The Download: how people really use AI, and Flock’s design choices

The Download：人们究竟如何使用人工智能，以及 Flock 的设计选择

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. 这是今天的《The Download》，我们平日发行的时事通讯，为您提供每日科技界动态。

We still don’t know how people are really using AI. AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using their products. But they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say, and there’s no independent source to corroborate it. A new research project called the AI Observatory aims to fill in the gap. Its analysis shows many more sensitive behaviors than are captured in reports from major AI companies, which focus more on work than on personal use. The researchers also found significant differences between models. People were more likely to turn to Anthropic for coding, Gemini for social and roleplay uses, and ChatGPT for homework assistance. Here’s what the AI Observatory reveals about how people use AI. —Eileen Guo 我们仍然不知道人们究竟是如何使用人工智能的。Anthropic 和 OpenAI 等人工智能公司会定期发布关于人们如何使用其产品的报告。但人工智能研究人员表示，这些公司只发布他们想让我们看到的数据，且没有独立的来源来证实这些数据。一个名为“AI 观察站”（AI Observatory）的新研究项目旨在填补这一空白。其分析显示，人们表现出的敏感行为远比大型人工智能公司报告中记录的要多，因为这些公司的报告更侧重于工作而非个人用途。研究人员还发现不同模型之间存在显著差异：人们更倾向于使用 Anthropic 进行编程，使用 Gemini 进行社交和角色扮演，而使用 ChatGPT 辅助完成家庭作业。以下是“AI 观察站”揭示的关于人们如何使用人工智能的内容。——Eileen Guo

What Flock’s defenders are missing. Flock Safety, the police-tech giant known for its network of some 120,000 automatic license plate readers around the US, recently announced changes to its platform. The updates are meant to prevent officers from using it for illegal or illegitimate purposes, including stalking. Amid all this, there have recently been several arguments defending Flock: If these cameras help solve crime, is it as big a deal? On a good day they might help catch a kidnapper, and if not, they’re simply snapping pictures of my car that nobody will bother to look at. But this all skips over a more important question: What kind of crime-fighting system has Flock chosen to build? Its network works the way it does because of decisions about what information to collect, who can search it, how long to keep it, and how widely to share it. Those decisions set the terms of the bargain between security and civil liberties. Find out what a narrower Flock system could look like. —James O’Donnell Flock 的辩护者们忽略了什么。Flock Safety 是一家以在美国各地拥有约 12 万个自动车牌识别器网络而闻名的警务技术巨头，该公司最近宣布对其平台进行调整。这些更新旨在防止警务人员将其用于非法或不正当目的，包括跟踪。在此背景下，最近出现了一些为 Flock 辩护的论点：如果这些摄像头有助于破案，这算什么大事吗？运气好的时候，它们或许能抓住绑架犯；如果抓不到，它们也只是拍下我的车，没人会去查看。但这忽略了一个更重要的问题：Flock 选择建立的是什么样的打击犯罪系统？其网络之所以这样运作，是因为在收集什么信息、谁可以搜索、保留多久以及分享范围等问题上做出了决策。这些决策设定了安全与公民自由之间权衡的条件。了解一个更受限的 Flock 系统会是什么样子。——James O’Donnell

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday. 本文摘自我们的每周人工智能通讯《The Algorithm》。订阅即可在每周一收到邮件。

The must-reads: I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 必读内容：我已梳理了互联网，为您找出今天最有趣、最重要、最可怕、最引人入胜的科技故事。

1. A child privacy trial starting today could change Meta forever. More than half of the states in the US have joined the lawsuit. They say Meta deliberately designed addictive social networks and want changes including ending “like” counts and infinite scroll. Four of them are demanding $1.4 trillion in damages.

2. 今天开始的一场儿童隐私审判可能会永远改变 Meta。美国超过半数的州加入了这场诉讼。他们称 Meta 蓄意设计了令人上瘾的社交网络，并要求进行改革，包括取消“点赞”计数和无限滚动。其中四个州要求赔偿 1.4 万亿美元。

3. Nvidia has committed up to $105 billion to OpenAI’s Ohio data center. It’s slated to cost up to $500 billion and come online in 2028. OpenAI will lease the eight-gigawatt site for 20 years.

4. 英伟达已承诺为 OpenAI 的俄亥俄州数据中心投入高达 1050 亿美元。该项目预计耗资高达 5000 亿美元，将于 2028 年投入使用。OpenAI 将租用该 8 吉瓦（GW）的场地 20 年。

5. Tesla is set to launch Cybercab robotaxi rides in Austin this month. The rollout could begin with employee rides on public roads. The EVs will then enter Tesla’s robotaxi service a few days later.

6. 特斯拉计划本月在奥斯汀推出 Cybercab 自动驾驶出租车服务。推广可能先从员工在公共道路上的试乘开始，几天后这些电动汽车将正式进入特斯拉的自动驾驶出租车服务。

7. Unitree has unveiled a humanoid it claims is faster than any human. The new “Superman” robot can cover 12.66 meters in a second. It arrives ahead of the Chinese company’s IPO on Wednesday.

8. 宇树科技（Unitree）发布了一款号称比任何人类都快的人形机器人。这款名为“Superman”的新机器人一秒钟可以跑出 12.66 米。该发布是在这家中国公司周三 IPO 之前进行的。

9. A tracked rare book shipment led to Amazon’s AI training operation. Amazon scans and destroys books at the facility to train AI. Rare books provide unique, high-quality training data, but feeding them to AI risks creating a cultural void.

10. 一批被追踪的珍稀书籍运输揭开了亚马逊的人工智能训练行动。亚马逊在设施内扫描并销毁书籍以训练人工智能。珍稀书籍提供了独特且高质量的训练数据，但将其喂给人工智能可能会造成文化真空。

11. China wants its data to shape what the world’s AI knows. Beijing is distributing datasets reflecting “mainstream Chinese values.”

12. 中国希望其数据能够塑造全球人工智能的认知。北京正在分发反映“中国主流价值观”的数据集。

13. An AI studio wants to become the HBO of adult content. Rogue’s AI video tool produces uncensored adult content. AI is creating new risks for porn actors.

14. 一家人工智能工作室希望成为成人内容界的 HBO。Rogue 的人工智能视频工具可以制作未经审查的成人内容。人工智能正在为色情演员带来新的风险。

15. Women are being left behind in the AI jobs boom. They accounted for just 26% of new AI hires last year.

16. 女性在人工智能就业热潮中被甩在身后。去年，她们仅占人工智能新招聘人数的 26%。

17. AI has revealed new clues to how breast cancer progresses. The findings could help predict how tumours will develop.

18. 人工智能揭示了乳腺癌进展的新线索。这些发现有助于预测肿瘤的发展方式。

19. An unearthed video suggests Apple is adding cameras to AirPods. It shows AirPods identifying a book using visual intelligence.

20. 一段被挖掘出的视频显示，苹果可能正在为 AirPods 添加摄像头。视频显示 AirPods 通过视觉智能识别了一本书。

Quote of the day: “It is a black hole; it absorbs energy and personality and then re-presents it as spectacle.” —Writer Carmen Hermosillo made a prescient observation about life online in a 1994 essay, quoted by the Guardian in a story on warnings we ignored about the digital age. 今日名言：“它是一个黑洞；它吸收能量和个性，然后将其重新呈现为奇观。”——作家 Carmen Hermosillo 在 1994 年的一篇文章中对网络生活做出了先见之明的观察，《卫报》在一篇关于我们忽视了数字时代警告的文章中引用了这句话。

One More Thing: Is this the electric grid of the future? When a slow-moving blizzard hit Nebraska, nearly 10% of Lincoln Electric System’s 150,000 customers lost power. CEO Emeka Anyanwu watched the outage map as crews battled the storm. Yet a spring blizzard like this is the least of his problems. What will happen soon—not only at Lincoln Electric but for all electric utilities—is a challenge of a different order. In the industry, they call it the “trilemma”: the seemingly intractable problem of balancing reliability, affordability, and sustainability. Electricity demand is surging, driven in part by AI, while the industry attempts to transition from power generated with fossil fuels to power generated from renewable sources like solar and wind. Lincoln Electric offers a lens through which to examine those challenges. Explore the challenges of building the grid of the future. —Andrew Blum 额外内容：这是未来的电网吗？当一场移动缓慢的暴风雪袭击内布拉斯加州时，林肯电力系统公司（Lincoln Electric System）15 万用户中近 10% 失去了电力。首席执行官 Emeka Anyanwu 在工作人员与风暴搏斗时盯着停电地图。然而，像这样的春季暴风雪只是他面临的问题中最小的一个。不久之后，不仅是林肯电力，所有电力公司都将面临一个不同量级的挑战。在业内，这被称为“不可能三角”（trilemma）：即在可靠性、可负担性和可持续性之间取得平衡这一看似棘手的问题。在人工智能的推动下，电力需求正在激增，而电力行业正试图从化石燃料发电转型为太阳能和风能等可再生能源发电。林肯电力提供了一个审视这些挑战的视角。探索构建未来电网的挑战。——Andrew Blum

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