The Obtain: TikTok ethical panics, and DeepMind’s record-breaking AI

That is in the present day’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.

The porcelain problem didn’t must be actual to get views

Regardless of what you’ll have heard, teenagers are usually not stealing their household’s tremendous dinnerware, tossing it in a blender, and snorting the ensuing mud for the “porcelain problem.” 

That’s simply what Sebastian Durfee, a 23-year-old actor and TikTok creator, hoped you would possibly consider when he unfold the phrase on social media of the newest harmful teen problem. By no means thoughts that it was all pretend from the beginning.

Final week, Durfee posted a name to motion to his followers: to work collectively to get “boomers to freak out a couple of pretend TikTok problem.” His account was banned only a few days later, however his aim wasn’t simply to rack up views. It was additionally to look at how consideration and outrage work on-line, and, in a brand new twist, to trick the very individuals who had been in on the joke within the first place. Learn the total story.

—Abby Ohlheiser

DeepMind’s game-playing AI has overwhelmed a 50-year-old file in laptop science

What’s occurred: DeepMind has used its board game-playing AI AlphaZero to find a quicker solution to resolve a elementary math downside in laptop science, beating a file that has stood for greater than 50 years.

Why it issues: The issue, matrix multiplication, is an important kind of calculation on the coronary heart of many alternative purposes, from displaying photographs on a display screen to simulating complicated physics. It is usually elementary to machine studying itself. Rushing up this calculation might have a huge impact on 1000’s of on a regular basis laptop duties, chopping prices and saving power. Learn the total story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

Inside a battery recycling facility

An enormous new battery recycling facility from Redwood Supplies is being constructed within the mountains  simply exterior Reno, Nevada. My colleague Casey Crownhart, our local weather reporter, took a go searching to see how the development’s going, together with on the hydrometallurgical constructing, the place worthwhile metals—lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper—shall be remoted from crushed battery supplies. Learn the total story.

Casey’s story is from The Spark, her new weekly e-newsletter providing you with the within observe on all issues local weather and power. Signal as much as obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to seek out you in the present day’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.

1 Hurricane Ian is more likely to be Florida’s deadliest in 87 years
The vast majority of the 100+ casualties are believed to have drowned. (WP $)
+ Areas that embrace solar energy fare higher in excessive climate. (Slate $)
+ Bangkok’s flooding downside is steadily worsening. (New Yorker $)

2 It’s not too late to keep away from a winter of utmost sickness 
Accepting flu and covid pictures will help to minimize the blow. (The Atlantic $)
+ Covid vaccines don’t hurt menstrual cycles, a brand new examine says. (Economist $)
+ This nanoparticle could possibly be the important thing to a common covid vaccine. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

three You shouldn’t fear concerning the US election getting hacked
At the least, that’s what the DBI and CISA are saying. (Motherboard)
+The alt-right’s tech techniques have developed for the reason that Capitol riots. (Slate $)
+ Election misinformation remains to be thriving in non-English languages. (CNET)

four Air pollution particles can attain infants within the womb
Relying on how a lot air pollution the mom is uncovered to, soot particles can cross the placenta. (Bloomberg $)

5 Large Tech destroys hundreds of thousands of information storage gadgets a 12 months
Regardless that they may wipe and resell them, firms are scared stiff of confidential information falling into the flawed arms. (FT $)

6 Contained in the race to finish HIV—utilizing CRISPR
In concept, the expertise might return cells to a near-standard state. (Wired $)
+ The scientist who co-created CRISPR isn’t ruling out engineered infants sometime. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

7 Chinese language apps are nonetheless thriving in India
Regardless of the Indian authorities’s efforts to push customers towards native apps. (Remainder of World) 
+ Censorship-evading apps are being stamped out in China. (TechCrunch)

eight The rise and rise of facial recognition in US airports
Self-check in kiosks are being phased out in favor of the controversial expertise. (NYT $)
+ Should you get your face scanned the subsequent time you fly, right here’s what you need to know. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

9 What it’s like to go to an Instagram vacationer entice
It appears like an entire lot extra hassle than it’s price. (Vox)

10 It’s time to embrace robotic dolphins 🐬
They’re an moral different to the true factor in captivity. (Hakai Journal)

Quote of the day

“The spam finds its means into my inbox, too.”

—Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the Federal Election Fee, who helps police US political campaigns, tells the Washington Submit that even she will be able to’t escape the deluge of political spam emails.

The large story

Gene enhancing has made pigs proof against a lethal epidemic

crispr pig concept

December 2020

When covid-19 started to unfold, nations closed companies and advised folks to remain residence. Many thought that might be sufficient to cease the coronavirus. If we had paid extra consideration to pigs, we’d have recognized higher.

To stop their animals contracting ailments, pig farmers make use of measures acquainted to anybody who has been avoiding covid-19, together with requiring human employees to alter garments earlier than getting into a safe barn, answering questions on their final pig contact and dousing provides in disinfectant. 

Now the Pig Enchancment Firm, in Hendersonville, Tennessee, is making an attempt one thing totally different. As an alternative of making an attempt to seal animals off from the atmosphere, it’s altering the pigs themselves. At a secret experimental facility within the US, the corporate has a swine IVF middle and a lab the place pig eggs are being genetically edited utilizing CRISPR, the revolutionary gene scissors, to make piglets proof against lethal ailments. Learn the total story.

—Antonio Regalado

We will 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.)

+ The pitfalls of constructing motion pictures about making motion pictures.
+ Stylish is lifeless, lengthy stay stylish.
+ Ada Lovelace telling Charles Babbage she wished he was as correct as she was is simply wonderful (thanks Will!)
+ Infamous rock journal Creem is making a comeback.
+ It’s time to decide on the perfect songs and albums of the 90s—however how iconoclastic are your opinions?

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