Malicious AI and a deadlier variant of monkeypox

+ What does GPT-3 “know” about me? Large language models are trained on arrays of personal data collected on the Internet. But how much does he really know about us? Read the full story.

+ Google’s new artificial intelligence can hear a snippet of a song and then continue playing. The technique, called AudioLM, generates naturalistic sounds without the need for human commentary. Read the full story.

Required Reading

I scoured the internet to find the most hilarious/important/scary/exciting tech stories to date.

1 A more dangerous variant of monkeypox could become global
Scientists fear that a deadlier variant of Clade I could spread beyond the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (New scientist $)
+ More than 26,000 people in the United States have been infected with monkeypox this year. (VP $)

2. Women smuggling abortion pills into the US from Mexico.
They risk jail time and hefty fines to help terminate pregnancies in post-Roe states. (New Yorker $)
+ Where to get abortion pills and how to use them. (MIT Technology Review)

3. Why talking about mental health on social media is so unbearable
While Internet diagnostics are helpful to some, others tend to be too self-pathologising. (Voice)

4 Iranian Celebrities Step Up Protesters Online
The warnings of the security forces of the country went unheeded. (FT $)

5. Bitcoin mining has skyrocketed to an all-time high.
You can thank The Merge. (bloomberg $)
+ Cryptocurrency mining is now especially popular in Africa. (CoinDesk)
+ The couple who mistakenly returned $10.5 million through crypto.com are in court. (The keeper)

6. WhatsApp spam is out of control in India
Users are left to permanently block the flow of spam. (The rest of the world)
+ People using humor to troll their spam texts. (MIT Technology Review)

7. Black holes can help explain how the universe began
If the new theory of quantum gravity pays dividends, that is. (New York Times $)
+ This is the first image of a black hole at the center of our galaxy.. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Flood myths to watch out for
Geolegends teach us how our ancestors dealt with climate. (Atlantic Ocean $)
+ Flood survivors in Pakistan struggle to recover. (New Yorker $)
+ Deadly spores can spread to new territories through wildfire smoke. (Wired $)

9 The Surprisingly Controversial History of the Microprocessor
Inventor Ted Hoff did not patent the invention, a decision he regretted. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 Jellyfish Can Be Delicious
There are a lot of them too. But good luck convincing people to eat them. (Hakai magazine)
+ A seaweed battery could pave the way for more sustainable energy storage. (New scientist $)

Quote of the Day

“There’s a man whose name is a scent fighting a company whose name is like one of the birds – Dickens would love that.”

Stephen Gillers, professor of law at New York University. Wall Street Journal why literary fans are so into Elon Musk and the Twitter lawsuit.

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