Friday, June 13, 2025

The Obtain: Amsterdam’s welfare AI experiment, and making humanoid robots safer

That is immediately’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what’s occurring on this planet of know-how.

Inside Amsterdam’s high-stakes experiment to create truthful welfare AI

Amsterdam thought it was heading in the right direction. Metropolis officers within the welfare division believed they might construct know-how that may stop fraud whereas defending residents’ rights. They adopted these rising finest practices and invested an unlimited quantity of money and time in a challenge that finally processed reside welfare purposes. However of their pilot, they discovered that the system they’d developed was nonetheless not truthful and efficient. Why?

Lighthouse Studies, MIT Know-how Evaluation, and the Dutch newspaper Trouw have gained unprecedented entry to the system to attempt to discover out. Examine what we found.

—Eileen Guo, Gabriel Geiger & Justin-Casimir Braun

This story is a partnership between MIT Know-how Evaluation, Lighthouse Studies, and Trouw, and was supported by the Pulitzer Heart. 

+ Are you able to make AI fairer than a decide? Play our courtroom algorithm sport to search out out.

Why humanoid robots want their very own security guidelines

Whereas humanoid robots are taking their first tentative steps into industrial purposes, the last word purpose is to have them working in shut quarters with people.

One purpose for making robots human-shaped within the first place is to allow them to extra simply navigate the environments we’ve designed round ourselves. This implies they’ll want to have the ability to share area with individuals, not simply keep behind protecting boundaries. However first, they must be secure. Learn the complete story.

—Victoria Turk

MIT Know-how Evaluation Narrated: The stunning barrier that retains us from constructing the housing we’d like

Positive, there’s an excessive amount of purple tape, however there may be one more reason constructing something is so costly: the development trade’s “terrible” productiveness.

That is our newest story to be was a MIT Know-how Evaluation Narrated podcast, which 
we’re publishing every week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Simply navigate to MIT Know-how Evaluation Narrated on both platform, and observe us to get all our new content material because it’s launched.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to search out you immediately’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 Chatbots are getting info in regards to the LA riots improper
AI programs can’t be relied upon at the most effective of occasions, not to mention with fast-moving information. (Wired $)
+ What’s Trump’s purpose right here, precisely? (NY Magazine $)

2 Gavin Newsom is changing into a meme
The California governor’s Trump clapbacks are successful him a legion of on-line followers. (WP $)
+ He’s accused the President of “pulling a navy dragnet” throughout town. (The Guardian)
+ Newsom has warned that different states are more likely to be subsequent. (Politico)

3 Trump’s Massive Lovely Invoice may result in greater than 51,000 deaths a 12 months
Because of the invoice’s provisions for public medical insurance. (Undark)

4 How Ukraine’s AI-guided drones hit Russia’s airfields
However its opponent can be stepping up its AI capabilities. (FT $)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone protection. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

5 US companies tracked overseas nationals travelling to Elon Musk
Officers saved a watch on who visited him in 2022 and 2023. (WSJ $)

6 Snap’s new AR sensible glasses will go on sale subsequent 12 months
Its sixth technology of Specs will enter an more and more crowded discipline. (CNBC)
+ Qualcomm has made a brand new processor to energy related glasses. (Bloomberg $)
+ What’s subsequent for sensible glasses. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

7 Every ChatGPT question makes use of ‘roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon’ of water
That’s in line with Sam Altman, not less than. (The Verge)
+ We did the maths on AI’s power footprint. Right here’s the story you haven’t heard. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

8 Demise Valley’s air might be a priceless water supply
Scientists proved their hydrogel technique labored in the true world. (New Scientist $)

9 Gen Z is selecting to skip school completely
Rising numbers of younger tech staff are opting out and getting into the workforce early. (Insider $)

10 Methods to battle again towards a world of AI-generated selections
Good style is your good friend right here. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“We’re in all probability going to have flying taxis earlier than we have now autonomous ones in London.”

—Steve McNamara, the final secretary of the UK’s Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Affiliation, isn’t optimistic about London’s plans to trial autonomous vehicles, he tells the Guardian.

Yet one more factor

Exosomes are touted as a classy cure-all. We don’t know in the event that they work.

There’s a classy new cure-all on the town—you might need seen adverts pop up on social media or learn rave critiques in magnificence magazines.

Exosomes are being touted as a miraculous remedy for hair loss, ageing pores and skin, pimples, eczema, ache situations, lengthy covid, and even neurological ailments like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. That’s, after all, should you can afford the worth tag—which might stretch to 1000’s of {dollars}.

However there’s an enormous downside with these huge guarantees: We don’t absolutely perceive how exosomes work—or what they even actually are. Learn our story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

We will nonetheless have good issues

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