The North Pole Is Melting, and Robots Want Your Microwaving Data

Two stories caught my eye today, and they couldn’t be more different, yet they both say something about where we’re headed.

First, the North Pole. A research vessel last year found open water and thin ice where there used to be meters of solid pack. That’s not a prediction, that’s happening now. So scientists are drilling into the seabed to figure out if the Arctic Ocean was ever completely ice-free, and what that means for the future. Tim Kalvelage has the full story in the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is all about nature this time. Worth a read if you want to understand just how fast things are changing up there.

Second, humanoid robots. I got invited to an app that pays me to film myself doing mundane stuff like microwaving food or putting things in bowls. Another site wanted me to remotely control a robotic arm to help improve its coordination. At first I thought it was some weird gig economy thing, but it’s actually part of a bigger push by robotics companies to collect real-world movement data for training humanoids. James O’Donnell explains why our everyday actions are being turned into training data. It’s one of the 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now, and honestly, it’s a bit creepy but also fascinating.

Meanwhile, the big tech companies are burning cash on AI like there’s no tomorrow. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta collectively set new AI spending records, up 71% from the same quarter last year. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are seeing some payoffs, but Meta’s shares took a hit after investors got spooked by their plans. The question everyone’s asking: is this an AI bubble? MIT Technology Review has a piece on that too.

Also in the news: the White House is pushing back against Anthropic’s plan to expand access to its Mythos model, citing cyber risks and concerns about the government losing compute access. And Anthropic is reportedly seeking funding at a valuation over $900 billion. That’s a lot of zeros for a company that started as a safety-focused nonprofit.

Elon Musk testified that OpenAI’s leaders “looted the nonprofit” and said he “was a fool” for trusting them. But he also had his own concerns about OpenAI, so it’s not exactly a clean story. The whole thing feels like a messy breakup playing out in public.

I also noticed that scientists are using AI to design new versions of the protein that causes Alzheimer’s, which could help understand the disease better. And there’s a new technique that lets you edit genes in specific cell types without affecting others. That’s the kind of precision medicine that actually excites me.

On the climate front, the EPA is proposing to regulate CO2 from existing power plants, which is long overdue. And a startup called Solugen is making chemicals from plant sugars instead of fossil fuels, which could be a big deal if they can scale it.

Let’s be real: the North Pole melting and robots learning to microwave food are both signs that the world is changing faster than most people realize. Whether that’s good or bad depends on what we do with it.