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

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AI’s Penicillin and X-Ray Moment
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
"When the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel wrote his will in 1895, he designated funds to reward those who 'have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.' The resulting Nobel Prizes have since been awarded to the discoverers of penicillin, X-rays, and the structure of DNA—and, as of today, to two scientists who, decades ago, laid the foundations for modern artificial intelligence."

AUTOMATION

‘I Applied to 2,843 Roles’: The Rise of AI-Powered Job Application Bots
Jason Koebler | 404 Media
"Before I put my laptop aside at the restaurant I’m working at, I open a terminal window, enter a single command, and hit enter. The server gives me my breakfast and I push my laptop away as the bot springs to life, opening a Chrome window and navigating to LinkedIn. It starts scrolling through job listings, and opens a few of them."

BIOTECH

They Were Made Without Eggs or Sperm. Are They Human?
Kristen V. Brown | The Atlantic
"In recent years, Hanna and other scientists have made remarkable progress in cultivating pluripotent stem cells to mimic the structure and function of a real, growing embryo. But as researchers solve technical problems, they are still left with moral ones. When is a copy so good that it’s equivalent to the real thing? And more to the point, when should the lab experiment be treated—legally and ethically—as human?"

TRANSPORTATION

Ian Brooke Wants to Revolutionize Flight as We Know It
Ross Pomeroy | Big Think
"The 34-year-old Brooke is CEO of Astro Mechanica, a Y Combinator-backed startup that has invented a new kind of jet engine. It’s radically more efficient and versatile than anything that has come before. ...Astro Mechanica claims the Turboelectric Adaptive Engine will unlock massive efficiency gains across a whole range of speeds, but especially at supersonic speeds between Mach 1.8 to Mach 3.4."

SPACE

The World's First Commercial Space Station Looks Like a Luxury Hotel Inside
Carlton Reid | Wired
"Aluminum for spacecraft interiors is passé; what space-farers apparently want is wood. That’s the bet from Vast, the makers of Haven-1, the world’s first commercial space station set to be placed in low-Earth orbit by the SpaceX Falcon rocket next year. First paying customers will be getting on board in 2026, and judging by the final designs just released of the station’s cozy interior, they'll feel right at home."