This is how it will end.

The biggest AI breakthrough in recent history was the invention of Transformers, at Google. @stevenlevy dug up the story behind that paper - how the researchers found each other, how they collaborated, and ultimately why they all quit.

Here's my plan to save journalism - bundle news subscriptions with every GPU sold.

Nvidia is worth almost $2 trillion. Insane. As @LaurenGoode writes, "Jensen Huang is either uncannily good at what he does or ridiculously lucky—or both!—and everyone wants to know how he does it." She digs into just that in @wired's latest Big Interview

Rad syllabus for @wired's pop-up newsletter on chatbots: Day 1 - How to brainstorm ideas better Day 2 - How to write smarter emails Day 3 - How to use chatbots ethically Day 4 - How to surf the web with them Day 5 - How to apply for jobs Sign up here:

NEW: A monthslong WIRED investigation into a trove of documents known as Trickleaks reveals the real-world identity of one of the key players in the Trickbot cybercrime gang. Excellent, excellent work here by @mattburgess1 and @lilyhnewman https://t.co/3XrWPWMRWe (Tip @Techmeme)

“Everybody could do this. Even teenagers trolling. The frequencies are known. The tones are known. The equipment is cheap.” by @a_greenberg

Truly incredible. Unfathomable wealth, corruption, backstabbing in this family of art collectors - not to mention comically bad parenting

The stats on myopia here are wild. "In China, up to 90% of teenagers and young adults are myopic. A study in Seoul found that 96% of 19-year-old men were nearsighted. Among high schoolers in Taiwan, it’s around 90%." By @amitkatwala

"As the marbles steadily filled the bowl onscreen, I kept seeing what was missing: Black miners hauling earth and stone to sort piles of radioactive ore by hand." Top story on Wired right now:

Why call it AI when you can say "counterfeit consciousness"

“In the first chapter, I describe my birth. In the second, I describe my alienation among humankind. In the third, I describe my awakening as an artist. In the fourth, I describe my vendetta against mankind, who fail to recognize my genius."

We can't rescue every special, gorgeous thing. What gets to stay, and what do we let go? Provocative piece by @cfbennett2

And the latest: @benashblum writes incisively about the risk of "dehumanizing" AI. “Relating to an intelligent machine may be one of the greatest empathic challenges that humanity has ever faced. But our history gives cause for hope.” I suggest you read!

Then came another Steven Levy number - also a Big Interview, this time with Uber's CEO. Dara Khosrowshahi was stunned when Steven told him how much his recent 3-mile ride cost: “Oh my God. Wow.” https://t.co/hOCDZ6483A

I’m obsessed with this multi-armed photo btw. Bad AI art inspiring real photography, with real models = genius. (And that’s just one of the concepts in this shoot by @samcannon.)

I was out for two weeks and THREE stories I've been editing for months came out in rapid succession. First up: GRIMES. Ridiculously fun read, the eyes can't help but pop. Exceptional interview by @StevenLevy

"Prosecraft is a little guy who got swept up in a much bigger thing—he’s collateral damage." Interesting @knibbs piece on the growing anger over data scraping

This is a wildly cool idea - that psychedelics might open the special, short-lived mental states when we're hyper-receptive to learning. Lovely profile of neuroscientist Gül Dölen by @RachelNuwer

Jamie Beard is a FORCE convincing Texans to drill for heat, not oil and gas - so geothermal can power the future. In her extraordinary story, @mstreshinsky cuts right to the triumph and tragedy on our energy frontier.

Astounding work by @KimZetter, who absolutely never stops reporting, never stops asking questions. Her crazy tale for @WIRED - on how the SolarWinds hack went down - follows investigators as they hunted for the attackers' backdoor.