MIT Technology Review

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review's weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. Recently, I took myself to one of my favorite places in New York City, the public library, to look at some of the hundreds of...

One morning in August 2021, as she had nearly every morning for about a decade, Janice Smith opened her computer and went to Kiva.org, the website of the San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps everyday people make microloans to borrowers around the world. Smith, who lives in Elk River, Minnesota, scrolled through profiles of bakers in...

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review's weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first,sign up here. This week I've been thinking about America's addiction to opioids. The statistics are staggering. Since 2010, opioid overdose deaths have nearly quadrupled. More than 80,000 people...

The US Department of Energy announced today that it's providing $1.2 billion to develop regional hubs that can draw down and store away at least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year as a means of combating climate change. The move represents a major step forward in the effort to establish a market...

It's 1948, and it isn't a great year for alcohol. Prohibition has come and gone, and booze is a buyer's market again. That much is obvious from Seagram's annual sales meeting, an 11-city traveling extravaganza designed to drum up nationwide sales. No expense has been spared: there's the two-hour, professionally acted stage play about the...

Fifty years ago, the average business transaction was pretty straightforward. Shoppers handed purchases directly to cashiers, business partners shook hands in person, and people brought malfunctioning machines to a repair shop across the street. The proximity of all participating parties meant that both customers and businesses could verify authority and authenticity with their own eyes....

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. Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments? There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might...

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review's weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Tucked away behind a brick building on MIT's campus sits a nuclear reactor. I've been hearing about this facility for over a decade, and it's taken on a somewhat mythic quality in...

Max was only a toddler when his parents noticed there was something different" about the way he moved. He was slower than other kids his age, and he struggled to jump. He couldn't run. Blood tests suggested he might have a genetic disease- one that affected a key muscle protein. Max's dad, Tao Wang, a...

Organizations are building resilient supply chains with a phygital" approach, a blend of digital and physical tools. In recent years, the global supply chain has been disrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical volatility, overwhelmed legacy systems, and labor shortages. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an industrial advocacy group, warns the disruption isn't over-NAM's...

In late May, the Pentagon appeared to be on fire. A few miles away, White House aides and reporters scrambled to figure out whether a viral online image of the exploding building was in fact real. It wasn't. It was AI-generated. Yet government officials, journalists, and tech companies were unable to take action before 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. After 25 years of hype, embryonic stem cells are still waiting for their moment In 1998, researchers isolated powerful stem cells from human embryos. It was a breakthrough for biology, since these cells...

Twenty-five years ago, in 1998, researchers in Wisconsin isolated powerful stem cells from human embryos. It was a fundamental breakthrough for biology, since these cells are the starting point for human bodies and have the capacity to turn into any other type of cell-heart cells, neurons, you name it. National Geographic would later summarize the...

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review's newsletter about technology developments in China.Sign upto receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Two years ago, parents around the world likely looked at China with a bit of jealousy: the country had instituted a strict three-hour-per-week limit for children playing video games. In 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. AI language models are rife with different political biases The news: AI language models contain different political biases, according to a new study. Researchers conducted tests on 14 large language models and found...

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. AI language models have recently become the latest frontier in the US culture wars. Right-wing commentators have accused ChatGPT of having a woke bias," and conservative groups have started developing theirown...

Should companies have social responsibilities? Or do they exist only to deliver profit to their shareholders? If you ask an AI you might get wildly different answers depending on which one you ask. While OpenAI's older GPT-2 and GPT-3 Ada models would advance the former statement, GPT-3 Da Vinci, the company's more capable model, would...

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. What's next for China's digital currency? China's digital yuan was seemingly born out of a desire to centralize a tech giant-dominated payment system. According to its central bank, the digital currency, also known...

MIT Technology Review's What's Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of our series here. China's digital yuan was seemingly born out of a desire to centralize a payment system dominated by the tech companies Alibaba and Tencent. According to...

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 hot is too hot for the human body? There's no other way to say it: it's hot. Temperatures this summer have yet again broken records, and around the world, climate change is...

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review's weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. I think I'm running out of ways to say it: it's hot. Saturday's heat was crushing in New York, with temperatures topping 90 F (32 C) and air that was absolutely sticky...

Enterprises are shifting operations from on-premises to the cloud, and industry momentum for digital transformation continues to push forward. Gartner estimates that 80% of CEOs are increasing investment in digital technologies in 2023 to achieve greater efficiency and productivity. Cloud and digitization are becoming a necessity across industries to ensure competitiveness. But as companies make...

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. Decoding the data of the Chinese mpox outbreak Almost exactly a year after the World Health Organization declared mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) a public health emergency, the hot spot for the outbreak...

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review's newsletter about technology developments in China.Sign upto receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Almost exactly a year after the World Health Organization declared mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) a public health emergency, the hot spot for the outbreak has quietly moved from the US...

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 is suddenly dealing with another public health crisis: mpox The Chinese government is battling a new public health concern: mpox. The World Health Organization reports that China is currently experiencing the world's...

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Earlier this year, when I realized how ridiculously easy generative AI has made it to manipulate people's images, I maxed out the privacy settings on my social media accounts and swapped...

Hazmat suits, PCR tests, quarantines, and contact tracing-it was hard not to feel deja vu last week when China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention published new guidance on how to contain a disease outbreak. But what was happening was not another covid wave. Rather, the Chinese government was addressing a potentially significant new public...

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. Cryptography may offer a solution to the massive AI-labeling problem The White House wants big AI companies to disclose when content has been created using artificial intelligence, and very soon the EU will...

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review's weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. I recently wrotea short storyabout a project backed by some major tech and media companies trying to help identify content made or altered by AI....

The White House wants big AI companies to disclose when content has been created using artificial intelligence, and very soon the EU will require some tech platforms to label their AI-generated images, audio, and video with prominent markings" disclosing their synthetic origins. There's a big problem, though: identifying material that was created by artificial intelligence...

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. Six ways that AI could change politics -Bruce Schneier & Nathan E. Sanders When it comes to how AI may threaten our democracy, much of the public conversation lacks imagination. People talk about...

ChatGPT was released just nine months ago, and we are still learning how it will affect our daily lives, our careers, and even our systems of self-governance. But when it comes to how AI may threaten our democracy, much of the public conversation lacks imagination. People talk about the danger of campaigns that attack opponents...

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. This new tool could protect your pictures from AI manipulation What's happening? There's currently nothing stopping someone taking the selfie you posted online last week and editing it using powerful generative AI systems....

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review's weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The unending heat this summer has kept the air conditioners in my apartment windows wildly busy. When I'm not taking guesses about what my electric bill might look like this month, I've...

Remember that selfie you posted last week? There's currently nothing stopping someone taking it and editing it using powerful generative AI systems. Even worse, thanks to the sophistication of these systems, it might be impossible to prove that the resulting image is fake. The good news is that a new tool, created by researchers at...

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. These moisture-sucking materials could transform air conditioning A surprising set of materials could soon help make more efficient air conditioners that don't overtax the electrical grid on hot days. As extreme heat continues...

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review's newsletter about technology developments in China.Sign upto receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Even though I know that Temu and Shein, two Chinese e-commerce platforms, occupy the same off-price shopping space, I have to admit I didn't expect the tensions between them to escalate...

A surprising set of materials could soon help make more efficient air conditioners that don't overtax the electrical grid on hot days. As extreme heat continues to shatter records around the globe, electricity demand for air conditioning is expected to triple in the next few decades-an increase of about 4,000 terawatt-hours between 2016 and 2050,...

Many people think of generative AI as a tool that allows them to use their own words to ask questions or generate copy and images-both of which it does remarkably well. However, it also has incredible potential to transform our personal and professional work-helping us access, consume, and utilize the untapped information that floods our...

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. It's high time for more AI transparency In less than a week since Meta launched its open source AI model, LLaMA 2, startups and researchers have already used it to develop a chatbot...

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. That was fast. In less than a week since Meta launched its AI model,LLaMA 2,startups and researchers have already used it to developachatbotand anAI assistant. It will be only a matter...

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. What's next for the moon It's been more than 50 years since humans last walked on the moon. But starting this year, an array of missions from private companies and national space agencies...

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review's weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. This week, I published an in-depth story about efforts to restrict face recognition in the US. The story's genesis came during a team meeting a...

MIT Technology Review's What's Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of our series here. We're going back to the moon. And back. And back. And back again. It's been more than 50 years since humans last walked on 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. Is the digital dollar dead? In 2020, digital currencies were one of the hottest topics in town. China was well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC,...

It's summer 2020. The world is under a series of lockdowns as the pandemic continues to run its course. And in academic and foreign policy circles, digital currencies are one of the hottest topics in town. China is well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and many other...

On August 10, MIT Technology Review is launching Roundtables, a participatory subscriber-only online event series, to keep you informed about emerging tech. Subscribers will get exclusive access to 30-minute monthly conversations with our writers and editors about topics they're thinking deeply about-including artificial intelligence, biotechnology, climate change, tech policy, and more. (If you're not yet...