Tech

DeepMind’s AI shortcomings and China’s social media translation problem


Earlier this month, DeepMind introduced a new “generalized” AI model called Gato. The model can play Atari video games, annotate images, chat and stack blocks with a real robotic arm, the Alphabet-owned AI lab announced. All in all, Gato can do hundreds of different quests.

But while Gato is undeniably fascinating, in the week since its release, some researchers have had a bit of a rough time.

One of DeepMind’s top researchers and a co-author of the Gato paper, Nando de Freitas, couldn’t contain his excitement. “The game’s over!” he tweeted, suggesting that there is now a clear path from Gato to general artificial intelligence, or ‘AGI’, a vague concept of Human or superhuman level AI. How AGI is built, he asserts, is mostly a matter of scale: making models like Gato bigger and better.

Unsurprisingly, de Freitas’ announcement sparked an outcry from the press that Deepmind was “on track” for human-grade artificial intelligence. This is not the first time that hype has outstripped reality. Other exciting new AI models, such as OpenAI’s text generator GPT-3 and the DALL-E image generator, have made similarly large claims.

For many in the field, this kind of fever pitch overshadows other important areas of AI research. Read full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Things to read

I’ve scoured the internet to find you today’s most interesting/important/scary/fascinating stories about tech.

1 Volunteer is translating Chinese social media posts into English
Although the posts have passed China’s internet censorship regime, Beijing is still not satisfied. (Atlantic $)
+ WeChat wants people to use its video platform. So they did, for digital protests. (CHILDREN)

2 Ukraine’s startup community is back to normal
Many workers are aligning their day jobs with volunteering after the war effort. (WP $)
+ Russian-speaking tech bosses living in the US are cutting ties with pro-war workers. (NYT $)
+ YouTube has taken down more than 9,000 channels related to the war. (Guardians)

3 The Buffalo Shooting Highlighted the Failures of the Technological Terrorism Pact
Critics argue that the platforms are not doing enough to address the root causes of extremism. (WSJ $)
+ America has experienced more than 3,500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook. (WP $)

4 Cryptocurrency Seems to Have an Insider Trading Problem
Just like the banking system that its supporters are against. (WSJ $)
+ Christine Lagarde argues that cryptocurrencies are not worth “nothing”. (Bloomberg $)
+ Cryptocurrencies are weathering a fierce storm. Some still hold dear life. (CHILDREN)
+ The Crypto Industry Has Lost About $1.5 Trillion Since November. (Atlantic $)
+ Stablecoin Tether has paid out $10 billion in withdrawals since the crash began. (Guardians)

5 The nuclear fusion industry is in turmoil
It wasn’t even up and running, but the fuel supply was running low. (Wired $)
+ A hole in the ground could be the future of thermonuclear power. (CHILDREN)
+ The US Midwest could face power outages this summer. (Motherboard)

6 Big Tech is not worried about the recession
Even if it drops some of its market valuation in the process. (NYT $)
+ But lawmakers are determined to contain them with antitrust laws. (Recode)
+ Their carbon footprint is also out of control. (New Yorkers $)

7 The US military wants to build flying ships
The Liberty Lifer X aircraft will be independent of fixed airports and ports. (IEEE Spectrum)

We need to change the way we recycle plastic
The good news is that the technology to overhaul it exists — it just needs to be tweaked. (Wired $)
+ A French company is using enzymes to recycle one of the most common single-use plastics. (CHILDREN)

9 Why You Should Treat Using Your Phone Like Drinking Alcohol
Hitting that fragile balance prevents a positive turn into a negative. (Guardians $)

10 Inside the Healthy World of the Internet knitting
Its favorite knitter’s creations have amassed a huge following. (Input)
+ How a ban on pro-Trump patterns has shed light on the world of online knitting. (CHILDREN)

Quote of the day

“I love the instant gratification of making the Internet better.”

—Jason Moore, who is credited with creating more than 50,000 Wikipedia pages, says CNN about his motives for taking the unpaid work.



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