The Download: rebuilding economic security, and solving math problems [MIT Tech Review]

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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.

How the US and its allies can rebuild economic security

—Edlyn V. Levine is CEO and co-founder of a stealth-mode technology start up and an affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management and the Department of Physics at Harvard University. 

Fiona Murray is the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT School of Management and Vice Chair of the NATO Innovation Fund. 

A country’s economic security—its ability to generate both national security and economic prosperity—is grounded in it having technological capabilities that outpace those of its adversaries and complement those of its allies.

Though this is a principle well known throughout history, the move over the last few decades toward globalization and offshoring has made ensuring a nation state’s security and economic prosperity increasingly problematic.

For the US and its allies in NATO, a particular problem has emerged: a “missing middle” in technology investment. Insufficient capital is allocated toward the maturation of breakthroughs in critical technologies to ensure that they can be deployed at scale. Here’s what we need to do to fix it.

How machines that can solve complex math problems might usher in more powerful AI

Last Thursday, Google DeepMind announced it had built AI systems that worked together to successfully solve four out of six problems from this year’s International Mathematical Olympiad, a prestigious competition for high school students.

It’s the first time any AI system has ever achieved such a high success rate on these kinds of math problems.

But this breakthrough is not just about math. In fact, it signals an exciting new development in the kind of AI we can now build. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Apple has released the first version of its suite of AI features
It doesn’t yet include OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but is expected to eventually. (CNBC)
+ The early preview is likely to contain a few bugs. (The Verge)
+ Apple used Google’s chips, not Nvidia’s, to train AI models. (Reuters)
+ Apple is promising personalized AI in a private cloud. Here’s how that will work. (MIT Technology Review)

2 SpaceX hopes to launch a rocket off Australia’s coast
If the country agrees, that is. (Reuters)

3 The oil industry has massively overstated the efficacy of carbon capture
It publicly presents the technology as a silver bullet. Behind the scenes, its enthusiasm is much more muted. (Vox)
+ The world’s on the verge of a carbon storage boom. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The global chip war is escalating
Countries are now prioritizing data centers on their own soil. (FT $)
+ Quantum computers could become increasingly commonplace in the centers. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is building its first European data center. (Nikkei Asia $)
+ What’s next in chips. (MIT Technology Review)

5 AI companies keep launching new crawler bots
Which is seriously annoying for the websites trying to keep on top of blocking them. (404 Media)

6 Weight-loss drugs could help smokers kick the habit
It’s further evidence that semaglutide could help treat addiction. (New Scientist $)
+ Knock-off versions of the drugs are rife—but they aren’t illegal.  (Undark Magazine)
+ This vibrating weight-loss pill seems to work—in pigs. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Air pollution is preventing bees from pollinating
Which is seriously bad news for plant reproduction. (Knowable Magazine)
+ How robotic honeybees and hives could help the species fight back. (MIT Technology Review)

8 We’re getting much better at predicting the weather
Thanks to AI’s ability to spot weather patterns we might otherwise have missed. (NYT $)
+ Google’s new weather prediction system combines AI with traditional physics. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Meet the singles cobbling together their own dating platforms 
They’re searching for human connections in a sea of algorithms. (Bustle)

10 Tracking polar bears is far from easy
But a new sticky sensor from the company behind Post It Notes could change everything. (Fast Company $)

Quote of the day

“It’s a vibe. I mean, get this guy a chain.”

—Mark Zuckerberg admires the dress sense of Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO and Silicon Valley’s sole style icon, as the pair swap leather jackets, TechCrunch reports.

The big story

How to stop a state from sinking

April 2024

In a 10-month span between 2020 and 2021, southwest Louisiana saw five climate-related disasters, including two destructive hurricanes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, more storms are coming, and many areas are not prepared.

But some government officials and state engineers are hoping there is an alternative: elevation. The $6.8 billion Southwest Coastal Louisiana Project is betting that raising residences by a few feet will keep Louisianans in their communities.

Ultimately, it’s something of a last-ditch effort to preserve this slice of coastline, even as some locals pick up and move inland and as formal plans for managed retreat become more popular in climate-­vulnerable areas across the country and the rest of the world. Read the full story.

—Xander Peters

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

• How to think like an Olympian and smash your goals.
  + Jeff Goldblum’s jazz cover of Taylor Swift’s Lover is an absolute treat.
  + If you missed it over the weekend, Simone Biles’ dazzling return to the Olympics is a sight to behold.
  + Squishy the kitten is possibly the world’s luckiest cat, after a narrow brush with a waste compactor.