This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through October 12)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

How to Stop Superhuman AI Before It Stops Us
Stuart Russell | The New York Times
"Once the focus shifts from building machines that are 'intelligent' to ones that are 'beneficial,' controlling them will become a far easier feat. Consider it the difference between nuclear power and nuclear explosions: a nuclear explosion is nuclear power in an uncontrolled form, and we greatly prefer the controlled form."

HEALTH

This Girl's Dramatic Story Shows Hyper-Personalized Medicine Is Possible—and Costly
Erika Check Hayden | MIT Technology Review
"...in a dramatic demonstration of the power of personalized medicine, doctors in Boston created a treatment just for [six-year-old Mila Makovec]. In only eight months, they found the genetic cause of Mila’s disease, designed a drug to overcome the error, and began giving it to Mila via an injection in her spine, in what’s believed to be the first individually tailored treatment of its kind."

AUTOMATION

Waymo Tells Customers That 'Completely Driverless' Vehicles Are on the Way
Andrew J. Hawkins | The Verge
"It’s a sign that Waymo is growing confident enough in its technology to increase the frequency at which it allows passengers to ride in autonomous vehicles without a safety driver behind the wheel."

SPACE

Virgin Orbit Says It Wants to Send Tiny Spacecraft to Mars in 2022
Neel V. Patel | MIT Technology Review
"If it succeeds, Virgin Orbit will be the first commercial company to travel to the Red Planet. It will also mark an unexpected entrance into deep spaceflight for a company whose plans focus on air launches, which have always been considered unsuitable for traveling beyond low Earth orbit."