This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
We still don’t know how people are really using AI
AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using their products. But they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say, and there’s no independent source to corroborate it.
A new research project called the AI Observatory aims to fill in the gap. Its analysis shows many more sensitive behaviors than are captured in reports from major AI companies, which focus more on work than on personal use.
The researchers also found significant differences between models. People were more likely to turn to Anthropic for coding, Gemini for social and roleplay uses, and ChatGPT for homework assistance. Here’s what the AI Observatory reveals about how people use AI.
—Eileen Guo
What Flock’s defenders are missing
Flock Safety, the police-tech giant known for its network of some 120,000 automatic license plate readers around the US, recently announced changes to its platform. The updates are meant to prevent officers from using it for illegal or illegitimate purposes, including stalking.
Amid all this, there have recently been several arguments defending Flock: If these cameras help solve crime, is it as big a deal? On a good day they might help catch a kidnapper, and if not, they’re simply snapping pictures of my car that nobody will bother to look at.
But this all skips over a more important question: What kind of crime-fighting system has Flock chosen to build? Its network works the way it does because of decisions about what information to collect, who can search it, how long to keep it, and how widely to share it. Those decisions set the terms of the bargain between security and civil liberties.
Find out what a narrower Flock system could look like.
—James O’Donnell
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 A child privacy trial starting today could change Meta forever
More than half of the states in the US have joined the lawsuit. (CNBC)
+ They say Meta deliberately designed addictive social networks. (Guardian)
+ And want changes including ending “like” counts and infinite scroll. (BBC)
+ Four of them are demanding $1.4 trillion in damages. (WP $)
2 Nvidia has committed up to $105 billion to OpenAI’s Ohio data center
It’s slated to cost up to $500 billion and come online in 2028. (CNBC)
+ OpenAI will lease the eight-gigawatt site for 20 years. (NYT $)
+ How virtual power plants could provide energy for data centers. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Tesla is set to launch Cybercab robotaxi rides in Austin this month
The rollout could begin with employee rides on public roads. (Information $)
+ The EVs will then enter Tesla’s robotaxi service a few days later. (Reuters $)
+ The Tesla Semi could also be a big deal for EVs. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Unitree has unveiled a humanoid it claims is faster than any human
The new “Superman” robot can cover 12.66 meters in a second. (Gizmodo)
+ It arrives ahead of the Chinese company’s IPO on Wednesday. (Reuters $)
+ US robot startups are struggling with new China restrictions. (Rest of World)
5 A tracked rare book shipment led to Amazon’s AI training operation
Amazon scans and destroys books at the facility to train AI. (404 Media $)
+ Rare books provide unique, high-quality training data. (Ars Technica)
+ But feeding them to AI risks creating a cultural void. (New Scientist $)
6 China wants its data to shape what the world’s AI knows
Beijing is distributing datasets reflecting “mainstream Chinese values.” (NYT $)
+ What’s next for Chinese open-source AI? (MIT Technology Review)
7 An AI studio wants to become the HBO of adult content
Rogue’s AI video tool produces uncensored adult content. (Wired $)
+ AI is creating new risks for porn actors. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Women are being left behind in the AI jobs boom
They accounted for just 26% of new AI hires last year. (Axios)
9 AI has revealed new clues to how breast cancer progresses
The findings could help predict how tumours will develop. (Independent)
10 An unearthed video suggests Apple is adding cameras to AirPods
It shows AirPods identifying a book using visual intelligence. (Gizmodo)
Quote of the day
“It is a black hole; it absorbs energy and personality and then re-presents it as spectacle.”
—Writer Carmen Hermosillo made a prescient observation about life online in a 1994 essay, quoted by the Guardian in a story on warnings we ignored about the digital age.
One More Thing
Is this the electric grid of the future?
When a slow-moving blizzard hit Nebraska, nearly 10% of Lincoln Electric System’s 150,000 customers lost power. CEO Emeka Anyanwu watched the outage map as crews battled the storm. Yet a spring blizzard like this is the least of his problems.
What will happen soon—not only at Lincoln Electric but for all electric utilities—is a challenge of a different order. In the industry, they call it the “trilemma”: the seemingly intractable problem of balancing reliability, affordability, and sustainability.
Electricity demand is surging, driven in part by AI, while the industry attempts to transition from power generated with fossil fuels to power generated from renewable sources like solar and wind. Lincoln Electric offers a lens through which to examine those challenges.
Explore the challenges of building the grid of the future.
—Andrew Blum
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ Chinese engineers have built the world’s first true all-material printer.
+ Discover how you truly feel about artificial intelligence by completing the AI Compass quiz.
+ Get a sense of the space’s extraordinary size with this interactive scale of the universe tool.
+ Enjoy a fresh look at “Breaking Bad” in this modified scene showing Walter White’s hat growing proportionally to his ego.
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