“Rapid DNA tests, x-ray fluorescence guns, and other technologies are being deployed in the fight against wildlife trafficking.”
MIT Technology Review
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories by Maddy Crowell, Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Fraser MacDonald, Shi En Kim, and Bryan Gardiner.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Creativity Became the Reigning Value of Our Time
“In a new book, Samuel Franklin excavates the surprisingly recent history of an idea, an ideal, and an ideology.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
AI Is Coming for Music, Too
“New diffusion AI models that make songs from scratch are complicating our definitions of authorship and human creativity.”
Posted inFeature
A Year in Reading: The Dark Side of Progress
We’re moving farther, faster, than ever before. But we’re also destabilizing crucial areas of human experience.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Weeds Are Winning
“As the climate changes, genetic engineering will be essential for growing food. But is it creating a race of superweeds?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Race to Save our Online Lives from a Digital Dark Age
“We’re making more data than ever. What can—and should—we save for future generations? And will they be able to understand it?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Technology That Lets Us “Speak” to Our Dead Relatives Has Arrived. Are We Ready?
“Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How the AI Industry Profits from Catastrophe
The demand for data labeling in the artificial intelligence industry — tagging videos, sorting photos, and transcribing audio in order to train AI — has created a massive need for cheap labor, leading data-labeling platforms such as Appen to hire low-pay workers in countries like Venezuela, the Philippines, and Kenya to do these tasks. In […]