Deepfakes of the dead and why it’s time to embrace fake meat

This is today’s edition of The Download, Our weekday newsletter that provides daily information about the latest developments in the world of technology.

Deepfakes of your deceased loved ones are a booming Chinese business

Once a week, Sun Kai has a video call with his mother and they discuss his everyday life. But Sun’s mother died five years ago, and the person he’s talking to isn’t actually a person, but a digital replica he made of her – a moving image that can carry simple conversations. They’ve been talking for a few years now.

There are many people like Sun who want to use AI to preserve, animate and interact with lost loved ones as they grieve and try to heal. The market is particularly strong in China, where at least half a dozen companies now offer such technologies and thousands of people have already paid for them.

But some question whether interacting with AI replicas of the dead is really a healthy way to process grief, and it’s not entirely clear what legal and ethical implications this technology might have. However, if only 1% of Chinese people can accept AI cloning of the dead, that’s still a huge market. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

To learn more about China’s thriving market for deepfakes that clone the dead, check out the latest edition from China Report, our weekly newsletter about technology in China. Log in to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat

Solving our collective meat problem is one of the most difficult challenges in the fight against climate change – and for some confusing reason, the world seems determined to make the task even more difficult.

The most recent example occurred last week when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning the production, sale and transportation of cultured meat in the Sunshine State.

The good news is that the world is making real progress in developing meat substitutes that increasingly taste and look like the traditional versions, regardless of whether they were developed from animal or plant cells.

If they become established and expanded, emissions could fall significantly – with the benefit of reducing animal suffering, environmental damage and the spread of animal diseases to the human population. The bad news is that we can’t seem to take the wins when we get them. Read the full story.

—James Temple

The way whales communicate is closer to human language than we thought

The news: Sperm whales are fascinating creatures. They have the largest brains of any species and are extremely social. But there’s also a lot we don’t know about them, including what they’re trying to say to each other when they communicate through a system of short bursts of clicks called codas. New research now suggests that sperm whale communication is actually much more expressive and complicated than previously thought.

How they did it: Researchers used statistical models to analyze walkodas and were able to identify a structure in their speech that resembles characteristics of the complex vocalizations that humans use. Their results provide a tool that future research could use to decipher not only the structure but also the actual meaning of whale sounds. Read the full story.

–Rhiannon Williams

The required reading

I’ve scoured the internet to find you the funniest/most important/scary/fascinating stories about technology today.

1 OpenAI has developed a deepfake detector
But it only shares it with a handful of disinformation researchers. (NYT$)
+ Not surprisingly, it doesn’t work 100% of the time. (WSJ$)+ Apparently OpenAI is working on a search function for ChatGPT. ($Bloomberg)
+ An AI startup made a hyper-realistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. (MIT Technology Review)

2 TikTok is suing the US government
To block the law that could force the parent company to sell. (WSJ$)
+ TikTok’s algorithm can be rebuilt if necessary, says the former US Secretary of State. ($Bloomberg)

3 Boeing canceled its first manned space flight
This was due to an anomaly in the rocket’s pressure control valve. (NBC News)
+ A start is expected on Friday at the earliest. (WP$)
+ Elon Musk currently sees no use for AI at SpaceX. (Insider$)

4 The USA is cracking down on chip exports to Huawei
Intel and Qualcomm are prevented from doing business with the Chinese company. (WP$)
+ Why it is so difficult for China’s chip industry to become self-sufficient. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A Chinese fraud ring is deceiving international buyers
His fake designer webshops have been around for almost a decade. (The guard)

6 It takes a while to diagnose someone with depression
But researchers are interested in using our devices to speed up the process. (vox)
+ Personalized brain stimulation could treat depression. (MIT Technology Review)

7 This hacking technique steals data about your computer’s processor
Even when running software that has been blocked by the Internet. (New Scientist$)
+ Microsoft has created an AI model that doesn’t require the internet. ($Bloomberg)

8 There are space metals and asteroids in them
Mining companies are scrambling to gain a foothold in the space. (Undark Magazine)
+ The first-ever mission to retrieve a dead rocket from space has begun. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Ticketmaster’s “non-transferable” tickets are anything but 🎟️
Where there is a will, scalpers will find a way. (404 media)

Ten Tesla fans in India have been waiting for their cars for eight years
Without even an apology. (Rest of the world)

quote of the Day

“Lol mom, the AI ​​got you too, BEWARE!”

— Singer Katy Perry shares how her own mother fell in love with an AI-generated image of Perry in an elaborate dress as he seemingly attended the Met Gala earlier this week, 404 Media reports.

The big story

New types of lithium metal batteries will drive the switch to electric cars

February 2021

For all the hype and hope surrounding electric vehicles, they still only make up about 2% of new car sales in the U.S. and just slightly more worldwide.

For many buyers, they are simply too expensive, the range is too short and charging is not nearly as quick or convenient as filling up at the pump. All of these limitations are related to the lithium-ion batteries that power the vehicles.

But QuantumScape, a Silicon Valley startup, is working on a new type of battery that could finally make electric cars as convenient and affordable as gasoline cars. Read the full story.

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten your day. (Do you have any ideas? Write me a message or Tweet them to me.)

+ These little mice are having the best time in their purpose-built pub.
+ Leonel Vasquez’s sound sculptures are very cool.
+ Bob Dylan doesn’t care about achieving perfection – and neither should you.
+ Tongue twisters have been troubling us for centuries. Here’s a look back at the history of eight of the most famous.