The Download: metric weaknesses and AI elephant warnings

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.

The inevitable weakness of metrics

There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal. There are even more that it can obscure or corrupt.

Like a lot of people bitten by the self-quantifying bug, I started gathering personal data to pursue a nebulous collection of goals and desires. I wanted to feel better physically and emotionally, get outside more, and bring order to the messiness and uncertainty of my daily existence.

But external metrics and data can never capture what's truly important. Worse, they inevitably redefine your core sense of what's important, whether you're aware of the trap or not.

Dive into the dangers of quantifying our lives with metrics.

—Bryan Gardiner

Elephant alert! AI warning systems aim to avoid deadly clashes

India is home to about 60% of the world’s wild Asian elephants, and around 80% of their habitat lies outside protected areas. That brings them into close contact with people, and clashes can turn lethal: there have been some 3,000 human casualties in the last five years and over 1,000 elephant deaths since 2014.

In response, state forest departments, NGOs, and locals are designing, testing, and deploying a range of AI systems that cut response and warning times to minutes—or even seconds. They range from wildlife eyes in Maharashtra to infrared drones in Chhattisgarh.

Find out how they work in our interactive map.

—Kanika Gupta

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

Quote of the day

“This kind of powerful weapon that can alter the landscape of cyberwarfare can’t remain solely in American hands.” 

—360 Security CEO Zhou Hongyi tells a cybersecurity conference in Beijing why Chinese AI firms need to match the capabilities of their rivals in the US, The Wall Street Journal reports.

One More Thing

Why Generation Z falls for online misinformation

Research shows that young people are more likely to believe and pass on misinformation if they feel a sense of common identity with the person who shared it in the first place. 

Offline, teenagers are likely to draw on the context that their communities provide. Social media, however, promotes credibility based on identity rather than community. And when trust is built on identity, authority shifts to influencers.

As young people participate in more political discussions online, those who have successfully cultivated identity-based credibility could become de facto community leaders, attracting like-minded people and steering the conversation. While that has the potential to empower marginalized groups, it also exacerbates the threat of misinformation.

Find out what we can all learn about how young people evaluate truth online.

—Jennifer Neda John

We can still have nice things

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