Stay ConnectedAI needs more power, faster than America has ever built it. Power Play is a six-part investigation from Quartz into the bottlenecks, the fixes, and the economics at the core of AI development.
Hosted by Marco Pimentel. Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig. All six episodes are out now.
These days, we’ve got photographic evidence of our memories just about everywhere we turn. But what about the memories that you have no way of calling up at the touch of a button or the turn of a page? That’s the case for entire older generations, and one global research project is using artificial intelligence to create images of the memories of early-stage dementia patients. It’s a futuristic technology that recalls the past.
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
What began with a simple window has become an exercise in efficiency—and fast food chains are always looking for ways to move more people through drive-thrus more quickly. But until recently, the technology hadn’t changed all that much in the past few decades. Now, the age of artificial intelligence has ushered in new ways to shave off valuable seconds. Drive-thrus have become such cash cows that more and more fast food locations are doing away with the in-house dining experience full stop. Will the future of drive-thrus be a dystopian tech-nightmare, or a fast and easy way to get our burgers and fries?
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
Pro Tools—and other digital editing software like it—has become so entrenched in music creation that attempting to dislodge it would be akin to separating Google from the internet. But what did music-making look like when a studio relied on specialized professionals and expensive equipment? And can Pro Tools, which has now been around for decades, hold its own in a changing world?
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
It’s late December 2023. The presents are wrapped, the cookies have been set out, and Brenda Lee’s 65-year-old song “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has overtaken Mariah Carey’s holiday juggernaut “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on the Billboard Hot 100. Streaming created this bizarre holiday miracle, just like streaming has changed everything about how the entire music industry defines success.
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
There’s no single solution for fixing climate change, but one resource—one slimy, beautiful, underwater resource—has the potential to lend a big leafy hand. When properly put to use, seaweed can be a major carbon sink, a sustainable source for textiles and dyes for the fashion industry, and even a building material. And industry players are starting to dive deep in search of the green gold.
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
In November 2023, OpenAI announced that soon, everyone will have the ability to make their own GPTs—generative pre-trained transformers, little digital brains that can be customized to do any number of complex tasks in mere seconds. If sci-fi novels are to be believed, our lives will change once this kind of technology is at our fingertips, but we’ve been made this kind of promise before. Will humans really have their worlds rocked by GPTs?
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
Hiring is becoming less human. Companies large and small are turning to a suite of automated tools to help them find, recruit, interview, and select the right candidates for open positions. So, the next time you apply for a job, it’s possible that you’ll go through many different phases of the hiring process without ever talking to a real person. What could go wrong?
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
The failure of Silicon Valley Bank sent shockwaves throughout the tech and banking sector. The bank had played a pivotal role with venture capitalists, tech companies, and—in a lofty sense—America’s new ideas. The ripple effects were so enormous, the US government had to bail out depositors while allowing the bank itself to collapse. But what if the government was involved from the get-go? What if there was another option to financing America’s latest and greatest innovations?
Episode art by Vicky Leta
In the US, voting is seen as a civic duty. It’s voluntary, but it’s an act of patriotism and a democratic responsibility. But there are many barriers to voting—one might have to take off from work, find childcare, or travel long distances to cast a ballot. Wouldn’t voting online instantly expand access to millions of people? Perhaps, but only if we can build a system that’s secure enough to handle it.
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
Everywhere you go, there’s plastic: plastic water bottles, plastic coffee cups, plastic grocery bags... And recycling plastic is notoriously tricky—what do any of those little numbers even mean on the bottom of a container? We’ve long known that single-use plastics are a problem, but why is it so often the duty of consumers to do something about it? And if producers ultimately do start to take real action, how can they make a dent in this pressing environmental problem?
Presented by Deloitte
Episode art by Vicky Leta
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