This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 13)
Every week, we scour the web for important, insightful, and fascinating stories in science and technology.
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Artificial Intelligence
Jeff Bezos Wants to Build an ‘Artificial General Engineer’Cade Metz | The New York Times ($)
"'All societal wealth is driven by invention,' [Bezos] said in an interview with The New York Times. 'Six thousand years ago, somebody invented the plow, and we all got wealthier. Then, much later, somebody invented the steam engine, and we all got wealthier.' ...'What Prometheus seeks to do,' he added, 'is to offer a set of tools that dramatically accelerates that invention loop.'"
Computing
Why Orbital Data Centers Are Harder Than Silicon Valley ThinksAndrew Cavalier | IEEE Spectrum
"Proponents tout the many wonders of computing in space: abundant solar energy, free cooling, and freedom from Earth-based disturbances like earthquakes, floods, and protesters. But a sober look at the physics of space-based computing paints a much more nuanced picture."
Biotechnology
Longevity Startup Doses First Human in Bid to Reverse Age-Related Sight LossIsabella Ward | Wired ($)
"It is the first-ever cellular-rejuvenation therapy using this technology to receive FDA clearance to enter human clinical trials, and hence the first chance to test whether the technology can 'ameliorate human disease,' according to Life Biosciences cofounder David Sinclair, who is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School."
Future
AI Absolutism Is Breaking Our Brains. The Apocalyptic Future We’re Being Sold Isn’t InevitableSamantha Oltman | The Guardian
"Contradictory as they may be, all these arguments and anxieties fit neatly into the overarching message of the people building this technology: AI’s dominance is inevitable. Get on board or you will be left behind. ...[But] the version of AI that we’re being sold doesn’t have to be the version we buy. Nor does it need to be the story we believe in."
Energy
Commonwealth Fusion Makes the Physics Case for Its 400 MW ReactorJohn Timmer | Ars Technica
"According to our best models, developed using real-world data from multiple tokamaks, ARC should be able to regularly trigger fusion reactions that release more energy than we put into them. But there’s 'working' from a physics perspective, and 'working' from a market perspective. ...the finances are going to be the hardest risk to retire and may require having ARC operate for decades before we have a definitive answer."
Artificial Intelligence
Google DeepMind Is Worried About What Happens When Millions of Agents Start to InteractWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($)
"According to Rohin Shah, who directs the company’s AGI safety and alignment research, the mass-market arrival of agents that can carry out tasks without human oversight and follow instructions given to them by other agents creates a whole new class of risk."
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Future
Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After Wired ReportDhruv Mehrotra | Wired ($)
"One day after Wired revealed that Meta had quietly embedded an unreleased face-recognition system into an app installed on more than 50 million phones, the company removed it, according to a Wired analysis of the latest version’s code. ...The version published the day of Wired’s report included several code libraries explicitly named for face recognition. Friday’s release includes none of them."
Space
A Falcon 9 Booster Turns 5 Years Old—and Just Set a Remarkable Reuse RecordEric Berger | Ars Technica
"Since [SpaceX's] Booster 1067 made its debut in June 2021, [ULA] has flown its workhorse Atlas V rocket a total of 22 times and the Vulcan rocket four times, and the Delta IV Heavy vehicle made its final three flights. So in the time that this single Falcon 9 first stage has flown and landed 35 times, its competitor company has made 29 total launches. Put another way, this rocket has put more mass into orbit than more than two dozen expendable rockets over half a decade of effort."
Artificial Intelligence
Why Apple’s Slow-And-Steady AI Bet Is Starting to Look Pretty SmartLucas Ropek | TechCrunch
"In short, Apple is spending less, making more, and now launched a suite of AI features that—for many iPhone users—will feel indistinguishable from the other AI applications already available to them through the App Store. If that doesn’t exactly count as 'winning the AI race,' it may be the smartest way to run it."
Future
Who Will Actually Thrive in the Hybrid AI-Human Work ForceStaff | The New York Times ($)
"The transformation that’s coming is going to take place in the world as it is familiar to us today, and every single day will feel familiar. And there’ll be tiny, tiny changes along the margin. There’ll be tiny bits of automation along the margins. And 10, 15, 20 years later, we’ll look back and we’ll say, My god, everything is different. But you’ll never notice it happening. That’s the way it always goes."
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