⤴⤵ Up Wing/Down Wing #2

A curated selection of pro-progress and anti-progress items from the past week

⤴ Up Wing Things

⚡ Tech giants are on the hunt for more energy to power their data centers as AI gains momentum. Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft collectively invested $40 billion, mostly in data centers, between January and March of this year. The electricity consumption of these companies currently rivals that of some small countries and is only poised to grow. This surging demand is pushing Big Tech to seek and invest in cutting-edge clean energy technologies, such as enhanced geothermal systems by Google and nuclear power initiatives by Amazon and Microsoft. Power up!

“The AI industry’s most exotic power plays come courtesy of Sam Altman, the techno-optimistic boss of OpenAI. In a quest to power the AI revolution, he has backed Helion, a nuclear-fusion startup, and Exowatt, which is developing solar modules that can both generate electricity and store it as heat. Mr Altman is now hoping to raise $500m for Oklo, which is working on nuclear micro-reactors that run on spent fuel from larger ones and that could power individual factories, corporate campuses and, of course, AI server farms.” (The Economist)

👁 A CRISPR-based treatment improved vision in a small trial of patients with inherited blindness, a leading cause of global blindness. The gene-editing tool was associated with meaningful vision improvement in most patients after three months, without serious side effects. This study marks the first time that CRISPR has been used in the eyes of living people. “The results of this study provide proof of concept that CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can be used safely and effectively to treat inherited retinal disorders,” said the study’s first author Dr. Eric Pierce, director of the Ocular Genomics Institute at Mass Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School. (CNN)

🏭 US chip production is poised to triple by 2032, increasing its share of the semiconductor industry from 10 percent to 14 percent, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. The 2022 Chips and Science Act is a major contributor to reversing the downward production trend that otherwise would have seen the US share decline to 8 percent in the coming years. These strides will help reduce America's dependence on Asia for this vital, omnipresent technology. “Resilience” is the watchword here. (Bloomberg)

🧬 Google DeepMind has unveiled AlphaFold 3, the third generation of an AI technology that models the “building blocks” of life within cells and how they interact with one another. The researchers hope to apply the technology to transform pharmaceuticals, predicting that “AI could double the productivity of pharma research and development.” From the NYT: The technology could “save months of experimental work and enable research that was previously impossible,” said Deniz Kavi, a co-founder and the chief executive of Tamarind Bio, a start-up that builds technology for accelerating drug discovery. “This represents tremendous promise.” (Financial Times/NYT)

⚡ Several key breakthroughs are inching us “very close” to a room-temperature superconductor that would be able to transmit electricity with no resistance. Currently, superconductors require extreme cold temperatures to function, but scientists have been on a mission to change that. Two plausible materials were reported in March 2023, one of which could operate at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (though only under extreme pressure), the other of which could function both at room temperature and under ambient pressure. Sadly, both claims have since been disproven; however, the near-breakthroughs have fueled the search for a substance that could transform energy production and distribution as we know it. (NewScientist)

🧬 Children born with a congenital form of childhood blindness have hope of restored vision from a new CRISPR gene editing treatment. Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) is often caused by a single mutation, and currently has no effective treatment. Now, CRISPR technology can target the gene responsible for the condition, and preliminary studies have shown promising results, with 79% of participants showing some improvement in at least one measure of visual function, and 43% showing meaningful improvements in cone photoreceptor function. (StudyFinds)

🚀 NASA has proposed the development of a rocket that would shorten the trip from Earth to Mars from the current nine months to just two. The advanced propulsion system would involve a pulsed plasma rocket relying on nuclear fission. “To reach high velocities within a shorter period of time, the pulsed plasma rocket would use nuclear fission — the release of energy from atoms splitting apart —t o generate packets of plasma for thrust.” (Gizmodo)

⚡Gold producer Idaho Strategic Resources has partnered with Radiant Industries to develop and deploy Radiant's portable Kaleidos microreactor. The companies will study the feasibility of using the reactor, designed to replace diesel generators with clean power in remote locations, at an Idaho Strategic site. Radiant aims to test the reactor by 2026 and has received support from the US Department of Energy and Department of Defense. (Morningstar)

💻 US start-up PsiQuantum might be on the cusp of producing the first commercially viable quantum computer. This week, the governments of Australia and the state of Queensland committed the equivalent of $620 million USD to support PsiQuantum’s construction of a quantum computer near Brisbane, Australia. (FT)

🔋 Major developments are happening in battery technology. In 2023, battery deployment doubled from the previous year, reaching nearly 42 gigawatts. Energy storage is improving to mitigate waste. Batteries themselves are getting cheaper, with costs dropping 90 percent since 2010 and falling. Our future energy systems will be highly reliant on battery power, and the technology is improving to meet the challenge. (MIT Tech Review)

🌌 George Weigel recalls the launching of Voyager I in 1977. Since its departure, the space probe has sent images of Jupiter, Saturn, their respective moons, and significant amounts of data home to Earth. Eventually, Voyager I may come in contact with distant life forms, bringing them a set of audio messages with glimpses of life on Earth: “The intelligence and imagination that created Voyager 1, and that has kept us in contact with our “most distant emissary,” testify to the spiritual nature of human beings: creatures possessed of a reason that insistently probes the truth of things and a will to explore what has been discovered. No merely material compound of atoms and cells could have imagined, built, and operated Voyager 1. (First Things)

Up Wing X Post of the Week:

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⤵ Down Wing Things

🤖 Warren Buffet has expressed concern about AI, particularly with regards to deepfakes and their potential to be used in scamming. Buffet likened the advent of AI to the invention of nuclear weapons in terms of its power and irreversibility: 

“We let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons,” Buffett said Saturday during Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, Neb. “AI is somewhat similar—it’s part way out of the bottle.” The billionaire investor acknowledged that he knew little about how the underlying technology works, but said he had reason to worry. He recently saw his own image and voice so convincingly replicated by an AI tool that Buffett said even his wife and children would have struggled to determine they were fake.  (WSJ)

⚠ The precautionary principle has been the default approach to AI regulation in most legislative contexts, so far. Now, Hawaii has officially included the precautionary principle in its new AI bill. The policy completely ignores all legislative harms that could actually be mitigated through the introduction of AI, choosing instead to stay on the safe side, even if that means bringing AI-related tech progress to a screeching halt. (Reason)

📉 The US has long enjoyed a "safe harbor" status, with investors valuing its stability and assigning it a risk premium of zero. But over the past eight years, US political risk has increased, and the country's "shadow" risk premium is now estimated to be 25-35 basis points, roughly half of the UK's post-Brexit premium. This rise in political risk, if gradually priced in, could lead to higher unemployment and a smaller economy than otherwise. A rapid repricing of risk, coupled with a pullback in foreign investment, could have even more severe consequences, with significantly lower equity wealth per household and reduced labor earnings per worker. (The Budget Lab)

🍎 Apple’s marketing team has been widely criticized by artists and creatives of all kinds in the wake of their most recent iPad advertisement. The ad, called “Crush!,” depicts a host of creative tools being literally crushed, replaced by their new, super-thin device’s AI tools. It has aggravated artists’ biggest AI fears: This is the nail in the coffin of human creativity. (Bloomberg Opinion)

Down Wing X Post of the Week: