That is at present’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what’s occurring on the planet of expertise.
Generative AI can flip your most treasured recollections into pictures that by no means existed
As a six-year-old rising up in Barcelona, Spain, throughout the 1940s, Maria would go to a neighbor’s house in her constructing when she wished to see her father. From there, she may attempt to attempt to catch a glimpse of him within the jail beneath, the place he was locked up for opposing the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
There isn’t any picture of Maria on that balcony. However she will be able to now maintain one thing prefer it: a faux picture—or memory-based reconstruction, because the Barcelona-based design studio Home Knowledge Streamers places it—of the scene that an actual picture might need captured.The studio makes use of generative picture fashions, corresponding to OpenAI’s DALL-E, to convey folks’s recollections to life.
The faux snapshots are blurred and distorted, however they will nonetheless rewind a lifetime straight away. Learn the complete story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
Why China’s regulators are softening on its tech sector
Understanding the Chinese language authorities’s selections to bolster or suppress a sure expertise is all the time a problem. Why does it favor this sector as a substitute of that one? What triggers officers to instantly provoke a crackdown? The solutions are by no means simple to return by.
Angela Huyue Zhang, a legislation professor in Hong Kong, has some strategies. She spoke with Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, on how Chinese language regulators nearly all the time swing backwards and forwards between regulating tech an excessive amount of and never sufficient, how native governments have gone to nice lengths to guard native tech firms, and why AI firms in China are receiving extra authorities goodwill than different sectors at present. Learn the complete story.
This story is from China Report, our weekly e-newsletter masking tech in China. Join to obtain it in your inbox each Tuesday.
+ Learn extra about Zeyi’s dialog with Zhang and how one can apply her insights to AI right here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you at present’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 We want new methods to guage how protected an AI mannequin is
Present evaluation strategies haven’t saved tempo with the sector’s speedy improvement. (FT $)
+ Do AI techniques want to return with security warnings? (MIT Expertise Overview)
2 Japan has grand hopes of rebuilding its fallen chip business
And a small farming city has a essential position to play. (NYT $)
+ Google is working by itself proprietary chips to energy its AI. (WSJ $)
+ Intel additionally unveiled a brand new chip to rival Nvidia’s stranglehold on the business. (Reuters)
three Russia canceled the launch of its latest rocket
The failure means the nation is lagging additional behind its house rivals in China and the US. (Bloomberg $)
+ The US is retiring one in every of its strongest rockets, the Delta IV Heavy. (Ars Technica)
four Gaming large Blizzard is returning to China
After hashing out a brand new take care of long-time accomplice NetEase. (WSJ $)
5 Volkswagen transformed a former Golf manufacturing facility to provide all-electric autos
Its success means that different factories may comply with go well with with out main job losses. (NYT $)
+ Three steadily requested questions on EVs, answered. (MIT Expertise Overview)
6 OpenAI is limbering as much as struggle quite a few lawsuits
By hiring among the world’s prime authorized minds to struggle claims it breached copyright legislation. (WP $)
+ AI fashions which might be able to “reasoning” are on the horizon—in case you imagine the hype. (FT $)
+ OpenAI’s starvation for information is coming again to chunk it. (MIT Expertise Overview)
7 San Francisco’s marshlands urgently want extra mud
A brand new undertaking is optimistic that dumping sediment onto the bay ground may also help. (Hakai Journal)
+ Why salt marshes may assist save Venice. (MIT Expertise Overview)
eight Scientists are utilizing eDNA to trace down troopers’ stays
In contrast to common DNA, it’s the genetic materials we’re all always shedding. (Undark Journal)
+ How environmental DNA is giving scientists a brand new solution to perceive our world. (MIT Expertise Overview)
9 We might have lastly solved a cosmic thriller
Nevertheless, not all cosmologists are in settlement. (New Scientist $)
10 Social media loves offended music 
Excessive feelings require a equally intense soundtrack. (Wired $)
Quote of the day
“I might urge everybody to consider AI as a sword, not only a protect, in the case of unhealthy content material.”
—Nick Clegg, Meta’s international affairs chief, performs up AI’s potential to stop the unfold of misinformation somewhat than propagate it, the Guardian studies.
The large story
Inside China’s surprising quest to guard information privateness
August 2020
Within the West, it’s broadly believed that neither the Chinese language authorities nor Chinese language folks care about privateness. In actuality, this isn’t true.
Over the previous couple of years the Chinese language authorities has begun to implement privateness protections that in lots of respects resemble these in America and Europe at present.
On the similar time, nonetheless, it has ramped up state surveillance. This paradox has turn into a defining function of China’s rising information privateness regime, and raises a critical query: Can a system endure with sturdy protections for shopper privateness, however nearly none in opposition to authorities snooping? Learn the complete story.
—Karen Hao
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
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