The Download: how to talk to kids about AI, and China’s emotional chatbots

This is at present’s version of The Download, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what is going on on on the planet of know-how.

You want to talk to your child about AI. Here are 6 issues it is best to say.

In the previous yr, kids, academics, and mother and father have had a crash course in synthetic intelligence, thanks to the wildly fashionable AI chatbot ChatGPT.

In a knee-jerk response, some faculties banned the know-how—solely to cancel the ban months later. Now that many adults have caught up with what ChatGPT is, faculties have began exploring methods to use AI programs to educate kids essential classes on vital pondering.

At the beginning of the brand new college yr, listed here are MIT Technology Review’s six important ideas for how to get began on giving your child an AI schooling. Read the complete story.

—Rhiannon Williams & Melissa Heikkilä

My colleague Will Douglas Heaven wrote about how AI can be utilized in faculties for our latest Education subject. You can learn that piece right here.

Chinese AI chatbots need to be your emotional help

Last week, Baidu turned the primary Chinese firm to roll out its giant language mannequin—referred to as Ernie Bot—to most of the people, following regulatory approval from the Chinese authorities.

Since then, 4 extra Chinese corporations have additionally made their LLM chatbot merchandise broadly accessible, whereas extra skilled gamers, like Alibaba and iFlytek, are nonetheless ready for the clearance.

One factor that Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, seen was how the Chinese AI bots are used to provide emotional help in contrast to their Western counterparts. Given that chatbots are a novelty proper now, it raises questions about how the businesses are hoping to hold customers engaged as soon as that preliminary pleasure has worn off. Read the complete story.

This story initially appeared in China Report, Zeyi’s weekly e-newsletter supplying you with the within monitor on all issues taking place in tech in China. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to discover you at present’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 China’s chips are much more superior than we realized
Huawei’s newest telephone has US officers questioning how efficient their sanctions have actually been. (Bloomberg $)
+ It suggests China’s home chip tech is approaching in leaps and bounds. (Guardian)
+ Japan was as soon as a chipmaking large. What occurred? (FT $)
+ The US-China chip battle continues to be escalating. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Meta’s AI groups are in turmoil
Internal teams are scrapping over the corporate’s computing sources. (The Information $)
+ Meta’s newest AI mannequin is free for all. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Conspiracy theorists have rounded on digital money
If authorities can’t counter these claims, digital currencies are useless within the water. (FT $)
+ Is the digital greenback useless? (MIT Technology Review)
+ What’s subsequent for China’s digital yuan? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Lawyers are the actual winners of the crypto crash
Someone has to symbolize all these bankrupt corporations. (NYT $)
+ Sam Bankman-Fried is adjusting to life behind bars (NY Mag $)

5 Renting an EV is a minefield
Collecting a rent automotive that’s solely half charged is way from best. (WSJ $)
+ BYD, China’s greatest EV firm, is eyeing an abroad growth. (Rest of World)
+ How new batteries may assist your EV cost quicker. (MIT Technology Review)

6 US immigration used pretend social media profiles to spy on targets
Even although aliases are in opposition to many platforms’ phrases of service. (Guardian)

7 The web has normalized laughing at demise

The creepy teams are a digital image of human cruelty. (The Atlantic $)

8 New York is purging 1000’s of Airbnbs
A brand new legislation has made it basically unimaginable for the corporate to function within the metropolis. (Wired $)+ And hosts are removed from joyful about it. (NY Mag $)

9 Men are already ranking AI-generated ladies’s hotness
In one other bleak demonstration of how AI fashions can perpetuate dangerous stereotypes. (Motherboard)
+ Ads for AI intercourse employees are rife throughout social media. (NBC News)

10 Meet the younger activists preventing for kids’ rights on-line
They’re demanding a say within the guidelines that have an effect on their lives. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“It wasn’t totally crazy. It was only moderately crazy.”

—Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, displays on the corporate’s early want to chase the theoretical objective of synthetic basic intelligence, in accordance to Wired.

The massive story

Marseille’s battle in opposition to the surveillance state

June 2022

Across the world, video cameras have turn into an accepted function of city life. Many cities in China now have dense networks of them, and London and New Delhi aren’t far behind. Now France is taking part in catch-up.

Concerns have been raised all through the nation. But the surveillance rollout has met particular resistance in Marseille, France’s second-biggest metropolis.

It’s unsurprising, maybe, that activists are preventing again in opposition to the cameras, highlighting the surveillance system’s overreach and underperformance. But are they succeeding? Read the complete story.

…. to be continued
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