The Oxford covid-19 vaccine candidate has produced promising early trial results

OpenAI's new language generator GPT-3 is shockingly good—and completely mindless

Sponsored by IBM The Download Your daily dose of what’s up in emerging technology 07.21.20 Good morning! Today: the Oxford covid-19 vaccine candidate reports promising initial trial results, and OpenAI releases GPT-3, a shockingly good (but completely mindless) new AI language generator. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. The Oxford covid-19 vaccine candidate has produced promising early trial results   The news: A covid-19 vaccine candidate being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca proved safe and provoked a strong immune response in its first clinical trials. Participants’ systems produced both antibodies and T cells, and only relatively mild side effects were observed. The results were described in a paper in The Lancet. The study: The trial consisted of 1,077 healthy adults who received either the experimental vaccine, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, or a meningitis vaccine. Antibody responses peaked by day 28 and remained high until day 56 of the trial, the last day of testing. The covid-19 vaccine also resulted in “marked increases” in T cell responses. T-cells are a type of white blood cell that can recognize and attack an invading virus. Provoking a strong T-cell response could be important: there is growing evidence it might be crucial to producing any form of lasting immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Next: We don’t know if this vaccine works to protect people yet, just that it stimulates a promising response in the body. Further trials involving more than 10,000 people are already under way in the UK, while 30,000 people are being recruited in the US plus 5,000 in Brazil and 2,000 in South Africa. OpenAI’s new language generator GPT-3 is shockingly good—and completely mindless Uncanny: “Playing with GPT-3 feels like seeing the future,” Arram Sabeti, a developer and artist, tweeted last week. That pretty much sums up the response on social media in the last few days to OpenAI’s latest language-generating AI. GPT-3 is the most powerful language model ever. OpenAI plans to turn it into a commercial product later this year, offering businesses a paid-for subscription to the AI via the cloud. A big improvement: Its predecessor, GPT-2, was already able to spit out convincing streams of text. But GPT-3 is a big leap forward. Sabeti linked to a blog post where he showed off short stories, songs, press releases, technical manuals, and more. GPT-3 can even write computer code.  Before you get overexcited: It’s also no surprise that many have been quick to start talking about intelligence. But GPT-3’s human-like output and striking versatility are the results of excellent engineering, not genuine smarts. For one thing, the AI still makes ridiculous howlers that reveal a total lack of common sense. Read the full story.  —Will Douglas Heaven 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.)   + Soviet-era bus stops are quite something to behold.   + Want to watch Henry Cavill building a PC? Of course you do.   + A BBC radio series dedicated to reshaping society for the better.   + This boy will not go to sleep until he “pet that dog.” Sponsor Message How AI can help you digitally perfect your supply chain The fastest growing manufacturers are transforming their supply chains and related transport and logistics with new solutions that leverage AI, blockchain, and the Internet of Things. Read Frost & Sullivan’s whitepaper to understand how these technologies can help you avoid logistics disruptions, modernize your industrial value chain, and unlock your supply chain data to deliver better customer experiences. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 What does it mean to say a drug “works” against covid-19? 💊 It’s still hard to know exactly how much real benefit remdesivir confers. (Wired $)   + Americans are paying twice for remdesivir. (Slate)   + A small study suggests an inhaled form of interferon beta can slash the odds of a covid-19 patient becoming severely ill. (NYT $)   + How a potential coronavirus treatment showed up in a scientist’s freezer. (New Yorker $) 2 Google’s contact tracing system collects live location data 📍 This could undermine the privacy promises governments have made to the public. (NYT $)   + The UK government has had to admit its contact tracing program broke the law. (The Guardian)   + Uber is offering to help public health officials with contact tracing. (Reuters) 3 Some covid-19 survivors face a long road to recovery A dizzying array of symptoms can persist for months on end. (The Guardian) 4 The Twitter hackers nearly made off with a lot more money At least $300,000 worth of bitcoin was held back by exchanges, which had blacklisted the fraudsters’ addresses. (Forbes)   + The fact direct messages are not encrypted is causing Twitter a bigger headache than the bitcoin scam. (IEEE Spectrum) 5 Could covid-19 immunity really disappear in months? The truth is more complicated—and less dire—than you might think. (The Atlantic) 6 We’re buying smaller TVs 📺 With no Olympics to watch this summer, and money tight, we’re foregoing pricey high-end sets. (Wired UK)   + There won’t be so much to watch come the fall. (Axios) 7 The surrogate babies stranded by the pandemic 👶 Parents faced a race against time to retrieve their newborns and get them home before border controls came in.(New Yorker $) 8 Facebook is full of anti-transgender content Unsurprising perhaps, but still depressing. (NBC)   + Facebook is aiding the spread of climate misinformation. (Popular Information)   + Mark Zuckerberg says he does not have a secret deal with Trump. (Axios) 9 Snapchat is getting the younger generation into meditation 🧘 Aaand… breathe. (The Verge) 10 Letter writing is making a comeback ✉️ Slower, more relaxing and less self-conscious than a Zoom call. (Engadget) Join us on the MIT Technology Review Global Panel, inform original research on tech and business, and get tools for making smarter decisions. Quote of the Day “It’s easier being in each other’s presence, or in each other’s absence, than in the constant presence of each other’s absence.” —Italian business professor Gianpiero Petriglieri suggests that being forced to conduct much of our lives online feels unnatural, the New York Times reports. Top image credit: Associated Press Please send letters to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free Leading with Innovation. Join us online, October 19-22. *View this in a browser You received this newsletter because you subscribed with your email address.                                       *Edit email preferences   |   *Unsubscribe from all emails Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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