When Liu Yang began his present job, he discovered it onerous to return to driving his personal automotive: “I instinctively went for the passenger seat. Or once I was driving, I’d count on the automotive to brake by itself,” says the 33-year-old Beijing native, who joined the Chinese language tech large Baidu in January 2021 as a robotaxi driver.
Robotaxi driver is an occupation that solely exists in our time, the results of an evolving expertise that’s superior sufficient to do away with a driver—more often than not, in managed environments— however not adequate to persuade authorities that they will get rid of human intervention altogether.
Liu is without doubt one of the a whole bunch of security operators employed by Baidu, “driving” 5 days per week in Shougang Park. However regardless of having solely labored for the corporate for 19 months, he already has to consider his subsequent profession transfer, as his job will probably be eradicated inside a couple of years. Learn the total story.
—Zeyi Yang
Podcast: Can AI maintain weapons out of faculties?
Amid a rising epidemic of gun violence throughout the US, can AI be a part of the answer? Within the newest episode of our award-winning podcast, In Machines We Belief, we have a look at a number of the weapons detection applied sciences faculties are utilizing to attempt to maintain college students protected, and delve into whether or not they’re delivering on their promise. Hearken to it for your self.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you immediately’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 ByteDance’s US information app reportedly pushed pro-China messaging
Former workers say they have been additionally instructed to censor criticism of Beijing. (Buzzfeed)
+ Smartphone gross sales in China are at their lowest stage for a decade. (The Register)
2Mark Zuckerberg goes into overdrive
To be able to make the metaverse work, he wants his workers to work even more durable. (NYT $)
+ He’s proper to be anxious—Meta is more likely to report its first-ever income drop immediately. (Reuters)
+ Fb staff hoping for further days off can suppose once more. (The Verge)
+ Meta is elevating the costs of its Quest 2 VR headset, too. (ZDNet)
+ A metaverse safety replace is annoying its early customers. (Motherboard)
3 An AI convincingly masqueraded as a thinker
Which might be extremely harmful within the mistaken arms. (Motherboard)
+ The brand new model of GPT-3 is significantly better behaved (and must be much less poisonous). (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
4 How Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing algorithm experiment backfired
Charging Bruce Springsteen followers as much as $5,000 per ticket was not transfer. (Selection $)
+ How pricing algorithms study to collude. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
5 The brand new psychedelic drug renaissance is right here
However critics are cautious it’s fueling psychedelic capitalism. (Wired $)
+ What do psychedelic medicine do to our brains? AI might assist us discover out. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
6 Russia says it’ll withdraw from the ISS partnership in 2024
NASA says it hasn’t been formally informed, although. (The Verge)
+ Spacetime warped across the Solar might maintain the important thing to discovering alien life. (Motherboard)
7 New York’s e-bikes maintain catching fireplace
Lithium-ion batteries from China look like the perpetrator. (Motherboard)
+ How bike parking pods might make US cities higher for cyclists. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)
8 Floating plastic within the ocean is harboring nasty micro organism ????
Urinary tract, pores and skin and abdomen infections are simply a number of the less-than-pleasant diseases they might trigger. (Hakai Journal)
+ A kidney-stone consuming pseudo-parasite seems to have given up parasitism. (The Atlantic $)
9 Undersea web cables might quickly detect tsunamis ????
And observe them in actual time to assist swerve future disasters. (New Yorker $)
10 Seems that lifeless spiders make wonderful robots
Particularly hydraulic grippers. (Spectrum IEEE)
+ This robotic taught itself to stroll fully by itself. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)