June 2023 did not seem like an exceptional month at the time. It was the warmest June in the instrumental temperature record, but monthly records haven’t exactly been unusual in a period where the top 10 warmest years on record all occurred in the past 15 years. And monthly records have often occurred in years… Continue reading Each of the Past 12 Months Broke Temperature Records
Author: Wired Magazine
Microsoft’s Recall Feature Is Even More Hackable Than You Thought
Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella has hailed the company’s new Recall feature, which stores a history of your computer desktop and makes it available to AI for analysis, as “photographic memory” for your PC. Within the cybersecurity community, meanwhile, the notion of a tool that silently takes a screenshot of your desktop every five seconds has… Continue reading Microsoft’s Recall Feature Is Even More Hackable Than You Thought
OpenAI Offers a Peek Inside the Guts of ChatGPT
ChatGPT developer OpenAI’s approach to building artificial intelligence came under fire this week from former employees who accuse the company of taking unnecessary risks with technology that could become harmful. Today OpenAI released a new research paper apparently aimed at showing it is serious about tackling AI risk by making its models more explainable. In… Continue reading OpenAI Offers a Peek Inside the Guts of ChatGPT
Starship’s Successful Test Moves SpaceX One Step Closer to Mars
SpaceX has completed a mostly successful fourth test of its revolutionary new Starship rocket, a key step toward returning humans to the Moon and, maybe one day, landing on Mars. The flight, integrated flight test 4 (IFT-4), lifted off today from SpaceX’s Boca Chica test site in Texas at 7:50 am Central time. Standing 233… Continue reading Starship’s Successful Test Moves SpaceX One Step Closer to Mars
Marc Andreessen Once Called Online Safety Teams an Enemy. He Still Wants Walled Gardens for Kids
In his polarizing “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” last year, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen listed a number of enemies to technological progress. Among them were “tech ethics” and “trust and safety,” a term used for work on online content moderation, which he said had been used to subject humanity to “a mass demoralization campaign” against new technologies such… Continue reading Marc Andreessen Once Called Online Safety Teams an Enemy. He Still Wants Walled Gardens for Kids
2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally First Drive: Price, Specs, Availability
Is there a more natural place for someone to really floor it for the first time in an electric car than the ballyhooed DirtFish Rally School outside Seattle, Washington? With the gravel wet from a day of cool, classic, spring Pacific Northwest rain? Surely there must be. And yet, here I am, behind the wheel… Continue reading 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally First Drive: Price, Specs, Availability
China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (It’s Keanu Reeves)
**SPOILERS AHEAD**!!!!!! As the fictional Freud writes of his own approaching death, he foresees the death of his sister Dolfi (who will die three years later in historical time, on the way to the camps). To put it mildly, death is everywhere. “Pain will be with me until I take my final leave,” Freud/Miéville/Reeves writes.… Continue reading China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (It’s Keanu Reeves)
TikTok Hack Targets ‘High-Profile’ Users via DMs
TikTok says it’s currently taking steps to mitigate a cyberattack that’s targeting a number of high-profile users through direct messages, in an attempt to hijack their accounts. “We have taken measures to stop this attack and prevent it from happening in the future. We’re working directly with affected account owners to restore access, if needed,”… Continue reading TikTok Hack Targets ‘High-Profile’ Users via DMs
Google Cut Back AI Overviews in Search Even Before Its ‘Pizza Glue’ Fiasco
As anyone who so much as glanced at the internet in the past few weeks probably noticed, Google’s sweeping AI upgrade to its search engine had a rocky start. Within days of the company launching AI-generated answers to search queries called AI Overviews, the feature was widely mocked for producing wrong and sometimes bonkers answers,… Continue reading Google Cut Back AI Overviews in Search Even Before Its ‘Pizza Glue’ Fiasco
The Uncanny Rise of the World’s First AI Beauty Pageant
What makes an AI pageant different, Friedman asserts, is that Fanvue’s contestants are products of their creators. “They’re drawing on all these stereotypes that we have about what a ‘beautiful woman’ is,” she says, “and people who tend to use AI might have a different idea of what an attractive woman might be. She might… Continue reading The Uncanny Rise of the World’s First AI Beauty Pageant