That is at present’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a each day dose of what’s happening on this planet of know-how.
South Africa’s personal surveillance machine is fueling a digital apartheid
Johannesburg, the sprawling megacity as soon as dwelling to Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, is now birthing a uniquely South African surveillance mannequin. Within the final 5 years, the town has develop into host to a centralized, coordinated, solely privatized mass surveillance operation. Vumacam, the corporate constructing the nationwide CCTV community, already has over 6,600 cameras and counting, greater than 5,000 of that are concentrated in Johannesburg. The video footage it takes feeds into safety rooms across the nation, which then use all method of AI instruments like license plate recognition to trace inhabitants motion and hint people. These instruments have been enthusiastically adopted by the native safety business, grappling with the pressures of a high-crime atmosphere.
Civil rights activists fear the brand new surveillance is fueling a digital apartheid and unraveling individuals’s democratic liberties, however a rising refrain of consultants say the stakes are even greater. They argue that the affect of synthetic intelligence is repeating the patterns of colonial historical past, and right here in South Africa, the place colonial legacies abound, the unfettered deployment of AI surveillance provides only one case examine in how a know-how that promised to deliver societies into the longer term is threatening to ship them again to the previous. Learn the total story.
—Karen Hao and Heidi Swart
That is the primary a part of our sequence on AI colonialism, digging into how the know-how is impoverishing the communities and international locations that don’t have a say in its improvement. Elements 2—4 are coming later within the week, and you may learn Karen Hao’s introductory essay right here.
How we are able to repair AI’s inequality downside
The economic system is being reworked by digital applied sciences, particularly in synthetic intelligence, which are quickly altering how we reside and work. However this transformation poses a troubling puzzle: these applied sciences haven’t executed a lot to develop the economic system, and revenue inequality is worsening. Productiveness progress, which economists contemplate important to bettering residing requirements, has largely been sluggish since a minimum of the mid-2000s in lots of international locations.
Why are these applied sciences failing to supply extra financial progress? Why aren’t they fueling extra widespread prosperity? To seek out a solution, some main economists and coverage consultants are trying extra carefully at how we invent and deploy AI and automation—and figuring out methods we are able to make higher selections. Learn the total story.
—David Rotman
Getting older clocks purpose to foretell how lengthy you’ll reside
Age is way more than the variety of birthdays you’ve clocked. Stress, sleep, and food plan all affect how our organs deal with the damage and tear of on a regular basis life, which may make you age sooner or slower than individuals born on the identical day. Which means your organic age might be fairly completely different out of your chronological age—the variety of years you’ve been alive.
Your organic age is probably going a greater reflection of your bodily well being and even your personal mortality than your chronological age. However calculating it isn’t almost as simple, which is why scientists have spent the final decade growing instruments referred to as getting older clocks that assess markers in your physique to disclose your organic age and predict what number of wholesome years you may have left. Proponents of getting older clocks are already attempting to make use of them to point out that anti-aging interventions could make people biologically youthful. Nevertheless it’s unclear that they’re correct or dependable sufficient to make such claims. Learn the total story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
Getting older clocks emerged because the clear winner for Tech Evaluation’s eleventh breakthrough know-how of 2022. Greater than 10,000 readers voted—when you had been considered one of them, thanks!
Quote of the day
“It’s like packing bikinis for Siberia, utilizing chopsticks to eat steak, educating an eagle how you can swim.”
—An nameless Shanghai resident particulars the frustrations of residing within the metropolis’s excessive zero-covid lockdown whereas circumstances proceed to soar for The Guardian.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you at present’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Russian troopers are attacking a 300-mile entrance in Ukraine
The purpose is to take full management of the Donbas area within the nation’s east. (NYT $)
+ Putin’s want to overcome Donbas is symbolic. (BBC) + The State Division has condemned Russian airstrikes as a “marketing campaign of terror.” (WP $)
+ The siege of Mariupol seems to be drawing to an finish. (FT $)
2 Crypto hackers are stealing ever-larger sums
And it’s primarily all the way down to weak, poorly-managed open-source code.(TR)
+ Bitcoin mining has devastated the town of Plattsburgh in New York. (TR)
+ The case for retaining money. (TR)
3 Even democracies use controversial spy ware
NSO has paved the best way for this type of surveillance to develop into terrifyingly commonplace. (New Yorker $)
+ The UK prime minister’s workplace has allegedly been hit with an NSO spy ware assault. (The Guardian)
+ The hacker-for-hire business is now too large to fail. (TR)
4 Fb investing in Nigerian web infrastructure comes at a worth
Yep, you guessed it. Consumer knowledge. (The Guardian)
+ It’s been accused of failing to average misinformation in Africa. (The Guardian)
5 Intel claims its AI can learn college students’ feelings
Plot spoiler: it could possibly’t. Not precisely, anyway. (Protocol)
+ Emotion AI researchers say overblown claims give their work a nasty title. (TR)
6 How critical is Elon Musk about proudly owning Twitter, actually?
And may we be apprehensive? (The Atlantic $)
+ Twitter’s board is attempting arduous to keep away from a situation the place he buys 100% of the corporate. (Bloomberg $)
+ Twitter’s edit button may present how the tweet initially appeared. (TechCrunch)
7 Meals within the metaverse isn’t excellent
As a result of—shocker—you possibly can’t really eat it! (Insider)
+ Right here’s how you can let a metaverse die with dignity. (Polygon)
8 A former Greenback Normal employee is utilizing TikTok to push for union illustration
As an alternative of listening to her considerations, the corporate fired her. However she’s not going quietly. (NYT $)
+ Amazon’s warehouse in New Jersey is the most recent to get a union vote. (WP $)
9 On-line white supremacist communities are preying on youngsters
Even the anti-racist materials to fight it has been weaponized. (The Atlantic $)
10 Right here’s how you have to be texting 
Sorry, grammar sticklers! (WP $)
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre instances. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ This video of Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) talking English on the Star Wars set to assist Harrison Ford react to his strains is hilarious.
+ I’ve a grudging respect for this unpleasant-looking Is It Cake?
+ One more Wordle clone, Redactle forces you to guess the redacted phrases from Wikipedia articles.
+ The Horrible Maps Twitter account will not be terribly helpful, however it’s humorous.
+ This profile of mob chef David Ruggerio is utterly mind-boggling.
+ Learn Molly and David’s candy story of assembly within the pandemic whereas he was shielding.
+ Comic Munya’s evaluation of what it’s like within the UK the second the solar comes out is spot on.
