It's been said that hell is other people. Not in 2020. Right now, other people are the only thing between us and species collapse.
Introducing the WIRED25. Undeterred by disaster, these innovators are using tech to make things better for all of us 1/ wired.trib.al/dbP5tPQ
Ava DuVernay
DuVernay may be the most relevant director of 2020. Her body of work includes ‘Selma’, ‘When They See Us’, and '13th’, and this year she launched the online social justice course Array 101, as well as LEAP, a fund for artists whose work explores police violence 2/
Anthony Fauci
As director of NIAID since 1984, Fauci has advised six presidents on HIV, Ebola, Zika, and more. He’s been working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, since the beginning of February, and his integrity in the face of Covid-19 has made him an icon 3/
Vijaya Gadde
Gadde’s counseling Twitter through one of the most boundary-pushing US presidential races ever. This year, the platform began placing misinformation labels on high-profile tweets deemed capable of jeopardizing public safety or capsizing the democratic process 4/
Tsai Ing-wen, Chen Chien-Jen, and Audrey Tang
Together, this Taiwanese trio all but eradicated the coronavirus from their homeland. They did so through decisive actions, strict social distancing measures, and real-time mask availability apps 5/
Jon Gray, Lester Walker, and Pierre Serao
In the midst of a pandemic and protests, this Bronx-based collective partnered with La Morada, a local Oaxacan restaurant, and Rethink, a nonprofit that redirects excess food to NYC families. Together, they’ve served 1,000 meals a day 6/
Swizz Beatz and Timbaland
In March, the megaproducers got a concert-starved nation on its feet by streaming Verzuz’s inaugural hip hop and R&B battle on Instagram. The free face-offs are now on Apple TV, and the pair see it as a sort of museum for Black musicians everywhere 7/
Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook
In the wake of a devastating pandemic, Pichai and Cook overlooked their rivalry to unite Google and Apple for the greater good. Their Covid-19 contact tracing API has been integrated into health care sector apps around the world 8/
Timnit Gebru
Gebru's research has spotlighted racist algorithms and the ethical quandaries of data-mining projects and AI. In a January paper, she argued that current methods of data collection and annotation for machine learning are rife with biases capable of causing harm 9/
Al Gore
The truth is increasingly inconvenient: Earth is getting hotter, and we’re to blame. Gore is still working to fix it—by funding sustainable companies through the equity firm Generation Investment Management and educating the masses with the Climate Reality Project 10/
This is just a portion of the WIRED25. Here’s our full list of innovators across tech, science, food, culture, and politics 11/ wired.trib.al/dbP5tPQ
Want to meet some of the WIRED25? We’re hosting a series of free virtual conversations with them starting next week. Subscribe here to attend the talks taking place September 16, 23, and 30 12/ wired.trib.al/5raf3Eb
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DOGE is knitting together data from the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, and IRS that could create a surveillance tool of unprecedented scope. wired.com/story/doge-col…
The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations. wired.com/story/doge-col…
“They are trying to amass a huge amount of data,” a senior DHS official tells WIRED. “It has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending … They are already cross-referencing immigration with SSA and IRS as well as voter data.” wired.com/story/doge-col…
American police are spending hundreds of thousands on Massive Blue’s unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected traffickers.
Massive Blue calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.”
404 Media obtained a presentation showing some of these AI characters. These include a “radicalized AI” “protest persona,” which poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity.”
The audit covers DOGE’s handling of data at several Cabinet-level agencies, including:
–the Departments of Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services
–the Treasury
–the Social Security Administration
–the US DOGE Service (USDS) itself wired.com/story/gao-audi…
It's being carried out after congressional leaders’ requests and is centered on DOGE’s adherence to privacy and data protection laws and regulations.
A Congressional aide said the requests followed media reports on DOGE’s incursions into federal systems. wired.com/story/gao-audi…
Dozens of federal employees tell WIRED that Trump's federal return to office order has resulted in chaos (including bad Wi-Fi and no toilet paper), with productivity plummeting and public services suffering. wired.com/story/federal-…
One effect of all this, many federal employees tell WIRED, is that they are travelling long distances in order to spend all of their time in virtual meetings.
A Treasury employee says they spend most of their time at the office on video calls as well. wired.com/story/federal-…
It isn’t just traveling to work to sit on Zoom calls—it’s that there may be no place to take the call, or no working internet to connect to it.
WIRED granted employees anonymity to speak freely about their experiences. wired.com/story/federal-…
SCOOP: Elon Musk’s DOGE has plans to stage a “hackathon” next week in Washington, DC. The goal is to create a single “mega API”—a bridge that lets software systems talk to one another—for accessing IRS data, sources tell WIRED. wired.com/story/doge-hac…
DOGE ops have repeatedly referred to the company Palantir as a possible partner in the project, sources tell WIRED.
SCOOP: Shortly after senior Trump officials discussed the bombing of Yemen in a Signal group chat that just happened to include the Atlantic's editor in chief, a subset of the group feasted at a secret dinner featuring Trump where guests were asked to pay $1 million apiece to join. wired.com/story/trump-of…
The date was Saturday, March 15. President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate attending a “candlelight” dinner that wasn’t on his public calendar. On the lawn outside, luxury cars were on display: a Rolls Royce was parked near a Bugatti and Lamborghini.
Earlier that day, the United States had bombed Yemen, targeting Houthi leadership. At least 53 people, including children, were killed.