That is at the moment’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s happening on the planet of know-how.

Accountable AI has a burnout downside

Margaret Mitchell had been working at Google for 2 years earlier than she realized she wanted a break. Solely after she spoke with a therapist did she perceive the issue: she was burnt out. She ended up taking medical go away due to stress.

Mitchell, who now works as an AI researcher and chief ethics scientist on the AI startup Hugging Face, is much from alone in her expertise. Burnout is turning into more and more frequent in responsible-AI groups, who’re unlikely to obtain the identical ranges of help as colleagues who specialise in content material moderation, though the work might be simply as psychologically draining.

All of the practitioners MIT Expertise Evaluate interviewed spoke enthusiastically about their work: it’s fueled by ardour, a way of urgency, and the satisfaction of constructing options for actual issues. However that sense of mission might be overwhelming with out the precise help. Learn the total story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Will lab-grown meat attain our plates?

Would you eat lab-grown meat? Loads of corporations have got down to generate meat merchandise from muscle and fats cells cultured in vats—round 80 on the final rely. The promise is large: it might permit us to chop again on intensive animal farming, which might be brutal and inhumane, and to sidestep animal agriculture’s damaging results on the setting.

However whether or not these corporations can ship on that promise is one other matter completely. And even when corporations reach bringing an affordable cultured-meat product to market, would anybody eat it? Learn the total story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, Jessica’s new weekly e-newsletter protecting the ins and outs of the biotech and well being sectors. Join to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to search out you at the moment’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 Elon Musk has purchased Twitter
What occurs subsequent is anybody’s guess. (FT $)
+ Musk wasted no time: plenty of executives are set to depart. (NYT $)
+ His first intuition was to reassure advertisers. (Selection $)
+ The European Union has reminded Musk to play by its guidelines. (Bloomberg $)
+ Right here’s tips on how to delete your Twitter account. (WP $)

2 Everyone seems to be unwell proper now
Flu and different bugs are again with a vengeance now we’re mixing once more. (Vox)
+ When you’re one of many fortunate ones, right here’s tips on how to keep wholesome. (The Atlantic $)

3 Ethereum is difficult to beat
The botched launch of a challenger blockchain demonstrates why. (Wired $) 
+ The Merge has birthed a brand new class of blockchain individuals. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why Ethereum’s swap to proof of stake issues. (MIT Expertise Evaluate) 

4 Large Tech is feeling weak
Their quarterly earnings are down, and executives are nervous. (WP $)
+ Even the most important corporations are not resistant to the financial downturn. (NYT $)

5 How the detention of a Huawei govt worsened US-China relations
The prisoner change additionally implicated Canada. (WSJ $)
+ Additional curbs on exports to China may very well be on their approach. (WP $)

6 The way forward for on-line speech might rely on this European legislation
And pressure them to overtake their moderation programs within the course of. (Slate $)

7 Hydroelectricity has a picture downside
It’s environment friendly and inexperienced, so why accomplish that few international locations need to put money into it? (IEEE Spectrum) 
+ World leaders are set to assemble subsequent week for COP27. (Economist $)
+ Droughts are reducing into California’s hydropower. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

8 Right here’s what a future past animal testing might seem like
A proposed US invoice might push us in the direction of computer-based testing as an alternative. (Neo.Life) 

9 Right here’s how Iranian authorities are controlling protestors’ telephones
The SIAM system breaks encryption and slows connections. (The Intercept)

10 Anime and manga followers are rising up in opposition to DALL-E
Illustrators aren’t thrilled about text-to-image fashions, both. (Remainder of World)
+ It’s getting more durable to distinguish between AI artwork and actual images. (FT $)
+ This artist is dominating AI-generated artwork. And he’s not pleased about it. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

Quote of the day

“The metaverse is ‘residing within a pc.’ The very last thing I need to do after I get house from work throughout a protracted day is reside within a pc.”

—Evan Spiegel, who based Snapchat, has zero time for the metaverse, experiences Bloomberg.

The massive story

Ageing clocks goal to foretell how lengthy you’ll reside

April 2022

Age is way more than the variety of birthdays you’ve clocked. Stress, sleep, and weight loss plan all affect how our organs deal with the damage and tear of on a regular basis life. Elements like these may make you age quicker or slower than individuals born on the identical day. Which means your organic age may very well 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 individual mortality than your chronological age. However calculating it isn’t practically as easy. 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.

The massive thought behind getting older clocks is that they’ll primarily point out how a lot your organs have degraded, and thus predict what number of wholesome years you’ve gotten left. Among the many tons of of getting older clocks developed within the final decade, although, accuracy varies broadly. And researchers are nonetheless grappling with a significant query: What does it imply to be biologically younger? Learn the total story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

We will 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.)

+ Brandi Carlile belting out A Case of You is simply superb. What a voice!
+ Are you in contact together with your shadow self?
+ Sorry marriage ceremony planners—donut partitions are canceled.
+ There’s loads happening within the new Remaining Fantasy XVI trailer.
+ Simply assume all the things’s cake any further, okay?