That is right now’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a each day dose of what’s occurring on this planet of know-how.
Google DeepMind has a brand new method to look inside an AI’s “thoughts”
We don’t know precisely how AI works, or why it really works so nicely. That’s an issue: It may lead us to deploy an AI system in a extremely delicate area like drugs with out understanding that it may have essential flaws embedded in its workings.
A staff 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 just lately 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 of management its outputs extra successfully, main to raised AI methods sooner or later. Learn the complete story.
—Scott J Mulligan
What’s on the desk at this yr’s UN local weather convention
Talks kicked off this week at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Working for a few weeks every year, the worldwide summit is the most important annual assembly on local weather change.
The difficulty on the desk this time round: Nations have to conform to set a brand new purpose on how a lot cash ought to go to growing nations to assist them finance the struggle in opposition to local weather change. Complicating issues? A US president-elect whose method to local weather may be very totally different from that of the present administration (understatement of the century).
This can be a large second that would set the tone for what the following few years of the worldwide local weather world seems like. Right here’s what you might want to find out about COP29 and the way Donald Trump’s election is coloring issues.
—Casey Crownhart
This story is from The Spark, our weekly e-newsletter supplying you with the within monitor on all issues vitality and local weather. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you right now’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 The FBI is investigating crypto predictions-betting platform Polymarket
It’s investigating whether or not the agency allowed US merchants to wager on the election. (Bloomberg $)
+ Doing so would have been a violation of an settlement with the US authorities. (NYT $)
+ Polymarket claims to be a “absolutely clear prediction market.” (WSJ $)
2 OpenAI is looking for the US authorities to put money into AI
With out monetary assist, the US may lose essential floor to China, it warns. (WP $)
+ The agency floated the concept of constructing a colossal knowledge heart. (The Info $)
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 in search of 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 degree of the manufacturing course of. (FT $)
+ Three causes robots are about to turn out to be far more helpful. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
6 The way forward for chipmaking in America
Efforts to revitalize native services aren’t precisely going to plan. (Wired $)
+ What’s subsequent in chips. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
7 Blindbox stay streaming is thrilling consumers 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 lined in ice. (Ars Technica)
+ Life-seeking, ice-melting robots may punch by way of Europa’s icy shell. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
9 Easy methods to defend the world’s largest single coral colony
The newly-discovered colony is the dimensions of two basketball courts. (Vox)
+ The race is on to avoid wasting coral reefs—by freezing them. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
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
Internationally, video cameras have turn out to be an accepted characteristic 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 complete story.
—Fleur Macdonald
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ This yr’s gurning championship successful mugshots don’t disappoint.
+ What does it imply to have private fashion, precisely?
+ Amsterdam’s unofficial police cat is totally lovable (and he lives on a ship!)
+ Save the worms—this author actually is. 
