That is right this moment’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a each day dose of what’s happening on this planet of expertise.
Sam Altman invested $180 million into an organization attempting to delay demise
When a startup referred to as Retro Biosciences eased out of stealth mode in mid-2022, it introduced it had secured $180 million to bankroll an audacious mission: so as to add 10 years to the typical human lifespan.
The enterprise has all the time been obscure about the place its cash had come from. Now MIT Expertise Reveal can reveal that your entire sum was put up by Sam Altman, the 37-year-old startup guru and investor who’s CEO of OpenAI.
The quantity is among the many largest ever invested by a person right into a startup pursuing human longevity, and can fund Retro’s “aggressive mission” to stall growing old, and even reverse it. Learn the complete story.
—Antonio Regalado
If you happen to’d prefer to learn extra about OpenAI:
+ Learn the inside story of how ChatGPT was constructed from the individuals who made it.
+ Sam Altman: That is what I realized from DALL-E 2.
Neglect designer infants. Right here’s how CRISPR is basically altering lives
Gene modifying is a expertise many individuals are inclined to affiliate with its ethically-fraught capacity to create designer infants. However that’s additionally a distraction from the actual story of how the expertise is altering individuals’s lives by means of remedies used on adults with critical ailments.
There are actually greater than 50 experimental research underway that use gene modifying in human volunteers to deal with every little thing from most cancers to HIV and blood ailments, in response to a tally shared with MIT Expertise Assessment.
However these first era of remedies will probably be massively costly and tough to implement—they usually may very well be shortly outdated by a subsequent era of improved modifying medication. Learn the complete story.
—Antonio Regalado
How China takes excessive measures to maintain teenagers off TikTok
The American individuals and the Chinese language individuals have way more in widespread than both aspect likes to confess. Take the shared concern about how a lot time youngsters and youngsters are spending on TikTok (or its Chinese language home model, Douyin).
A number of US senators have pushed for payments that will prohibit underage customers’ entry to apps like TikTok. However ByteDance, the mother or father firm of TikTok, is not any stranger to these requests. In actual fact, it has been coping with comparable authorities pressures in China since a minimum of 2018. Learn the complete story.
—Zeyi Yang
Zeyi’s story is from China Report, his weekly e-newsletter masking China. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Tuesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you right this moment’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 Google developed a robust chatbot years earlier than ChatGPT
Nevertheless, it obtained spooked that the system didn’t meet security and equity requirements.(WSJ $)+ How tech’s AI obsession masks abuses of energy. (Bloomberg $)
+ In principle, copyright regulation may derail generative AI. (Insider $)
+ ChatGPT is in every single place. Right here’s the place it got here from. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
2 A professional-Ukrainian group might have orchestrated the Nord Stream pipeline assault
However there’s no proof that Ukrainian officers had been concerned. (NYT $)
+ Ukraine has denied any involvement within the assault final yr. (BBC)
+ Right here’s how the Nord Stream fuel pipelines may very well be fastened. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
3 How the FBI pushed for extra highly effective facial recognition
It may very well be used to gasoline an unlimited surveillance community. (WP $)
+ Faked CCTV footage is on the rise, too. (Wired $)
+ South Africa’s non-public surveillance machine is fueling a digital apartheid. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
4 Crypto startups are scrambling for funding
Instances are harder than ever since issues went south for the trade’s favourite financial institution. (The Info $)
5 Meta’s massive language mannequin been leaked on 4Chan
It’s the primary mannequin from a significant firm to leak. (Motherboard)
+ Why Meta’s newest massive language mannequin survived solely three days on-line. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
6 Japan was compelled to explode its personal rocket
The car’s second engine didn’t ignite throughout takeoff. (Ars Technica)
+ What’s subsequent in area. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
7 YouTube simply can’t do away with Andrew Tate
His misogynistic movies preserve being re-uploaded, regardless of an current ban. (The Atlantic $)
8 The hidden dangers of the share financial system
When nearly something might be rented out to strangers, not everyone seems to be well-meaning. (The Guardian)
9 TikTok’s viral drinks depart a nasty style within the mouth
Customers are making more and more outlandish concoctions in a bid for views. (FT $)
+ The porcelain problem didn’t have to be actual to get views. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
10 The work telephone is making a comeback 
Partly due to corporations cracking down on TikTok. (Bloomberg $)
Quote of the day
“I independently made my cash, versus say, inherited an emerald mine.”
—Halli, a just lately laid-off Twitter employee, fires again at his former boss Elon Musk, who accused Halli of shirking his work duties.
The massive story
Why can’t tech repair its gender drawback?
Regardless of the tech sector’s nice wealth and loudly self-proclaimed company commitments to the rights of girls, LGBTQ+ individuals, and racial minorities, the trade stays principally a straight, white man’s world.
It wasn’t all the time this manner. Software program programming as soon as was an nearly totally feminine occupation. As just lately as 1980, ladies held 70% of the programming jobs in Silicon Valley, however the ratio has since flipped totally. Whereas many issues contributed to the shift, from the academic pipeline to the tiresomely persistent fiction of tech as a gender-blind “meritocracy,” none clarify it totally. What actually lies on the core of tech’s gender drawback is cash. Learn the complete story.
—Margaret O’Mara
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Acquired any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Aww, Dave Grohl has cemented his standing because the nicest man in rock.
+ These photographs of a cheetah cub and a pet are the cutest factor you’ll see right this moment.
+ If you happen to take pleasure in nosing by means of tech executives’ emails, this Twitter account is the one for you.
+ The ten issues that actor Jeremy Sturdy can’t stay with out are usually unhinged.
+ This story despatched a shiver down my backbone.
