For most people, the idea of using artificial intelligence tools in daily life—or even just messing around with them—has only become mainstream in recent months, with new releases of generative AI tools from a slew of big tech companies and startups, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. But behind the scenes, the technology has been…
In short, the tentacles of US tech firms are everywhere—vaccines, food, cancer research, psilocybin centers, criminal justice reform, homelessness—the list could reach the moon. (Speaking of the moon, how could we forget commercial spaceflight?) And the AI boom is likely to further expand tech firms’ power and riches. Yet on Capitol Hill, some powerful Republicans…
Ever since the ChatGPT API opened up, all sorts of apps have been strapping on AI functionality. I’ve personally noticed this a lot in email clients: Apps like Spark and Canary are prominently bragging about their built-in AI functionality. The most common features will write replies for you, or even generate an entire email using…
If you haven’t already, go and read the WIRED feature article “A Vast Untapped Green Energy Source Is Hiding Beneath Your Feet,” which details the quest to tap into geothermal energy using drilling techniques originally developed for fracking gas. WIRED senior writer Gregory Barber followed Joseph Moore, a geologist at the University of Utah, on…
All that Andrew McCalip wanted for his 34th birthday was a shipment of red phosphorus. It was a tough request—the substance happens to be an ingredient for cooking meth and is controlled by the US Drug Enforcement Agency—but also an essential one, if McCalip was going to realize his dream of making a room-temperature superconductor,…
“In this industry, it’s like you’re starting this company, but the company solely relies on this one individual to be able to perform,” he says. “And that is absolutely a horrible business model. It’s way too high-risk.” Van Den Bussche and his creative team began trying to reverse engineer what made creators successful. “We started…
“If I want to launch a disinformation campaign, I can fail 99 percent of the time. You fail all the time, but it doesn’t matter,” Farid says. “Every once in a while, the QAnon gets through. Most of your campaigns can fail, but the ones that don’t can wreak havoc.” Farid says we saw during…
FedEx spokesperson Adam Snyder says the company reminds contractors to closely monitor working conditions. “We encourage our team members and service providers across FedEx to take precautions in the hot weather by staying hydrated, taking frequent breaks, and recognizing the signs of heat related illnesses,” he says. UPS spokesperson Becky Biciolis-Pace says the company is…
In Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction story “Robbie,” the Weston family owns a robot who serves as a nursemaid and companion for their precocious preteen daughter, Gloria. Gloria and the robot Robbie are friends; their relationship is affectionate and mutually caring. Gloria regards Robbie as her loyal and dutiful caretaker. However, Mrs. Weston becomes concerned…
The bird is dead, but zombie Twitter is not. Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, the platform has survived rate-limiting, massive staff cuts, suspensions of journalists, hemorrhaging ad dollars, exorbitant API price hikes, and a frenzy of new competitors. This week it survived becoming not Twitter, as the site suddenly rebranded to X. During its first…