Herd immunity might be happening in one city in Brazil—but at what cost?

OpenAI is giving Microsoft exclusive access to its GPT-3 language model 

Sponsored by IBM The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology 09.23.20 Good morning! Today: one city in Brazil shows what herd immunity might look like, and Microsoft is getting exclusive access to OpenAI's GPT-3 text model. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. Herd immunity might be happening in one city in Brazil—but at what cost?   A grim hypothetical: What happens when a major city allows the coronavirus to rage unchecked? If the Brazilian city of Manaus is any answer, it means about two-thirds of the population could get infected and one person in 500 could die before the epidemic winds down. During May, as the virus spread rapidly in Manaus, dire reports described overwhelmed hospitals and freshly dug graves. But since hitting a peak four months ago, new coronavirus cases and deaths in the city of 1.8 million have undergone a rapid and unexplained decline. The reason: Now a group of researchers say they know why—so many people got infected that the virus is running out of hosts. Essentially, it’s so called “herd immunity” in action. They tested banked blood for antibodies to the virus and estimated that between 44% and 66% of the population of Manaus has been infected. This is probably the highest prevalence in the world. It’s unclear why the virus spread so quickly in Manaus, where people started social distancing in March, but dense housing, crowding on boats used for local transportation and poor water supplies may have contributed.  What else can we learn? Other cities should be cautious about drawing conclusions from Manaus since, among other factors, it has a fairly young population. Were two-thirds of the US population to be infected, the virus could easily claim more than 500,000 American lives, mostly among the elderly. Read the full story.  —Antonio Regalado OpenAI is giving Microsoft exclusive access to its GPT-3 language model The news: On September 22, Microsoft announced that it would begin exclusively licensing GPT-3, the world’s largest language model built by OpenAI. The model acts like a powerful autocomplete: it can generate essays given the starting sentence, songs given a musical intro, or even webpage layouts given a few lines of HTML code. Microsoft says it will begin making use of these capabilities in its products and services, though it didn’t specify details. What does exclusive mean? The companies say OpenAI will continue to offer its public-facing API, which allows chosen users to send text to GPT-3 or OpenAI’s other models and receive its output. Only Microsoft, however, will have access to GPT-3’s underlying code, allowing it to embed, repurpose, and modify the model as it pleases. A long time coming: OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit and raised its initial billion dollars on the premise that it would pursue AI for the benefit of humanity, independent from for-profit financial incentives. It looks like that position has been well and truly abandoned. Read the full story.  —Karen Hao Today we’d like your help in shaping future MIT Technology Review events. Please take a few minutes to complete an online survey to help us understand all the types of information you find interesting and valuable. Your feedback will be used to determine the content, features, and format of events we may offer in the future. The survey should take about 15-20 minutes to complete. The first 50 people to complete the study will receive a free one-month digital subscription to MIT Technology Review. 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.)   + Kids try to guess what a museum object is, and hilarity ensues.   + Find out what was invented in the year you were born.   + Shaky bunny.   + Amazing pictures of birds’ flight paths.   + You can now work from Japan’s national parks (but don’t forget to take a break.) Sponsor Message A smarter supply chain control tower The control tower concept has been around for more than a decade and is getting renewed attention as companies try to pivot business operations, products and experiences.   In this paper, learn how smarter control towers are the performance nerve center for supply chains and how AI can help you: •          Deliver end-to-end visibility across the supply chain •          Correlate the right data against a set of rules and deliver AI-                     assisted insights •          Enable collaboration across teams and partners   Register to learn more about smarter control towers. 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 the next 12 months of the pandemic might look like A lot could go wrong—but nothing is inevitable. (Stat)   + No matter what the CDC says, there’s a growing consensus that the virus is airborne. (WP $)   + Why it’s so damn hard to model the spread of covid-19. (IEEE Spectrum)  2 Covid-19 vaccines could have biases baked in 💉 A couple of the leading candidates may not work as well in the developing world simply due to how they’re made. (Wired $)   + The current trials may not tell us whether the vaccines prevent moderate or severe cases of Covid-19. (NYT $)  3 Plastic face shields don’t stop the spread of coronavirus A supercomputer simulation found nearly 100% of tiny airborne droplets escaped. (The Guardian)   4 The UK’s contact tracing app launches today But will enough people adopt it? (Wired UK)   5 Facebook has deleted Chinese accounts trying to influence the US election It’s the first time it’s taken down accounts in China trying to meddle in US politics. (WP $)   + The network used AI-generated faces. (TechCrunch)   + Putin is “probably” directing influence operations to denigrate Biden, says the CIA. (WP $)  6 When a website is free, you often pay with your privacy The ad tech industry has an insatiable appetite for data—any data it seems—about what you do online. (The Markup)   + Check who’s tracking you, and how. (The Markup)   + Horrified? Here’s what you can do to protect your privacy. (The Markup)  7 The LAPD has used facial recognition 30,000 times in the last decade Despite repeatedly denying using the technology at all. (LA Times)   8 Dark web drug marketplace raids led to 179 arrests 🚓 A joint US/European operation led to police forces around the world seizing cash, drugs, and guns. (BBC)   9 What it’s like to lose TikTok Some Indians are still holding onto hope the app might be unbanned. (WSJ $)   10 Are your kids fussy eaters? There’s an app for that 🍽️ “Tinder, but for cauliflower.” (WSJ $) In just four weeks, prepare to lead with innovation at EmTech MIT. Our annual flagship event on emerging technology and trends is going online. Join us as we examine the technology driving and the forces influencing our digital world: AI, biomedicine, cybersecurity, diversity, equality, global-scale technology, and more. Register now. Take a stand “China has no reason to give the green light to such a deal, which is dirty and unfair and based on bullying and extortion.” —An editorial in the state-backed paper China Daily says the Chinese government should block the proposed deal for Walmart and Oracle to buy a stake in TikTok. Top image credit: ANDRE COELHO | GETTY IMAGES Please send your birth year inventions 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 Don't settle for half the story. Subscribe to MIT Technology Review today. 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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