Fireplace-resistant houses, and Massive Tech’s AI chokehold

With every devastating wildfire within the US West, officers think about new strategies or rules that may save houses or lives the following time.

Within the components of California the place the hillsides meet human growth, and the place the state has suffered recurring seasonal hearth tragedies, that seek for new technique of survival has particularly excessive stakes. 

Many of those strategies are low price and low tech, however no much less actually modern. In truth, the toughest half to sort out is probably not supplies engineering, however social change. Learn the complete story.

—Susie Cagle

Susie’s story is from our forthcoming Schooling print challenge. In case you’re not already a subscriber, you possibly can join from simply $69 a 12 months—a particular low value to mark Earth Week.

Generative AI dangers concentrating Massive Tech’s energy. Right here’s how you can cease it

If regulators don’t act now, generative AI will focus Massive Tech’s energy even additional. That’s the central argument of a new report from analysis institute AI Now. To grasp why, think about that the present AI increase relies on two issues: giant quantities of knowledge, and sufficient computing energy to course of it.
  

Proper now, Massive Tech has a chokehold on AI, and enterprise is booming. However what separates this tech increase from earlier ones is that we’ve got a greater understanding of all of the catastrophic methods AI can go awry. And regulators all over the place are paying shut consideration. Learn the complete story.