🎯 How Google Became Cautious of AI and Gave Microsoft an Opening

Plus: This geothermal startup showed its wells can be used like a giant underground battery, China's ChatGPT Black Market Is Thriving, and more…

Today’s pick

How Google Became Cautious of AI and Gave Microsoft an Opening. More than two years ago, a pair of Google researchers started pushing the company to release a chatbot built on technology more powerful than anything else available at the time. The conversational computer program they had developed could… (Miles Kruppa and Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal)

Tom Dotan @cityofthetown

How a pair of Google researchers pioneered a powerful new chatbot 2+yrs ago. And how caution, bureaucracy and politics let Microsoft and OpenAI steal the spotlight—for better or worse. Great inside look by @MilesKruppa @samschech

wsj.comHow Google Became Cautious of AI and Gave Microsoft an OpeningResearchers developed a powerful chatbot years before rival ChatGPT went viral. After management stalled its release, they quit.

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This geothermal startup showed its wells can be used like a giant underground battery. The readings from gauges planted throughout the company's twin wells showed that pressure quickly began to build, as water that had nowhere else to go actually flexed the rock itself. When they finally released the valve, the output of water surged… (James Temple / MIT Technology Review)

James Temple @jtemple

In a refreshing change, I wrote about a startup addressing the root cause of climate change — and this successful @fervoenergy field test may turn out to be a big deal for the grid:

technologyreview.comThis geothermal startup showed its wells can be used like a giant underground batteryIf Fervo Energy’s field results work at commercial scale, it could become cheaper and easier to green the grid.

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China's ChatGPT Black Market Is Thriving. Yuxin Guo is a master's student studying at a Beijing University. For a few months, she had been following online discussions about ChatGPT, the generative AI tool that produces almost natural-sounding language in response to text prompts. One… (Caiwei Chen / WIRED)

Caiwei Chen @CaiweiC

For @WIRED , I wrote about China’s response to ChatGPT — how people are using it, how big techs and entrepreneurs are imitating it, and what opportunities and risks it unveils. Ft. @jjding99 @mattsheehan88 with edits from @PeterGuest

wired.comChina’s ChatGPT Black Market Is ThrivingA booming illicit market for OpenAI’s chatbot shows the huge potential, and risks, for Chinese generative AI.

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Twitter just let its privacy- and security-protecting Tor service expire. Twitter has allowed the certificate for its Tor onion site to expire, effectively killing off a privacy- and speech-protecting service that it introduced last year. Visiting the Tor-specific onion site address will now deliver a warning that the… (Adi Robertson / The Verge)

The Verge @verge

Twitter just let its privacy- and security-protecting Tor service expire theverge.com/2023/3/7/23629…

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The Moon May Get Its Own Time Zone. Since the dawn of the space age, the answer has been: It depends. For decades, lunar missions have operated on the time of the country that launched them. But with several lunar explorations heading for the launchpad, the European Space Agency has… (Claire Fahy / The New York Times)

Claire Fahy @clairemfahy

The latest: Since the beginning of the Space Age, missions to the moon have operated on whatever time zone worked best for the country that launched them. But with an unprecedented amount of traffic headed for the moon, that system is untenable, the @esa said last week.

The New York Times @nytimes

What time is it on the moon? 🌙 As countries plan more lunar missions, creating a new time zone may simplify things. https://t.co/AMCT8ELq3S

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