the verge of pulling us out of the pandemic, or will a wily, evolving virus bring us several
As more governments force US tech companies to change how they do business, one case in Turkey cuts to the heart of the search giant’s power. Being a global company has its perks. There’s a lot of money to be made overseas. But the biggest US tech companies are finding out that there’s also a
A research paper that dubs some artificial intelligence models “foundational” is sparking a dispute over the future of the field. Last month, Stanford researchers declared that a new era of artificial intelligence had arrived, one built atop colossal neural networks and oceans of data. They said a new research center at Stanford would build—and study—these
Scientists taught an artificial neural network to imitate a biological neuron. The result offers a new way to think about the complexity of brain cells. Our mushy brains seem a far cry from the solid silicon chips in computer processors, but scientists have a long history of comparing the two. As Alan Turing put it
“I’m glad the ‘Fake it till you make it’ mantra of Silicon Valley is coming into question,” one investor told WIRED. If you need convincing that Elizabeth Holmes is a person with feelings, and not a villain out for blood, just look through her text messages. “You are breeze in desert for me,” she sent
A judge ordered significant changes to the App Store today, but the fight between Epic Games and Apple isn’t over yet. On Friday, after a contentious legal battle over Apple’s alleged monopoly power over the iOS ecosystem, a California judge snipped the tug-of-war rope between Apple and Epic Games. Both sides can claim some victory.
For years, algorithms have driven workers to meet punishing quotas. A state bill trying to reinject humans into the workflow has cleared a big hurdle. Warehouse workers in California are one step closer to being able to pee in peace. Yesterday, the state Senate voted 26 to 11 to pass AB 701, a bill aimed
In 2021, corporations are expected to take a stand on even the most divisive issues. First came the statements from reproductive organizations. Then came the tech companies. The day after the US Supreme Court decided not to block a law in Texas banning most abortions after six weeks, Dallas-based Match Group, which owns Tinder, OkCupid,
Last year in Nova Scotia, after 3-year-old Dylan Ehler vanished, online sleuths descended on Facebook groups to help find him. Then they lost their way. Dylan Ehler came into the world running. He pummeled and squirmed his way through his mom’s pregnancy, kicked the hell out of her in the womb. He was a boy
A new study illustrates just how geographically concentrated AI activity has become. A new study warns that the American AI industry is highly concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area and that this could prove to be a weakness in the long run. The Bay leads all other regions of the country in AI research
Enthusiasm, fear, and light shows usher the country into the age of cryptocurrency. As El Salvador enters its bitcoin era, its sky will sparkle with the lights of a platoon of drones. “We are throwing an event,” says American cryptocurrency evangelist Brock Pierce. “They did a big one at Burning Man in the past. They
Pharmacies have long been perceived as commodities. Now, they’re a central tool for removing barriers to health care. With 19 locations throughout the Milwaukee area, Hayat Pharmacy focuses on providing quality health care to the underserved. To Hashim Zaibak, pharmacist and owner, quality health care isn’t about dispensing medications; it’s about removing barriers that influence
Developing AI is costly and time-consuming. Custom silicon can give companies an edge. Tesla makes cars. Now, it’s also the latest company to seek an edge in artificial intelligence by making its own silicon chips. At a promotional event last month, Tesla revealed details of a custom AI chip called D1 for training the machine-learning
The city capped commissions on restaurant deliveries amid the pandemic, but it says the apps added new fees and marketed deceptive promotions. The pandemic has been a boon to food-delivery apps, as many restaurants closed their dining rooms while diners were wary of going out. Lawsuits filed by the city of Chicago claim that DoorDash
Deadly flooding in and around New York City dramatizes the risks to infrastructure that wasn’t built to handle warmer, wetter climate. In just a few hours on Wednesday night, between 6 and 10 inches of rain fell on New York City—more than has fallen on San Jose, California, in the past year. Water rose in
A new study finds that small groups of laypeople can match or surpass the work of professional fact checkers—and they can do it at scale. Social media misinformation outrage cycles tend to go through familiar phases. There’s the initial controversy over some misleading story that goes viral, then the platform’s response. Then someone asks “What
Everyone from tech companies to churches wants a say in how the EU regulates AI that could harm people. People should not be slaves to machines, a coalition of evangelical church congregations from more than 30 countries preached to leaders of the European Union earlier this summer. The European Evangelical Alliance believes all forms of
In an excerpt from AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future, Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan explore what happens when deepfakers attack the deepfakes. In AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future, AI expert Kai-Fu Lee and coauthor Chen Qiufan answer the question “How will artificial intelligence change the world over the next 20 years?”