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

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That is at the moment’s version of The Download, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what’s happening on the earth of know-how.

We’ve sufficient supplies to energy the world with renewable vitality

The information: Powering the world with renewable vitality will take a whole lot of uncooked supplies. The excellent news is, with regards to aluminum, metal, and rare-earth metals, there’s lots to go round, in keeping with a brand new evaluation.

Larger repay: Though emissions are an unavoidable aspect impact of extracting the supplies, over the following 30 years they add as much as lower than a yr’s value of world emissions from fossil fuels. Specialists are assured the up-front emissions value can be greater than offset by financial savings from clear vitality applied sciences changing fossil fuels.

However there’s a catch: Whereas we technically have sufficient of the supplies we have to construct renewable vitality infrastructure, really mining and processing them generally is a problem. If we don’t do it responsibly, getting these supplies into usable type might result in environmental hurt or human rights violations. Learn the complete story.

—Casey Crownhart

Might ChatGPT do my job?

—Melissa Heikkilä, senior AI reporter

There’s been a whole lot of discuss these days about whether or not journalists or copywriters might or must be changed by AI. Thus far, newsrooms have pursued very totally different approaches to integrating the buzziest new instrument, 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.

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

Melissa’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly e-newsletter providing 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 search out you at the moment’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 Elon Musk needs to show Twitter right into a fintech platform
It’s all a part of his plan to look past promoting to make cash. (FT $)+ Ex-Twitter employees don’t know what to do with their previous laptops. (Wired $)
+ The corporate has made its first curiosity cost on its huge 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)
+ Issues 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 most recent in a sequence of China-related sanctions. (BBC)

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

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 might assist to enhance the metaverse’s picture. (NYT $)

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

7 Boeing has made its final ever 747
As soon as an emblem of accessible journey, it’s more likely to find yourself carrying cargo. (NYT $)
+ Hydrogen-powered planes take off with a startup’s check flight. (MIT Expertise Assessment)

8 Social media has a darkish obsession with being #type
Is it actually a superb deed when you’re filming it for clickbait? (The Guardian)

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

10 Canine love gobbling AirTags 🐶
Monitoring your furry pal isn’t with out its hazards. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“I might press the pink button, shut my laptop computer and get below my blankets for a pair hours.”

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

The large story

A non-public safety group commonly 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 power the earlier Could. As protests reignited everywhere in the metropolis, the cops couldn’t sustain.

Into the void stepped personal safety teams, employed primarily to stop harm to properties. However the organizations typically ended up managing protest exercise—a activity often reserved for police, and one for which most personal safety guards aren’t educated.

One firm, Battle Decision Group (CRG), commonly supplied Minneapolis police with details about activists that was at instances unfaithful and deeply politicized. Learn the complete story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley & Sam Richards

We will nonetheless have good issues

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

+ This one-page calendar is severely blowing my thoughts.
+ I really like that actors are rehearsing Shakespeare inside dystopian online game Fallout (thanks Will!)
+ Fast—I want an emergency photo of a bear, stat!
+ Are you able to consider these impressive plants are carved from wooden?
+ Ambient tunes are huge proper now, and I can see why.

By admin