Good morning! Today: the coronavirus test that might get (some of) us back outside, introverts aren't enjoying lockdown either, and AI can't predict how a child's life will turn out. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day.
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The coronavirus test that might exempt you from social distancing—if you pass
Test, test, test: To beat the virus and stop its spread, says the World Health Organization, we need to identify those who are infected and isolate them, as well as those at risk. But, as reported by MIT Technology Review a few weeks ago, there’s also a serious need for us to find out who has already been infected and is now, presumably, immune to the virus (although we still do not know that for sure). That’s what a serological, or antibody, test would do. If a test like this ever becomes available, it could radically shape how we decide who gets to leave home and return to some semblance of normal life.
Why we need it: It will help answer some basic questions like how widespread the infection is, what the true fatality rate is, and what kinds of measures to stop the spread are actually working.
How it works: Usually blood is taken from a finger prick, then the test analyzes a patient’s serum—the liquid portion of blood that excludes cells and clotting factors but includes antibodies. Clinicians look for antibodies that were made in response to the large protein that sticks out of the coronavirus’s surface, indicating the patient has been exposed to coronavirus.
—Neel V. Patel
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Lockdown was supposed to be an introvert’s paradise. It’s not.
The dream: This was supposed to be the moment for introverts—the disaster preppers of our new, covid-ravaged social lives. Those who cherished their time alone at home were already experts at voluntary self-isolation. Once, backing out of happy hour at a bar to read a book made you a bad friend. Now it’s patriotic.
A nightmare: As people began to adjust to isolation, they started to find ways to bring their outside social lives into their homes. Living rooms that were once a sanctuary from people-filled offices, gyms, bars, and coffee shops became all those things at once. Calendars that had been cleared by social distancing suddenly refilled as friends, family, and acquaintances made plans to sip “quarantinis” at Zoom happy hours, hold Netflix viewing parties, or just catch up over Google hangouts. The result, for introverts, extroverts, and everyone in between, is the bizarre feeling of being socially overwhelmed despite the fact that we’re staying as far away from each other as we can. Read the full story.
—Abby Ohlheiser
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AI can’t predict how a child’s life will turn out even with a ton of data
Some context: Policymakers have long tried to understand how different factors might change the trajectory of someone’s life, so they can propose interventions to promote the best outcomes. In recent years they’ve increasingly relied upon machine learning.
Is that wise? A new study casts doubt on how effective this approach really is. Three sociologists at Princeton University asked hundreds of researchers to predict six life outcomes for children, parents, and households using nearly 13,000 data points on over 4,000 families. None of the researchers got even close to a reasonable level of accuracy, regardless of whether they used simple statistics or cutting-edge machine learning.
Not such a shock: For experts who study the use of AI in society, the results are not all that surprising. Research has repeatedly shown that within contexts where an algorithm is assessing risk or choosing where to direct resources, simple, explainable algorithms often have close to the same prediction power as black-box techniques like deep learning. Read the full story.
—Karen Hao
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We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)
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The top ten must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The world just reached 1 million official coronavirus infections
In just four months, it’s caused more than 53,000 deaths. ( Bloomberg)
2 Trump finally invoked the Defense Production Act for ventilator manufacturing
It directs the supply of materials to six companies to speed up their ability to produce ventilators and N95 face masks. ( CNN)
+ A bit more about that law and its history. ( NYT $)
3 Poland shows how hard it is to launch a quarantine enforcement app
Public safety butts up against human rights and personal freedom. ( Politico)
+ There is no need to sacrifice privacy to combat coronavirus, say European activists. ( Sifted)
4 We all need to understand epidemiology models better
They simulate a range of potential outcomes. They do not, and cannot, predict the future. ( The Atlantic)
5 Influencers are fleeing from the city to isolate in the countryside
And angering a WHOLE lot of people in the process. ( NYT $)
6 Plastic bags are back thanks to covid-19
But there’s no evidence reusable bags can spread the virus. ( The Verge)
7 This is why there’s a toilet paper shortage 🧻
Our homes are taking ALL the burden of our bathroom visits. ( Marker)
8 People are still selling bogus coronavirus cures on Amazon
The company is locked in a never-ending arms race with scammers and profiteers. ( WP $)
+ Amazon planned to smear the warehouse organizer it fired. ( Vice)
9 Robot vans are delivering food in China 🤖🛒
They can’t catch coronavirus, right? ( IEEE Spectrum)
10 Amid all this, Blue Origin is still working on getting billionaires to space
Its employees are… not happy. ( The Verge)
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“There are really no best practices. We’ve never been in this situation before! Nobody has a clue what to do for any population of kids, much less ours.”
—The founder and head of Lang School in New York, Micaela Bracamonte, admits to the New Yorker that she has no idea if running classes on Zoom will work for her 2E students.
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