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Le Weekend: Rubbish Street Art, Editing The âQueen Of Crimeâ, Indiaâs New Cheetahs
Street artist Bisk has creatively turned piles of rubbish accumulating in the streets of Paris into monsters.
April 1-2
- Nashville shooting fake news
- Reporting from the trenches of Ukraine
- Quebecâs whale-friendly fishing
- ⊠and much more.
âŹïžÂ STARTER
The AI Arms Race Has Begun: Why We Need A NATO For Artificial Intelligence
Like with the atomic bomb, artificial intelligence will divide the world into the haves and the have-nots, French columnist Ădouard TĂ©treau writes. To win the AI arms race, France and its allies need a new transatlantic partnership.
The artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT and its future competitors have started an epistemological and anthropological revolution. This super-powerful tool, a "metalanguage" that feeds on all the human knowledge available online, will disrupt every part of our lives.
We will think and make decisions differently with ChatGPT. We will perform better at work and be better educated, better fed and better supervised, collectively and individually. Whether in manufacturing, intellectual production or essential services like medicine â nothing will escape the power of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence.
Last month, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy discussion of ChatGPT signed by academic Daniel Huttenlocher, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt, former boss of Google.
The authors ask the right, philosophical and essential question: that of trust. ChatGPT's answers have the appearance of intellectual and moral authority (drawing on all the world's online knowledge), but the answer is produced in a black box of machine-to-machine communications, which no one can enter.
The answers are therefore more likely to appear not as scientific, rational fact, but as religious truth. In ChatGPT we trust. Like a divinity that would take shape.
I don't know how an atomic bomb works, but I understand its power enough to know that I want my country to have one, and not my neighbor. But ChatGPT is the Gutenberg printing press + the atomic bomb. A profound redistribution of world power will take place with ChatGPT and AI.
As with the atomic bomb, there will be a club of nations with the means to exploit AI â those who will design the future of the world, and then those who will obey.
This arms race can be summed up in three figures: China has announced a goal of $150 billion in AI investments by 2030, aiming to achieve world leadership. Given the country's strategy of surprise developments in the fields of armament (e.g. balloons), this objective has likely already been reached and surpassed. [...]
â Read the full article by Edouard TĂ©treau for French daily Les Echos, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
đČ OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ
What do you remember from the news this week?
1. Moscow's FSB security service arrested a reporter from which major U.S. publication?
2. Where did King Charles III go on his first overseas trip as monarch?
3. What country woke up in two different time zones amid a clock change dispute?
4. Amsterdam led an ad campaign aimed to keep awayâŠ: Noisy ducks / Rowdy Brits / Garish clothes / Smelly fish
[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]
#ïžâŁÂ TRENDING
A fake tweet from a Twitter Blue verified account raised fears online after the shooting in Nashville Monday that killed six people, including three children. The tweet shows an apparent screenshot of another tweet sent out by Nashvilleâs WSMV-TV station, attributing a quote to the father of one of the children who was killed Monday.
The quote is fake, and WSMV never sent out the tweet. The fake quote claims the parent of a victim said they would âfight with every fiber of my beingâ to end âtrans evil.â The tweet was viewed over 130,000 times before it was removed.
đ 5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW
âą In memoriam: This week the culture world has mourned the deaths of prominent Ethiopian composer and nun Emahoy TseguĂ©-Maryam GuĂšbrou, a.k.a. âthe piano queen,â who died at 99; British TV presenter and comedian Paul O'Grady; American art patron Emily Fisher Landau, who had started one of United Statesâ premier collections of contemporary art, and British lyricist Keith Reid, the songwriter behind Procol Harumâs famed âA Whiter Shade of Pale.â
âą Agatha Christie's novels edited to remove potentially offensive language: Several novels by the âQueen of Crime,â Agatha Christie, have been revised to remove references to gender and race that could be considered offensive, in new editions published by HarperCollins. These are the latest classic works, after Roald Dahl and Ian Flemingâs books, to undergo such changes.
âą Paris rubbish strikes inspire French street artist: National strikes in France caused by President Emmanuel Macronâs unpopular pension reform have impacted public services, including garbage collection in Paris. Street artist Bisk has found a way to make the best of the piles of rubbish accumulating in the streets by turning them into monsters with graffitied eyes, polystyrene or wooden smiles or a repurposed red slide for a tongue.
âą BLACKPINK Jisoo's 1st solo single hits record preorders: South Korean singer and actress Jisoo, a member of girl band BLACKPINK, has set a new record for a K-pop female soloist by selling more than 1.24 million pre-ordered copies of her first single.
âą Priyanka Chopra on why she left Bollywood: Indian actress Priyanka Chopra has revealed for the first time in an interview that she left Bollywood to pursue a career in the U.S. because she felt she was âpushed into a cornerâ and had âa beefâ with people in the Indian film industry, which meant she was no longer getting cast for roles.
đșđŠ Live from the trenches of AvdiivkaÂ
Journalists from Ukrainska Pravda report directly from the trenches near Avdiivka, one of the oldest settlements in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, where troops are facing near-constant Russian fire.
Read the full story: From The Trenches Of Avdiivka, Ukraine's Hell On Earth
đȘđș Who are the captains of migrant trafficking boats?
Since 2015, Europe's strategy to stop irregular migration has focused on arresting so-called smugglers. But those steering the vessels are usually desperate migrants themselves, forced to take the helm. âCriminalizing the boat driver means not knowing the migration phenomenon in its complexityâ writes Annalisa Camilli for Italian daily Internazionale.
Read the full story: Why The "Captains" Of Migrant Trafficking Boats Are Often The First Victims
âïž đŠđ· The time has come to buy a plane ticket as a gift
The innovative airline based in Argentina is offering plane tickets that can be given as a gift, or even sold, in what it says is a first anywhere in the world. Argentine media ClarĂn, explains the new phenomenon behind transferable airline tickets.
Read the full story: Low-Cost Carrier Flybondi Creates First-Ever Transferable Airline Tickets
đ BRIGHT IDEA
Getting stuck in fishing gear is one of the main threats to the survival of Atlantic wales. A Quebec invention could now reduce this risk of mortality. Quebec University and the Merinov applied research center, specializing in the field of fishing, have developed a âweak linkâ system that causes the cable attached to the snow crabs fishermenâs crates to break if a whale gets entangled.
âWhat is innovative with this technology is that these weak links can withstand high tensions when fishermen raise their traps, but when the whale puts tension on the rope when it is stuck, the India has welcomed its first newborn cheetahs, almost 70 years after the big cats were declared extinct in India, back in 1952. The birth of the four cubs, which took place at Kuno National Park wildlife sanctuary, was hailed by Indiaâs Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, who called it âwonderful newsâ on Twitter.,â explains JĂ©rĂŽme Laurent, industrial researcher at Merinov.
đŻđŻđŻđŻ SMILE OF THE WEEK
India has welcomed its first newborn cheetahs, almost 70 years after the big cats were declared extinct in India, back in 1952. The birth of the four cubs, which took place at Kuno National Park wildlife sanctuary, was hailed by Indiaâs Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, who called it âwonderful newsâ on Twitter.
đč THIS HAPPENED VIDEO â TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
âĄïž Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
â©Â LOOKING AHEADÂ
âą Following his indictment by a New York grand jury in connection with an alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday.
âą French unions have called for an eleventh day of national strikes on Thursday to protest against President Emmanuel Macronâs unpopular pension reform.
âą NASA will announce on Monday the names of the four astronauts who will take part in Artemis II â the first Moon mission in more than 50 years.
News quiz answers:
1. In an escalation of Russia's diplomatic feud with the United States, Moscow's FSB security service said it had arrested an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, on suspicion of spying.
2. King Charles III traveled to Germany this week for his first foreign trip as Britainâs monarch, after his visit to France was canceled due to the ongoing and widespread protests against pension reform.
3. Lebanon woke up in two time zones amid a dispute between political and religious authorities over a decision to delay the clock change by a month.
4. Amsterdamâs City Council has warned rowdy British âsex and drugâ tourists to âstay away,â through a digital discouragement campaign targeting men aged 18 to 35 in the UK.
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