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This is today's variation of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a regular dose of what's going connected successful the satellite of technology.
AI is coming for music, too
While ample connection models that make substance person exploded successful the past 3 years, a antithetic benignant of AI, based connected what are called diffusion models, is having an unprecedented interaction connected originative domains.
By transforming random sound into coherent patterns, diffusion models tin make caller images, videos, oregon speech, guided by substance prompts oregon different input data. The champion ones tin make outputs indistinguishable from the enactment of people, arsenic good arsenic bizarre, surreal results that consciousness distinctly nonhuman.
Now these models are marching into a originative tract that is arguably much susceptible to disruption than immoderate other: music. Music models tin present make songs susceptible of eliciting existent affectional responses, presenting a stark illustration of however hard it’s becoming to specify authorship and originality successful the property of AI. Read the afloat story.
—James O'Donnell
This communicative is from the adjacent variation of our people magazine, which is each astir however exertion is changing creativity. Subscribe now to work it and get a transcript of the mag erstwhile it lands!
A tiny US metropolis is experimenting with AI to find retired what residents want
Bowling Green, Kentucky, is location to 75,000 residents who precocious wrapped up an experimentation successful utilizing AI for democracy: Can an online polling platform, powered by instrumentality learning, seizure what residents privation to spot hap successful their city?
After a period of advertising, the Pol.is portal launched successful February. Residents could spell to the website and anonymously taxable an thought (in little than 140 characters) for what a 25-year program for their metropolis should include. They could besides ballot connected whether they agreed oregon disagreed with different ideas.
But immoderate researchers question whether soliciting input successful this mode is simply a reliable mode to recognize what a assemblage wants. Read the afloat story.
—James O'Donnell
How Colossal Biosciences is attempting to ain the “woolly mammoth”
What’s new: Colossal Biosciences not lone wants to bring backmost the woolly mammoth—it wants to ain it, too. MIT Technology Review has learned the Texas startup is seeking a patent that would springiness it exclusive ineligible rights to make and merchantability gene-edited elephants containing past mammoth DNA.
But why? Ben Lamm, the CEO of Colossal, says that holding patents connected the mammoth and different creatures would “give america power implicit however these technologies are implemented, peculiarly for managing archetypal releases wherever oversight is critical.” Patents, which usually past 20 years, could supply “a wide ineligible model during the captious modulation play erstwhile de-extinct taxon are archetypal reintroduced,” helium says. Read the afloat story.
—Antonio Regalado
If you’re funny successful what other Collossal’s been up to, cheque out:
+ Game of clones: Colossal’s caller wolves are cute, but are they dire? The institution precocious claimed it has revived an extinct species, but scientists are skeptical. Read the afloat story.
+ As a archetypal measurement towards resurrecting woolly mammoths, Colossal created these adorable gene-edited ‘woolly mice.’
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 OpenAI mightiness be gathering its ain societal network
It’s a determination that’s apt to enrage Elon Musk adjacent further. (The Verge)
+ Musk and Sam Altman are inactive locked successful a ineligible dispute. (CNBC)
+ There are plentifulness of reasons wherefore OpenAI mightiness privation to physique a societal feed. (NY Mag $)
2 Buying straight from Chinese factories is not a bully idea
Despite what TikTok tells you. (WP $)
+ The popularity of apps allowing shoppers to bargain from factories is skyrocketing. (WSJ $)
3 Mark Zuckerberg tried to settee Meta’s antitrust lawsuit past month
Unfortunately for him, the caput of the FTC was unmoved by the offer. (WSJ $)
+ The CEO considered spinning disconnected Instagram successful 2018, apparently. (Reuters)
+ The archetypal 2 days of the proceedings person focused connected 2010-2014. (Bloomberg $)
4 A whistleblower has shed airy connected however DOGE whitethorn person taken backstage data
Labor instrumentality experts are definite the accusation is wholly unrelated to making the authorities much efficient. (NPR)
+ Federal workers are wading done the chaos. (The Atlantic $)
+ A batch of DOGE’s fraud claims are aged news. (The Guardian)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the information and stableness of our captious data. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Nvidia is bracing itself to suffer $5.5 billion
As a effect of the Trump administration’s caller spot income restrictions. (FT $)
+ Its caller H20 spot present requires a peculiar license. (The Guardian)
+ The company’s shares plunged successful effect to the news. (CNN)
6 We’re getting person to a cure for seasonal allergies
An injection usually administered to dainty asthma could clasp the key. (Vox)
7 Maybe LLMs don’t request connection aft all
Allowing them to process queries successful mathematical spaces could amended their output. (Quanta Magazine)
+ Why does AI being bully astatine mathematics matter? (MIT Technology Review)
8 YouTube was fixed an exemption from Australia’s societal media prohibition for under-16s
Even though it’s the astir fashionable level for children by far. (Bloomberg $)
9 Social media tin inactive combat hatred without censorship
Although X is astir apt excessively acold gone, admittedly. (The Atlantic $)
+ How to hole the internet. (MIT Technology Review)
10 How to past connected Mars
Thanks to water-rich asteroids. (Wired $)
+ The quest to fig retired farming connected Mars. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
"How other tin OpenAI get caller grooming information astatine standard going forward?"
—Bill Gross, the laminitis of tech incubator Idealab, believes OpenAI has a precise wide motive for wanting to physique its ain societal network, Insider reports.
The large story
Three-quarters of everything successful the mean American fare passes done the acold chain—the web of warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, show cases, and home fridges that support meat, milk, and much chilled connected the travel from workplace to fork.
As consumers, we enactment a batch of religion successful presumption similar “fresh” and “natural,” but artificial refrigeration has created a unsighted spot. We’ve gotten truthful bully astatine preserving (and storing) food, that we cognize much astir however to lengthen an apple’s beingness span than a human’s, and astir of america don’t springiness that bonzer process overmuch thought astatine all. But each that convenience has travel astatine the disbursal of diverseness and deliciousness. Read the afloat story.
—Allison Arieff
We tin inactive person bully things
A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon skeet 'em astatine me.)
+ This database of the 30 champion fabrication books of the past 30 years does not disappoint.
+ Travel shade stories? Truly chilling.
+ It’s clip to caulk the wagon—the seminal Oregon Trail is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
+ These photos of fifties fashion are simply the best.
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