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Generative AI is changing everything. But what’s left when the hype wears off?
Clearly, OpenAI has something to offer. In late 2021, a small group of researchers is working on a new version of OpenAI’s text-to-image model, DALL-E, an AI that converts short written descriptions into pictures: maybe a fox painted by Vincent van Gogh, or Corgi made of pizza. Now they just have to figure out what to do with it.
No one could have predicted how much buzz this product would cause. The rapid release of other generative models has inspired hundreds of newspaper headlines and magazine covers, filled social media with memes, and set the hype machine into overdrive — and sparked a backlash from creators.
The exciting truth is that we really don’t know what’s going to happen next. While the creative industries will feel the impact first, this technology will give everyone creative superpowers. In the long run, it can be used to generate designs for almost anything. The problem is, these models still don’t know what they’re doing. read more.
— Douglas Paradise
This story is part of our upcoming series on 10 breakthrough technologies for 2023. Download readers will be the first to see the full list in January.
+ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talks to our Senior AI Editor Will Douglas Heaven about what he learned from the DALL-E 2 and what the model means for society. read more.
Coming soon: A new report from MIT Technology Review on how industrial design and engineering firms are using generative artificial intelligence. register Get notified when it’s out.
Artists can now opt out of the next version of Stable Diffusion
what happened: Artists can now opt out of Stable Diffusion, the next version of one of the world’s most popular text-to-image AI generators, the company behind it has announced. Creators can search for works in the dataset they used to train Stable Diffusion on a website called HaveIBeenTrained, and then choose which works they want to exclude from the training data.
Why it’s important: The decision comes amid a heated public debate between artists and tech companies over how to train text-to-image artificial intelligence models. The artist couple who created the site hope that opting out of the service will temporarily remedy the industry’s lack of legislation. read more.
—Melissa Hekkira
Mind-altering substances being hyped as miracle drugs
Hardly a week has passed in the past five years or so without a study, review or press release about the potential benefits of psychedelics. A growing number of academics, therapists and companies are interested in the potential of psilocybin and psychedelic drugs such as LSD to treat mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders.
Over the past 70 years or so, the reputation of psychedelics has had a roller-coaster ride. They went from generating excitement, to instilling fear and mistrust, to experiencing a recent revival. But despite the current excitement, the fact that we don’t yet have evidence that psychedelics are actually changing healthcare has led to fears that psychedelics research is “caught in a hype bubble.” read more.
— Jessica Hamzelloo
Jessica’s story comes from her weekly biotech newsletter, The Checkup. register Get it in your inbox every Thursday.
required reading
I combed the internet to find you the funniest/most important/scary/fascinating stories about technology today.
1 Twitter suspends journalist’s account
What they all have in common is that they all reported on Elon Musk’s decision to suspend an account that tracked his private jet. (protector)
+ Accounts on rival platform Mastodon have also been suspended. (technology crisis)
+ Musk’s commitment to free speech ends there. (sound)
+ Musk said he never banned the @elonjet account until last month. (motherboard)
+ Since the data is public, it’s still easy to track the jet’s whereabouts. (insider $)
2 A secretive effort to bury wood to remove carbon just raised millions
If successful, this could be a relatively straightforward way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Bitcoin Enthusiasts Cheer FTX’s Downfall
Although Bitcoin itself has taken a major hit. (slate $)
+ NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal has denied any involvement with FTX. (insider $)
4 Bio-based plastics are still plastics
Switching to plastics made from plant-derived carbon could allow the industry to greenwash the process. (wired $)
5 Streaming is no longer exciting
There isn’t that much money dangling around, and Netflix et al don’t want to take as much risk as they used to. (edge)
+ Mass performances are now a necessity. (insider $)
6 Changes in children’s microbiomes trigger fear
It may affect how they experience anxiety and depression later in life. (new life)
7 Ways Online Shopping Can Trick You
Forcing shoppers to make quick decisions is at its core. (sound)
+ Ads within ads are the latest on TikTok. (Financial Times $)
+ There are also more and more TV commercials. (Atlantic Organization $)
8 Generation Z will return to the dark age of technology
They are reshaping Luddite identities for the digital age. (New York Times $)
9 TikTok wants to restore the bad name of the pigeon
But adopting wild birds from the street is still a bad idea. (Atlantic Organization $)
+ How to make friends with crows. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Ways Strength Training For Seniors Pays Off
It’s never too late to start—it can help you stay independent for longer. (Knowable Magazine)
daily quote
“It seems he was just trying to scare me, but it didn’t work.”
—Jack Sweeney, a college student who tracked Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter using publicly available data, told insider Why he refuses to be swayed by Musk’s announcement that he’s suing Sweeney.
big story
How to Fix Your Broken Pandemic Brain
July 2021
Americans are slowly coming out of the pandemic, but when they re-emerge, there’s still a lot of trauma to deal with. It’s not just our homes, communities, and jobs that have changed; our brains have changed, too. We are not the same as before.
In the winter of 2020, more than 40 percent of Americans reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, double the number from the previous year. Although that number fell over the following summer as vaccination rates rose and COVID-19 cases fell, many Americans are still struggling with their mental health. Now the question is, can our brains change back? How can we help them do this? read more.
– Dana Smith
we can still have nice things
A place of comfort, fun and distraction in these strange times. (Any ideas?leave me a messageortweet me.)
+ Here’s how to avoid giving in to Coat hanger.
+ If you like adrenaline shots, gopro hero right up your street.
+ a No Bake Raspberry Cheesecake Sounds like the least annoyance, the greatest enjoyment.
+ these fairy tale house It looks very tempting. 
+ We finally solved the mystery of why prehistoric mode Carved in the deserts of the Middle East.
