“I had wanted to be online for years,” says the65-year-old, but “I have to pay for my rent, buy my food—there were other things that were important.”
For as long as the internet has existed, there has been a divide between those who have it and those who do not, with increasingly high stakes for people stuck on the wrong side of America’s “persistent digital divide.” That’s one reason why, from the earliest days of his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to make universal broadband a priority.
But Biden’s promise has taken on extra urgency as a result of the pandemic. Covid-19 has widened many inequities, including the “homework gap” that threatened to leave lower-income students behind as schools moved online, as well as access to health care, unemployment benefits, court appearances, and—increasingly— the covid-19 vaccine, all of which require (or are facilitated by) internet connections.
Whether Biden can succeed in bridging the gap, however, depends on how he defines the problem. Is it one that can be fixed with more infrastructure, or one that requires social programs to address affordability and adoption gaps?
The hidden divide
For years, the digital divide was seen as a largely rural problem, and billions of dollars have gone into expanding broadband infrastructure and funding telecom companies to reach into more remote, underserved areas. This persistent focus on the rural-urban divide has left folks like Marvis Phillips—who struggle with the affordability of internet services, not with proximity—out of the loop.
And at the start of the pandemic, the continued impact of the digital divide became starkly drawn as schools switched to online teaching. Images of students forced to sit in restaurant parking lots to access free WiFi so they could take their classes on the internet drove home just how wide the digital divide in America remains.
The Federal Communications Commission did take some action, asking internet service providers to sign a voluntary pledge to keep services going and forgive late fees. The FCC has not released data on how many people benefited from the pledge, but it did receive hundreds of complaints that the program was not working as intended.
“This isn’t just about the number of people who have lost internet because they can’t afford it. We believe a far greater number of people can’t afford internet, but are sacrificing other necessities.”
“I have four boys who are all in school and need the internet to do their online school work,” she wrote. Her line was disconnected despite a promise that it would not be turned off due to non-payment. “I paid my bill of $221.00 to turn my services on. It was the last money I had and now do not have money to buy groceries for the week.”
Other messages spoke of the need to forgo food, diapers, and other necessities in order to keep families connected for schoolwork and jobs.
“This isn’t just about the number of people who have lost internet because they can’t afford it,” says Dana Floberg, policy manager of consumer advocacy organization Free Press. “We believe a far greater number of people … can’t afford internet but are sacrificing other necessities.”
According to Ann Veigle, an FCC spokesperson, such complaints are passed onto providers, who are “required to respond to the FCC and consumer in writing within 30 days.” She did not respond to questions on whether the service providers have shared reports or outcomes with the FCC, how many low-income internet and phone subscribers have benefited from the pledge, or any other outcomes of the program.
The lack of data is part of a broader problem with the FCC’s approach, says Floberg, since former chairman Ajit Pai recategorized the internet from a utility, like electricity, back to a less-regulated “information service.” She sees restoring the FCC’s regulatory authority as “the linchpin” toward “equitable and universal access and affordability” of broadband internet, by increasing competition and, in turn, resulting in better service and lower prices.
Measuring the wrong things
It took Marvis Phillips three months of free internet, two months of one-on-one training, and two donated iPads—upgraded during the pandemic to accommodate Zoom and telehealth calls—to get online. And since the city ordered people to stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus, Phillips says the internet has become his “lifeline.”
“Loneliness and social isolation is…a social justice and poverty issue,” says Cathy Michalec, the executive director of Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly, the nonprofit that helped Phillips connect as part of its mission to serve low-income seniors. As with other solutions to isolation—bus fare to visit a park, tickets to a museum—internet connections also require financial resources that many older adults don’t have.
The Frost nails its uncanny, disconcerting vibe in its first few shots. Vast icy mountains, a makeshift camp of military-style tents, a group of people huddled around a fire, barking dogs. It’s familiar stuff, yet weird enough to plant a growing seed of dread. There’s something wrong here.
Welcome to the unsettling world of AI moviemaking. The Frost is a 12-minute movie from Detroit-based video creation company Waymark in which every shot is generated by an image-making AI. It’s one of the most impressive—and bizarre—examples yet of this strange new genre. Read the full story, and take an exclusive look at the movie.
—Will Douglas Heaven
Microplastics are everywhere. What does that mean for our immune systems?
Microplastics are pretty much everywhere you look. These tiny pieces of plastic pollution, less than five millimeters across, have been found in human blood, breast milk, and placentas. They’re even in our drinking water and the air we breathe.
Given their ubiquity, it’s worth considering what we know about microplastics. What are they doing to us?
The short answer is: we don’t really know. But scientists have begun to build a picture of their potential effects from early studies in animals and clumps of cells, and new research suggests that they could affect not only the health of our body tissues, but our immune systems more generally. Read the full story.
Here, bits of plastic can end up collecting various types of bacteria, which cling to their surfaces. Seabirds that ingest them not only end up with a stomach full of plastic—which can end up starving them—but also get introduced to types of bacteria that they wouldn’t encounter otherwise. It seems to disturb their gut microbiomes.
There are similar concerns for humans. These tiny bits of plastic, floating and flying all over the world, could act as a “Trojan horse,” introducing harmful drug-resistant bacteria and their genes, as some researchers put it.
It’s a deeply unsettling thought. As research plows on, hopefully we’ll learn not only what microplastics are doing to us, but how we might tackle the problem.
Read more from Tech Review’s archive
It is too simplistic to say we should ban all plastic. But we could do with revolutionizing the way we recycle it, as my colleague Casey Crownhart pointed out in an article published last year.
We can use sewage to track the rise of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, as I wrote in a previous edition of the Checkup. At this point, we need all the help we can get …
… which is partly why scientists are also exploring the possibility of using tiny viruses to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections. Phages were discovered around 100 years ago and are due a comeback!
Our immune systems are incredibly complicated. And sex matters: there are important differences between the immune systems of men and women, as Sandeep Ravindran wrote in this feature, which ran in our magazine issue on gender.
Artists are often the first to experiment with new technology. But the immediate future of generative video is being shaped by the advertising industry.Waymark made The Frost to explore how generative AI could be built into its products. The company makes video creation tools for businesses looking for a fast and cheap way to make commercials. Waymark is one of several startups, alongside firms such as Softcube and Vedia AI, that offer bespoke video ads for clients with just a few clicks.
Waymark’s current tech, launched at the start of the year, pulls together several different AI techniques, including large language models, image recognition, and speech synthesis, to generate a video ad on the fly. Waymark also drew on its large data set of non-AI-generated commercials created for previous customers. “We have hundreds of thousands of videos,” says CEO Alex Persky-Stern. “We’ve pulled the best of those and trained it on what a good video looks like.”
To use Waymark’s tool, which it offers as part of a tiered subscription service starting at $25 a month, users supply the web address or social media accounts for their business, and it goes off and gathers all the text and images it can find. It then uses that data to generate a commercial, using OpenAI’s GPT-3 to write a script that is read aloud by a synthesized voice over selected images that highlight the business. A slick minute-long commercial can be generated in seconds. Users can edit the result if they wish, tweaking the script, editing images, choosing a different voice, and so on. Waymark says that more than 100,000 people have used its tool so far.
The trouble is that not every business has a website or images to draw from, says Parker. “An accountant or a therapist might have no assets at all,” he says.
Waymark’s next idea is to use generative AI to create images and video for businesses that don’t yet have any—or don’t want to use the ones they have. “That’s the thrust behind making The Frost,” says Parker. “Create a world, a vibe.”
The Frost has a vibe, for sure. But it is also janky. “It’s not a perfect medium yet by any means,” says Rubin. “It was a bit of a struggle to get certain things from DALL-E, like emotional responses in faces. But at other times, it delighted us. We’d be like, ‘Oh my God, this is magic happening before our eyes.’”
This hit-and-miss process will improve as the technology gets better. DALL-E 2, which Waymark used to make The Frost, was released just a year ago. Video generation tools that generate short clips have only been around for a few months.
The most revolutionary aspect of the technology is being able to generate new shots whenever you want them, says Rubin: “With 15 minutes of trial and error, you get that shot you wanted that fits perfectly into a sequence.” He remembers cutting the film together and needing particular shots, like a close-up of a boot on a mountainside. With DALL-E, he could just call it up. “It’s mind-blowing,” he says. “That’s when it started to be a real eye-opening experience as a filmmaker.”
