The Download: China’s monkeypox crisis, and fighting AI photo manipulation
This story is from The Algorithm, Melissa’s weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Worldcoin’s data-capturing plan is working
Despite glaring privacy concerns, plenty of people like cash rewards. (Rest of World)
+ How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Twitter is suing a nonprofit that says it hosts hate speech
The Center for Countering Digital Hate claims Elon Musk is trying to silence it. (WSJ $)
+ The company’s advertising income is still in freefall. (FT $)
+ Its new slogan is the rather lame ‘Blaze your glory!’ (Motherboard)
3 Meta is creating chatbots with personas for its platforms
Which seems like a particularly creepy way to boost engagement. (FT $)
+ Just as it looks like Threads is losing its initial attraction. (Slate $)
+ Google wants to make its Assistant more personable, too. (The Verge)
4 Post-Roe, pregnancy-related deaths are probably rising
The problem is, there’s no way of knowing exactly how much. (Undark Magazine)
+ The cognitive dissonance of watching the end of Roe unfold online. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Amazon wants to deliver your packages even faster
Think hours, rather than days. (Insider $)
+ Spare a thought for your delivery driver in the heat. (Wired $)
6 TikTok is pushing a dietary supplement as a weight loss solution
It’s not exactly new, but it’s attracting new attention in the age of Ozempic. (Wired $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)
