The Download: the mortality issue, and America’s new favorite shopping app

This is currently&#8217s edition of The Obtain, our weekday newsletter that gives a daily dose of what&#8217s heading on in the planet of technology.

Introducing: The Mortality Situation

From the instant you’re born, the one particular issue you can be entirely specific of is that you will die. But what if aging is not inevitable, soon after all? And if you could gradual, or even change again the clock, would you?

The latest difficulty of MIT Technological know-how Critique examines what loss of life means to us in 2022, digging into why some people are nonetheless dedicating their lives to kicking against it, even though other people are developing their very own coping mechanisms for grief. Here’s a selection of some of the new tales in the edition, guaranteed to get you pondering about what arrives next.

• My colleague Charlotte wrote a lovely piece about producing electronic clones of her (living) mom and dad, for a glimpse into what it could be like to discuss to the useless. Would you be ready to do the same for your cherished kinds? 
• If you have ever questioned about what occurs to your human body when you donate it to science, question no far more.
• Just due to the fact AI can make daily life-and-dying choices, does not automatically indicate we should make it possible for it to.
• Why the impossible-seeming aspiration of reviving frozen human bodies working with cryonics refuses to die.
• Should we imagine in—or even want—immortality?
• In an age when every thing is currently being recorded, even understanding has a lifespan.
• Are electrical motor vehicles truly the option to the climate disaster they’re getting touted as?
• Technological innovation made use of to be a thing to get thrilled about. When did it grow to be a little something to dread?

Read the comprehensive journal, and if you haven’t previously, you can subscribe to MIT Technologies Critique for as tiny as $80 a year.

The largest buying app in America that you have under no circumstances heard of

There’s a new Chinese e-commerce app that is quietly but quickly expanding. It is referred to as Temu. And on October 17, it turned the most downloaded shopping application in the United States, beating off competitiveness from Amazon, Walmart, and its Chinese competitor Shein.

If your quick response is What? I have hardly ever even heard of Temu!, you are in excellent company. The app stays obscure amid most people today, however it marks a further large-profile endeavor by however a further Chinese tech large to attempt its luck in the American e-commerce market. So how did Temu rise to the top rated of the iOS Application Store’s browsing chart? Go through the entire tale.

—Zeyi Yang

Zeyi’s story is from China Report, his new weekly newsletter filling you in on all the most current happenings in China. Indication up to get it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The ought to-reads

I’ve combed the online to find you today’s most fun/essential/scary/intriguing tales about technological innovation.

1 Conspiracy theorists have seized on Russia’s “dirty bomb” claims
Even with there getting no evidence for its existence. (NYT $)
+ Russia’s presentation on the so-referred to as filthy bomb contained 9/11 footage. (Motherboard)
+ The war in Ukraine is dragging us again to a bloodier age. (Economist $)

2 Celeb deepfakes are advertising’s following frontier
The corporations behind them think the certain focus is value the potential lawful repercussions. (WSJ $)
+ Within the peculiar new world of currently being a deepfake actor. (MIT Technological know-how Evaluate)

3 Twitter’s most energetic people are turning their again on it
And its employees are not solely guaranteed why. (Reuters)
+ Twitter has been ever madder than regular more than the past 7 days. (Motherboard)
+ Elon Musk is optimistic he can shut his offer by Friday. (Reuters)
+ Why Twitter even now has those awful Trends. (MIT Technological innovation Assessment)

4 US election officials are swamped with general public records requests 
It’s all many thanks to one person in Florida. (Bloomberg $)

5 Climate activists are suing governments
They assert that authorities’ inaction to shield nature has harmed their constitutional rights. (Hakai Journal)
+ Character-primarily based solutions can assistance to mitigate the local climate disaster&#8217 effects. (CNET)
+ Local weather motion is getting momentum. So are the disasters. (MIT Technologies Evaluate)

6 Tech’s unicorns are turning out to be rarer once again
Traders aren’t offering up hope, although. (WP $)
+ Some venture funds funds are heading right after narwhals alternatively. (Bloomberg $)

7 Sexually transmitted bacterial infections are rising in the US
Physicians are holding off prescribing a pill precisely developed to overcome them, nevertheless. (Vox)

8 The pandemic proved it was probable to carry out fantastic science immediately
Better transparency around exploration could enable to carry it on. (Wired $)
+ Is a covid and flu “twindemic” on the horizon? (MIT Engineering Review)

9 NASA’s significant UFO investigation has begun
Probably the truth of the matter seriously is out there. (Motherboard)
+ Radiation-resistant microorganisms could survive on Mars for hundreds of thousands of yrs. (New Scientist $)

10 Singapore’s politicians are TikTok superstars
Their clips are fulfilled with virtually unparalleled positivity. (Relaxation of Globe)

Quote of the day

“It&#8217s not superior, it&#8217s not fun.”

—Palmer Luckey, who founded Oculus VR, is not a admirer of Meta’s VR social app Horizon Worlds, Insider reviews.

The large story

This is how AI bias seriously happens—and why it’s so really hard to fix

February 2019

If we want to be capable to take care of bias in AI, we need to realize the mechanics of how it occurs in the 1st spot.

We normally shorthand our rationalization of AI bias by blaming it on biased training knowledge, but the fact is a lot more nuanced. Bias can creep in extensive before the knowledge is gathered as well as at several other phases of the deep-mastering process—and can be amazingly really hard to fix. Go through the whole story.

—Karen Hao

We can however have nice items

A area for ease and comfort, pleasurable and distraction in these bizarre situations. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet &#8217em at me.)

+ Animals genuinely do do the funniest issues (thanks Charlotte!)
+ Guys, would you dare to bare in a backless match?
+ Nicely, this smaller wood ball rolling down a colossal xylophone in a Japanese forest has built almost everything greater.
+ I had no notion a magnified ant deal with would be these types of nightmare fodder.
+ Dare you visit this spooky Italian ghost city?