The Download: what’s next for AI, and fighting digital censorship
DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman wants to build a chatbot that does a whole lot more than chat. In a recent conversation he had with our senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, he explained his view that generative AI is just a phase.
What’s next, he says, is interactive AI: bots that can carry out tasks you set for them by calling on other software and people to get stuff done. He also calls for robust regulation—and doesn’t think that’ll be hard to achieve.
While many will scoff at Suleyman’s brand of techno-optimism—even naïveté—he is not the only one talking up a future filled with ever more autonomous software. And, unlike most people, he has a new billion-dollar company, Inflection, with a roster of top-tier talent. It may just put him in a position to change the world in the ways he’s always wanted to. Read the full story.
How new tech is helping people circumvent digital authoritarianism
Questions about who gets to control the internet and who gets access to online information are central to the future of our world. They have ramifications for geopolitics, free speech, national security, political organizing, human rights, equity, and power distribution in general.
We’re in the midst of a quiet technological arms race between the censors and those trying to evade them. And as people grow more dependent on digital tools and platforms, the harm done by online censorship becomes more serious. Read the full story.
—Tate Ryan-Mosley
