The best places to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system, ranked

Bias isn't the only problem with credit scores—and no, AI can't help

Sponsored by Masterworks The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Alien life 06.17.21 Good morning! It's Niall here, covering for Charlotte today. Today, we have ranking of the best places to find alien life in our solar system (it's just our opinion though, so let the arguments commence!) And we have a new study that looks at why the main problem with credit scores isn't bias—and why that means better AI won't help. There's no Download tomorrow as it's a public holiday so have a lovely weekend and we'll be back in your inbox on Monday. In the meantime, get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. The best places to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system, ranked   If you want to believe, now is the time: the hope that we might one day stumble upon alien life is greater than it ever was. No, it’s not going to be little green men speeding through space in flying disks—more likely microbes or primitive bacteria. But a discovery like that would be a sign that we are not alone in the universe—that life elsewhere is a possibility.  Where are we going to find that life? It was once thought the solar system was probably a barren wasteland apart from Earth. But life isn’t that simple. We now know that it can thrive on Earth in even the harshest, most brutal environments, in super cold and super dry conditions, at depths of unimaginable pressures. At the same time, our understanding of these obscure worlds in the solar system, such as the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, has grown. So here are the 10 best places in the solar system to look for extraterrestrial life, ranked (subjectively) by our space reporter Neel V. Patel for how likely we are to find life—and how easy it would be to find it if it’s there. Did your favorite moon make the cut?  Read the full list here.  Bias isn’t the only problem with credit scores—and no, AI can’t help We already knew that biased data and biased algorithms skew automated decision-making. That’s why many researchers are trying to fix the problem by making these algorithms more fair.   But the biggest ever study of real-world mortgage data has shown that the probem is not just down to bias, but to the fact that minority and low-income groups have less data in their credit histories.  This means that when this data is used to calculate a credit score and this credit score used to make a prediction on loan default, then that prediction will be less precise. It is this lack of precision that leads to inequality, not just bias. The implications are stark: fairer algorithms won’t fix the problem. Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven More story 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.) + An artist installed a very fun optical illusion in front of the Eiffel Tower. + Why are cicadas so damn loud? (Blame the males.)  + Recipes for Juneteenth.  + This essay about a famous dog is a wonderful read. + The forgotten art of letter-locking. + Hot dog burgers? It doesn't get much more American than that. + Take a virtual trip around the redwood trees of Northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park. (NYT $) + What's it like to be a child star in a horror movie? + Just lovely photos of Earth from orbit.  Sponsor Message Forget Cryptofomo, Here’s Something Bigger. “We also do not believe that Bitcoin is a long-term store of value or an investable asset class...” That’s how Goldman Sachs—the finance expert’s finance expert—views investing in crypto. Their suggestion? Get serious with real assets like art. We’ll explain. The $1.7T asset class is larger than crypto market capitalization and virtually untapped by hedge funds. That’s why two-thirds of billionaire collectors allocate more than 10% to art. Masterworks uses big data and A.I. to finally unlock this exciting market to investors of all types, at a fraction of the normal entry cost. Learn more > The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Inside Pfizer’s race to make the world’s biggest supply of vaccine How it went from failure to 3 billion doses. (WaPo $)   + The people for whom the covid vaccines don’t work. (Wired)    + CureVac’s mRNA vaccine has disappointed in trials. (NYT $)   + What effect does prior infection have on immunity? (Axios)   + The G7 upheld vaccine “apartheid”. (Intercept)   + The plan to vaccinate the world is failing. (SciAm) 2 The lab leak theory doesn’t hold up It’s more juicy narrative than actual evidence, so far. (Foreign Policy $) 3 A guide to the algorithms that run your life They're basically impossible to avoid. (New Scientist $)   + The battle for the future of AI chips. (Wired UK)    + Tech companies are training AI to read your lips. (Vice) 4 Facebook will let group moderators slow down toxic debates I think that horse might have bolted already, tbh.  (Engadget)   + The problem with Facebook trying to be more like NextDoor. (Recode) 5 If you buy an Amazon device, you're a guinea pig The company's track record of launching then killing products is finally starting to catch up with it. (NYT $)    + A growing clutch of startups have a simple pitch: we're not Amazon. (WSJ $) 6 Police have busted a Ukrainian ransomware gang The group had been making large sums of money extorting Americans. (NBC)   + Why ransomware is suddenly everywhere. (TR) 7 Is it time for Big Tech to tell a better story? You might argue it's time for it to improve the reality, not just the narrative. (New Yorker $)   + What can we learn from the rise and fall of Kodak? (The Atlantic $) 8 Remote tech could help save patient’s lives But it might also change how doctors do their jobs forever. (Wired) 9 Musicians are making a living on Twitch But if you think that's an easy job, you're wrong. (NYT $) 10 How animals use nanoscale structures to produce their colors Clever. (Quanta) Understand the promise of technology. Make MIT Technology Review your go-to resource for thought-provoking insights, analysis, and news about the world of technology. Get unlimited access when you subscribe today. Quote of the day “People want privacy, but they feel like it’s impossible to get.” —Gabriel Weinberg, the founder and CEO of DuckDuckGO, explains why he thinks his company can provide something most consumers have given up expecting: easy privacy. Top image credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH Please send hot dog burgers to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @niallfirth. Thanks for reading! —Niall Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up today Premium Research How to make 2021 Secure in Design Gain boardroom-ready insights on how global leaders are implementing the secure-by-design framework. Purchase report Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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