Curated Commons // Edition 118
Welcome to the 118th edition of Curated Commons! I am so glad you have subscribed (if you haven't yet, what are you waiting for?). I hope you will find the content interesting and engaging, so please share it on your social networks. It's free and ad-free. Happy reading ($ indicates potential paywall).
Brain-computer interface, minus the surgery
Very interesting startup that also is doing an FDA-approved trial for a brain-computer interface aiming to help paralyzed people communicate through thoughts. Raises money from Bezos/Gates/others, including Reliance Digital Health - Read here ($)
AI, and the pesky matter of ethics
ChatGPT, or Lensa where you can convert selfies into portraits, bring up the thorny questions of how the AI algorithms that are behind them trained. Forget compensating the source of the datasets, in many, or rather almost all, cases, neither have the humans that created the data in the first place given consent nor are they likely aware that their ‘content’ is training an algorithm some place. - Read here ($)
Automation in apparel manufacturing
Clothes are messy from a handling standpoint in comparison to a piece of metal - they bend & fold. That makes it tricky for robots to handle them. But can they help cut the cost differential with something made offshore entirely by humans? Companies are working on that. And jeans might be the first piece of apparel made by robots - Read here
How do tech markets look around the world?
Very good photo feature of how tech bazaars around the world look - Read here
Can we have a ChatGPT for robotics?
Fascinating thread. One area I’m looking forward to!
Covert online campaigns are now well and truly global
Sigh. The more we are connected, the less we can trust the connected world. - Read here
Remote world, familiar problems, augmented with tech
Good piece highlighting how there’s a small-scale industry within China, and quite likely in many other parts of the world, for helping students cheat in online examinations. - Read here
OSINT is on the rise
Open Source Intelligence is on the rise. Leveraging available data for strategic and economic advantage. And China has apparently 100,000 analysts dedicated to it - Read here($)
Fusion takes a step forward
Like someone was saying, are we finally getting close to getting a version of artificial general intelligence and now nuclear fusion by the end of the decade? - Read here
Can you use NLP to discover new drugs?
Interesting new approach to use natural language processing algorithms to speed-up drug discovery - Read here ($)
It’s a ChatGPT world. For now
Here’s how you can get around its safeguards
Some practical things ChatGPT can already help you with
Can ChatGPT write a novel? - Read here ($)
And here’s one thing you shouldn’t ask ChatGPT
More Interesting Reads:
Should peer review be dropped? - Read here
Europe’s semiconductor goals, what is it good at and what does it need to focus on? - Read here ($)
Carlos Ghosn escaped. The ones who helped him escape got caught - Read here ($)
Diving into garbage bins for food - fighting food waste or beating soaring inflation? - Read here
How a drug-smuggling cartel infiltrated the world’s biggest shipping company - Read here ($)
And finally, a friendly reminder, given all the noise around the bird site
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