Lauren Tamaki for Vox The technologist and author is providing a guide to a world changing at an exponential rate Azeem Azhar is, as he puts it in his 2021 book The Exponential Age, a “child of the microchip,” born in 1972, the “year after the first commercially produced computer processor was released.” As a…
Lauren Tamaki for Vox Whittaker, the CEO of Signal, is also asking hard questions about artificial intelligence. New technologies can help connect us, but too often they come at a steep price: our privacy. The cost of constant interconnection is the threat of unwanted surveillance. Meredith Whittaker knows that all too well. A little over…
Lauren Tamaki for Vox How a renowned AI scientist became a voice for caution. Modern AI powered by deep learning only caught the world’s attention these last few years but some academic researchers have been working to develop and understand its potential for much, much longer than that. Among the uncontested leaders of the field…
Lauren Tamaki for Vox It might just be the most important job in the world. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, believes it’s on the cusp of transforming our world with powerful AI systems. At minimum, it thinks these will fundamentally change how we work and live. At maximum, it could make our world unrecognizable overnight….
Lauren Tamaki for Vox Donti is showing how machine learning can be a powerful ally to address the climate crisis. When Priya Donti was asked to choose any superpower, she responded: “Maybe the ability to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it into basalt.” Short of that, she’s working on turning a…
Lauren Tamaki for Vox Christiano and Barnes have helped mainstream concerns about AI misalignment. The first arguments that AI “misalignment” — when artificially intelligent systems do not do what humans ask of them, or fail to align with human values — could pose a huge risk to humankind came from philosophers and autodidacts on the…
Lauren Tamaki for Vox Grace argues AI researchers should slow down. They’re starting to agree with her. With AI as with everything else, stories matter. Myths matter. AI companies love the narrative of AI as an arms race — it justifies their rush to market. But it leaves people thinking that maybe we need to…
Here’s what to know before splurging on a smartwatch to help with ADHD. Dr. Shazia Savul treats adults whose lives are significantly affected by symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These patients, whom Savul sees as the lead psychiatrist of clinical services for adult ADHD at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, frequently experience…
A new study on the subject is more complicated than it seems. You might be confused to see new headlines declaring that the internet isn’t bad for mental health. After all, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a warning this spring that social media poses a profound risk for youth. Last week, a federal court ruled…
Elon Musk laughs during an in-conversation event with Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on November 2, 2023, following the UK Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit. | Kirsty Wigglesworth/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Reed O’Connor is one of the most unapologetic Republican partisans in the entire federal judiciary. Twitter (the company that Elon Musk insists upon…