the digest (Page 64)

Latest in the digest

Criminals used an AI to clone the voice of the 15-year-old girl to fake a kidnapping, and tried to get her mother to pay a ransom.

Mom Says Creeps Used AI to Fake Daughter’s Kidnapping

By Victor Tangermann

A team of researchers has proposed a radical and potentially affordable solution that could solve the entire climate crisis in one fell swoop.

We Could Solve 100% of Climate Change With a Modest Surcharge on Gasoline, Scientists Find

By Victor Tangermann

It looks like Elon Musk needs to put his — or the taxpayer's — money where his mouth is when it comes to "government-funded" enterprises.

It Turns Out SpaceX and Tesla Get Way More Government Money Than NPR

By Noor Al-Sibai

As the European Space Agency was setting up to launch a rocket in French Guiana, an adorable little creature could be seen enjoying some rays of sunshine.

Science & Energy

Strange Creature Appears at Historic Rocket Launch

By Victor Tangermann

China is planning to kick off work on a Moon base using bricks made of lunar soil within the next five years, state-run news outlet CGTN reports.

China Announces Plans to Build Moon Base Using Lunar Soil

By Victor Tangermann

The story of how classified military documents ended up on a Minecraft Discord server is blowing our puny minds — and feels fit for the silver screen.

Classified Military Secrets Leaked on Minecraft Discord Server

By Noor Al-Sibai

The European Space Agency has successfully launched an exciting new deep space mission called JUICE to visit Jupiter's icy moons.

Scientists Launch JUICE Mission to Distant Worlds

By Victor Tangermann

There's finally a smart gun on the market, but as some analysts note, it's hard to say whether firearm enthusiasts will actually buy it.

New Gun Won’t Fire Without Checking Owner’s Fingerprint

By Noor Al-Sibai

Elon Musk is moving forward with introducing stock and crypto trading options on the app — and its denizens are calling bull.

Twitter Rips Into Elon Musk’s New Crypto “Ponzi Scheme”

By Noor Al-Sibai

One of the world's foremost futurists is arguing that some AI chatbots exhibit glimpses of sentience — but that doesn't mean they're fully conscious yet.

Artificial Intelligence

Nick Bostrom Says AI Chatbots May Have Some Degree of Sentience

By Noor Al-Sibai

San Francisco Police Department has arrested a suspect in the killing of Cash App founder and former Square executive Bob Lee.

Murdered Tech CEO May Have Been Stabbed to Death by Tech Exec He Knew

By Victor Tangermann

Planet Earth viewed from Space. Planet Earth Maps Courtesy of NASA: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/144875/earth-at-night-black-marble-2012-color-maps-v2.

Science & Energy

Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out Where Earth’s Water Came From

By Victor Tangermann

According to finance professor Alejandro Lopez-Lira, large language models like ChatGPT could be used to forecast stock prices.

Finance Professor Claims ChatGPT Can Predict Stock Performance

By Victor Tangermann

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has decided to unleash Digidog, a dystopian robodog, into the hands of the NYPD, despite mass public outrage.

The NYPD Is Bringing Back Its Widely Hated Robodog

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

According to a survey conducted by Stanford University, 36 percent of AI researchers believe that AI could cause "nuclear-level catastrophe." Great.

Artificial Intelligence

A Third of Researchers Think that AI Could Cause a Nuclear-Level Catastrophe

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

The facility will be used to monitor how humans handle living a year on Mars. A grueling experiment, but at least the volunteers will be able to game.

NASA’s Simulated Mars Habitat Includes Such Necessities As a PS4 and Settlers of Catan

By Frank Landymore

Elon Musk is not one for granting regular interviews in any sense of the word — but when he does, he pulls no punches and is sure to stun.

Elon Musk Whines That Buying Twitter Has Been Emotionally “Painful”

By Noor Al-Sibai

It's no secret that AIs like ChatGPT require insane amounts of energy — but as a new paper reveals, they also seem to use an absurd amount of water, too.

ChatGPT Is Consuming a Staggering Amount of Water

By Noor Al-Sibai

Meta employees are reportedly struggling to navigate a work culture plagued by mass firings, cost-cuts, and "absentee" bosses.

It Sounds Like Facebook Is Completely Falling Apart

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

A group calling themselves the "overemployed" are harnessing the power of generative AI to work multiple full-time jobs at the same time, Vice reports.

Grifters Using ChatGPT to Work Multiple Full-Time Jobs at Once

By Victor Tangermann

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has bought around 10,000 graphics cards and is hiring AI experts to build a ChatGPT competitor within Twitter, Insider reports.

Elon Musk Buys Ten Thousand GPUs for Secretive AI Project

By Victor Tangermann

President Joe Biden wants to impose strict emissions regulations on automakers to ensure EVs make up the majority of new car sales by 2030.

Biden to Propose Extreme Car Pollution Limits to Drive Up EV Sales

By Frank Landymore

A team of researchers let 25 artificial intelligence-powered bots loose inside a virtual town — and they acted a lot more like humans than one might expect.

Artificial Intelligence

Researchers Let 25 AI Bots Loose Inside a Virtual Town. The Results Were Fascinating.

By Victor Tangermann

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried joked with his collaborators about a "tendency to lose track of millions of dollars in assets," according to a new report.

SBF and Friends Apparently Joked About Their “Tendency to Lose Track of Millions of Dollars in Assets”

By Victor Tangermann

If you're sending humans back to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, you better make sure your astronauts are safe — and look good while doing it.

NASA’s Moon Spacesuits Are Brain-Meltingly Expensive

By Frank Landymore

An AI artist has imagined what Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos would look like if they lived in slums — and honestly, the images go kind of hard.

Artificial Intelligence

AI Shows What Mark Zuckerberg Would Look Like Living in Poverty

By Noor Al-Sibai

The new director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has spoken about her decision to be sworn in on a copy of "Pale Blue Dot" by Carl Sagan.

New NASA Goddard Director Explains Why She Was Sworn in on a Carl Sagan Book

By Noor Al-Sibai

Years after shutting down its robotics division, OpenAI is now back in the game after raising funding for Norwegian robotics company 1X.

Oh God… OpenAI Is Working on a Humanoid Robot

By Frank Landymore

Folks have begun using AI image generators to make porn of people who don't exist — and it seems to be a seller's market.

Artificial Intelligence

People Are Actually Selling AI-Generated Nudes on Reddit

By Noor Al-Sibai

It's been a year since Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was let out of prison early — and he's already planning another one.

Billy McFarland Threatens to Hold Another Fyre Festival

By Noor Al-Sibai

After reports revealed that Tesla employees shared "intimate" customer images taken by the cars' cameras, someone is now suing the company over it.

Tesla Hit With Lawsuit Over Reports About Employees Watching Car Cameras

By Noor Al-Sibai

Twitter Circles is broken. Very broken. So broken that, in a particularly terrible turn, some folks' secret nude photos appeared in random feeds. Not good.

Twitter Accidentally Made Users’ Secret Nudes Public

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

One of the UK's terrorism watchdogs is warning that human society may soon start to witness AI-assisted — or even AI-propogated — terrorism.

Artificial Intelligence

UK Appointee Warns Rogue AIs Could Recruit Terrorists

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

We knew crypto mining uses tons of energy — but new investigations have revealed that the situation is actually worse than we thought.

Mining Crypto Is Even Worse for the Environment Than We Thought

By Noor Al-Sibai

Twitter CEO Elon Musk just got absolutely roasted on Twitter — something that completely flew over his head.

Elon Musk Just Got Roasted to His Face and Seemed to Have No Idea

By Victor Tangermann

If you look closely at the photo that accompanies NASA's press release about the new Goddard Center director, you'll see something curious and delightful.

New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan Book Instead of Bible

By Noor Al-Sibai

A huge cloud of hydrogen gas blew up a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur V upper stage, not far from where Blue Origin was testing its engines.

Photo Shows Large Explosion at United Launch Alliance Test Facility

By Victor Tangermann

Elon Musk has chosen to white out the "W" on the Twitter HQ sign in San Francisco — and his landlord, apparently, isn't exactly thrilled.

Twitter Landlord Unhappy With Elon’s Naughty Change to Company Sign

By Noor Al-Sibai

Popular dating app Tinder has confirmed that it's working on a $500-a-month subscription that's tentatively called "Tinder Vault," Fast Company reports.

Tinder Working on $500/Month Subscription for Wealthy People With Zero Game

By Victor Tangermann

A new "self-driving bus" pilot program in Scotland will require not one but two full-time human operators when it hits the road.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Self-Driving Bus Requires Two Full-Time Employees to Operate

By Noor Al-Sibai

The core-mantle boundary is dotted with Everest-dwarfing "mountains" made of ocean floors that were dragged to the interior over millions of years.

Science & Energy

The Earth’s Core Is Wrapped in the Floor of an Ancient Ocean, Scientists Say

By Frank Landymore

A Columbia law scholar has joined the OpenAI chat — and he's got some pretty start warnings about ChatGPT's legal liability.

Scholar Warns That ChatGPT’s Legal Issues Are a “Ticking Time Bomb”

By Noor Al-Sibai

$According to Bloomberg, there's a man out there who's beaten Roulette, no computer required — and all he says it took was a little practice. Easy!$

A Math and Physics Savant Reportedly Figured Out How to Beat Roulette

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

Paleo, a Belgian competitor experimenting with mammoth protein, says a plant-based burger injected with mammoth myoglobin is delicious.

Tech CEO Says Burger With Mammoth DNA Tastes Delicious

By Victor Tangermann

Only a handful of users are actually trading virtual real estate on Decentraland, slices of land that are being sold inside the virtual world as NFTs.

Virtual Metaverse Real Estate Is Completely in the Toilet

By Victor Tangermann

A YouTube prankster has been shot in the abdomen at a Virginia mall after a stranger didn't take kindly to his latest prank.

YouTuber Gets Shot for Prank, Pledges to Keep Making More Prank Videos

By Victor Tangermann

Recovered human hairs provide the first direct evidence that prehistoric Europeans were fond of consuming psychoactive rugs like scopolamine.

Science & Energy

Scientists Discover That Ancient Humans Were Tripping Balls in a Cave

By Frank Landymore

There's a random Canadian astronaut going to the Moon with three Americans from NASA next year — and according to him, that's by design.

Canadian Astronaut Says He’s Going to the Moon So NASA Can Blame Him If Anything Goes Wrong

By Noor Al-Sibai

An Australian mayor may sue OpenAI over ChatGPT-generated defamation, after the AI chatbot told users that he was arrested for a crime he didn't commit.

OpenAI Threatened With Lawsuit Over ChatGPT Defamation

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

Btech workers got paid six figure salaries to do nothing. That may be by design, as experts say the industry overhired to hoarde talent.

Big Tech Employees Say They Were Paid a Fortune to Do Essentially Nothing

By Frank Landymore

NASA just dropped its new graphics in the wake of its crew announcement for the Artemis II mission to the Moon and, reader, they're so lit.

NASA’s New Artemis II Graphics Are So Freaking Awesome, Y’all

By Noor Al-Sibai

It might be gone by now, but if you use Google Pay, you might've received some free dinero that you'll want to cash out sooner than rather than later.

Google Accidentally Sends Users Free Money

By Frank Landymore

JWST Looks Back In Time And Discovers Oldest Known Black Hole in the Universe

JWST Looks Back In Time And Discovers Oldest Known Black Hole in the Universe

By Noor Al-Sibai

Brand New SpaceX Satellite Falls to Its Death

By Frank Landymore

Mark Zuckerberg Abandons Metaverse as Shiny New Toy Appears

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

It appears that hackers have compromised the University of Arizona's website and posted a bunch of stuff a Southeast Asian online casino.

Someone Has Apparently Hacked the University of Arizona’s Website

By Noor Al-Sibai

One of the world's foremost chess grandmasters apparently made a fat finger error for the ages when he accidentally clicked the wrong square and lost a tie.

World Chess Champion Loses $30,000 Prize By Clicking Wrong Square

By Noor Al-Sibai

Stability AI, a startup that helped develop popular open-source image generator Stable Diffusion, is in serious trouble, Semafor reports.

Artificial Intelligence

The Company Behind Stable Diffusion Appears to Be At Risk of Going Under

By Victor Tangermann

If we can't find a way to cap what this economist calls Greedflation? Capitalism, he says, might have just about run its course.

Economist Warns That Capitalism May Be Ending

By Maggie Harrison Dupré

In one of the pettiest moves possible, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has blocked all links to the popular publishing platform Substack on Twitter.

Jealous Elon Musk Blocks All Links to Substack on Twitter

By Victor Tangermann

A project that touted so-called "liquid trees" from two years ago has recently been ruthlessly mocked online. Do they deserve the hate?

These Fake Liquid Trees Are Enraging the Internet

By Frank Landymore

Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the company has AI search products in the work, with aspirations of integrating chatbot functionality into its Google Search.

Google CEO Says It’s Adding AI to Search

By Frank Landymore

Universal Music Group just issued a copyright takedown notice to a YouTuber, who created an AI-generated song about kittens using Eminem's voice.

Artificial Intelligence

Record Label Forces Takedown of AI-Generated Eminem Rapping About Kitty Cats

By Victor Tangermann

Researchers are working on a way to transform plastic waste into edible biomass for deep-space missions, all with the help of lab-engineered bacteria.

Cursed Tech Turns Plastic Waste Into Edible Food

By Maggie Harrison Dupré