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 planet of expertise.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink hopes to check its mind implant in a human subsequent yr
Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface firm Neuralink is planning to check a mind implant in people in six months, the corporate has introduced.
At a ‘present and inform’ occasion yesterday, Musk stated that the corporate was within the strategy of submitting paperwork to the US Meals and Drug Administration, which has the ability to approve or deny the corporate’s utility to begin scientific trials in people.
When Musk launched Neuralink in 2017, he outlined plans for “a high-bandwidth, long-lasting, biocompatible, bidirectional” mind implant. This mind modem, he claimed, might in some way enable people to maintain tempo with synthetic intelligence. Now, after years of delays and experiments on monkeys, he’s hoping to show it may be safely implanted in people.
Musk additionally introduced that the corporate is engaged on repurposing the implant for 2 additional elements of the physique: the spinal wire, to doubtlessly assist to revive motion in somebody who’s paralysed, and an ocular implant to revive imaginative and prescient in individuals with sight loss. He demonstrated the latter product with a video explaining how a Neuralink implant had stimulated a flash of sunshine in a monkey’s mind.
Antonio Regalado, our senior biomedicine editor, appropriately predicted {that a} imaginative and prescient implant able to producing pictures in an animal’s mind would make its means into the corporate’s presentation. Learn why that matters—and what, in principle, it might imply for people.
Whereas everybody waits for GPT-4, OpenAI continues to be fixing its predecessor
Buzz round GPT-4, the anticipated however as-yet-unannounced follow-up to OpenAI’s groundbreaking giant language mannequin, GPT-3, is rising by the week. However OpenAI shouldn’t be but executed tinkering with the earlier model.
The San Francisco-based firm has launched a demo of a brand new mannequin known as ChatGPT, a spin-off of GPT-3 that’s geared towards answering questions by way of back-and-forth dialogue. However whereas the conversational format permits ChatGPT to confess its errors, and reject inappropriate requests, it’s nonetheless removed from excellent. Read the full story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
In protection of plastic (form of)
Plastics have a nasty status, there’s no denying it. They’re an environmental, local weather, and public well being catastrophe. However, concurrently, they’ve introduced down prices throughout industries and saved lives, due to their use in every part from medical gear to electronics.
The query is, the place will we go from right here? Taking steps to chop down on gratuitous plastic use is a begin, and discovering methods to reinvent plastic recycling might additionally play an enormous position in chopping down on its damaging impacts. Among the many most promising of those is chemical recycling, which, if chemists efficiently pull it off, might enable us to deal with totally different plastics utilizing a single course of. Read the full story.
Casey’s story is from The Spark, her weekly local weather and vitality e-newsletter. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you at the moment’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 The European Central Financial institution thinks bitcoin is on its final gasp
It says the cryptocurrency is on “the street to irrelevance.” (The Guardian)
+ Sam Bankman-Fried has given one other disastrous interview. (NYT $)
+ Unsurprisingly, he stated his legal professionals had suggested him in opposition to talking publicly. (Vox)
+ Occasions aren’t nice for NFT artists proper now. (New Yorker $)
+ It’s okay to choose out of the crypto revolution. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Chinese language protests could possibly be the start of the tip for zero covid
It’s damaging the nation’s financial system, and far of the inhabitants has had sufficient. (Vox)
+ Xi Jinping has painted himself right into a nook. (The Atlantic $)
+ Merely lifting the restrictions received’t magically return life to regular, although. (Wired $)
3 An American journalist is suing NSO Group
He and his colleagues allege they have been surveilled utilizing the corporate’s Pegasus spyware and adware. (New Yorker $)
+ Password supervisor LastPass says some consumer information was uncovered in a hack. (The Verge)
+ The battle in Ukraine has shifted cybercriminals’ focus away from stealing cash. (Economist $)
+ Google has blocked a Spanish hacking software. (Wired $)
+ The hacking business faces the tip of an period. (MIT Technology Review)
4 San Francisco police can now deploy killer robots
They’ll kill somebody to be able to save the lifetime of a civilian or an officer. (TechCrunch)
+ The coverage might simply find yourself harming town’s most weak individuals. (Wired $)
5 Youngsters are nonetheless dying from TikTok’s blackout problem
Dad and mom really feel the platform’s not doing sufficient to stop different minors from copying the movies. (Bloomberg $)
6 California desires to punish medical doctors who unfold covid misinformation
However two authorized challenges declare the brand new legislation is unconstitutional. (NYT $)
7 Gasoline consumption within the US barely fell final yr
Regardless of extra electrical automobiles hitting the roads, gasoline use fell by simply 0.54%. (Wired $)
+ Electrical car startups are struggling to outlive. (The Information $)
+ The place are these superbatteries we have been promised? (IEEE Spectrum)
8 A Singapore remedy chatbot has been accused of gaslighting
The federal government-backed bot is designed to assist lecturers, however appears to be doing something however. (Rest of World)
9 Gen Z actually doesn’t like Instagram
Its cringey pivot to video isn’t chopping by means of. (The Atlantic $)
+ Social networks on the whole are shrinking. (Slate $)
10 You may nonetheless poke somebody on Fb 
Why not brighten up a buddy’s day? (BuzzFeed News)
Quote of the day
“Should you take a look at all the foremost competing platforms which have existed — iOS, Android, Home windows — Apple stands out. It’s the just one the place one firm can management what apps get on the machine. I don’t suppose it’s sustainable or good.”
—Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (no stranger to accusations of monopolistic habits himself) joins Elon Musk in criticizing Apple’s energy as a gatekeeper for apps in feedback made at a New York Times convention.
The large story
Discovering properties for the waste that can (most likely) outlive humanity
October 2020
Since 2013, when regulators determined to close California’s San Onofre Nuclear Producing Station down, groups of scientists, engineers, and policymakers have been laborious at work to ensure it could possibly be safely decommissioned.
The large query is: what to do with all of the spent nuclear gas? Its radioactive waste might outlast the human race, and is being stored in storage holes buried alongside the seismically energetic California shoreline.
They’re sitting geese for the following large earthquake, which is prone to hit inside the subsequent century. If the nuclear waste in some way obtained out, the outcomes could be devastating. And the actual fact the issue exists in any respect highlights how the US authorities has to this point been unable to satisfy its authorized obligation to discover a long-term house for America’s radioactive waste. Read the full story.
—Wudan Yan
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Acquired any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ keep a healthy, nutritious diet when every part’s so costly.
+ I’d be fairly pleased with any considered one of these robot presents, to be sincere.
+ Whereas Christine McVie gave us so many wonderful songs, Songbird may be one of the best.
+ Leftovers aren’t simply tasty—they’re literal works of art.
+ There’s a gaggle of tens of 1000’s of manta rays simply vibing off the coast of Ecuador.
