Essay: What Do You Need?

This week:

The future of search and chatbots looks a lot like our ancient past. Why do we keep making the same tools over and over again?

What We Can Do:

• ⚡️ Addiction is brutal. Help yourself or a loved one or someone you’ve never met with Shatterproof.
• ⚡️ I’m so excited to share that my favorite event on Earth, “LA Loves Alex’s Lemonade Stand” is finally back. Support pediatric cancer research and buy yourself some tickets to eat food from some of the greatest chefs on the planet.
• ⚡️ It’s a pretty pretty pretty good moment to read Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence and The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values.
• ⚡️ Want to switch your retirement fund to one without fossil fuels? Check out Fossil Free Funds to find mutual funds and ETFs that qualify.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

• It’s probably helpful to understand that half of all American hospitals are projected to be in the red this year
• American teenage girls are suffering in a very real way. There are a million things we can do, here are a few ways to start to help
• E-bikes incentives are SO POPULAR
• Sure, we need to get toxic gas out of our homes, but also — why is asthma the way that it is?

Climate

• This amazing new solar farm is also a prairie restoration project and a carbon sink, you’re welcome (also, let’s hear it for hedgerows!)
• Harvard voted to build climate change into its medical school curriculum

Food & Water

• Sorghum is one of our oldest and most reliable grains and could be a stalwart in the age of climate change
• Can food be medicine, after all?

Beep Boop

• Tesla’s recalling 300,000+ cars because self-driving was bullshit all along
• Supermarkets, like everyone else, are selling your data

COVID

• China’s recent COVID death toll could top a million
• Is Long COVID a neurological disease?

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