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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.

Our favorite stories of 2022

We like to think we’ve had a great year here at MIT Technology Review. Our stories have won numerous awards (this story from our magazine won Gold in the AAAS awards) and our investigations have helped shed light on unjust policies.

So this year we asked our writers and editors to comb back through the past 12 months and try to pick just one story that they loved the most—and then tell us why. This is what they said.

What’s next for AI

In 2022, AI got creative. AI models can now produce remarkably convincing pieces of text, pictures, and even videos, with just a little prompting. It’s only been nine months since OpenAI set off the generative AI explosion with the launch of DALL-E 2, a deep-learning model that can produce images from text instructions. That was followed by a breakthrough from Google and Meta: AIs that can produce videos from text. And it’s only been a few weeks since OpenAI released ChatGPT, the latest large language model to set the internet ablaze with its surprising eloquence and coherence.

The pace of innovation this year has been remarkable—and at times overwhelming. Who could have seen it coming? And how can we predict what’s next?

Our in-house experts Will Douglas Heaven and Melissa Heikkilä tell us the four biggest trends they expect to shape the AI landscape in 2023. Read the full story

Brain stimulation might be more invasive than we think

Today, there are lots of neurotechnologies that can read what’s going on in our brains, modify the way they function, and change the wiring. Deep brain stimulation, for example, involves implanting electrodes deep into the brain to stimulate neurons and control the way brain regions fire. It’s considered pretty invasive, in the medical sense.

Other treatments, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which involves passing a device shaped like a figure 8 over a person’s head to deliver a magnetic pulse to parts of the brain and to interfere with its activity, are considered “noninvasive” because they act from outside the brain. But if we can reach into a person’s mind, even without piercing the skull, how noninvasive is the technology really? Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Jessica’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly newsletter covering everything worth knowing in biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

Podcast: the future of farming lies in space

AI is used in agriculture to precisely target weeds and optimize irrigation practices. It’s also being used in ways you might not expect, like for tracking the health of cow pastures—from space. We travel from test farms to orchards in the first of a two-part series on agriculture, AI, and satellites.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you normally get your podcasts.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Sam Bankman-Fried has been released on $250 million bail
He’s facing home detention while he awaits trial. (BBC)
It’s one of the largest bails in US history. (Bloomberg $)
Crypto Twitter is not impressed by his cushy conditions. (CoinTelegraph)

2 A severe storm is forcing US airlines to cancel flights
+ Disrupting Christmas travel left, right, and center. (WSJ $)
It’s due to sweep across most of the US and into Canada. (Wired $)

3 We don’t know how effective nasal covid vaccines are
And because we’re not collecting the right kind of data, we may never know. (The Atlantic $)
Two inhaled covid vaccines have been approved—but we don’t know yet how good they are. (MIT Technology Review)
Life expectancy in the US has fallen again. (Axios)

4 Twitter is starting to show how many people have seen your tweets
It’s yet another of Elon Musk’s wheezes. (TechCrunch)
Twitter looks like it’s crumbling right now. (The Atlantic $)
We’re witnessing the brain death of Twitter. (MIT Technology Review)

5 ByteDance has been tracking journalists
Its staff improperly gained access to their IP addresses to try and work out if they’d crossed paths with ByteDance workers. (Forbes)
After all that, the company failed to find any leaks. (FT $)
TikTok is desperately trying to curry favor in the US. (Reuters)

6 NFTs are at a crossroads
Their value has plummeted, but evangelists are refusing to give up. (Wired $)
Some of the crypto faithful are trying to take their losses on the chin. (Vice)

7 Immigrant tech workers who’ve been laid off are caught in limbo
Losing their jobs means their families are also unable to work, leaving many with no choice but to leave the US. (The Guardian)
For this startup founder, his

Read More

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By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: The Download: 2022’s best stories, and what’s next for AI
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/23/1065916/download-2022-best-stories-whats-next-for-ai/
Published Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2022 13:10:00 +0000

EDM

LISTEN: DVBBS Tap Jeremih & SK8 for Genre-Bending Summer Anthem, “Crew Thang”

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dvbbsjeremihsk8 1024x768 1
dvbbsjeremihsk8 1024x768 2

Canadian brothers DVBBS have joined forces with Grammy-nominated R&B artist Jeremih and singer-songwriter SK8 in their latest single, “Crew Thang.” This dynamic track combines captivating melodies and groovy house basslines, complemented by vibrant vocals that strike the perfect balance between sensuality and enjoyment. It serves as an ideal anthem to launch the summer season, offering an unforgettable experience and encouraging everyone to embrace their own unique style on and off the dance floor. “Crew Thang” follows the duo’s recent release, “Synergy” featuring Timmy Trumpet, and we can’t wait to hear what they have in store for us next. Stream the single below and stay tuned for the official music video of “Crew Thang,” which will be released very soon.

DVBBS – Crew Thang | Stream

LISTEN: DVBBS Tap Jeremih & SK8 for Genre-Bending Summer Anthem, “Crew Thang”

The post LISTEN: DVBBS Tap Jeremih & SK8 for Genre-Bending Summer Anthem, “Crew Thang” appeared first on Run The Trap: The Best EDM, Hip Hop & Trap Music.

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By: Max Chung
Title: LISTEN: DVBBS Tap Jeremih & SK8 for Genre-Bending Summer Anthem, “Crew Thang”
Sourced From: runthetrap.com/2023/05/28/listen-dvbbs-tap-jeremih-sk8-for-genre-bending-summer-anthem-crew-thang/
Published Date: Sun, 28 May 2023 12:57:57 +0000

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Tech

ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it

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The response from schools and universities was swift and decisive.

Just days after OpenAI dropped ChatGPT in late November 2022, the chatbot was widely denounced as a free essay-writing, test-taking tool that made it laughably easy to cheat on assignments.

Los Angeles Unified, the second-­largest school district in the US, immediately blocked access to OpenAI’s website from its schools’ network. Others soon joined. By January, school districts across the English-speaking world had started banning the software, from Washington, New York, Alabama, and Virginia in the United States to Queensland and New South Wales in Australia.

Several leading universities in the UK, including Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge, issued statements that warned students against using ChatGPT to cheat.

“While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-­thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success,” Jenna Lyle, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Education, told the Washington Post in early January.

This initial panic from the education sector was understandable. ChatGPT, available to the public via a web app, can answer questions and generate slick, well-structured blocks of text several thousand words long on almost any topic it is asked about, from string theory to Shakespeare. Each essay it produces is unique, even when it is given the same prompt again, and its authorship is (practically) impossible to spot. It looked as if ChatGPT would undermine the way we test what students have learned, a cornerstone of education.

But three months on, the outlook is a lot less bleak. I spoke to a number of teachers and other educators who are now reevaluating what chatbots like ChatGPT mean for how we teach our kids. Far from being just a dream machine for cheaters, many teachers now believe, ChatGPT could actually help make education better.

Advanced chatbots could be used as powerful classroom aids that make lessons more interactive, teach students media literacy, generate personalized lesson plans, save teachers time on admin, and more.

Educational-tech companies including Duolingo and Quizlet, which makes digital flash cards and practice assessments used by half of all high school students in the US, have already integrated OpenAI’s chatbot into their apps. And OpenAI has worked with educators to put together a fact sheet about ChatGPT’s potential impact in schools. The company says it also consulted educators when it developed a free tool to spot text written by a chatbot (though its accuracy is limited).

“We believe that educational policy experts should decide what works best for their districts and schools when it comes to the use of new technology,” says Niko Felix, a spokesperson for OpenAI. “We are engaging with educators across the country to inform them of ChatGPT’s capabilities. This is an important conversation to have so that they are aware of the potential benefits and misuse of AI, and so they understand how they might apply it to their classrooms.”

But it will take time and resources for educators to innovate in this way. Many are too overworked, under-resourced, and beholden to strict performance metrics to take advantage of any opportunities that chatbots may present.

It is far too soon to say what the lasting impact of ChatGPT will be—it hasn’t even been around for a full semester. What’s certain is that essay-writing chatbots are here to stay. And they will only get better at standing in for a student on deadline—more accurate and harder to detect. Banning them is futile, possibly even counterproductive. “We need to be asking what we need to do to prepare young people—learners—for a future world that’s not that far in the future,” says Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), a nonprofit that advocates for the use of technology in teaching.

Tech’s ability to revolutionize schools has been overhyped in the past, and it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement around ChatGPT’s transformative potential. But this feels bigger: AI will be in the classroom one way or another. It’s vital that we get it right.

From ABC to GPT

Much of the early hype around ChatGPT was based on how good it is at test taking. In fact, this was a key point OpenAI touted when it rolled out GPT-4, the latest version of the large language model that powers the chatbot, in March. It could pass the bar exam! It scored a 1410 on the SAT! It aced the AP tests for biology, art history, environmental science, macroeconomics, psychology, US history, and more. Whew!

It’s little wonder that some school districts totally freaked out.

Yet in hindsight, the immediate calls to ban ChatGPT in schools were a dumb

Read More

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By: Will Douglas Heaven
Title: ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/04/06/1071059/chatgpt-change-not-destroy-education-openai/
Published Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2023 10:13:15 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://mansbrand.com/high-quality-data-enables-medical-research/

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Motor

Cool Whip: HB-Custom’s crisp Suzuki DR650 scrambler

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suzuki dr650 scrambler

Suzuki DR650 scrambler by HB-Custom
If we had to use one word to describe the bikes that roll out of Holger Breuer’s workshop, it would be ‘crisp.’ Whether he’s building a bobber or a scrambler, the man behind HB-Custom has an eye for perfect proportions and liveries that pop. Even when he’s working with a tired old Suzuki dual-sport as a donor, Holger manages to make magic.

This 1994 Suzuki DR650 came to the HB-Custom workshop in Husum, Germany, all the way from Berlin. Holger’s client actually booked two bikes in at once; an old BMW boxer to turn into a bobber for solo rides, and the Suzuki, which was destined for around-town duties and the occasional two-up jaunt.

Suzuki DR650 scrambler by HB-Custom

The bike arrived as a rolling chassis with a very loose brief, so Holger envisioned a svelte scrambler for whipping through Berlin’s city streets. He’s built a number of handsome custom Honda Dominators, and figured that he could apply the same formula to the Suzuki DR650. And he was right.

But first, the Suzuki’s well-worn motor needed attention. Holger tore it down and rebuilt it, complete with new seals and gaskets and a fresh coat of paint. This engine might be almost three decades old, but it’s clean enough to eat off of.

Suzuki DR650 scrambler by HB-CustomRead More

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By: Wesley Reyneke
Title: Cool Whip: HB-Custom’s crisp Suzuki DR650 scrambler
Sourced From: www.bikeexif.com/suzuki-dr650-scrambler
Published Date: Wed, 24 May 2023 17:01:22 +0000

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