The Obtain: hyperrealistic deepfakes, and clear power’s implications for mining

Till now, AI-generated movies of individuals have tended to have some stiffness, glitchiness, or different unnatural parts that make them fairly simple to distinguish from actuality.

For the previous a number of years, AI video startup Synthesia has produced these sorts of AI-generated avatars. However as we speak it launches a brand new technology, its first to benefit from the most recent developments in generative AI, and they’re extra practical and expressive than something we have seen earlier than.

Whereas as we speak’s launch means virtually anybody will now have the ability to make a digital double, earlier than the expertise went public, Synthesia agreed to make certainly one of Melissa Heikkilä, our senior AI reporter.

This technological progress alerts a a lot bigger shift. More and more, a lot of what we see on our screens is generated (or at the very least tinkered with) by AI, and it’s changing into increasingly more troublesome to differentiate what’s actual from what just isn’t. And this threatens our belief in all the things we see, which might have very harmful penalties. Learn the total story and take a look at the artificial model of Melissa.

Need much less mining? Change to scrub power.

Political fights over mining and minerals are heating up, and there are rising considerations about the way to supply the supplies the world must construct new power applied sciences. 

However low-emissions power sources, together with wind, photo voltaic, and nuclear energy, have a smaller mining footprint than coal and pure gasoline, in line with a brand new report from the Breakthrough Institute launched as we speak.

The report’s findings add to a rising physique of proof that applied sciences used to deal with local weather change will probably result in a future with much less mining than a world powered by fossil fuels. Learn the total story.

—Casey Crownhart

Within the local weather world, hydrogen is probably the final word multi-tool. It may be utilized in gasoline cells or combustion engines and is typically referred to as the Swiss Military knife for cleansing up emissions. However the actuality as we speak is that hydrogen is way more of a local weather drawback than an answer. To seek out out why, try the newest version of The Spark, our weekly local weather and power publication. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.