The Download: diversifying AI voices, and a science-fiction glimpse into the future

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.

How this grassroots effort could make AI voices more diverse

We are on the cusp of a voice AI boom, as tech companies roll out the next generation of artificial-intelligence-powered assistants. But the default voices for these assistants are often white American—British, if you’re lucky—and most definitely speak English. And if you’re one of the billions of people who don’t speak English, bad luck: These tools don’t sound nearly as good in other languages.

This is because the data that has gone into training these models is limited. In AI research, most data used to train models is extracted from the English-language internet, which reflects Anglo-American culture. But there is a massive grassroots effort underway to change this status quo and bring more transparency and diversity to what AI sounds like. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Azalea: a science-fiction story

Fancy something fiction to read this weekend? If you enjoy Sci-Fi, check out this story written by Paolo Bacigalupi, featured in the latest edition of our print magazine. It imagines a future shaped by climate change—read it for yourself here.

The must-reads

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

1 Cruise has admitted to falsifying a crash report
The report failed to mention that its robotaxi dragged a pedestrian after striking her. (San Francisco Chronicle)
+ The firm has been fined $500,000 to resolve the criminal charges. (WP $)

2 The US plans to investigate Microsoft’s cloud business 
As the Biden administration prepares to hand over power to Donald Trump’s team. (FT $)

3 Silicon Valley hates regulation. So does Trump.
AI and energy ventures could be the first to prosper under lighter-touch governance. (WP $)
+ Peter Thiel claims the tech industry is fed up with ‘wokeness.’ (Insider $)

4 Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team will be working 80+ hours a week
And you’ll need to subscribe to X to apply. (WSJ $)
+ As if that wasn’t appealing enough, the positions are also unpaid. (NBC News)
+ The ‘lucky’ workers can expect a whole lot of meetings. (Bloomberg $)

5 The trolls are in charge now
And it’s increasingly unclear what’s a joke and what’s an actual threat. (The Atlantic $)
+ It’s possible, but not guaranteed, that Trump’s more controversial cabinet picks will be defeated in the Senate. (New Yorker $)

6 How to keep abortion plans private in the age of Trump
Reproductive rights are under threat. Here’s how to protect them. (The Markup)

7 The first mechanical Qubit is here
And mechanical quantum computers could be the first to benefit. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Quantum computing is taking on its biggest challenge: noise. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Can Bluesky recapture the old Twitter’s magic?
No algorithms, no interfering billionaires. (Vox)
+ More than one million new users joined the platform earlier this week. (TechCrunch)

9 Weight-loss drugs could help to treat chronic pain
And could present a safer alternative to opioids. (New Scientist $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)

10 These are the most expensive photographs ever taken
The first human-taken pictures from space are truly awe-inspiring. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“It feels like it’s a platform for and by real people.”

—US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells the Washington Post about the appeal of Bluesky as users join the social network after abandoning X.

The big story

How environmental DNA is giving scientists a new way to understand our world

February 2024

Environmental DNA is a relatively inexpensive, widespread, potentially automated way to observe the diversity and distribution of life.

Unlike previous techniques, which could identify DNA from, say, a single organism, the method also collects the swirling cloud of other genetic material that surrounds it. It can serve as a surveillance tool, offering researchers a means of detecting the seemingly undetectable.

By sampling eDNA, or mixtures of genetic material in water, soil, ice cores, cotton swabs, or practically any environment imaginable, even thin air, it is now possible to search for a specific organism or assemble a snapshot of all the organisms in a given place.

It offers a thrilling — and potentially chilling — way to collect information about organisms, including humans, as they go about their everyday business. Read the full story.

—Peter Andrey Smith

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Smells like punk spirit.
+ If you’ve been feeling creaky lately (and who hasn’t), give these mobility exercises a go.
+ Talk about a glow up—these beautiful locations really do emanate light.
+ It’s the truly chilling collab we never knew we needed: Bon Jovi has joined forces with Mr Worldwide himself, Pitbull.

The Download: AI in Africa, and reporting in the age of Trump

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.

What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player

Africa is still early in the process of adopting AI technologies. But researchers say the continent is uniquely hospitable to it for several reasons, including a relatively young and increasingly well-educated population, a rapidly growing ecosystem of AI startups, and lots of potential consumers. 

However, ambitious efforts to develop AI tools that answer the needs of Africans face numerous hurdles. The biggest are inadequate funding and poor infrastructure. Limited internet access and a scarcity of domestic data centers also mean that developers might not be able to deploy cutting-edge AI capabilities. Complicating this further is a lack of overarching policies or strategies for harnessing AI’s immense benefits—and regulating its downsides.

Taken together, researchers worry, these issues will hold Africa’s AI sector back and hamper its efforts to pave its own pathway in the global AI race. Read the full story.

—Abdullahi Tsanni

Science and technology stories in the age of Trump

—Mat Honan

I’ve spent most of this year being pretty convinced that Donald Trump would be the 47th president of the United States. Even so, like most people, I was completely surprised by the scope of his victory. This level of victory will certainly provide the political capital to usher in a broad sweep of policy changes.

Some of these changes will be well outside our lane as a publication. But very many of President-elect Trump’s stated policy goals will have direct impacts on science and technology. 

So I thought I would share some of my remarks from our edit meeting on Wednesday morning, when we woke up to find out that the world had indeed changed. Read the full story.

This story is from The Debrief, the weekly newsletter from our editor in chief Mat Honan. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday.

The must-reads

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

1 Canada has recorded its first known bird flu case in a human 
Officials are investigating how the teenager was exposed to the virus. (NPR)
+ Canada insists that the risk to the public remains low. (Reuters)
+ Why virologists are getting increasingly nervous about bird flu. (MIT Technology Review)

2 How MAGA became a rallying call for young men
The Republicans’ online strategy tapped into the desires of disillusioned Gen Z men. (WP $)
+ Elon Musk is assembling a list of favorable would-be Trump advisors. (FT $)

3 Trump’s victory is a win for the US defense industry
Palmer Luckey’s Anduril is anticipating a lucrative next four years. (Insider $)
+ Here’s what Luckey has to say about the Pentagon’s future of mixed reality. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Traditional weapons are being given AI upgrades. (Wired $)

4 This year is highly likely to be the hottest on record
This week’s Cop29 climate summit will thrash out future policies. (The Guardian)
+ A little-understood contributor to the weather? Microplastics. (Wired $)
+ Trump’s win is a tragic loss for climate progress. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Ukraine is scrambling to repair its power stations
Workers are dismantling plants to repair other stations hit by Russian attacks. (WSJ $)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)

6 We need better ways to evaluate LLMs
Tech giants are coming up with better methods of measuring these systems. (FT $)
+ The improvements in the tech behind ChatGPT appear to be slowing. (The Information $)
+ AI hype is built on high test scores. Those tests are flawed. (MIT Technology Review)

7 FTX is suing crypto exchange Binance
It claims Sam Bankman-Fried fraudulently transferred close to $1.8 billion to Binance in 2021. (Bloomberg $)
+ Meanwhile, bitcoin is surging to new record heights. (Reuters)

8 What we know about tech and loneliness
While there’s little evidence tech directly makes us lonely, there’s a strong correlation between the two. (NYT $)

9 What’s next for space policy in the US
If one person’s interested in the cosmos, it’s Elon Musk. (Ars Technica)

10 Could you save the Earth from a killer asteroid?
It’s a game that’s part strategy, part luck. (New Scientist $)
+ Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“‘Conflict of interest’ seems rather quaint.”

—Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Business School, tells the Guardian about Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s openly transactional relationship.

The big story

Quartz, cobalt, and the waste we leave behind

May 2024

It is easy to convince ourselves that we now live in a dematerialized ethereal world, ruled by digital startups, artificial intelligence, and financial services.

Yet there is little evidence that we have decoupled our economy from its churning hunger for resources. We are still reliant on the products of geological processes like coal and quartz, a mineral that’s a rich source of the silicon used to build computer chips, to power our world.

Three recent books aim to reconnect readers with the physical reality that underpins the global economy. Each one fills in dark secrets about the places, processes, and lived realities that make the economy tick, and reveals just how tragic a toll the materials we rely on take for humans and the environment. Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Oscars buzz has already begun, and this year’s early contenders are an interesting bunch.
+ This sweet art project shows how toys age with love
+ Who doesn’t love pretzels? Here’s how to make sure they end up with the perfect fluffy interior and a glossy, chewy crust.
+ These images of plankton are really quite something.

The Download: inside animals’ minds, and how to make AI agents useful

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.

What do jumping spiders find sexy? How DIY tech is offering insights into the animal mind.

Studying the minds of other animals comes with a challenge that human psychologists don’t usually face: Your subjects can’t tell you what they’re thinking. 

To get answers from animals, scientists need to come up with creative experiments to learn why they behave the way they do. Sometimes this requires designing and building experimental equipment from scratch. 

These contraptions can range from ingeniously simple to incredibly complex, but all of them are tailored to help answer questions about the lives and minds of specific species. Do honeybees need a good night’s sleep? What do jumping spiders find sexy? Do falcons like puzzles? For queries like these, off-the-shelf gear simply won’t do. Check out these contraptions custom-built by scientists to help them understand the lives and minds of the animals they study. 

—Betsy Mason

This piece is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is all about the weird and wonderful world of food. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive future copies once they land.

How ChatGPT search paves the way for AI agents

It’s been a busy few weeks for OpenAI. Alongside updates to its new Realtime API platform, which will allow developers to build apps and voice assistants more quickly, it recently launched ChatGPT search, which allows users to search the internet using the chatbot.

Both developments pave the way for the next big thing in AI: agents. These AI assistants can complete complex chains of tasks, such as booking flights. OpenAI’s strategy is to both build agents itself and allow developers to use its software to build their own agents, and voice will play an important role in what agents will look and feel like.

Melissa Heikkilä, our senior AI reporter, sat down with Olivier Godement, OpenAI’s head of product for its platform, and Romain Huet, head of developer experience, last week to hear more about the two big hurdles that need to be overcome before agents can become a reality. Read the full story.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

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

1 America is heading to the polls
Here’s how Harris and Trump will attempt to lead the US to tech supremacy. (The Information $)
+ The ‘Stop the Steal’ election denial movement is preparing to contest the vote. (WP $)
+ The muddy final polls suggest it’s still all to play for. (Vox)

2 Abortion rights are on the 2024 ballot
A lack of access to basic health care has led to the deaths of at least four women. (NY Mag $)
+ Nine states will decide whether to guarantee their residents abortion access. (Fortune)
+ If Trump wins he could ban abortion nationwide, even without Congress. (Politico)

3 Inside New York’s election day wargames
Tech, business and policy leaders gathered to thrash out potential risks. (WSJ $)+ Violence runs throughout all aspects of this election cycle. (FT $)

4 Elon Musk’s false and misleading X election posts have billions of views
In fact, they’ve been viewed twice as much as all X’s political ads this year. (CNN)
+ Musk’s decision to hitch himself to Trump may end up backfiring, though. (FT $)

5 Meta will permit the US military to use its AI models
It’s an interesting update to its previous policy, which explicitly banned its use for military purposes. (NYT $)
+ Facebook has kept a low profile during the election cycle. (The Atlantic $)
+ Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The hidden danger of pirated software
It’s not just viruses you should be worried about. (404 Media)

7 Apple is weighing up expanding into smart glasses
Where Meta leads, Apple may follow. (Bloomberg $)
+ The coolest thing about smart glasses is not the AR. It’s the AI. (MIT Technology Review)

8 India’s lithium plans may have been a bit too ambitious
Reports of a major lithium reserve appear to have been massively overblown.(Rest of World)
+ Some countries are ending support for EVs. Is it too soon? (MIT Technology Review)

9 Your air fryer could be surveilling you
Household appliances are now mostly smart, and stuffed with trackers. (The Guardian)

10 How to stay sane during election week
Focus on what you can control, and try to let go of what you can’t. (WP $)
+ Here’s how election gurus are planning to cope in the days ahead. (The Atlantic $)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“We’re in kind of the ‘throw spaghetti at the wall’ moment of politics and AI, where this intersection allows people to try new things for propaganda.”

—Rachel Tobac, chief executive of ethical hacking company SocialProof Security, tells the Washington Post why a deepfake video of Martin Luther King endorsing Donald Trump is being shared online in the closing hours of the presidential race.

The big story

The hunter-gatherer groups at the heart of a microbiome gold rush

December 2023

Over the last couple of decades, scientists have come to realize just how important the microbes that crawl all over us are to our health. But some believe our microbiomes are in crisis—casualties of an increasingly sanitized way of life. Disturbances in the collections of microbes we host have been associated with a whole host of diseases, ranging from arthritis to Alzheimer’s.

Some might not be completely gone, though. Scientists believe many might still be hiding inside the intestines of people who don’t live in the polluted, processed environment that most of the rest of us share.

They’ve been studying the feces of people like the Yanomami, an Indigenous group in the Amazon, who appear to still have some of the microbes that other people have lost. But they’re having to navigate an ethical minefield in order to do so. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Move over Moo Deng—Haggis the baby pygmy hippo is the latest internet star!
+ To celebrate the life of the late, great Quincy Jones, check out this sensational interview in which he spills the beans on everything from the Beatles’ musical shortcomings to who shot Kennedy. Thank you for the music, Quincy.
+ The color of the season? Sage green, apparently.
+ Dinosaurs are everywhere, you just need to look for them.

The Download: US house-building barriers, and a fusion energy facility tour

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.

Housing is an election issue. But the US sucks at it.

Ahead of abortion access, ahead of immigration, and way ahead of climate change, US voters under 30 are most concerned about one issue: housing affordability. And it’s not just young voters who say soaring rents and eye-watering home sale prices are among their top worries. For the first time in recent memory, the cost of housing could be a major factor in the presidential election.  

It’s not hard to see why. From the beginning of the pandemic to early 2024, US home prices rose by 47%. In large swaths of the country, buying a home is no longer a possibility even for those with middle-class incomes. 

Permitting delays and strict zoning rules create huge obstacles to building more and faster—as do other widely recognized issues, like the political power of NIMBY activists across the country and an ongoing shortage of skilled workers. But there is also another, less talked-about problem: We’re not very efficient at building, and we seem somehow to be getting worse. Read the full story.

—David Rotman

Inside a fusion energy facility

—Casey Crownhart

On an overcast day in early October, I picked up a rental car and drove to Devens, Massachusetts, to visit a hole in the ground.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has raised over $2 billion in funding since it spun out of MIT in 2018, all in service of building the first commercial fusion reactor. The plan is to have it operating by 2026.

I visited the company’s site recently to check in on progress. Things are starting to come together and, looking around the site, I found it becoming easier to imagine a future that could actually include fusion energy. But there’s still a lot of work left to do. Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: How gamification took over the world

Instead of liberating us from drudgery and maximizing our potential, gamification has turned out to be just another tool for coercion, distraction, and control. Why did we fall for it?

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast. In partnership with News Over Audio, we’ll be making a selection of our stories available, each one read by a professional voice actor. You’ll be able to listen to them on the go or download them to listen to offline.

We’re publishing a new story each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, including some taken from our most recent print magazine.

Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

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

1 Bird flu has been found in a pig in the US for the first time 
The USDA says it’s not cause for panic. But it’s certainly cause for concern. (Reuters)
+ Why virologists are getting increasingly nervous about bird flu. (MIT Technology Review)
 
2 Elon Musk has turned X into a political weapon 
This is what $44 billion bought him: the ability to flood the zone with falsehoods during an election. (The Atlantic $)
+ X’s crowdsourced fact-checking program is falling woefully short. (WP $)
+ And it’s not just X. YouTube is full of election conspiracy content too. (NYT $)
+ Spare a thought for the election officials who have to navigate this mess. (NPR)
 
3 Europe’s big tech hawks are nervously eyeing the US election
Biden was an ally in their efforts to crack down. Either of his potential successors look like a less sure bet. (Wired $)
+ Attendees regularly fail to disclose their links to big tech at EU events. (The Guardian)
 
4 The AI boom is being powered by concrete
It’s a major ingredient for data centers and the power plants being built to serve them—and a climate disaster. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ How electricity could help tackle a surprising climate villain. (MIT Technology Review)
 
5 What makes human brains so special? 
Much of the answer is still a mystery—but researchers are uncovering more and more promising leads. (Nature)
+ Tech that measures our brainwaves is 100 years old. How will we be using it 100 years from now? (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot is getting much more capable
If its latest video, in which it autonomously picks up and moves car parts, is anything to go by. (TechCrunch)
+ A skeptic’s guide to humanoid-robot videos. (MIT Technology Review)
 
7 Alexa desperately needs a revamp
The voice assistant was launched 10 years ago, and it’s been disappointing us ever since. (The Verge) 
 
8 We’re sick of algorithms recommending us stuff
Lots of people are keen to turn back to guidance from other humans. (New Yorker $)
+ If you’re one of them, I have bad news: AI is going to make the problem much worse. (Fortune $)
 
9 Russia fined Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That’s more money than exists on Earth but sure, don’t let that stop you. (The Register)
 
10 What is going on with Mark Zuckerberg recently 
He’s using clothes to rebrand himself and… it’s kinda working?! (Slate)

Quote of the day

“It’s what happens when you let a bunch of grifters take over.”

—A Trumpworld source explains to Wired why Donald Trump’s ground campaign in Michigan is so chaotic. 

 The big story

A day in the life of a Chinese robotaxi driver

WORLDCOIN

July 2022

When Liu Yang started his current job, he found it hard to go back to driving his own car: “I instinctively went for the passenger seat. Or when I was driving, I would expect the car to brake by itself,” says the 33-year-old Beijing native, who joined the Chinese tech giant Baidu in January 2021 as a robotaxi driver.

Liu is one of the hundreds of safety operators employed by Baidu, “driving” five days a week in Shougang Park. But despite having only worked for the company for 19 months, he already has to think about his next career move, as his job will likely be eliminated within a few years. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Happy Halloween! Check out some of the best spine-chilling classic novels. 
+ If scary movies are more your jam, I’ve still got you covered.
+ These photo montages of music fans outside concerts are incredible. 
+ Love that this guy went from being terrified of rollercoasters to designing them.
+ You’ll probably never sort your life out. And that’s OK.

The Download: coping in a time of arrhythmia, and DNA data storage

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 arrhythmia of our current age  

Arrhythmia means the heart beats, but not in proper time—a critical rhythm of life suddenly going rogue and unpredictable. It’s frightening to experience, but what if it’s also a good metaphor for our current times? That a pulse once seemingly so steady is now less sure. Perhaps this wobbliness might be extrapolated into a broader sense of life in the 2020s. 

Maybe you feel it, too—that the world seems to have skipped more than a beat or two as demagogues rant and democracy shudders, hurricanes rage, and glaciers dissolve. We can’t stop watching tiny screens where influencers pitch products we don’t need alongside news about senseless wars that destroy, murder, and maim tens-of-thousands. 

All the resulting anxiety has been hard on our hearts—literally and metaphorically. Read the full story. 

—David Ewing Duncan

An easier-to-use technique for storing data in DNA is inspired by our cells

The news: It turns out that you don’t need to be a scientist to encode data in DNA. Researchers have been working on DNA-based data storage for decades, but a new template-based method inspired by our cells’ chemical processes is easy enough for even nonscientists to practice. 

Some background: So far, the process of storing data in DNA has been expensive, time consuming, and error prone. It also required skilled expertise to carry out. 

The details: The new method is more efficient and easy enough that anyone can do it. They enlisted 60 students—studying all sorts of topics, not just science—to test it out, and the trial was a success. It could pave the way for an unusual but ultra-stable way to store information. Read the full story. 

—Jenna Ahart

Read next: We’re making more data than ever. What can—and should—we save for future generations? And will they be able to understand it? Read our feature all about the race to save our online lives from a digital dark age.

The must-reads

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

1 Facebook is auto-generating militia group pages
Rather than shutting extremist content down, it’s actually lending a helping hand. (Wired $)
+ X is shoving political content into people’s feeds, whether they want it or not. (WSJ $)
+ Some users say they’re being paid thousands of dollars by X to promote misinformation. (BBC)

2 OpenAI is working on its first in-house chip with Broadcom and TSMC
It’s abandoned ambitious plans to manufacture its own chips. Instead, it’s focusing on the design stage of the process. (Reuters $)
+ Chip designer Arm could become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom. (FT $)

3 Elon Musk has build a compound for his children and their mothers
It is an… unconventional set-up to say the least. (NYT $) 
+ Musk fans are losing a lot of money to crypto scams. (Gizmodo)

4 A quarter of new code at Google is now AI-generated 
That fascinating fact emerged from CEO Sundar Pichai himself on the company’s latest earnings call. (The Verge) 
+ Github Copilot will switch from only using OpenAI’s models to a multi-model approach. (Ars Technica)
+ How AI assistants are already changing the way code gets made. (MIT Technology Review)

5 This app can operate your smartphone for you 
If you live in China anyway—but companies everywhere are working on the same capabilities. (South China Morning Post)
+ LinkedIn has launched an AI agent that purports to do a whole range of recruitment tasks. (TechCrunch) 

6 Universal is building an AI music generator 
But it’s a long way off from demoing it just yet. (The Verge)
+ Rival AI music startups face a big barrier: licensing copyrighted music is very expensive. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Kids are getting around school smartphone bans with smartwatches
But it seems it’s anxious parents that are really driving adoption. (Wired $)

8 Reddit just turned a profit for the first time
It has almost 100 million daily users now. (FT $) 

9 AI is coming to the world of dance
You still need human bodies—but AI is helping with choreography and set designs. (The Guardian)

10 A PhD student found a lost city in Mexico by accident
Luke Auld-Thomas stumbled across a vast ancient Maya city while studying online Lidar survey data. (BBC)

Quote of the day

Compared to what AI boosters were predicting after ChatGPT was released, this is a glacial pace of adoption.”

—Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University, digs into a study which found that only 0.5-3.5% of work hours involve generative AI in a post on X.

 The big story

How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users

WORLDCOIN

April 2022

In December 2021, residents of the village of Gunungguruh, Indonesia, were curious when technology company Worldcoin turned up at a local school. It was pitched as a “new, collectively owned global currency that will be distributed fairly to as many people as possible,” in exchange for an iris scan and other personal data.

Gunungguruh was not alone in receiving a visit from Worldcoin. MIT Technology Review has interviewed over 35 individuals in six countries who either worked for or on behalf of Worldcoin, had been scanned, or were unsuccessfully recruited to participate.

Our investigation reveals wide gaps between Worldcoin’s public messaging, which focused on protecting privacy, and what users experienced. We found that the company’s representatives used deceptive marketing practices, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent. Read the full investigation. 

—Eileen Guo and Adi Renaldi

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Can you guess these movies from their French name?

+ Why leopard print is an eternally solid style choice. ($)

+ Sitting all day screws our bodies up, but these stretches can help.

+ You can pretty much pinpoint the exact hour you hit peak happiness on vacation. ($)

The Download: mysterious exosomes, and AI’s e-waste issue

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.

Exosomes are touted as a trendy cure-all. We don’t know if they work.

There’s a trendy new cure-all in town—you might have seen ads pop up on social media or read rave reviews in beauty magazines. 

Exosomes are being touted as a miraculous treatment for hair loss, aging skin, acne, eczema, pain conditions, long covid, and even neurological diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. That’s, of course, if you can afford the price tag—which can stretch to thousands of dollars.

But there’s a big problem with these big promises: We don’t fully understand how exosomes work—or what they even really are. Read our story. 

—Jessica Hamzelou

AI will add to the e-waste problem. Here’s what we can do about it.

The news: Generative AI could add up to 5 million metric tons of e-waste in total by 2030, according to a new study. That’s a relatively small fraction of the current global total of over 60 million metric tons of e-waste each year. However, it’s still a significant part of a growing problem.

Under the hood: The primary contributor is high-performance computing hardware that’s used in data centers and server farms. That equipment is full of valuable metals and hazardous materials, and it’s being replaced at a rapid rate as AI companies race to adopt the most cutting-edge hardware to power their models.

What can be done: Expanding hardware’s lifespan is one of the most significant ways to cut down on e-waste. Refurbishing and reusing components can also play a significant role, as can designing hardware in ways that makes it easier to recycle and upgrade. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

Militaries are great testing grounds for AI tech, says Palmer Luckey

War is a catalyst for technological change, and the last couple of years have been marred by high-profile conflicts around the world. Geopolitical tensions are still rising now. 

Silicon Valley players are poised to benefit. One of them is Palmer Luckey, the founder of the virtual-reality headset company Oculus, which he sold to Facebook for $2 billion. After Luckey’s highly public ousting from Meta, he founded Anduril, which focuses on drones, cruise missiles, and other AI-enhanced technologies for the US Department of Defense. The company is now valued at $14 billion. We interviewed Luckey about his new project: headsets for the military.

But the use of AI for the military is a controversial topic, with a long and bitter history that stretches from Project Maven to killer robots. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter all about the latest in AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

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

1 Strava is leaking the location of foreign leaders
Their bodyguards’ runs are revealing more than they ought to. (Le Monde)
+ It’s shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel. (MIT Technology Review)

2 A man who used AI to make child sexual abuse images has been jailed
His 18-year sentence is the first of its kind in the UK. (FT $)

3 Here’s what Trump plans to do if he wins a second term
The 900-page Project 2025 document provides plenty of hints. (The Verge)
+ It would be hard for him to roll back the Green New Deal—but not impossible. (Axios)
+ Russia, China and Iran are interfering in the election. (NYT $)
+ But cybercriminals may pose an even greater threat. (Wired $)

4 Apple Intelligence is here 
But it seems it’s still kinda dumb. (WP $)
+ Meta is reportedly building its own AI search engine. (The Information $)
+ The trouble is, AI chatbots make stuff up. And it’s not a fully fixable problem. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Medium is drowning in AI slop
Almost half of the posts on there now are probably AI-generated. (Wired $)

6 What steampunk can teach tech today
We’re too keen on removing friction—people still like fiddling with dials and gears. (New Yorker $)
+ Prosthetics designers are coming up with new ways to augment our bodies. (MIT Technology Review) 

7 This is what wargaming looks like now
Militaries around the world use software called Command PE built by a tiny British game publisher. (WSJ $)

8 Tiktok’s founder has become China’s richest man 
Zhang Yiming’s wealth has almost doubled in the last year, to $49 billion. (BBC)
+ How China takes extreme measures to keep teens off TikTok. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How complex life started to flourish 
You can thank eukaryotes, a type of cell that emerged about 3 billion years ago. (Quanta $)

10 Oregon Trail is being turned into an action-comedy movie
With musical numbers. Yes, seriously. (Hollywood Reporter)

Quote of the day

“I thought it would conquer the world.”

—Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, spoke for us all (well, for me anyway), when he waxed lyrical about the 1999 Sega Dreamcast video game console on a Twitch stream last weekend, the Washington Post reports.

 The big story

Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense

EMRE ÇAYLAK

September 2024

Drones have come to define the brutal conflict in Ukraine that has now dragged on for more than two and a half years. And most rely on radio communications—a technology that Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov has obsessed over since childhood.

While Flash is now a civilian, the former officer has still taken it upon himself to inform his country’s defense in all matters related to radio. He studies Russian transmissions and tries to learn about the problems facing troops.

In this race for survival—as each side constantly tries to best the other, only to start all over again when the other inevitably catches up—Ukrainian soldiers need to develop creative solutions, and fast. As Ukraine’s wartime radio guru, Flash may just be one of their best hopes for doing that. Read the full story.

—Charlie Metcalfe

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Timothée Chalamet turned up at his own look-alike contest in New York last weekend. Spoiler alert: he didn’t win. 

+ Learn these basic rules to make veg-based meals delicious.

+ There’s something very special about ancient trees.

+ Do you tend to please everyone but yourself? Here’s how to stop. (NYT $)

The Download: the AI Hype Index, and spotting machine-written text

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.

Introducing: The AI Hype Index

There’s no denying that the AI industry moves fast. Each week brings a bold new announcement, product release, or lofty claim that pushes the bounds of what we previously thought was possible. Separating AI fact from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. Take a look at what made the cut.

The inaugural AI Hype Index makes an appearance in the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is all about the weird and wonderful world of food. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive future copies once they land.

Google DeepMind is making its AI text watermark open source

What’s new: Google DeepMind has developed a tool for identifying AI-generated text and is making it available open source. The tool, called SynthID, is part of a larger family of watermarking tools for generative AI outputs. 

Why it matters: Watermarks have emerged as an important tool to help people determine when something is AI generated, which could help counter harms such as misinformation. But they’re not an all-purpose solution. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Why agriculture is a tough climate problem to solve

It’s a real problem, from a climate perspective at least, that burgers taste good, and so do chicken sandwiches and cheese and just about anything that has butter in it. It’s often very hard to persuade people to change their eating habits.

We could all stand to make some choices that could reduce the emissions associated with the food on our plates. But we’re also going to need to innovate around people’s love for burgers—and fix our food system not just in the kitchen, but on the farm. 

Our climate team James Temple and Casey Crownhart spoke with leaders from agricultural companies Pivot Bio and Rumin8 at our recent Roundtables online event, to hear from them about the problems they’re trying to solve and how they’re doing it. Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

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

1 Russia is conducting a viral disinformation campaign to smear Kamala Harris
Microsoft researchers fear they’re encouraging violent protests after election day. (AP News)
+ Donald Trump and Harris are duking it out on TikTok for the Gen Z vote. (FT $)
+ Marjorie Taylor Greene has been spreading falsehoods about voting machines. (NYT $)

2 Scientific racism is widespread in AI search engine results
Debunked eugenics claims are surfacing on Google, Microsoft and Perplexity’s engines (Wired $)
+ Perplexity wants to ink deals with news publishers in the wake of a legal case. (WSJ $)
+ Why Google’s AI Overviews gets things wrong. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The Federal Aviation Administration has officially approved air taxis 
It’s the first new aircraft category to get the green light in close to 80 years. (WP $)

4 Apple is dramatically cutting production of its Vision Pro headset
And it could cease assembly altogether from next month. (The Information $)
+ Apple recently announced its first film specifically for the device. (Variety $)

5 Nvidia has launched a new Hindi language AI model 
Business is booming for the chip giant in India, which is hungry for AI. (Reuters)
+ This company is building AI for African languages. (MIT Technology Review)

6 China’s Great Firewall now extends to space
Its satellite-delivered broadband will come with a side order of censorship. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Hong Kong is safe from China’s Great Firewall—for now. (MIT Technology Review)

7 California has a plan for its wood waste
But the well-intentioned projects are up against a major problem.(Bloomberg $)
+ Saving nature doesn’t appear to be a national priority for the USA. (Vox)
+ The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Goodbye passwords, hello passcodes
They’re more secure, sure, but are they easier to remember? (Vox)
+ The end of passwords. (MIT Technology Review)

9 These robots are grape-picking pros
The harvest window is very short, and machines could help. (Economist $)

10 Vinted is looking to sell more than just clothes
Watch your back, eBay. (FT $)

Quote of the day

“It’s like when an artist has the concept of a painting in their mind, but it can’t be realized unless they have the paints and brushes to make it.”

—G Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of consultancy firm TechInsights, explains why the global semiconductor industry is so reliant on advanced design software to create the latest and greatest chips the Financial Times.

The big story

These artificial snowdrifts protect seal pups from climate change

April 2024

For millennia, during Finland’s blistering winters, wind drove snow into meters-high snowbanks along Lake Saimaa’s shoreline, offering prime real estate from which seals carved cave-like dens to shelter from the elements and raise newborns.

But in recent decades, these snowdrifts have failed to form in sufficient numbers, as climate change has brought warming temperatures and rain in place of snow, decimating the seal population.

For the last 11 years, humans have stepped in to construct what nature can no longer reliably provide. Human-made snowdrifts, built using handheld snowplows, now house 90% of seal pups. They are the latest in a raft of measures that have brought Saimaa’s seals back from the brink of extinction. Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Unhappy with clutter in your home? It’s time to pull off an interior optical illusion.
+ Take care of your zippers, and your zippers will take care of you.
+ Don’t be swayed by electronic dupes—they’re rarely worth the savings.
+ Wait: don’t unsend that message!