The newsletter also highlights various tech stories, including the growth of data centers due to AI, record high emissions in 2023, and the freezing of GoFundMe donations to Gaza. It also discusses the potential inability to control AI's hallucinations, the investigation into OpenAI by the SEC, and the use of AI in creating viral photos. The edition concludes with a feature on the Longevity Investors Conference, where scientists and biotech founders pitched their ideas for prolonging healthy life to wealthy investors.
Key takeaways:
- Traditional herding methods in West Africa's Sahel are becoming increasingly impossible due to climate change, politics, and war. Western tech solutions like AI and predictive analysis have been proposed, but some believe a simpler solution could be to put real data directly into the herders' hands.
- Bacteria are evolving in a way that could help clean up the water supply in the US, which has been contaminated by pharmaceuticals and personal care products.
- The AI industry is causing a data center goldrush, with its global data center footprint predicted to rise from 2% to 10% by 2025.
- At the first in-person Longevity Investors Conference, scientists and biotech founders made the case for various approaches to prolonging the number of years we might spend in good health, in an attempt to win over deep-pocketed investors.