The Obtain: AI’s refusal downside and weight-loss drug negative effects

That is in the present day’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a each day dose of what’s happening on the earth of know-how.

We’re placing an excessive amount of religion in AI’s capability to say no

At present’s AI fashions are educated to refuse an enormous variety of prompts. In the event you ask your chatbot how one can poison a colleague or how one can tie a noose, likelihood is it’ll flip you down. However refusal fails, typically horrifically.

Some persons are trying to make use of AI to hone organic pathogens and construct autonomous drone swarms. Ultimately, failed refusals might lead to international calamity. What’s extra, counting on refusal means drawing a line between what a mannequin ought to obey and what it should disobey.

Governments may also get to attract their very own traces, probably limiting free speech. On the similar time, the capabilities that make AI helpful may additionally make it harmful. If we would like it to assist treatment most cancers, AI wants genetics experience that might additionally produce bioweapons.

Learn the total story on the formidable tradeoffs of AI refusal.

—Arthur Holland Michel

This story is from the subsequent concern of our print journal. Subscribe now to get your palms on a replica as quickly because it lands on Wednesday 21 October!  

We’re nonetheless determining the negative effects of GLP-1 weight-loss medicine

This week my colleague Antonio Regalado reported on new analysis suggesting GLP-1 medicine might sluggish organic getting older. It’s the newest in a raft of potential advantages related to these medicine. However there are additionally some bizarre negative effects.

The most typical are gastrointestinal, however researchers are additionally investigating potential hyperlinks to hair loss, nail problems and injury to the nerves behind the attention. 

Right here’s what we all know to this point concerning the negative effects of weight-loss medicine.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech e-newsletter. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.

10 Local weather Tech Corporations to Watch: Envision Power and its international ambitions for wind energy

Envision Power is one in every of MIT Know-how Assessment’s10 Local weather Tech Corporations to Watch 2026, out there completely to subscribers.

China is putting in wind generators quicker than some other nation. Considered one of its main producers, Envision Power, is integrating renewable vitality into knowledge facilities, utilizing wind generators to generate energy and batteries to retailer it on-site.

Just lately, it turned the primary firm to straight energy an information middle fully with renewable vitality. An AI-powered system optimizes the facility output so the ability can obtain a gradual provide, no matter whether or not the wind is blowing. Now, it desires to deliver that method to knowledge facilities in deserts around the globe.

Learn the way Envision plans to energy the worldwide AI growth with renewable vitality.

—Cici Zhang

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to seek out you in the present day’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 The US has frozen inexperienced playing cards for Microsoft and different IT companies
It’s accused them of utilizing visa fraud to exchange American employees. (CNBC)
+ And suspended them from a key green-card program. (AP)
+ Adobe, Infosys, Tata, and different IT companies are additionally affected. (TechCrunch)
+ Microsoft says 80% of its H-1B filings concerned present employees. (BBC)

2 A drone strike in Russia knocked out a second Yandex knowledge middle
Ukraine struck and partly disabled the ability in Kaluga. (Reuters $)
+ One other Yandex knowledge middle was hit by a drone a day earlier. (CNBC)
+ Knowledge facilities have change into massive targets for navy strikes. (Bloomberg $) 
+ They could be safer in house. (MIT Know-how Assessment)

3 Anthropic has banned “abusive or merciless conduct” towards Claude
Claude may finish conversations with repeated abuse. (Verge)
+ The coverage builds on Anthropic’s analysis into AI welfare. (Guardian)
+ Debates over AI consciousness are a entice. (MIT Know-how Assessment)

4 OpenAI has slashed its income forecast by $20 billion
The transfer has sparked issues about AI investments. (Guardian)
+ What’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gamble? (MIT Know-how Assessment)

5 Gene enhancing has revealed how a mouse embryo develops
The strategies may assist us perceive developmental problems. (Nature)
+ Feminine clones of male mice have arrived. (MIT Know-how Assessment)

6 SpaceX has unveiled a plan to change into a serious cell provider
It’s shopping for $8 billion in wi-fi spectrum from an funding agency. (WSJ $)
+ The deal may assist it problem AT&T and Verizon. (Verge)

7 ICE has explored utilizing a Palantir device to analyze voter fraud
It wished to trace individuals suspected of voting illegally. (Wired $)

8 Peter Thiel is utilizing biblical prophecy to argue in opposition to AI regulation
His new “Antichrist” lecture casts AI security as a menace to freedom. (Politico)

9 MIT’s Margaret Hamilton, whose software program helped land Apollo 11, has died
She led the group that programmed Apollo’s onboard computer systems. (BBC)
+ And have become a software program pioneer in a male-dominated discipline. (NYT $)

10 This yr’s Nobel science prizes are real-life sci-fi
They span the cosmos, the human mind, and the origins of life. (Economist $)

Quote of the day

“The White Home considers anybody that makes use of the time period, ‘Synthetic Intelligence,’ versus the extremely accepted new and extra correct time period, ‘Tremendous Intelligence,’ THE ENEMY!” 

—President Donald Trump provides an ominous menace to his AI rebranding technique in a submit on Reality Social, Axios stories.

Yet one more factor

This futuristic house habitat is designed to self-assemble in orbit

Increasingly persons are touring past Earth, however the Worldwide House Station can solely maintain 11 of them at a time. 

Aurelia Institute, an structure R&D lab primarily based in Cambridge, MA, is constructing an answer: a habitat that launches in compact stacks of flat tiles—and self-assembles in orbit. 

The idea might sound far-fetched, however it’s already received assist from NASA. Learn the total story.

—Sarah Ward

We will nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line.)

+ What’s it prefer to fly an F-16 at 1,000 mph and pull 9G? This movie finds out.
+ Meet Jimothy, the raccoon with an extra-short neck who has captured hearts internationally.
+ An indie sport developer created a mesmerizing 3D cyberpunk metropolis fully from ASCII characters.
+ What number of luggage of potato chips would it not take to make you float? A Taiwanese video maker has discovered.