The Download: understanding AI, and what to expect from the UN’s climate conference

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Google DeepMind has a new way to look inside an AI’s “mind”

We don’t know exactly how AI works, or why it works so well. That’s a problem: It could lead us to deploy an AI system in a highly sensitive field like medicine without understanding that it could have critical flaws embedded in its workings.

A team at Google DeepMind that studies something called mechanistic interpretability has been working on new ways to let us peer under the hood. It recently released a tool to help researchers understand what is happening when AI is generating an output.

It’s all part of a push to get a better understanding of exactly what is happening inside an AI model. If we do, we’ll be able to control its outputs more effectively, leading to better AI systems in the future. Read the full story.

—Scott J Mulligan

What’s on the table at this year’s UN climate conference

Talks kicked off this week at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Running for a couple of weeks each year, the global summit is the largest annual meeting on climate change.

The issue on the table this time around: Countries need to agree to set a new goal on how much money should go to developing countries to help them finance the fight against climate change. Complicating things? A US president-elect whose approach to climate is very different from that of the current administration (understatement of the century).

This is a big moment that could set the tone for what the next few years of the international climate world looks like. Here’s what you need to know about COP29 and how Donald Trump’s election is coloring things.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things energy and climate. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The FBI is investigating crypto predictions-betting platform Polymarket
It’s investigating whether the firm allowed US traders to bet on the election. (Bloomberg $)
+ Doing so would have been a violation of an agreement with the US government. (NYT $)
+ Polymarket claims to be a “fully transparent prediction market.” (WSJ $)

2 OpenAI is calling for the US government to invest in AI
Without financial support, the US could lose crucial ground to China, it warns. (WP $)
+ The firm floated the idea of building a colossal data center. (The Information $)

3 AI-generated Elon Musk propaganda is rife on Facebook
Pro-Musk inspiration porn is the content of choice for spammers. (404 Media)
+ Trump is surrounding himself with terminally online edgelords. (The Atlantic $)

4 The online right has a misogynistic new rallying cry
‘Your body, my choice’ is being spread by young men seeking to provoke. (New Yorker $)+ The upcoming presidency could usher in an age of gendered regression. (The Guardian)

5 China’s human factory workers are under pressure
Robots are creeping into every level of the manufacturing process. (FT $)
+ Three reasons robots are about to become way more useful. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The future of chipmaking in America
Efforts to revitalize native facilities aren’t exactly going to plan. (Wired $)
+ What’s next in chips. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Blindbox live streaming is thrilling shoppers in China
You never know what you’re going to get. (NYT $)

8 What the glacial Earth may have looked like
Around 700 million years ago, the entire planet was covered in ice. (Ars Technica)
+ Life-seeking, ice-melting robots could punch through Europa’s icy shell. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How to protect the world’s largest single coral colony
The newly-discovered colony is the size of two basketball courts. (Vox)
+ The race is on to save coral reefs—by freezing them. (MIT Technology Review)

10 These researchers have reinvented the wheel
This ‘morphing’ wheel can roll over obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius. (Reuters)

Quote of the day

“Shawty crunk, so fresh, so clean.”

—Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO-turned rapper, debuts a reworked version of 2002 rap hit Get Low in a tribute to his wife, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The big story

Marseille’s battle against the surveillance state

June 2022

Across the world, video cameras have become an accepted feature of urban life. Many cities in China now have dense networks of them, and London and New Delhi aren’t far behind. Now France is playing catch-up.

Concerns have been raised throughout the country. But the surveillance rollout has met special resistance in Marseille, France’s second-biggest city.

It’s unsurprising, perhaps, that activists are fighting back against the cameras, highlighting the surveillance system’s overreach and underperformance. But are they succeeding? Read the full story.

—Fleur Macdonald

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This year’s gurning championship winning mugshots do not disappoint.
+ What does it mean to have personal style, exactly?
+ Amsterdam’s unofficial police cat is absolutely adorable (and he lives on a boat!)
+ Save the worms—this writer certainly is.