Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

Late last year, I attended an event hosted by Google to celebrate its AI advances. The company’s domain in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood now extends literally onto the Hudson River, and about a hundred of us gathered in a pierside exhibition space to watch scripted presentations from executives and demos of the latest advances. Speaking remotely from the West Coast, the company’s high priest of computation, Jeff Dean, promised “a hopeful vision for the future.”  

The theme of the day was “exploring the (im)possible.” We learned how Google’s AI was being put to use fighting wildfires, forecasting floods, and assessing retinal disease. But the stars of this show were what Google called “generative AI models.” These are the content machines, schooled on massive training sets of data, designed to churn out writings, images, and even computer code that once only humans could hope to produce.

Something weird is happening in the world of AI. In the early part of this century, the field burst out of a lethargy—known as an AI winter—by the innovation of “deep learning” led by three academics. This approach to AI transformed the field and made many of our applications more useful, powering language translations, search, Uber routing, and just about everything that has “smart” as part of its name. We’ve spent a dozen years in this AI springtime. But in the past year or so there has been a dramatic aftershock to that earthquake as a sudden profusion of mind-bending generative models have appeared.

Most of the toys Google demoed on the pier in New York showed the fruits of generative models like its flagship large language model, called LaMDA. It can answer questions and work with creative writers to make stories. Other projects can produce 3D images from text prompts or even help to produce videos by cranking out storyboard-like suggestions on a scene-by-scene basis. But a big piece of the program dealt with some of the ethical issues and potential dangers of unleashing robot content generators on the world. The company took pains to emphasize how it was proceeding cautiously in employing its powerful creations. The most telling statement came from Douglas Eck, a principal scientist at Google Research. “Generative AI models are powerful—there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But we also have to acknowledge the real risks that this technology can pose if we don’t take care, which is why we’ve been slow to release them. And I’m proud we’ve been slow to release them.”  

But Google’s competitors don’t seem to have “slow” in their vocabularies. While Google has provided limited access to LaMDA in a protected Test Kitchen app, other companies have been offering an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord with their own chatbots and image generators. Only a few weeks after the Google event came the most consequential release yet: OpenAI’s latest version of its own powerful text generation technology, ChatGPT, a lightning-fast, logorrheic gadfly that spits out coherent essays, poems, plays, songs, and even obituaries at the merest hint of a prompt. Taking advantage of the chatbot’s wide availability, millions of people have tinkered with it and shared its amazing responses, to the point where it’s become an international obsession, as well as a source of wonder and fear. Will ChatGPT kill the college essay? Destroy traditional internet search? Put millions of copywriters, journalists, artists, songwriters, and legal assistants out of a job?

Answers to those questions aren’t clear right now. But one thing is. Granting open access to these models has kicked off a wet hot AI summer that’s energizing the tech sector, even as the current giants are laying off chunks of their workforces. Contrary to Mark Zuckerberg’s belief, the next big paradigm isn’t the metaverse—it’s this new wave of AI content engines, and it’s here now. In the 1980s, we saw a gold rush of products moving tasks from paper to PC application. In the 1990s, you could make a quick fortune by shifting those desktop products to online. A decade later, the movement was to mobile. In the 2020s the big shift is toward building with generative AI. This year thousands of startups will emerge with business plans based on tapping into the APIs of those systems. The cost of churning out generic copy will go to zero. By the end of the decade, AI video-generation systems may well dominate TikTok and other apps. They may not be anywhere as good as the innovative creations of talented human beings, but the robots will quantitatively dominate.

From its position in low lunar orbit, South Korea’s first Moon mission caught a unique glimpse of Earth rising from behind the cratered surface of our natural satellite.

The Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri, beamed back beautiful black-and-white images of Earth captured by its high-resolution camera. The two images were taken on December 24 and 28 and released by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute on Monday.

The images show a solemn Earth in the distance, while the Moon’s dusty surface appears in the foreground. From our perspective on Earth, we often see the Moon rising above our planet’s surface. But the images taken by Danuri from lunar orbit provide a counterintuitive view of our home planet glimmering behind the Moon’s surface.

Danuri captured the first image when it was 77 miles (124 kilometers) above the lunar surface and the second when it was around 213 miles (344 kilometers) above its surface.

Danuri launched on August 5 on board SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, marking South Korea’s first deep space mission. On December 17, the spacecraft completed its first lunar orbit insertion maneuver and entered into lunar orbit.

The 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) probe is equipped with four science instruments built locally, as well as a NASA camera to capture views of the lunar surface. From its low orbit, Danuri will explore the Moon’s shadowed regions, which could hold water ice.

By launching Danuri, South Korea hopes to advance its lunar exploration, as the orbiter is designed to scope out potential landing spots for future missions to the Moon. South Korea also wants to launch a lander and a rover, in addition to another orbiter, for the second phase of the mission.

More: Chinese Mission to Pluck Samples from Moon’s Far Side Just Got More Interesting

It looks like Valve might enable local network downloads for Steam Deck, making it easier and quicker to get games on the handheld.

Pavel Djundik, creator of Steam DB, posted on Twitter that Valve had added more code potentially allowing users to move files from their PC to their Steam Deck through local networks. Djundik previously tweeted about Steam working on peer-to-peer downloads in October 2022.

As some Twitter users pointed out, it’s like Warpinator–where users can send and transfer files over local networks–but for the Steam ecosystem.

For now, Steam Deck downloads still need to be done through wi-fi, which for particularly large games, can take a long time. Or if you have more than one gamer in the house, the process takes even longer.

The Steam Deck is still relatively new, but there’s definitely a second-generation Steam Deck planned. According to the designers who spoke to The Verge in an interview, they’d like to focus on improving the console’s battery life and screen in the next iteration. It’s unknown when we can expect to see the future V2 Steam Deck.

In other Steam news, Valve released the results of its 2022 Steam Awards. Elden Ring nabbed both Game of the Year and Best Game You Suck At. Outstanding Story-Rich Game went to God of War and Best Game On The Go went to Death Stranding Director’s Cut.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

New research points to an under-appreciated cause of childhood asthma: gas stoves. The study estimates that about one in every eight cases in the U.S. can be attributed to the indoor pollution emitted by gas stoves. The findings are only the latest to highlight the harmful effects of this ubiquitous way of cooking.

Gas stoves have been around since the 1800s, and over 40 million homes in the U.S., or more than one third of households, are thought to still rely on them today. For several decades, though, some scientists have warned that these stoves can be a major source of indoor air pollution—warnings that have only recently begun to receive wider public attention. These stoves, especially if not properly maintained or used in poorly ventilated homes, can emit unsafe levels of pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and benzene, even when not in use.

Air pollution is an important risk factor for many health problems, especially asthma. But researchers in the U.S. and Australia appear to be the first to try measuring the impact that gas stoves in particular are having on childhood asthma cases in the U.S. To do this, they looked at past studies that analyzed how often gas stove use could contribute to childhood asthma. Then they cross-referenced that with census data on how many children live in homes with gas stoves.

All told, the authors estimated that 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the U.S. are caused by gas stoves. For context, they add, these numbers are roughly comparable to the asthma risk posed by secondhand smoke. And in states with a higher amount of gas stove use, the toll is likely even greater. More than 20% of asthma cases were attributed to gas stoves in Illinois and California, for instance, while Florida had the lowest percentage of cases attributed to gas stoves, at 3%.

“Our results quantify the U.S. public health burden attributed to gas stove use and childhood asthma,” the authors wrote in their paper, published last month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The findings are based on a number of assumptions, so it’s possible that they might over- or undersell the dangers posed by gas stoves, the authors note. But they do line up with an earlier study from some of the same researchers that tried to quantify the asthma risk from gas stoves in Australia. And no one disputes that the pollutants created by gas stoves can cause or worsen childhood asthma. These emissions aren’t just bad for human health either, but the environment as well. A study last year estimated that annual methane emissions from gas stoves over the past 20 years in the U.S. have been equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide spewed out by 500,000 cars.

Citing the many potential harms of gas stoves, scientists, activists, and even local governments have increasingly been calling for homes and businesses to abandon them for electric or induction-based stoves, which produce much lower emissions. But natural gas companies, lobbyists, and some Republican-led governments have pushed back hard against plans to phase these stoves out. New federal regulations on gas stoves might arrive as early as this year, but it could still take years or even decades for them to become wholly discontinued.

In light of that, the authors say that more can be done to make these stoves safer today, such as ensuring proper ventilation in homes. But these stopgap methods, they say, would likely only reduce, not eliminate the risk they pose to kids.

More: Gas Stoves Are the Scariest Thing in the Kitchen

If you live in Seattle, the prospect of a solar-powered electric car may not be that exciting, but enough people in sunnier places want to try the futuristic vehicle that automaker Lightyear has announced its second model. The Lightyear 2 is expected to enter production at the end of 2025 and go on sale with a starting price below $40,000.

According to the company, the Lightyear 2 will halve the lifetime vehicle CO2 emissions compared to a traditional EV. The vehicle also promises 500 miles of range between charges, and the company says it has received 21,000 preorders from car-leasing and ride-sharing companies. Though the amount of solar-powered range was not shared specifically, the car will add several miles each day from its solar panels, the amount determined by the level of available sunlight. 

Lightyear shared few other details, other than that the car will offer an impressive 0.175 drag coefficient, which will make it one of the slipperier cars around. The company did say its 500-mile estimate is based on how much sun would contribute to range during 15,000 miles of driving per year in Chicago.

The crossover-like 2 follows the insanely futuristic-looking Lightyear 0. That car features a range of 388 miles, and the company says its solar panels can add more than 6,800 miles per year. It also costs more than $263,000, so it’s far from becoming a mainstream hit.

Lightyear announced that hopeful buyers could enter their information to get on the waitlist for the car, but a spokesperson told Autoblog that the waitlist is more of an email list to distribute information. Signing up gives priority when preorders and reservations do open, though, so it’s probably best to sign up if you’re at all interested.

If you haven’t been paying close attention, it might seem like solar-powered EVs are coming out of nowhere, but there are at least a couple of other companies in the mix. The Sono Sion is a $25,000 solar EV that should begin production in Europe later this year. It offers a range of 190 miles and provides 5,700 miles of solar charging per year, or around 15 miles per day.

Aptera took a completely different approach than Lightyear and Sono, building a three-wheeled solar EV that looks like an airplane missing its wings. The funky car features up to a 1,000-mile range in the top model and can add up to 30 miles of range in a sunny location.

Solar-powered EVs, like solar-powered homes, are somewhat at the mercy of the weather. The bulk of their range is gained like any other EV, through plugging in, but solar charging contributes. Most of the range numbers seen here are taken in sunny locations, such as Aptera’s, which quotes Southern California as the region. Those of us living in less fantastic climates will see less of an impact from the solar panels, but any ability to charge for free should be welcomed.

As 2023 arrives, it’s time to take action. Consider it a deadline for those of us who’ve been dithering: Twitter is in crisis, and each user must decide their own course of action.

It’s not just that Twitter has been a toxic dumping ground for hate, harassment, and abuse. That’s been the case for at least half a dozen years, and users stuck around. But 2022 left longtime Twitter users shell-shocked. Billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, which once seemed like an unlikely stunt, came to pass, and the results have been disastrous. With an exodus of employees, increase in hateful language, bannings of journalists, the paid verification mess, concerns about Twitter’s overall security, accessibility and stability, and a strong sense that the party is winding down to an ugly conclusion, it’s time (perhaps past time) for a user exit strategy. Consider all of this and more the Case Against Staying on Twitter.

Should you opt for the possibly greener pastures of alternative networks like Mastodon or Post, where many high-profile Twitter users have already migrated? Or should you stay and hope things turn around? Or hey, what about stopping with this type of social-media posting entirely and freeing up some time? Here are some things to consider as you weigh your options:

The Case for Staying on Twitter

If entropy is your thing, staying on Twitter means you don’t have to take any action at all. You could sit on the sidelines, stop posting, and just ride things out to see if the reign of Musk passes and Twitter is somehow able to survive and regain some of its former glory.

Why would anyone do this? You may feel the sunk cost of investing so many years building your followers, lists, and reputation on the platform is too much to let go. You may still see things that make you smile and feel good on the platform. If you’ve carefully curated the list of people you follow, you may be insulated from much of the ugliness on the rest of Twitter. Maybe you only dip in and out and the chaos hasn’t affected your experience. Maybe you don’t care about what’s happening outside of your own Twitter account.

The Case for Going to Mastodon

Mastodon has gotten the lion’s share of attention as alternatives to Twitter have entered the conversation. It launched in 2016 and has a familiar format and feel that doesn’t seem foreign to longtime Twitter users. The character-count limit of 500 is higher than Twitter’s, and there are lots of ways to post images, sound, animations, links, and polls. Unlike on Twitter, you can edit posts, but old versions of the posts are still visible to others, and if your edited post was reposted, others will be made aware of your edits. Mastodon also has a useful content warning feature that allows you to warn followers about sensitive or triggering information in a post.

Because different server instances can be tailored to specific interests or types of communities, you may be able to find people with similar interests and feel welcome more quickly than you would on other social networks. Plus, there are tools to help reconnect with other users who came over from Twitter.

The Case Against Going to Mastodon

Because of its decentralized nature, all of Mastodon’s users aren’t on one server; instead they’re spread across different communities, and new users must choose where they want to start. There are directories to help, but if you’re indecisive, it could be an obstacle to getting started.

Mastodon has no official verification process, paid or otherwise, for users, because of its decentralized nature. Users can get links to home pages automatically verified, but not their Mastodon profile itself. 

The service boasts close to 6 million users, about 3.6 million of them active, which seems like a lot—but it’s nowhere close to Twitter’s user base of nearly 238 million. Of course, that includes bots and fake accounts, but it’s significantly more people to connect with. Still, the rush of users who moved to Mastodon in November caused outages across the platform itself.