That is as we speak’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s occurring on the planet of expertise.
AI is rewiring how the world’s finest Go gamers suppose
Ten years in the past AlphaGo, Google DeepMind’s AI program, surprised the world by defeating the South Korean Go participant Lee Sedol.
And within the years since, AI has upended the sport. It’s overturned centuries-old rules about the very best strikes and launched fully new ones. Gamers now prepare to copy AI’s strikes as intently as they’ll somewhat than inventing their very own, even when the machine’s pondering stays mysterious to them. In the meantime, AI is democratizing entry to coaching, and extra feminine gamers are climbing the ranks because of this.
At this time, it’s basically unimaginable to compete professionally with out utilizing AI. Some say the expertise has drained the sport of its creativity, whereas others suppose there’s nonetheless room for human invention. Learn the total story.
—Michelle Kim
MIT Expertise Overview Narrated: Hackers made dying threats in opposition to this safety researcher. Massive mistake.
In April 2024, a mysterious somebody utilizing the net handles “Waifu” and “Judische” started posting dying threats on Telegram and Discord channels geared toward a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon.
As chief analysis officer on the cyber investigations agency Unit 221B, Nixon had constructed a profession monitoring cybercriminals and serving to get them arrested. And though she had taken an curiosity within the Waifu persona in years previous for crimes he boasted about committing, he hadn’t been on her radar for some time when the threats started, as a result of she was monitoring different targets.
Now Nixon resolved to unmask Waifu/Judische and others answerable for the dying threats—and take them down for crimes they admitted to committing.
That is our newest story to be become a MIT Expertise Overview Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing every week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Simply navigate to MIT Expertise Overview Narrated on both platform, and observe us to get all our new content material because it’s launched.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 Anthropic has refused the Pentagon’s AI calls for
It’s holding agency on its stance: no mass surveillance of People, and no deadly autonomous weapons. (The Verge)
+ Anthropic mentioned “just about no progress” had been made throughout current talks. (The Hill)
+ Right here’s how relations between the US authorities and the corporate began to dissolve. (Vox)
2 Instagram will alert mother and father if teenagers repeatedly seek for suicide materials
However campaigners concern the measure might do extra hurt than good. (BBC)
+ Instagram is engaged on an analogous alert function for its AI instruments. (Engadget)
+ Poland is weighing up banning under-15s from accessing social media. (Bloomberg $)
3 ChatGPT Well being recurrently fails to acknowledge medical emergencies
In additional than half of significant circumstances, it suggested customers to delay in search of therapy. (The Guardian)
+ “Dr. Google” had its points. Can ChatGPT Well being do higher? (MIT Expertise Overview)
4 The Islamic State’s on-line warriors are posting past the grave
The group is utilizing AI to resurrect lifeless leaders and port them to new platforms. (404 Media)
5 Vegetarians are at decrease threat from 5 kinds of most cancers
It means that avoiding meat might assist to keep away from sure cancers, together with breast and pancreatic. (FT $)
+ Curiously, the identical doesn’t apply for vegans. (Bloomberg $)
+ RFK Jr. follows a carnivore weight loss plan. That doesn’t imply you must. (MIT Expertise Overview)
6 Activists combating on-line abuse have been barred from America
Authorities accused HateAid of taking part in a “world censorship-industrial complicated.” (NYT $)
+ What it’s wish to be banned from the US for preventing on-line hate. (MIT Expertise Overview)
7 Russians are on the lookout for lacking troopers on Google Maps
They’re posting opinions pleading for details about lacking family members. (New Yorker $)
+ Google Maps has lastly gained approval to function in South Korea. (FT $)
+ It’s hellbent on closing its closing few world gaps. (Economist $)
8 Burger King’s new AI assistant will consider staff’ friendliness
It’ll examine interactions to ensure they’re saying please and thanks. (The Verge)
+ Perplexity’s bossy new AI agent assigns work to fellow brokers. (Ars Technica)
9 NASA nonetheless hasn’t made it again to the moon
The mission has been dogged by delays and points. (WP $)
10 Are you Chinamaxxing but?
Everybody on TikTok is, c’mon. (Insider $)
Quote of the day
“That is as a lot of a political combat as a army use challenge.”
—Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment, who researches AI in warfare, explains to the Washington Publish why ideological variations are prone to be worsening the rift between Anthropic and the Pentagon.
Another factor
One metropolis’s combat to unravel its sewage downside with sensors
Within the metropolis of South Bend, Indiana, wastewater from individuals’s kitchens, sinks, washing machines, and bathrooms flows by means of 35 neighborhood sewer strains. On good days, simply earlier than every line ends, a vertical throttle pipe diverts the sewage into an interceptor tube, which carries it to a therapy plant the place stable pollution and micro organism are filtered out.
As in lots of American cities, these pipes are mixed with storm drains, which might fill rivers and lakes with poisonous sludge when heavy rains or melted snow overwhelms them, endangering wildlife and consuming water provides. However metropolis officers have a plan to make its getting old sewers considerably smarter. Learn the total story.
—Andrew Zaleski
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Acquired any concepts? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ This can be a fascinating perception into Jimi Hendrix’s technical guitar wizardry 
+ The Romans: their lives actually weren’t so totally different to ours, y’know.
+ How the Beatles kicked again and relaxed at dwelling after they weren’t shaping historical past.
+ Disney composer Alan Menken is an undisputed expertise.