Earlier this month, Lina Khan, chair of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), wrote an essay in The New York Times affirming the agency’s commitment to regulating AI. But there was one AI application Khan didn’t mention that the FTC urgently needs to regulate: automated hiring systems. These range in complexity from tools that merely parse… Continue reading Unfair Automated Hiring Systems Are Everywhere
Author: Wired Magazine
Your Dog Is a Secret Weapon in the Fight Against Cancer
Jellybean continues to defy expectations. The 5-year-old Labrador retriever mix jumps up and down from her favorite spot on the couch and walks around the living room with such ease, it’s as if she hadn’t ever had metastatic cancer. Her owners, Patricia and Zach Mendonca, still can’t quite believe the miracle. “She’s got a little… Continue reading Your Dog Is a Secret Weapon in the Fight Against Cancer
The Boring Future of Generative AI
This week, at its annual I/O developer conference in Mountain View, Google showcased a head-spinning number of projects and products powered by or enhanced by AI. They included a new-and-improved version of its chatbot Bard, tools to help you write emails and documents or manipulate images, devices with AI baked in, and a chatbot-like experimental version of Google search.… Continue reading The Boring Future of Generative AI
Google Is Racing to Bring More AI to Android
“We’ve been doing things with AI for a long time as a company. And the advancements in generative AI are pretty exciting,” says Sameer Samat, vice president of product management for Android and the Google Play app store. “But these aren’t that old in terms of putting them into products. So when you talk about… Continue reading Google Is Racing to Bring More AI to Android
Google Pixel Fold Hands-On: A Pricey Folding Pixel
Smartphone sales have been declining lately, mostly because the smartphones themselves have not been changing drastically year over year. A slightly better camera here, a nicer screen there—the technology has plateaued. The solution, according to tech companies? Folding smartphones that cost $1,799. That’s what the Pixel Fold is. Google isn’t first to the folding phone… Continue reading Google Pixel Fold Hands-On: A Pricey Folding Pixel
The Weird Way Australia’s Bushfires Influenced a Weirder La Niña
This may not have been the first time that bushfire smoke significantly affected La Niña. Fasullo and his colleagues are now investigating Australia’s notoriously awful 1974–75 fire season. In 1975 and 1976, scientists had forecast a warm El Niño, but that turned into what researchers instead dubbed an “aborted El Niño event,” when a cool… Continue reading The Weird Way Australia’s Bushfires Influenced a Weirder La Niña
Google I/O 2023: Google Adds Generative AI to Search
Six months ago, Google didn’t appear remotely worried about its search business. Then OpenAI’s ChatGPT was unleashed, and Microsoft’s Bing spawned a chatbot. At Google’s annual I/O conference today, the search giant announced that it will infuse results with generative artificial intelligence technology similar to that behind ChatGPT. The company is launching an experimental version of its prized… Continue reading Google I/O 2023: Google Adds Generative AI to Search
The ‘Ted Lasso’ Fandom’s Push for Polyamory Just Makes Sense
Though Lasso cocreator and star Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard) says he doesn’t think connection should “automatically commute to throuple,” he’s thrilled people have become invested enough in the show to even have opinions about who should end up with who. “You just have to be happy that people give a shit,” Hunt says. Phil Dunster, who plays… Continue reading The ‘Ted Lasso’ Fandom’s Push for Polyamory Just Makes Sense
‘Death of an Author’ Prophesies the Future of AI Novels
An LLM cannot write a cohesive, novel-length narrative from start to finish. At present, ChatGPT can produce roughly 600 words at a time, so in order to complete a novel, a human has to feed it prompts and then collage its outputs into a complete story. One prompt might be something like “Describe the death… Continue reading ‘Death of an Author’ Prophesies the Future of AI Novels
30 Mother’s Day Gifts We’ve Tried and Love (2023)
Speaking as a mom myself, I know that the best gift you can give your mother is you. Vaccines, effective N95 masks, and at-home Covid-19 tests are now widely available, so traveling to see your parents and loved ones in person is feasible (though flying is more of a pain than ever). But if you’d… Continue reading 30 Mother’s Day Gifts We’ve Tried and Love (2023)