WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces a dwindling number of options after the UK government approved his extradition to the United States on Friday. The decision is the latest chapter in a prolonged legal battle that started when former military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked classified government documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which… Continue reading UK Approves WikiLeaks Chief Julian Assange’s Extradition to the US
Author: Wired Magazine
Sure, Crypto Is Crashing, but Everything Is Perfectly Fine
Jamie Burke, the CEO of crypto venture fund Outlier Ventures, says that crypto has been behaving exactly like a stock and that the two are moving in lockstep because the lines between them have blurred. The vertiginous price highs and the feverish hype around crypto have sucked in a lot of new money from institutional… Continue reading Sure, Crypto Is Crashing, but Everything Is Perfectly Fine
After Layoffs, Crypto Startups Face a ‘Crucible Moment’
In May, the venture capital firm Sequoia circulated a memo among its startup founders. The 52-page presentation warned of a challenging road ahead, paved by inflation, rising interest rates, a Nasdaq drawdown, supply chain issues, war, and a general weariness about the economy. Things were about to get tough, and this time, venture capital would… Continue reading After Layoffs, Crypto Startups Face a ‘Crucible Moment’
The Weak Argument Jeopardizing Tech Antitrust Legislation
Opponents of the antitrust push targeting Big Tech have lobbed all kinds of arguments to try to weaken support for new legislation. They may finally have found one that sticks. This week, a group of four Democratic senators led by Brian Schatz, of Hawaii, sent a letter to Amy Klobuchar asking her to pump the… Continue reading The Weak Argument Jeopardizing Tech Antitrust Legislation
It’s Time to Burn Medical Consent Forms
What could this look like? What could someone change today, right now, without having to gear up for a fight with lawyers about contract wording? Start with the artifacts–the physical things patients take home with them (or the digital things emailed to them). A typical consent process might yield two: a copy of the consent… Continue reading It’s Time to Burn Medical Consent Forms
LaMDA and the Sentient AI Trap
Now head of the nonprofit Distributed AI Research, Gebru hopes that going forward people focus on human welfare, not robot rights. Other AI ethicists have said that they’ll no longer discuss conscious or superintelligent AI at all. “Quite a large gap exists between the current narrative of AI and what it can actually do,” says… Continue reading LaMDA and the Sentient AI Trap
What Black One Direction Fans Reveal About Activism and Fandom
Gabrielle Foster had been a fan of One Direction since she was 11 years old. “We all come from different backgrounds. We all bond over Harry, but we don’t personally know what’s going on in each other’s lives,” she told me. “I just want there to be more representation for everybody.” Now in her early… Continue reading What Black One Direction Fans Reveal About Activism and Fandom
‘Is This AI Sapient?’ Is the Wrong Question to Ask About LaMDA
The uproar caused by Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer who believes that one of the company’s most sophisticated chat programs, Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) is sapient, has had a curious element: Actual AI ethics experts are all but renouncing further discussion of the AI sapience question, or deeming it a distraction. They’re right… Continue reading ‘Is This AI Sapient?’ Is the Wrong Question to Ask About LaMDA
The Sexist Pseudoscience at the Heart of Biology
For years, studying zoology made me feel like a sad misfit. Not because I loved spiders, enjoyed cutting up dead things I’d found by the side of the road, or would gladly root around in animal feces for clues as to what their owner had eaten. No, the source of my disquiet was my sex.… Continue reading The Sexist Pseudoscience at the Heart of Biology
The FAA Says SpaceX Can’t Expand Its Texas Launch Site—Yet
After months of suspense, the Federal Aviation Administration has finally weighed in on the environmental effects of the planned expansion of SpaceX’s sprawling Starbase launch facility near Boca Chica, Texas. The agency says that if SpaceX takes some 75 actions to limit environmental hazards, the company can continue that expansion and its application for a… Continue reading The FAA Says SpaceX Can’t Expand Its Texas Launch Site—Yet