That is right this moment’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s occurring on the earth of expertise.
Google DeepMind has a brand new strategy 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 discipline like drugs with out understanding that it might have crucial flaws embedded in its workings.
A group at Google DeepMind that research one thing known as mechanistic interpretability has been engaged on new methods to allow us to peer beneath the hood. It lately launched a device to assist researchers perceive what is going on when AI is producing an output.
It’s all a part of a push to get a greater understanding of precisely what is going on inside an AI mannequin. If we do, we’ll be capable to management its outputs extra successfully, main to raised AI programs sooner or later. Learn the total 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 must comply with set a brand new objective on how a lot cash ought to go to creating nations to assist them finance the combat towards local weather change. Complicating issues? A US president-elect whose strategy to local weather may be very completely different from that of the present administration (understatement of the century).
This can be a huge second that would set the tone for what the following few years of the worldwide local weather world seems to be like. Right here’s what it’s essential 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 observe 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 this moment’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 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 might 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 net proper has a misogynistic new rallying cry
‘Your physique, my alternative’ is being unfold by younger males looking for to impress. (New Yorker $)+ The upcoming presidency might usher in an age of gendered regression. (The Guardian)
5 China’s human manufacturing unit employees are beneath stress
Robots are creeping into each degree of the manufacturing course of. (FT $)
+ Three causes robots are about to grow to be far more helpful. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
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 Assessment)
7 Blindbox reside streaming is thrilling consumers in China
You by no means know what you’re going to get. (NYT $)
8 What the glacial Earth might have appeared like
Round 700 million years in the past, the complete planet was lined in ice. (Ars Technica)
+ Life-seeking, ice-melting robots might punch by way of Europa’s icy shell. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
9 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 Expertise Assessment)
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 recent, 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 large story
Marseille’s battle towards the surveillance state
The world over, video cameras have grow to be 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 towards the cameras, highlighting the surveillance system’s overreach and underperformance. However are they succeeding? Learn the total story.
—Fleur Macdonald
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Obtained any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ This yr’s gurning championship profitable mugshots don’t disappoint.
+ What does it imply to have private model, precisely?
+ Amsterdam’s unofficial police cat is totally cute (and he lives on a ship!)
+ Save the worms—this author actually is. 
