This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through October 4)

Tech

OpenAI’s New Video App Is Jaw-Dropping (for Better and Worse)Mike Isaac and Eli Tan | The New York Times ($)

“After we spent less than a day with the app, what became clear to us was that Sora had gone beyond being an AI-video generation app. Instead, it is, in effect, a social network in disguise; a clone of TikTok down to its user interface, algorithmic video suggestions, and ability to follow and interact with friends.”

Future

Us Jobs Market Yet to Be Seriously Disrupted by AI, Finds Yale StudyDan Milmo | The Guardian

“Analysis by Yale University’s Budget Lab found there had been no ‘discernible disruption’ since ChatGPT’s release in November 2022. Researchers said its conclusion was not surprising because historical trends pointed to technological upheaval in workforces taking place over decades rather than months or years.”

Biotechnology

Scientists Made Human Eggs From Skin Cells and Used Them to Form EmbryosEmily Mullin | Wired ($)

“In a controversial step that raises the possibility of a new kind of infertility treatment, scientists report that they have produced functional human eggs in the lab that were able to be fertilized with sperm. The proof-of-concept study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, involves using human skin cells to generate eggs, some of which were capable of producing early-stage embryos.”

Future

Gavin Newsom Signs First-In-Nation AI Safety LawChase DiFeliciantonio | Politico

“California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law on Monday that will force major AI companies to reveal their safety protocols—marking the end of a lobbying battle with big tech companies like ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Meta and setting the groundwork for a potential national standard.”

Computing

This Startup Wants to Put Its Brain-Computer Interface in the Apple Vision ProEmily Mullin | Wired ($)

“The Santa Barbara, California, company is testing both a software component (an augmented reality BCI app) and a hardware add-on (a custom headband that can read brain signals) with the Vision Pro. The trial will include up to 10 participants in the US with speech impairments due to paralysis from spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

Meet the Arc Spacecraft: It Aims to Deliver Cargo Anywhere in the World in an HourEric Berger | Ars Technica

“‘The nominal mission for us is pre-positioning Arcs on orbit, and having them stay up there for up to five years, able to be called upon and then autonomously go and land wherever and whenever they’re needed, being able to bring their cargo or effects to the desired location in under an hour,’ said Justin Fiaschetti, co-founder and chief executive of Inversion, in an interview with Ars before the event.”

Energy

Physicists Smash Record With Magnetic Field 700,000 Times Stronger Than Earth’sGayoung Lee | Gizmodo

“Under the right conditions, superconducting magnets allow electricity to flow essentially undisturbed, producing intense magnetic fields for a variety of uses, including nuclear fusion experiments. Naturally, a larger magnetic field gives scientists more room to explore—something that may soon be available to physicists in China, thanks to the creation of a record-setting superconducting magnet.”

Tech

Debt Is Fueling the Next Wave of the AI BoomAsa Fitch | The Wall Street Journal ($)

“In the initial years of the AI boom, comparisons to the dot-com bubble didn’t make much sense. Three years in, growing levels of debt are making them ring a little truer. …While big tech companies are still at AI’s forefront and are in solid financial shape, a crop of more highly leveraged companies is ushering in an era that could change the complexion of the boom.”

Artificial Intelligence

New AI Research Claims to Be Getting Closer to Modeling Human BrainReed Albergotti | Semafor

“[AI startup] Pathway also says it has found a way to constantly update the connections between artificial neurons—what’s known in neuroscience as Hebbian learning. So, while the core part of Pathway’s model will stay fixed, like a traditional LLM, another part of it will change as you interact with it, allowing it to continuously learn.”

Future

The Alien Intelligence in Your PocketWebb Wright | The Atlantic ($)

“The more effective AI becomes in its use of natural language, the more seductive the pull will be to believe that it’s living and feeling, just like us. ‘Before this technology—which has arisen in the last microsecond of our evolutionary history—if something spoke to us that fluidly, of course it would be conscious,’ Anil Seth, a leading consciousness researcher at the University of Sussex, told me. ‘Of course it would have real emotions.'”

Future

Should We Intervene in Evolution? The Ethics of ‘Editing’ NatureDavid Farrier | Aeon

“It wasn’t our intention that humanity would become the planet’s greatest evolutionary force; yet the fact that we are confronts us with an urgent and difficult question. Some animals, plants and insects can adapt but, for many, the pace of change is too great. Should we try to save them by deliberately intervening in their evolution?”

Future

The Quest to Sequence the Genomes of EverythingGlenn Zorpette | IEEE Spectrum

“The road map calls for more than 1.65 million genome sequences between 2030 and 2035 at a cost of $1,900 per genome. If they can pull it off, the entire project will have cost roughly $4.7 billion—considerably less in real terms than what it cost to do just the human genome 22 years ago.”

Artificial Intelligence

Can Today’s AI Video Models Accurately Model How the Real World Works?Kyle Orland | Ars Technica

“Over the last few months, many AI boosters have been increasingly interested in generative video models and their seeming ability to show at least limited emergent knowledge of the physical properties of the real world. That kind of learning could underpin a robust version of a so-called ‘world model’ that would represent a major breakthrough in generative AI’s actual operant real-world capabilities.”

Is Space Becoming Too Dangerous for Satellites?Margo Anderson | IEEE Spectrum

“Whether the object is a defunct satellite or a stray hunk of glass from a solar panel that shattered long ago, every item circling Earth is also a potential projectile. And nearly all of this junk, traveling at least eight times as fast as a rifle bullet, can be damaging in a collision.”