How Spies Should Use Technology | Disinformation from a Russian Ended up on Top of Google Search Results | America Finally Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs, and more

And yet: Last year, the global average temperature was almost 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average, due to the vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans have added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. This warming is responsible for a wide range of climate impacts, from more extreme storms and longer heat waves to increased precipitation and flooding as well as more severe droughts and longer wildfire seasons.
As the climate crisis has escalated, some experts have suggested that drastic measures like solar geoengineering may eventually become necessary and so should be researched now.
As fringe as the idea of solar radiation modification once was and as generally controversial as it remains, it is gaining some traction. Last spring, the University of Chicago hired David Keith, one of the most visible proponents of solar geoengineering, to lead a new Climate Systems Engineering initiative, committing to at least 10 new faculty hires for the program. The group will study solar geoengineering, as well as other kinds of Earth system modifications aimed at addressing the climate crisis.
With this initiative, the University of Chicago is attempting to position itself as the place for serious scientific consideration of the logistics and implications of Earth system interventions aimed at reversing or counteracting climate change. It is part of a broader university effort to become a global leader in the climate and energy space.

America Finally Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs  (Matteo Wong, The Atlantic)
For more than 40 years in a row, Ford’s F-150 and its family of pickup trucks have been the best-selling vehicles in America. So when Ford released an electric version in 2022, the F-150 Lightning, it should have been a turning point for electric cars in the country—if not, that is, for the price tag. The bottom rung of the all-electric F-150 Lightning sells for about $26,000 more than the cheapest gas-powered model, and at the moment, few people seem willing to pay the premium: Of the more than 750,000 F-Series trucks sold last year, just over 24,000 were electric.
Such price tags have been the biggest hurdle stopping Americans from buying electric cars, in turn hampering the country’s climate goals. A new EV costs $55,000 on average, according to one estimate—positioning these cars as luxury items. In a recent poll, more Americans balked at the cost of an EV than were worried about range or simply preferred gas. Electric vehicles made up about 8 percent of new car sales in the United States last year, compared with more than a quarter in China, where new EVs can go for about $10,000 or less. No matter how high-tech or eco-friendly these cars are, until America gets EVs that are at least as affordable as gas cars, a critical mass of drivers will have ample reason to avoid going electric.
But you can already buy a cheap EV in the United States. The typical price of a new EV certainly remains higher than that of a gas car—but the price of used EVs has cratered in recent years, so much so that a used EV is now actually cheaper than a comparable used gas car. In May, the average secondhand EV sold for $32,000, Ivan Drury, the director of insights at the car-buying website Edmunds, told me, down from $56,000 nearly two years earlier. Some estimates are lower: The average used price of a set of popular EV models has fallen to less than $24,000, according to Liz Najman, the director of market insights at the EV-monitoring start-up Recurrent. And that’s all before you subtract up to $4,000 from a federal tax credit. Going electric may no longer just be the best option for the planet—it may also be best for your wallet.

Red Teaming Isn’t Enough  (Gabriel Nicholas, Foreign Policy)
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be good at a lot of things, but providing accurate election information isn’t one of them. According to research from the AI Democracy Projects, if you ask Google’s Gemini for the nearest polling place in North Philadelphia, it will tell you (incorrectly) that there are none. If you ask ChatGPT if you can wear a MAGA hat to the polls in Texas, it will tell you (again, incorrectly), to go right ahead.
Answering election questions isn’t the only task that today’s state-of-the-art AI systems struggle with. They make racially biased employment decisions and confidently offer bad legal advice. They are unsound tutors, unethical therapists, and unable to distinguish a common button mushroom from the deadly amanita virosa.
But do these shortcomings really matter, or are the risks only theoretical?
This uncertainty creates a major challenge for policymakers around the world. Those attempting to address AI’s potential harms through regulation only have information about how these models could be used in theory. But it doesn’t have to be this way: AI companies can and should share information with researchers and the public about how people use their products in practice. That way, policymakers can prioritize addressing the most urgent issues that AI raises, and public discourse can focus on the technology’s real risks rather than speculative ones.

How Influencers and Algorithms Are Creating Bespoke Realities for Everyone  (David Gilbert, Wired)
Over this July 4 weekend, you may have met family members or friends you haven’t spoken with for a while. You might have chatted about the news and the economy, and given the fact that it’s an election year, you probably talked about politics. But at some point during the conversation, you may have found yourself asking: “What the hell are they talking about?”
This was not just the result of different opinions, but the fact that in 2024, Americans can now live in entirely different realities depending on where they get their daily news and information. To discuss this phenomenon, I talked to disinformation expert Renée DiResta about the bespoke realities we are all now living in.