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The Download: how to melt rocks, and what you need to know about AI
Plus: what’s going on with America’s data centers?
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
This startup wants to use beams of energy to drill geothermal wells
Geothermal startup Quaise certainly has an unconventional approach when it comes to destroying rocks: it uses a new form of drilling technology to melt holes through them. The company hopes it’s the key to unlocking geothermal energy and making it feasible anywhere.
Quaise’s technology could theoretically be used to tap into the Earth’s heat from anywhere on the globe. But some experts caution that reinventing drilling won’t be as simple, or as fast, as Quaise’s leadership hopes. Read the full story.
—Casey Crownhart
Five things you need to know about AI right now
—Will Douglas Heaven, senior editor for AI
Last month I gave a talk at SXSW London called “Five things you need to know about AI”—my personal picks for the five most important ideas in AI right now.
I aimed the talk at a general audience, and it serves as a quick tour of how I’m thinking about AI in 2025. There’s some fun stuff in there. I even make jokes!
You can now watch the video of my talk, but if you want to see the five I chose right now, here is a quick look at them.
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.
Why it’s so hard to make welfare AI fair
There are plenty of stories about AI that’s caused harm when deployed in sensitive situations, and in many of those cases, the systems were developed without much concern to what it meant to be fair or how to implement fairness.
But the city of Amsterdam spent a lot of time and money to try to create ethical AI—in fact, it followed every recommendation in the responsible AI playbook. But when it deployed it in the real world, it still couldn’t remove biases. So why did Amsterdam fail? And more importantly: Can this ever be done right?
Join our editor Amanda Silverman, investigative reporter Eileen Guo and Gabriel Geiger, an investigative reporter from Lighthouse Reports, for a subscriber-only Roundtables conversation at 1pm ET on Wednesday July 30 to explore if algorithms can ever be fair. Register here!
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 America’s grand data center ambitions aren’t being realized
A major partnership between SoftBank and OpenAI hasn’t got off to a flying start. (WSJ $)
+ The setback hasn’t stopped OpenAI opening its first DC office. (Semafor)
2 OpenAI is partnering with the UK government
In a bid to increase its public services’ productivity and to drive economic growth. (BBC)
+ It all sounds pretty vague. (Engadget)
3 The battle for AI math supremacy is heating up
Google and OpenAI went head to head in a math competition—but only one played by the rules. (Axios)+ The International Math Olympiad poses a unique challenge to AI models. (Ars Technica)
+ What’s next for AI and math. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Mark Zuckerberg’s secretive Hawaiian compound is getting bigger
The multi-billionaire is sinking millions of dollars into the project. (Wired $)
5 India’s back offices are meeting global demand for AI expertise
New ‘capability centers’ could help to improve the country’s technological prospects. (FT $)
+ The founder of Infosys believes the future of AI will be more democratic. (Rest of World)
+ Inside India’s scramble for AI independence. (MIT Technology Review)
6 A crime-tracking app will share videos with the NYPD
Public safety agencies will have access to footage shared on Citizen. (The Verge)
+ AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened? (MIT Technology Review)
7 China has a problem with competition: there’s too much of it
Its government is making strides to crack down on price wars within sectors. (NYT $)
+ China’s Xiaomi is making waves across the world. (Economist $)
8 The metaverse is a tobacco marketer’s playground 🚬
Fed up of legal constraints, they’re already operating in unregulated spaces. (The Guardian)
+ Welcome to the oldest part of the metaverse. (MIT Technology Review)
9 How AI is shaking up physics
Models are suggesting outlandish ideas that actually work. (Quanta Magazine)
10 Tesla has opened a diner that resembles a spaceship
It’s technically a drive-thru that happens to sell Tesla merch. (TechCrunch)
Quote of the day
“If you can pick off the individuals for $100 million each and they’re good, it’s actually a bargain.”
—Entrepreneur Laszlo Bock tells Insider why he thinks the eye-watering sums Meta is reportedly offering top AI engineers is money well spent.
One more thing
The world’s first industrial-scale plant for green steel promises a cleaner futureAs of 2023, nearly 2 billion metric tons of steel were being produced annually, enough to cover Manhattan in a layer more than 13 feet thick.
Making this metal produces a huge amount of carbon dioxide. Overall, steelmaking accounts for around 8% of the world’s carbon emissions—one of the largest industrial emitters and far more than such sources as aviation.
A handful of groups and companies are now making serious progress toward low- or zero-emission steel. Among them, the Swedish company Stegra stands out. The startup is currently building the first industrial-scale plant in the world to make green steel. But can it deliver on its promises? Read the full story.
—Douglas Main
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