The Download: kids outlearning AI, and space travel agents

kids outlearning AI, and space travel agents">

This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Teaching a computer to use human language requires an inhuman amount of data. An LLM can easily churn through a hundred thousand times more words than a person will experience in the process of mastering their mother tongue.

This yawning divide between children and machines is called the data efficiency gap. It raises a tantalizing question for cognitive scientists and a challenge for the architects of AI models: how can children still outperform the most linguistically sophisticated machines ever built?

Kids show that it could be possible to learn more with less. Far less. By reverse-engineering the way they learn, scientists hope to create more data-efficient AI models—and perhaps settle enduring questions about language and children’s developing minds.

Here’s how researchers are trying to close the data gap .

As co-owner of a luxury lifestyle firm, Roman Chiporukha has long turned wild vacation dreams into reality. In 2018, he got a phone call that would open up a new frontier: Axiom Space wanted to find citizen explorers willing to pay $50 million each to join the first fully private mission to the International Space Station (ISS), slated for April 2022.

This showed Chiporukha that the sky was no longer the limit; it was the market. He successfully signed up a private astronaut and then launched SpaceVIP in 2021 to offer celestial experiences that mix culture, science, and purpose.

Find out what it takes to become the Expedia of the cosmos .

These stories are from the next issue of our magazine, which is all about kids. Subscribe now to get your copy as soon as it lands.

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Both parties are turning against AI data centers ahead of the midterms The backlash is spilling onto the campaign trail. ( NYT $) + Republicans have sharply turned against them. ( WP $) + Texas’ governor says data centers “dug their own grave.” ( Axios ) + Here’s why data center opposition crosses party lines. ( MIT Technology Review ) 2 Chinese humanoids have smashed Usain Bolt’s 100-metre world record One ran it in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games. ( Verge ) + Another, also built by X-Humanoid, beat a high jump record. ( ESPN ) + But intricate real-world tasks pose greater challenges. ( Reuters $) + Gig workers are training humanoids at home. ( MIT Technology Review ) 3 Uber has been fined nearly $1 billion over automated suspensions Dutch regulators say drivers were deactivated without human review. ( Quartz ) + It’s the second-largest fine issued yet under the EU’s GDPR. ( Reuters $) 4 New Zealand plans to ban under-16s from social media It’s joined a throng of countries trying to restrict access. ( Bloomberg $) + But opposition parties could torpedo the bill. ( Reuters $) 5 TikTok will pay $400 million to settle a US child privacy case It was sued for allegedly violating ‌children’s online privacy. ( BBC ) + The US DOJ said TikTok illegally collected kids’ information. ( Reuters $) 6 China’s largest-ever car recall covers nearly 3 million Teslas They’re being recalled over door safety concerns . ( Quartz ) + The action covers roughly 4.3 million vehicles in total. ( NYT $) 7 Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine think AI is good for music They compared fear of AI to resistance to earlier technologies. ( NYT $) + AI let a musician with MLS sing again. ( MIT Technology Review ) 8 Taiwan has indicted nine people over alleged illegal AI exports to China They include employees of ​Nvidia and Super Micro ( Reuters $) 9 NASA’s new telescope could discover 200,000 new planets Roman could also reveal new details about dark matter. ( Wired $) + And detect killer asteroids. ( MIT Technology Review ) 10 Plastic bottles can be turned into edible, vanilla-flavour cookies Thanks to genetically-engineered yeast. ( New Scientist $)