From a ChatGPT-generated law, to the podcast bubble popping and fertility becoming big business.
Here's my weekly round up.
📜 A politician drafted a law using ChatGPT and submitted it to his council without making a single change to what the chatbot produced. The law passed, with voters none the wiser.
🌆 Words I never thought I’d ever write: Ahead of the release of her upcoming Pink Friday 2 album, zealous Nicki Minaj fans have taken to AI image generators to visualize Gag City, a Minajian utopia.
🎤 Overswing and fumble: Spotify bet big on the podcast boom, pouring in $1 billion, but has since let go of 17% of its staff and canceled two highly acclaimed shows amid weak profits.
🔎 Google formally joins the AI race: The search giant is no stranger to AI, but has now officially launched its latest and most powerful AI model, Gemini.
🪱 Electric eels: They inspired the invention of the battery over 200 years ago, they’ve amazed anthropologists for decades, and now, it turns out their electric nature might unintentionally be affecting genetic modification in their environment.
✈️ Last month, Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 787 became the world's first commercial airliner to cross the Atlantic using 100% biofuel. The question now is how do we produce biofuel en-masse and sustainably?
🌳 Trees are truly the gift that keeps on giving: they absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, filter rainfall, improve our mental health, and… can be used to create low-cost, long-lasting solar cells?
👶 Fertility is becoming big business: More and more women are seeking new services to plan their future parenthood, years before they ever intend to conceive.
🚁 The drone warfare taking place during the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict takes a weird turn, with a 6.6-inch recon and surveillance drone now dominating the battlefield.
🧠 Size isn’t everything: Scientists are examining evidence that proves that the exceptionally large size of the human brain is not alone responsible for our intelligence, but rather how it’s wired.
🤖 I, Robot: The world's first factory mass-produced humanoid robots will soon be opening in the United States, with the ultimate goal of manufacturing 10,000 units yearly.
This week I’m curious about…
💬 This Quote
“The mastery of our genetic source code allows humans to engineer not just innate human well-being, but also the well-being of all sentience. Post-CRISPR life on Earth deserves a more civilized signaling system: a pleasure-super pleasure axis.”
🔍 This Conversation
We put too much stock in AI, when nearly all of its knowledge is based on human wisdom, discoveries, and experiences. Should we be revering our own creation to this extent?
🗣️ This HYPERSCALE Podcast Guest
“I think we need more population, not less. I agree with Elon Musk on that a hundred percent.”
[Listen to the full podcast here]
📚 This Book:
To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death - Mark O’Connell
📰 This Article: