That is right now’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a each day dose of what’s happening on this planet of expertise.
Google DeepMind has a brand new solution to look inside an AI’s “thoughts”
We don’t know precisely how AI works, or why it really works so properly. That’s an issue: It may lead us to deploy an AI system in a extremely delicate discipline like drugs with out understanding that it may have important flaws embedded in its workings.
A workforce at Google DeepMind that research one thing referred to as mechanistic interpretability has been engaged on new methods to allow us to peer beneath the hood. It not too long ago launched a device to assist researchers perceive what is occurring when AI is producing an output.
It’s all a part of a push to get a greater understanding of precisely what is occurring inside an AI mannequin. If we do, we’ll be capable to management its outputs extra successfully, main to raised AI techniques sooner or later. Learn the total story.
—Scott J Mulligan
What’s on the desk at this 12 months’s UN local weather convention
Talks kicked off this week at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Operating for a few weeks annually, the worldwide summit is the most important annual assembly on local weather change.
The problem on the desk this time round: Nations must comply with set a brand new aim on how a lot cash ought to go to creating nations to assist them finance the combat in opposition to local weather change. Complicating issues? A US president-elect whose strategy to local weather could be very totally different from that of the present administration (understatement of the century).
It is a massive second that would set the tone for what the subsequent few years of the worldwide local weather world appears like. Right here’s what you should find out about COP29 and the way Donald Trump’s election is coloring issues.
—Casey Crownhart
This story is from The Spark, our weekly publication providing you with the within observe on all issues power and local weather. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you right now’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 The FBI is investigating crypto predictions-betting platform Polymarket
It’s investigating whether or not the agency allowed US merchants to guess on the election. (Bloomberg $)
+ Doing so would have been a violation of an settlement with the US authorities. (NYT $)
+ Polymarket claims to be a “totally clear prediction market.” (WSJ $)
2 OpenAI is asking for the US authorities to put money into AI
With out monetary help, the US may lose essential floor to China, it warns. (WP $)
+ The agency floated the thought of constructing a colossal information heart. (The Data $)
3 AI-generated Elon Musk propaganda is rife on Fb
Professional-Musk inspiration porn is the content material of alternative for spammers. (404 Media)
+ Trump is surrounding himself with terminally on-line edgelords. (The Atlantic $)
4 The web proper has a misogynistic new rallying cry
‘Your physique, my alternative’ is being unfold by younger males searching for to impress. (New Yorker $)+ The upcoming presidency may usher in an age of gendered regression. (The Guardian)
5 China’s human manufacturing unit staff are beneath strain
Robots are creeping into each stage of the manufacturing course of. (FT $)
+ Three causes robots are about to turn into far more helpful. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
6 The way forward for chipmaking in America
Efforts to revitalize native amenities aren’t precisely going to plan. (Wired $)
+ What’s subsequent in chips. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
7 Blindbox reside streaming is thrilling buyers in China
You by no means know what you’re going to get. (NYT $)
8 What the glacial Earth could have regarded like
Round 700 million years in the past, the whole planet was coated in ice. (Ars Technica)
+ Life-seeking, ice-melting robots may punch by Europa’s icy shell. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
9 Learn how to defend the world’s largest single coral colony
The newly-discovered colony is the scale of two basketball courts. (Vox)
+ The race is on to avoid wasting coral reefs—by freezing them. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
10 These researchers have reinvented the wheel
This ‘morphing’ wheel can roll over obstacles as much as 1.3 instances the peak of its radius. (Reuters)
Quote of the day
“Shawty crunk, so contemporary, so clear.”
—Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO-turned rapper, debuts a reworked model of 2002 rap hit Get Low in a tribute to his spouse, the Wall Avenue Journal studies.
The massive story
Marseille’s battle in opposition to the surveillance state
The world over, video cameras have turn into an accepted function of city life. Many cities in China now have dense networks of them, and London and New Delhi aren’t far behind. Now France is enjoying catch-up.
Considerations have been raised all through the nation. However the surveillance rollout has met particular resistance in Marseille, France’s second-biggest metropolis.
It’s unsurprising, maybe, that activists are combating again in opposition to the cameras, highlighting the surveillance system’s overreach and underperformance. However are they succeeding? Learn the total story.
—Fleur Macdonald
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Acquired any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ This 12 months’s gurning championship profitable mugshots don’t disappoint.
+ What does it imply to have private type, precisely?
+ Amsterdam’s unofficial police cat is totally cute (and he lives on a ship!)
+ Save the worms—this author definitely is. 
