Plus, China’s energy dominance on three charts
The news: A new technique called LightShed will make it harder for artists to use existing protective tools to stop their work being ingested for AI training. This tool removes anti-AI protections in digital art
The news: A new technique, called LightShed, will make it more difficult for artists to use current protective tools to prevent their work being ingested by AI training. It’s a new step in the cat-and-mouse battle between AI advocates and artists that has been going on for years.
It works like this: Protective Tools such as Glaze and Nightshade alter enough pixels to change an image so that if it is scraped up, AI models will see it for what it really is. LightShed works by detecting only the “poison”. It’s important to note that the researchers behind this software are not trying to steal artwork. They don’t want anyone to feel a false sense security. Read the entire story.
–Peter Hall.
How the AI moratorium may have been defeated, signaling a new political age.
“Big, Beautiful Bill”which President Donald Trump signed on July 4, was full of controversial policies. One highly contested provision, however, was missing. In a late-night vote, the Senate had just days earlier killed the bill’s 10-year ban on state-level AI regulations.
Many saw the bipartisan vote as a win, and it may be a sign of a larger political shift. A broader and more diverse group in favor AI regulation is beginning to form. After years of relative inaction by politicians, they are now concerned about the risks posed by unregulated artificial intelligent. Read the complete story.
–Grace Huckins
China’s energy dominance on three charts
Chinais the leading force in next-generation technologies. It is investing hundreds of billions in renewable sources such as wind and solar. It is also manufacturing millions of electric cars and expanding the capacity for energy storage and nuclear power. This investment has had a transformative effect on the economy of China and has helped to establish China as a major global player.
While we try to figure out what the future holds for climate technology in the US and elsewhere, let’s take a look at how dominant China has become when it comes clean energy. Three charts document this. Read more.
Casey Crownhart
The article is from The Spark MIT Technology Review’s Weekly Climate Newsletter. Sign up to receive it every Wednesday by clickingorhere.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, is stepping down
Despite reporting to Elon Musk for almost two years, she has managed to survive. She had planned to leave before Grok’s antisemitic rants.($ Now)
+ Turkey banned Grok for insulting President ErdoganOpenAI plans to release its web browser
(Politico) If it works, it will give it the same benefit as Google: direct control over users’ data. (Reuters$)
+AI is the end of internet searches as we know them.MIT Technology Review
The McDonald’s chatbot exposed the data of millions of applicants to hackers.
Add to this a process that is already very dystopian, the carelessness of the chatbot. (Wired$)
Four AI-generated images of sexual abuse of children are spreading online
It will make the already difficult job for law enforcement that much harder. (NYT$)
Five autonomous fighter jets will soon be available
European defense startup Helsing has just completed two successful tests. (FT$)
+Generative artificial intelligence is learning to spy on the US military.(MIT Technology Review)
The CDC hasn’t recorded a new case since February. (Undark)
7 An interstellar object is cruising through the solar system
And it’s giving astronomers a chance to test out early theories of interstellar-object-ology (yes, that’s what it’s called!) The Economist (19459049]$]
+Inside of the most dangerous asteroid hunting ever.MIT Technology Review
Apple is planning to upgrade its Vision Pro headset.
But, no matter how many upgrades it has, it will be a struggle to revive the company’s flagging fortunes. (Bloomberg$)
The normies used to make social media great. We miss their breakfast photos. It’s encouraging to see’missed connections’ posts making a comeback(New Yorker]$)
+The Guardian (19459049)
A global shortage is turning MatchaTok bad
It’s easy to explain why there’s a shortage: the world has gone mad for it. (WSJ)
Today’s Quote
You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who truly believes in our AI Mission. The Information (19459049) reports that most people don’t know what our mission is.
–Tijmen Blckevoort, a Meta AI researcher, explains his belief that expensive hires may not be enough to fix the company’s problems.
Just one more thing
Saving our online lives from the digital dark age
I love a picture of my daughter. She is smiling in our old backyard, with her chubby fingers grasping the cool grass. It was taken with a digital camera when she was just over a year old, but it now lives on Google Photos.
What if Google stopped working one day? What if my precious photos were lost forever? Alarm bells are ringing for many archivists. Around the world, they scrape up defunct sites or at-risk collections of data to save as much as possible of our digital lives. Others are working to store the data in formats that can last hundreds, or even thousands of years.
This project raises complex issues. What is important to you? How and why do you decide what to save, and what to let go? How will future generations understand what we are able to preserve? Read the complete story.
