The Download: hope for renewables, and AI’s function in journalism

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The Download: hope for renewables, and AI’s function in journalism


This is as we speak’s version of The Download, our weekday publication that gives a every day dose of what’s happening on this planet of know-how.

We have sufficient supplies to energy the world with renewable power

The information: Powering the world with renewable power will take quite a lot of uncooked supplies. The excellent news is, with regards to aluminum, metal, and rare-earth metals, there’s loads to go round, based on a brand new evaluation.

Greater repay: Although emissions are an unavoidable aspect impact of extracting the supplies, over the following 30 years they add as much as lower than a 12 months’s value of world emissions from fossil fuels. Experts are assured the up-front emissions price might be greater than offset by financial savings from clear power applied sciences changing fossil fuels.

But there’s a catch: While we technically have sufficient of the supplies we have to construct renewable power infrastructure, really mining and processing them could be a problem. If we don’t do it responsibly, getting these supplies into usable type may result in environmental hurt or human rights violations. Read the complete story.

—Casey Crownhart

Could ChatGPT do my job?

—Melissa Heikkilä, senior AI reporter 

There’s been quite a lot of speak recently about whether or not journalists or copywriters may or must be changed by AI. So far, newsrooms have pursued very completely different approaches to integrating the buzziest new software, ChatGPT, into their work: tech information website CNET secretly used it to put in writing articles, whereas BuzzFeed (extra transparently) introduced plans to make use of it to generate quiz solutions.

But right here’s the soiled secret of journalism: a surprisingly great amount of it might be automated. That’s not essentially a nasty factor if we will outsource a few of the boring and repetitive components of the job to AI. The actual issues come up if you give AI an excessive amount of management. Read the complete story.

Melissa’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly publication supplying you with the within monitor on all issues AI. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to seek out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 Elon Musk desires to show Twitter right into a fintech platform
It’s all a part of his plan to look past promoting to earn money. (FT $)+ Ex-Twitter workers don’t know what to do with their previous laptops. (Wired $)
+ The firm has made its first curiosity fee on its large debt. (Bloomberg $)

2 Inside FTX’s shadowy PR affect campaigns
A brand new submitting reveals an undisclosed community of highly effective political figures. (The Intercept)
+ Things are getting even messier for the collapsed crypto alternate. (NY Mag $) 
+ FTX’s victims are nonetheless livid. (The Atlantic $) 

3 The US has stopped permitting firms to export to Huawei
It’s simply the newest in a collection of China-related sanctions. (BBC)

4 The race for AI supremacy is heating up
But whether or not American or Chinese labs will come out on prime is anybody’s guess. (Economist $)
+ Generative AI is altering all the things. But what’s left when the hype is gone? (MIT Technology Review)

5 You don’t essentially want a headset to enter the metaverse 
Our on a regular basis actuality is edging nearer to dystopia every day. (The Atlantic $)
+ Kpop may assist to enhance the metaverse’s picture. (NYT $)

6 Celebrity voice deepfakes have been co opted to spew racist hate 
This sadly felt inevitable. (Motherboard)
+ AI voice actors sound extra human than ever. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Boeing has made its final ever 747
Once an emblem of accessible journey, it’s more likely to find yourself carrying cargo. (NYT $)
+ Hydrogen-powered planes take off with a startup’s take a look at flight. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Social media has a darkish obsession with being #variety
Is it actually a great deed in case you’re filming it for clickbait? (The Guardian)

9 Spanish-speaking livestreamers are critically scorching proper now
Twitch is booming throughout Latin America, creating new alternatives for players. (Bloomberg $)

10 Dogs love gobbling AirTags 🐶
Tracking your furry good friend isn’t with out its hazards. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“I could press the red button, close my laptop and get under my blankets for a couple hours.” 

—Phoebe Gavin, a former govt director of expertise and improvement at information website Vox, displays on the upsides of being laid off over video name quite than in individual to the Wall Street Journal.

The massive story

A non-public safety group often despatched Minnesota police misinformation about protestors

July 2022 

When US marshals shot and killed a 32-year-old Black man named Winston Boogie Smith Jr. in a parking storage in Minneapolis on June 3, 2021, town was already in a full-blown policing disaster. George Floyd had been murdered by a member of the police drive the earlier May. As protests reignited all around the metropolis, the cops couldn’t sustain.

Into the void stepped non-public safety teams, employed primarily to stop injury to properties. But the organizations usually ended up managing protest exercise—a process often reserved for police, and one for which most non-public safety guards should not skilled.

One firm, Conflict Resolution Group (CRG), often offered Minneapolis police with details about activists that was at occasions unfaithful and deeply politicized. Read the complete story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley & Sam Richards

We can nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Got any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This one-page calendar is critically blowing my thoughts.
+ I really like that actors are rehearsing Shakespeare inside dystopian online game Fallout (thanks Will!)
+ Quick—I would like an emergency photograph of a bear, stat!
+ Can you imagine these impressive crops are carved from wooden?
+ Ambient tunes are large proper now, and I can see why.

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