MIT Technology Review

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. AI is coming for music, too While large language models that generate text have exploded in the last three years, a different type of AI, based on what are called diffusion models, is...

Colossal Biosciences not only wants to bring back the woolly mammoth-it wants to patent it, too. MIT Technology Review has learned the Texas startup is seeking a patent that would give it exclusive legal rights to create and sell gene-edited elephants containing ancient mammoth DNA. Colossal, which calls itself the de-extinction company," hopes to use...

The end of this story includes samples of AI-generated music. Artificial intelligence was barely a term in 1956, when top scientists from the field of computing arrived at Dartmouth College for a summer conference. The computer scientist John McCarthy had coined the phrase in the funding proposal for the event, a gathering to work through...

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what's coming next. You can read more from the series here. When OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy excitedly took to X back in February to post about his new hobby, he probably had no idea he was about...

Bowling Green, Kentucky, is home to 75,000 residents who recently wrapped up an experiment in using AI for democracy: Can an online polling platform, powered by machine learning, capture what residents want to see happen in their city? When Doug Gorman, elected leader of the county that includes Bowling Green, took office in 2023, it...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How the federal government is tracking changes in the supply of street drugs In 2021, the Maryland Department of Health and the state police were confronting a crisis: Fatal drug overdoses in the...

Last week, I spoke with two US Marines who spent much of last year deployed in the Pacific, conducting training exercises from South Korea to the Philippines. Both were responsible for analyzing surveillance to warn their superiors about possible threats to the unit. But this deployment was unique: For the first time, they were using...

The manufacturing industry is at a crossroads: Geopolitical instability is fracturing supply chains from the Suez to Shenzhen, impacting the flow of materials. Businesses are battling rising costs and inflation, coupled with a shrinking labor force, with more than half a million unfilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S. alone. And climate change is further intensifying...

Tech buzzwords are clanging through the halls of Washington, DC. The Trump administration has promised to leverage blockchain technology" to reorganize the US Agency for International Development, and Elon Musk's DOGE has already unleashed an internal chatbot to automate agency tasks-with bigger plans on the horizon to take over for laid-off employees. The executive order...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. DOGE's tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data -Steven Renderos is the executive director of Media Justice Tech buzzwords are clanging through the halls of Washington, DC. The Trump...

One day, in the near or far future, an asteroid about the length of a football stadium will find itself on a collision course with Earth. If we are lucky, it will land in the middle of the vast ocean, creating a good-size but innocuous tsunami, or in an uninhabited patch of desert. But if...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military For much of last year, US Marines conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia were also...

1. Sophie and Martin are at the 2012 Gordon Research Conference on the Biology of Aging in Ventura, California. It is a foggy February weekend. Both are disappointed about how little sun there is on the California beach. They are two graduate students-Sophie in her sixth and final year, Martin in his fourth-who have traveled...

In 2021, 20 years after the death of her older sister, Vauhini Vara was still unable to tell the story of her loss. I wondered," she writes in Searches, her new collection of essays on AI technology, if Sam Altman's machine could do it for me." So she triedGPT-3. But as it expanded on Vara's...

For much of last year, about 2,500 US service members from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed aboard three ships throughout the Pacific, conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. At the same time, onboard the ships, an experiment was unfolding: The Marines in the unit responsible for...

The International Energy Agency states in a new report that AI could eventually reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, possibly by much more than the boom in energy-guzzling data centers pushes them up. The finding echoes a point that prominent figures in the AI sector have made as well to justify, at least implicitly, the gigawatts' worth of...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How AI can help supercharge creativity Existing generative tools can automate a striking range of creative tasks and offer near-instant gratification-but at what cost? Some artists and researchers fear that such technology could...

Sometimes Lizzie Wilson shows up to a rave with her AI sidekick. One weeknight this past February, Wilson plugged her laptop into a projector that threw her screen onto the wall of a low-ceilinged loft space in East London. A small crowd shuffled in the glow of dim pink lights. Wilson sat down and started...

Update: Since this story was first published in The Spark, our weekly climate newsletter, the White House announced that most reciprocal tariffs would be paused for 90 days. That pause does not apply to China, which will see an increased tariff rate of 125%. Today, new tariffs go into effect for goods imported into the...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. A new biosensor can detect bird flu in five minutes Over the winter, eggs suddenly became all but impossible to buy. As a bird flu outbreak rippled through dairy and poultry farms, grocery...

Over the winter, eggs suddenly became all but impossible to buy. As a bird flu outbreak rippled through dairy and poultry farms, grocery stores struggled to keep them on shelves. The shortages and record-high prices in February raised costs dramatically for restaurants and bakeries and led some shoppers to skip the breakfast staple entirely. But...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Game of clones: Colossal's new wolves are cute, but are they dire? For several years now, Texas-based company Colossal Biosciences has been in the news for its plans to re-create woolly mammoths someday....

Somewhere in the northern US, drones fly over a 2,000-acre preserve, protected by a nine-foot fence built to zoo standards. It is off-limits to curious visitors, especially those with a passion for epic fantasies or mythical creatures. The reason for such tight security? Inside the preserve roam three striking snow-white wolves-which a startup called Colossal...

On Tuesday, California state senator Steve Padilla will make an appearance with Megan Garcia, the mother of a Florida teen who killed himself following a relationship with an AI companion that Garcia alleges contributed to her son's death. The two will announce a new bill that would force the tech companies behind such AI companions...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How the Pentagon is adapting to China's technological rise It's been just over two months since Kathleen Hicks stepped down as US deputy secretary of defense. As the highest-ranking woman in Pentagon history,...

It's been just over two months since Kathleen Hicks stepped down as US deputy secretary of defense. As the highest-ranking woman in Pentagon history, Hicks shaped US military posture through an era defined by renewed competition between powerful countries and a scramble to modernize defense technology. She's currently taking a break before jumping into her...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Trump's tariffs will deliver a big blow to climate tech US president Donald Trump's massive, sweeping tariffs sent global stock markets tumbling yesterday, setting the stage for a worldwide trade war and ratcheting...

Agents are the talk of the AI industry-they're capable of planning, reasoning, and executing complex tasks like scheduling meetings, ordering groceries, or even taking over your computer to change settings on your behalf. But the same sophisticated abilities that make agents helpful assistants could also make them powerful tools for conducting cyberattacks. They could readily...

US president Donald Trump's massive, sweeping tariffs sent global stock markets tumbling on Thursday, setting the stage for a worldwide trade war and ratcheting up the dangers of a punishing recession. Experts fear that the US cleantech sector is especially vulnerable to a deep downturn, which would undermine the nation's progress on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Rivals are rising to challenge the dominance of SpaceX SpaceX is a space launch juggernaut. In just two decades, the company has managed to edge out former aerospace heavyweights Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop...

Things are starting to warm up here in the New York City area, and it's got me thinking once again about something that people aren't talking about enough: energy demand for air conditioners. I get it: Data centers are the shiny new thing to worry about. And I'm not saying we shouldn't be thinking about...

SpaceX is a space launch juggernaut. In just two decades, the company has managed to edge out former aerospace heavyweights Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman to gain near-monopoly status over rocket launches in the US; it accounted for 87% of the country's orbital launches in 2024, according to an analysis by SpaceNews. Since the mid-2010s,...

Rumors of the ongoing death of software development - that it's being slain by AI - are greatly exaggerated. In reality, software development is at a fork in the road: embracing the (currently) far-off notion of fully automated software development or acknowledging the work of a software developer is much more than just writing lines...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How 3D printing could make better cooling systems A new 3D-printed design could make an integral part of cooling systems like air conditioners or refrigerators smaller and more efficient, according to new research....

A new 3D-printed design could make an integral part of cooling systems like air conditioners or refrigerators smaller and more efficient, according to new research. Heat exchangers are devices that whisk away heat, and they're everywhere-used in data centers, ships, factories, and buildings. The aim is to pass as much heat as possible from one...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Brain-computer interfaces face a critical test Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) are electrodes put in paralyzed people's brains so they can use imagined movements to send commands from their neurons through a wire, or...

Tech companies are always trying out new ways for people to interact with computers-consider efforts like Google Glass, the Apple Watch, and Amazon's Alexa. You've probably used at least one. But the most radical option has been tried by fewer than 100 people on Earth-those who have lived for months or years with implanted brain-computer...

On March 27, the results of the first clinical trial for a generative AI therapy bot were published, and they showed that people in the trial who had depression or anxiety or were at risk for eating disorders benefited from chatting with the bot. I was surprised by those results, which you can read about...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The first trial of generative AI therapy shows it might help with depression The first clinical trial of a generative AI therapy bot suggests it was as effective as human therapy for people...

The first clinical trial of a therapy bot that uses generative AI suggests it was as effective as human therapy for participants with depression, anxiety, or risk for developing eating disorders. Even so, it doesn't give a go-ahead to the dozens of companies hyping such technologies while operating in a regulatory gray area. A team...

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A tech company accumulates a ton of user data, hoping to figure out a business model later. That business model never arrives, the company goes under, and the data is in the wind. The latest version of that story emerged on March 24, when the onetime genetic...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Anthropic can now track the bizarre inner workings of a large language model The news: The AI firm Anthropic has developed a way to peer inside a large language model and watch what...

This week, MIT Technology Review published a piece on bodyoids-living bodies that cannot think or feel pain. In the piece, a trio of experts argue that advances in biotechnology will soon allow us to create spare" human bodies that could be used for research, or to provide organs for donation. If you find your skin...

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what's coming next. You can read more from the series here. With the recent news that the Atlantic's editor in chief was accidentally added to a group Signal chat for American leaders planning a bombing in Yemen,...

The AI firm Anthropic has developed a way to peer inside a large language model and watch what it does as it comes up with a response, revealing key new insights into how the technology works. The takeaway: LLMs are even stranger than we thought. The Anthropic team was surprised by some of the counterintuitive...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Inside a romance scam compound-and how people get tricked into being there Gavesh's journey had started, seemingly innocently, with a job ad on Facebook promising work he desperately needed. Instead, he found himself...

Glaciers generally move so slowly you can't see their progress with the naked eye. (Their pace is ... glacial.) But these massive bodies of ice do march downhill, with potentially planet-altering consequences. There's a lot we don't understand about how glaciers move and how soon some of the most significant ones could collapse into the...

Heading north in the dark, the only way Gavesh could try to track his progress through the Thai countryside was by watching the road signs zip by. The Jeep's three occupants-Gavesh, a driver, and a young Chinese woman-had no languages in common, so they drove for hours in nervous silence as they wove their way...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. China built hundreds of AI data centers to catch the AI boom. Now many stand unused. Just months ago, China's boom in data center construction was at its height, fueled by both government...