The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Nvidia has secured $500 billion from Wall Street for AI infrastructure
It’s struck deals with BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and four others. (BBC)
+ Showing the pull of AI compute for institutional investors. (Reuters $)
+ And that AI infrastructure is becoming a new asset class. (CNBC)
2 Mark Zuckerberg’s new manifesto says open-source AI can save the US
It presents a utopian vision of personalized “superintelligence.” (Guardian)
+ And arrived the same day as Meta’s new, open-source model. (NYT $)
+ Zuckerberg said he plans to launch more of these models. (WSJ $)
+ And pit Meta against Chinese open-weight developers. (SCMP)
3 Bernie Sanders has called on Silicon Valley to “pause AI development”
He noted that AI giants have pledged to do this if necessary for safety.
+ And warned that lawmakers will step in if no action is taken. (Guardian)
+ House Democrats are already pressing AI leaders over rogue models. (WP $)
+ A populist backlash is building against AI. (MIT Technology Review)
4 A US court will allow thousands of social media lawsuits to proceed
The suits target addictive mechanisms used by Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snapchat. (Axios)
+ They claim the platforms are designed to hook young users. (Reuters $)
+ Can we repair the internet? (MIT Technology Review)
5 Unitree’s IPO is more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail
The Chinese humanoid firm raised $900 million ahead of its listing. (Reuters $)
+ Its pricing for the Shanghai IPO values the company at $9 billion. (FT $)
6 Flock’s car-tracking cameras are facing a bipartisan backlash
The surveillance network has spread rapidly across the US. (NYT $)
+ Flock also plans to chase shoplifters with drones. (MIT Technology Review)
7 China is breaking up AI relationships
Beijing has introduced new rules for emotionally interactive AI. (Rest of World)
+ It’s surprisingly easy to fall for a chatbot. (MIT Technology Review)
8 An AI tool claims to pick the best 1% of scientific papers
But researchers doubt that AI can reliably judge scientific quality. (Nature)
9 The AI slop backlash is working
It’s pushing platforms to restrict AI-generated content. (Wired $)
10 An 82-year-old rejected $26 million to turn her farm into a data center
She criticised the environmental impacts of data centers. (Fortune)
Quote of the day
“It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control.”
—Senator Bernie Sanders urges Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Mark Zuckerberg to pause all AI development in a letter.
One More Thing
The race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess
A new field of science is using genetic sequencing to predict what kind of person an embryo might become. Some parents turn to these tests to avoid devastating genetic disorders, while a much smaller group are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to optimize for intelligence, appearance, and personality.
Customers, however, may not be getting what they’re paying for. Genetics experts have highlighted the potential deficiencies of this testing for years, while its underlying assumptions have made these companies a political lightning rod.