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The Download: recreating the early internet, and 2023 in climate data

Dec 21, 2023 - technologyreview.com
The article discusses various tech-related news and updates. It highlights a movement of programmers reviving the old-school HTML approach to website creation, celebrating individuality and human touch in digital experiences. It also discusses the climate records broken in 2023 and the optimism of the climate team at MIT Technology Review. The article also mentions various other tech news, including the discovery of child sexual abuse photos in AI training data sets, Apple's headset release, and the struggles of TikTok moderators in assessing Israel-Gaza content.

In a significant story, the article reveals how a Roomba robot vacuum, used in a development version, captured private images that were posted in online forums by gig workers in Venezuela. These images were sent to Scale AI, a startup that contracts workers globally to label data for AI training. The incident exposes a data supply chain and potential points of personal information leakage that most consumers are unaware of.

Key takeaways:

  • Websites were once manifestations of individuality, built from scratch using HTML by users who had some knowledge of code. There are communities of programmers working to revive this seemingly outdated approach, celebrating the human touch in digital experiences.
  • 2023 has been a significant year for climate news, with weather disasters, technological breakthroughs, and policy changes making headlines. There is an abundance of bad news, but also some glimmers of hope.
  • Child sexual abuse photos have been found in AI training data sets, demonstrating how little we know about the massive amounts of data generative AI models are trained on.
  • Private photos taken by development versions of a Roomba robot vacuum were sent to Scale AI, a startup that contracts workers around the world to label data used to train artificial intelligence. This reveals a whole data supply chain and new points where personal information could leak out that few consumers are even aware of.
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