The Download: feeding the world with poop, and 2024’s performing stories

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 poop could help feed the planet

A new industrial facility in suburban Seattle is giving off a whiff of futuristic technology. It can safely treat fecal waste from people and livestock while recycling nutrients that are crucial for agriculture but in increasingly short supply across the nation’s farmlands. 

Making fertilizer from the nutrients that we and other animals excrete has a long and colorful history; for generations it helped Indigenous cultures around the world create exceptionally fertile soil.

These systems fell out of favor in Western culture. But, if researchers and engineers across several companies get their way, that could be about to change. Read the full story.

—Bryn Nelson

This story is from the forthcoming magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 6—it’s all about the exciting breakthroughs happening in the world right now. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive future copies.

If you’re interested in poop’s wider scientific potential, check out the latest entry in our Jobs of the Future series: stool bank manager. Pediatric gastroenterologist Nikhil Pai is helping to treat children with a common bacterial infection of the large intestine by transplanting healthy stool into a patient’s gut—a highly effective, albeit unconventional, treatment. Read the full story.

Here are MIT Technology Review’s best-performing stories of 2024

MIT Technology Review published hundreds of stories in 2024, covering everything from AI, climate tech, and biotech, to robotics, space, and more. 

As the new year begins, take a look at a small selection of the stories that resonated most with you, our readers. Read the full story.

—Abby Ivory-Ganja

Unveiling the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025

Each year, MIT Technology Review selects the top ten breakthrough technologies that will have the greatest impact on how we live and work in the future. In the past, we’ve selected breakthrough technologies such as weight-loss drugs, a malaria vaccine, and GPT-3 (the precursor to ChatGPT).

Amy Nordrum, our executive editor, will join our news editor Charlotte Jee to unveil the new list live during an exclusive Roundtable discussion for subscribers at 12.30pm ET today. Register here to be among the first to know.

The must-reads

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

1 A US appeals court has struck down net neutrality rules 
It’s the end of a nearly two-decade effort to regulate broadband providers. (NYT $)
+ Net neutrality has been in danger for a while, truthfully. (The Verge)
+ It’s bad news for the Biden administration as it prepares to hand over to Trump. (WP $)

2 Car rental app Turo is under scrutiny
But concerns over the app’s safety practices are nothing new. (WSJ $)
+ The app was used to book vehicles used in both the New Orleans attack and Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion. (NYT $)
+ Turo staff have been pulled off vacation to respond to the aftermath. (Bloomberg $)

3 Nick Clegg is leaving Meta
The former British deputy prime minister is making way for prominent Republican Joel Kaplan. (Semafor)
+ It’s part of the company’s desire to align itself with the incoming Trump administration. (WSJ $)
+ How tech is turning MAGA. (Economist $)

4 Yandex has been ordered to hide maps of a Russian oil refinery
In response to repeated attacks from Ukrainian drones. (Reuters)
+ The Ryazan refinery was hit four times last year alone. (Bloomberg $)
+ The uneasy coexistence of Yandex and the Kremlin. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Apple has agreed to settle a $95 million class-action lawsuit
Over claims the company violated user privacy by sharing Siri recordings. (WP $)

6 Several Californian AI laws have gone into effect
A new year means new regulations. (The Information $)
+ There are more than 120 AI bills in Congress right now. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Our understanding of genetic diseases is changing
Cell mutations suggest we’re far more genetically varied than we previously realized. (The Atlantic $)
+ ​​DeepMind is using AI to pinpoint the causes of genetic disease. (MIT Technology Review)

8 African content creators are struggling to make money
But it appears as though the tide may be slowly turning. (The Guardian)
+ What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Get the new year off to a starry start
There’s a meteor shower due tonight! (Wired $)

10 How to build a more sustainable refrigerator
A new kind of heat-absorbing crystal could hold the key. (New Scientist $)
+ The future of urban housing is energy-efficient refrigerators. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“He is quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time!”

—Nick Clegg, Meta’s outgoing chief policy executive, wishes his replacement Joel Kaplan the best in a post on X.

The big story

Is it possible to really understand someone else’s mind?

November 2023

Technically speaking, neuroscientists have been able to read your mind for decades. It’s not easy, mind you. First, you must lie motionless within a fMRI scanner, perhaps for hours, while you watch films or listen to audiobooks.

If you do elect to endure claustrophobic hours in the scanner, the software will learn to generate a bespoke reconstruction of what you were seeing or listening to, just by analyzing how blood moves through your brain.

More recently, researchers have deployed generative AI tools, like Stable Diffusion and GPT, to create far more realistic, if not entirely accurate, reconstructions of films and podcasts based on neural activity. So how close are we to genuine “mind reading?” Read the full story.

—Grace Huckins

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 skeet ’em at me.)

+ Of course The Cure’s Robert Smith is an iPod fanatic.
+ Japan may be associated with tasteful minimalism, but there’s always room for a bit of clutter.
+ Meet the people who release 3,000 pounds of confetti into New York’s Times Square by hand every New Year’s Eve—then clear it all up.
+ How to start a healthy habit, and, crucially, stick to it. ($)

The Download: AI flops, and what the year ahead holds for EVs

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 biggest AI flops of 2024

The past 12 months have been undeniably busy for those working in AI. There have been more successful product launches than we can count, and even Nobel Prizes. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

AI is an unpredictable technology, and the increasing availability of generative models has led people to test their limits in new, weird, and sometimes harmful ways. These were some of 2024’s biggest AI misfires. 

—Rhiannon Williams

If you’re interested in the latest developments in the weird and wonderful world of AI, check out the AI Hype Index—MIT Technology Review’s highly subjective take on what’s for real and what’s just a lot of hallucinatory nonsense. Our latest edition features emotional robotic pets, Pokémon Go, simulated humans, and much more.

Why EVs are (mostly) set for solid growth this year

It looks as though 2025 will be a solid year for electric vehicles—at least outside the United States. (Inside the US, sales will depend on the incoming administration’s policy choices.)

Globally, these cleaner cars and trucks will continue to eat into the market share of gas-guzzlers as costs decline, consumer options expand, and charging stations proliferate.

But ultimately, the fate of EV sales will depend on the particular dynamics within specific regions. Here’s a closer look at what’s likely to steer the sector in the world’s three largest markets: the US, the EU, and China. Read the full story.

—James Temple

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, looking across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

How wind tech could help decarbonize cargo shipping

Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands—a chain of coral atolls in the center of the Pacific Ocean—rely on sea transportation for almost everything. For millennia they sailed largely in canoes, but much of their seafaring movement today involves big, bulky, diesel-fueled cargo ships that are heavy polluters.

They’re not alone. Cargo shipping is responsible for about 3% of the world’s annual greenhouse-­gas emissions, and at the current rate of growth, the global industry could account for 10% of emissions by 2050.

The islands have been disproportionately experiencing the consequences of human-made climate change: warming waters, more frequent extreme weather, and rising sea levels. Now its residents are exploring a surprisingly traditional method of decarbonizing its fleets. Read the full story.

—Sofia Quaglia

This story is from the forthcoming magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 6—it’s all about the exciting breakthroughs happening in the world right now. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive future copies.

The must-reads

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

1 A Tesla Cybertruck exploded at Trump’s Las Vegas hotel
Authorities are investigating if the incident is linked to a similar attack in New Orleans. (The Guardian)
+ The Cybertruck’s driver was killed, while seven others were injured. (Reuters)
+ Both vehicles were rented using the same app, called Turo. (Insider $)
+ The New Orleans suspect appears to be inspired by the Islamic State. (Economist $)

2 What five years of covid has taught us
How prepared we are for future pandemics hinges on governments’ willingness to listen. (New Scientist $)+ Covid exposed how vulnerable global health systems are. (The Guardian)

3 America’s tech industry needs imported labor
Escalating tensions over the future of the H-1B visa lays that bare. (WSJ $)
+ Thousands of overseas workers are trapped by the US immigration system. (Insider $)
+ Tech workers had a pretty rough 2024. (Ars Technica)

4 Elon Musk has support in his legal battle with OpenAI
Two major tech investors have joined his cause. (WP $)

5 A science journal’s editors have resigned over its use of AI
The Journal of Human Evolution’s board is protesting how owner Elsevier used te technology to format papers. (Ars Technica)
+ The world’s most expensive artist isn’t a fan of AI, either. (The Guardian)

6 How much will it cost to live forever?
Investment in longevity firms has dropped in recent years. (FT $)
+ Maybe you will be able to live past 122. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Podcasts aren’t restricted to just audio any more
Aspiring podcasters better be prepared to appear on video these days. (NY Mag $)

8 We’re on the verge of living in the ocean
Within five years, this ambitious project hopes to establish permanent underwater colonies. (IEEE Spectrum)

9 What the year ahead holds for tech
Elon Musk attempting to buy TikTok appears pretty inevitable. (The Information $)

10 How to spend less time staring at your phone in 2025
Take back control and break the habit. (Wired $)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“It’s nothing other than business as usual for me.”

—Sarah Perl, a Los Angeles-based content creator, tells the Wall Street Journal why she’s not worried about the looming prospect of a US-wide TikTok ban.

The big story

This fuel plant will use agricultural waste to combat climate change

February 2022

A startup called Mote plans to build a new type of fuel-producing plant in California’s fertile Central Valley that would, if it works as hoped, continually capture and bury carbon dioxide, starting from 2024.

It’s among a growing number of efforts to commercialize a concept first proposed two decades ago as a means of combating climate change, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, or BECCS.

It’s an ambitious plan. However, there are serious challenges to doing BECCS affordably and in ways that reliably suck down significant levels of carbon dioxide. Read the full story. 

—James Temple

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  skeet ’em at me.)

+ Feel like time’s running away with you? To slow it down, you need to shake things up.
+ Sicily’s cathedral of Monreale houses Italy’s largest Byzantine-style mosaics, and they’re truly awe-inspiring.
+ If you’re looking for some sci-fi short stories to get your year off to a literary start, look no further.
+ How to teach yourself to love winter—even when it’s really freezing.

The Download: AI tracking birds, and a pig kidney transplant

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.

AI is changing how we study bird migration

In a warming world, migratory birds face many existential threats. Scientists rely on a combination of methods to track the timing and location of their migrations, but each has shortcomings. And there’s another problem: Most birds migrate at night, when it’s more difficult to identify them visually and while most birders are in bed.

For over a century, acoustic monitoring has hovered tantalizingly out of reach as a method that would solve ornithologists’ woes. Now, finally, machine-learning tools are unlocking a treasure trove of acoustic data for ecologists. Read the full story.

—Christian Elliot

This story is from the forthcoming magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 6—it’s all about the exciting breakthroughs happening in the world right now. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive a copy.

A woman in the US is the third person to receive a gene-edited pig kidney

Towana Looney, a 53-year-old woman from Alabama, has become the third living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig. 

Looney, who donated one of her kidneys to her mother back in 1999, developed kidney failure several years later following a pregnancy complication that caused high blood pressure. She started dialysis treatment in December of 2016 and was put on a waiting list for a kidney transplant soon after.

But it was difficult to find a match. So Looney’s doctors recommended the experimental pig organ as an alternative. After eight years on the waiting list, Looney was authorized to receive the kidney. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Roundtables: The Worst Technology Failures of 2024

Each year, MIT Technology Review publishes a list of the worst technologies of the past 12 months.

Antonio Regalado, our senior editor for biomedicine, sat down to discuss 2024’s worst failures with our executive editor Niall Firth in a subscriber-exclusive online Roundtable event yesterday. Watch their conversation about what made the cut here, and to make sure you don’t miss out in the future, subscribe! 

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense

Despite it being over 100 years old, radio technology is still critical in almost all aspects of modern warfare—including in the drones that have come to dominate the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, who has been obsessed with radios since childhood, has become an unlikely hero of the conflict, sharing advice and intel. His work may determine the future of Ukraine, and wars far beyond it.

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which 
we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 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 Conspiracy theories are still circulating about those mysterious drones
What are they? And where have they come from? (NY Mag $)
+ Authorities are attempting to quell public hysteria, but theories abound. (WP $)
+ Realistically, they’re probably just standard drones out for a night-time flight. (AP News)

2 AI poses a major threat to the power grid
That’s according to the US industry watchdog, which is feeling the pressure. (FT $)
+ AI’s emissions are about to skyrocket even further. (MIT Technology Review)

3 SpaceX and Elon Musk are under investigation 
US federal agencies are probing their repeated failures to comply with reporting rules. (NYT $)

4 Nvidia has unveiled a tiny, affordable AI supercomputer
Which is handy for roboticists looking to bypass connecting to remote data centers. (Gizmodo)
+ While it’s not the company’s most powerful device, it’s pretty speedy. (WSJ $)
+ Microsoft is gobbling up more of Nvidia’s chips than anyone else. (FT $)
+ Blacklisted Chinese AI chip firms gained access to cutting-edge UK tech. (The Guardian)

5 Bitcoin’s value is rocketing even higher
The industry continues to boom in the wake of Trump’s election victory. (Bloomberg $)
+ So much so, luxury brands are weighing up accepting crypto payments. (Reuters)

6 Hepatitis B is an extremely treatable disease
So why are so many people still dying from it? (New Yorker $)
+ We’re starting to understand the mysterious surge of hepatitis in children. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Earth—briefly—had an extra second moon

And scientists believe it originated from the actual moon we know and love. (New Scientist $) 

8 The future of deep-sea mining
A set of rules governing how we should do it is highly contentious—and up for debate.(Hakai Magazine)
+ These deep-sea “potatoes” could be the future of mining for renewable energy. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Resist the temptation to outsource your Christmas shopping to a bot 
You never know what you’ll end up with. (Insider $)
+ It’s probably quicker to browse the web yourself. (WP $)

10 Our snacks could soon be designed by AI
Confectionary giant Mondelez is using the tech to tweak recipes and test new ones. (WSJ $)
+ Forget cookies—this creamy vegan cheese was made with AI. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“It takes a lot for an uber-wealthy, creative-type CEO, many of whom lean left, to suck it up and deal with Trump. But what choice do they have?”

—A Washington lobbyist explains to the Financial Times why the steady stream of tech executives paying their respects to US President-elect Donald Trump shows no sign of slowing.

The big story

What does GPT-3 “know” about me?

August 2022

One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it.

These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.

Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found.

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.)

+ 2024 was a seriously weird year, as evidenced by this completely bonkers list.
+ Who knew Seal was such a grunge head?
+ These Charli xcx Christmas mashups will haunt my dreams forever, and not in a good way.
+ Next summer I feel the need to level up my sandcastle game.

The Download: 2024’s biggest technology flops, and AI’s search for energy

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 8 worst technology failures of 2024

They say you learn more from failure than success. If so, this is the story for you: MIT Technology Review’s annual roll call of the biggest flops, flimflams, and fiascos in all domains of technology.

Some of the foul-ups were funny, like the “woke” AI which got Google in trouble after it drew Black Nazis. Some caused lawsuits, like a computer error by CrowdStrike that left thousands of Delta passengers stranded. And we also reaped failures among startups that raced to expand from 2020 to 2022, a period of ultra-low interest rates. Check out what made our list of this year’s biggest technology failures.

—Antonio Regalado

Antonio will be discussing this year’s worst failures with our executive editor Niall Firth in a subscriber-exclusive online Roundtable event today at 12.00 ET. Register here to make sure you don’t miss outf you haven’t already, subscribe! 

AI’s search for more energy is growing more urgent

If you drove by one of the 2,990 data centers in the United States, you’d probably think little more than “Huh, that’s a boring-looking building.” You might not even notice it at all. However, these facilities underpin our entire digital world, and they are responsible for tons of greenhouse-gas emissions. New research shows just how much those emissions have skyrocketed during the AI boom.

That leaves a big problem for the world’s leading AI companies, which are caught between pressure to meet their own sustainability goals and the relentless competition in AI that’s leading them to build bigger models requiring tons of energy. And the trend toward ever more energy-intensive new AI models will only send those numbers higher. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on 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 TikTok has asked the US Supreme Court for a lifeline   
It’s asked lawmakers to intervene before the proposed ban kicks in on January 19. (WP $)
+ TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew reportedly met with Donald Trump yesterday. (NBC News)
+ Trump will take office the following day, on January 20. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, the EU is investigating TikTok’s role in Romania’s election. (Politico)

2 Waymo’s autonomous cars are heading to Tokyo
In the first overseas venture for the firm’s vehicles. (The Verge)
+ The cars will require human safety drivers initially. (CNBC)
+ What’s next for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

3 China’s tech workers are still keen to work in the US
But securing the right to work there is much tougher than it used to be. (Rest of World)

4 Digital license plates are vulnerable to hacking
And they’re already legal to buy in multiple US states. (Wired $)

5 We’re all slaves to the algorithms
From the mundane (Spotify) to the essential (housing applications.) (The Atlantic $)
+ How a group of tenants took on screening systems—and won. (The Guardian)
+ The coming war on the hidden algorithms that trap people in poverty. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How to build an undetectable submarine
The race is on to stay hidden from the competition. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ How underwater drones could shape a potential Taiwan-China conflict. (MIT Technology Review)

7 How Empower became a viable rival to Uber
Its refusal to cooperate with authorities is straight out of Uber’s early playbook. (NYT $)

8 Even airlines are using AirTags to find lost luggage
Which begs the question: how were they looking for missing bags before?(Bloomberg $)
+ Here’s how to keep tabs on your suitcase as you travel. (Forbes $)

9 You’re reading your blood pressure all wrong
Keep your feet flat on the floor and ditch your phone, for a start. (WSJ $)

10 The rise and rise of the group chat 
Expressing yourself publicly on social media is so last year. (Insider $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Where are the adults in the room?”

—Francesca Marano, a long-time contributor to WordPress, lambasts the platform’s decision to require users to check a box reading “Pineapple is delicious on pizza” to log in, 404 Media reports.

The big story

Responsible AI has a burnout problem

October 2022

Margaret Mitchell had been working at Google for two years before she realized she needed a break. Only after she spoke with a therapist did she understand the problem: she was burnt out.

Mitchell, who now works as chief ethics scientist at the AI startup Hugging Face, is far from alone in her experience. Burnout is becoming increasingly common in responsible AI teams.

All the practitioners MIT Technology Review interviewed spoke enthusiastically about their work: it is fueled by passion, a sense of urgency, and the satisfaction of building solutions for real problems. But that sense of mission can be overwhelming without the right support. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

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 skeet ’em at me.)

+ This timelapse of a pine tree growing from a tiny pinecone is pretty special
+ Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) is one of 2024’s biggest hits. But why has it struck such a chord?
+ All hail London’s campest Christmas tree!
+ Stay vigilant, Oregon’s googly eye bandit has struck again

The Download: AI emissions and Google’s big week

AI’s emissions are about to skyrocket even further

It’s no secret that the current AI boom is using up immense amounts of energy. Now we have a better idea of how much. 

A new paper, from a team at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, examined 78% of all data centers in the country in the US. These facilities—essentially buildings filled to the brim with rows of servers—are where AI models get trained, and they also get “pinged” every time we send a request through models like ChatGPT. They require huge amounts of energy both to power the servers and to keep them cool. 

Since 2018, carbon emissions from data centers in the US have tripled. It’s difficult to put a number on how much AI in particular is responsible for this surge. But AI’s share is certainly growing rapidly as nearly every segment of the economy attempts to adopt the technology.

Read the full story.

Google’s big week was a flex for the power of big tech

Google has been speeding toward the holiday by shipping or announcing a flurry of products and updates. The combination of stuff here is pretty monumental, not just for a single company, but I think because it speaks to the power of the technology industry—even if it does trigger a personal desire that we could do more to harness that power and put it to more noble uses. Read more here.

This story originally appeared in The Debrief with Mat Honan, our weekly take on what’s really going on behind the biggest tech headlines. The story is subscriber-only so nab a subscription too, if you haven’t already! Or you can sign up to the newsletter for free to get the next edition in your inbox on Friday.

The must-reads

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

1  Mysterious drones have been spotted along the US east coast

People are getting a bit freaked out, to say the least. (BBC)

• Although sometimes they’re just small planes, authorities say. (Wired)
• Trump says they should be shot down. (Politico)

2 TikTok could be gone from app stores by January 19

Last week, a US appeals court upheld a law forcing Bytedance to divest. (Reuters)

• The rationale behind the ban could open the door to other regulations that suppress speech. (Atlantic)
• Influencers are putting together their post-TikTok plans. (Business Insider)
• The long-shot plan to save TikTok. (Verge)
• The depressing truth about the coming ban. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Authorities in Serbia are using phone-cracking tools to install spyware

Activists and journalists found their phone had been tampered with after a run-in with police. (404 Media)

4 Cellphone videos are fueling violence inside US schools

Students are using phones to arrange, provoke and capture brawls in the corridors. (NYT)

5 AI search startup Perplexity says it will generate $10.5 million a month next year
It’s in talks to raise money at a $9 billion valuation. (The Information)

• AI search could break the web. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How Musk’s partnership with Trump could influence science

Even if he can’t cut as much as he’d like, he still stands to make big changes. (Nature)

• Is “deleting” the IRS his worst idea yet? (Washington Post)
• The top cybersecurity agency is bracing for Trump. (Wired)
• Trump’s win is a huge loss for the climate. (MIT Technology Review)

7 AI firms will scour the globe looking for cheap energy

Low-cost power is an absolute priority. (Wired)

• It’s an insatiably hungry industry. (Bloomberg)

8 Anthropic’s Claude is winning the chatbot battle for tech insiders

It’s not as big as ChatGPT, but it’s got a special something that people like. (NYT)

• A new Character.ai chatbot for teens will no longer talk romance. (Verge)
• How to trust what a chatbot says. (MIT Technology Review)

9 The reaction to the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder could prompt a reckoning

Healthcare’s algorithmic decision-making turns us into numbers on a spreadsheets. (Vanity Fair)

• Luigi Mangione has to mean something. (Atlantic)

10 How China’s satellite megaprojects are challenging Starlink

Between them, Qianfan, Guo Wang and Honghu-3 could have as many satellites. (CNBC)

Quote of the day

“We’ve achieved peak data and there’ll be no more.”

OpenAI’s cofounder and former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, tells the NeurIPS conference that the way AI models will be trained will have to change.

The big story

How to stop a state from sinking

April 2024

In a 10-month span between 2020 and 2021, southwest Louisiana saw five climate-related disasters, including two destructive hurricanes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, more storms are coming, and many areas are not prepared.

But some government officials and state engineers are hoping there is an alternative: elevation. The $6.8 billion Southwest Coastal Louisiana Project is betting that raising residences by a few feet, coupled with extensive work to restore coastal boundary lands, will keep Louisianans in their communities.

Ultimately, it’s something of a last-ditch effort to preserve this slice of coastline, even as some locals pick up and move inland and as formal plans for managed retreat become more popular in climate-­vulnerable areas across the country and the rest of the world. Read the full story.

—Xander Peters

We can still have nice things

The Download: society’s techlash, and Android XR

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 Silicon Valley is disrupting democracy

The internet loves a good neologism, especially if it can capture a purported vibe shift or explain a new trend. In 2013, the columnist Adrian Wooldridge coined a word that eventually did both. Writing for the Economist, he warned of the coming “techlash,” a revolt against Silicon Valley’s rich and powerful fueled by the public’s growing realization that these “sovereigns of cyberspace” weren’t the benevolent bright-future bringers they claimed to be.

While Wooldridge didn’t say precisely when this techlash would arrive, it’s clear today that a dramatic shift in public opinion toward Big Tech and its leaders did in fact ­happen—and is arguably still happening.

Two new books serve as excellent reminders of why it started in the first place. Together, they chronicle the rise of an industry that is increasingly using its unprecedented wealth and power to undermine democracy, and they outline what we can do to start taking some of that power back. Read the full story.

—Bryan Gardiner

This story is from the forthcoming magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 6—it’s all about the exciting breakthroughs happening in the world right now. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive a copy.

The must-reads

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

1 Google has unveiled a new headset and smart glasses OS
Android XR gives wearers hands-free control thanks to the firm’s Gemini chatbot. (The Verge)
+ It also revealed a new Samsung-build headset called Project Moohan. (WP $)
+ Google’s hoping to learn from mistakes it made with Google Glass a decade ago. (Wired $)
+ Its new Project Astra could be generative AI’s killer app. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The US and UK are on a AI regulation collision course
Donald Trump’s approach to policing AI is in stark contrast to what the UK is planning. (FT $)
+ The new US FTC chair favors a light regulatory touch. (Reuters)
+ How’s AI self-regulation going? (MIT Technology Review)

3 We don’t quite know what’s causing a global temperature spike
But scientists agree that we should be worried. (New Yorker $)
+ The average global temperature could drop slightly next year, though. (New Scientist $)
+ Who’s to blame for climate change? It’s surprisingly complicated. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Trump’s administration is filling up with tech insiders
More venture capitalists and officials are likely to join their ranks. (The Information $)
+ These crypto kingpins will be keeping a close eye on proceedings. (FT $)

5 What happened after West Virginia revoked access to obesity drugs
Teachers and state workers struggled after a pilot drugs program was deemed too expensive. (The Atlantic $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)

6 Would you buy a car from Amazon?
The e-retail giant wants you to sidestep the dealership and purchase from it directly. (Wired $)
+ While it’s limited to Hyundai models, other manufacturers will follow. (Forbes $)

7 Silicon Valley’s perks culture is largely dead
No more free massages or artisanal chocolate, sob. (NYT $)

8 AI is teaching us more about the Berlin Wall’s murals
From the kinds of paint used, to application techniques. (Ars Technica)

9 For $69, you can invest in a rare stegosaurus skeleton
The rare fossil is a pretty extreme example of an alternative investment. (Fast Company $)
+ New Yorkers can swing by the American Museum of Natural History to see it. (AP News)

10 This New Jersey politician faked his Spotify Wrapped
To hide his children’s results and make him appear a bigger Bruce Springsteen fan. (Billboard $)
+ What would The Boss himself make of the controversy? (WP $)

Quote of the day

“It could be far worse than any challenge we’ve previously encountered — and far beyond our capacity to mitigate.”

—Jack Szostak, a professor in the University of Chicago’s chemistry department, tells the Financial Times about the unprecedented danger posed by synthetic bacteria.

The big story

A brief, weird history of brainwashing

April 2024

On a spring day in 1959, war correspondent Edward Hunter testified before a US Senate subcommittee investigating “the effect of Red China Communes on the United States.”

Hunter introduced them to a supposedly scientific system for changing people’s minds, even making them love things they once hated.

Much of it was baseless, but Hunter’s sensational tales still became an important part of the disinformation that fueled a “mind-control race”, with the US government pumping millions of dollars into research on brain manipulation during the Cold War.

But while the science never exactly panned out, residual beliefs fostered by this bizarre conflict continue to play a role in ideological and scientific debates to this day. Read the full story.

—Annalee Newitz

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.)

+ Deep down in the depths of the Atacama Trench, a new crustacean has been discovered.
+ Living in this picturesque Antarctic settlement comes with a catch—you have to have your appendix removed before you can move in.
+ Just when you thought sweet potato couldn’t get any better, it turns out it makes pretty tasty macaroons.
+ If you’re looking to introduce kids to the joy of sci-fi, these movies are a great place to start.

The Download: Google’s Project Astra, and China’s export bans

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.

Google’s new Project Astra could be generative AI’s killer app

Google DeepMind has announced an impressive grab bag of new products and prototypes that may just let it seize back its lead in the race to turn generative artificial intelligence into a mass-market concern.

Top billing goes to Gemini 2.0—the latest iteration of Google DeepMind’s family of multimodal large language models, now redesigned around the ability to control agents—and a new version of Project Astra, the experimental everything app that the company teased at Google I/O in May.

The margins between top-end models like Gemini 2.0 and those from rival labs like OpenAI and Anthropic are now slim. These days, advances in large language models are less about how good they are and more about what you can do with them. And that’s where agents come in. 

MIT Technology Review got to try out Astra in a closed-door live demo last week. It gave us a hint at what’s to come. Find out more in the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

China banned exports of a few rare minerals to the US. Things could get messier.

—Casey Crownhart

I’ve thought more about gallium and germanium over the last week than I ever have before (and probably more than anyone ever should).

China banned the export of those materials to the US last week and placed restrictions on others. The move is just the latest drama in escalating trade tensions between the two countries.

While the new export bans could have significant economic consequences, this might be only the beginning. China is a powerhouse, and not just in those niche materials—it’s also a juggernaut in clean energy, and particularly in battery supply chains. So what comes next could have significant consequences for EVs and climate action more broadly. 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 It’s looking pretty likely 2024 will be the hottest year on record
But average temperatures are just one way of assessing our warming world. (New Scientist $)
+ The first few months of 2025 are likely to be hotter than average, too. (Reuters)
+ The US is about to make a sharp turn on climate policy. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Meta has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund
In an effort to strengthen their previously fractious relationship. (WSJ $)
+ Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the only tech figure seeking the President-elect’s ear. (Insider $)

3 How China secretly repatriates Uyghurs
Even the United Nations is seemingly powerless to stop it. (WP $)
+ Uyghurs outside China are traumatized. Now they’re starting to talk about it. (MIT Technology Review)

4 How Big Tech decides when to scrub a user’s digital footprint
Murder suspect Luigi Mangione’s Instagram has been taken down—but his Goodreads hasn’t. (NYT $)
+ Why it’s dangerous to treat public online accounts as the full story. (NY Mag $)

5 Russia-backed hackers targeted Ukraine’s military using criminal tools
Which makes it even harder to work out who did it. (TechCrunch)

6 What Cruise’s exit means for the rest of the robotaxi industry
Automakers are becoming frustrated waiting for the technology to mature. (The Verge)
+ Cruise will focus on developing fully autonomous personal vehicles instead. (NYT $)

7 Researching risky pathogens is extremely high stakes
The potential for abuse has some researchers worried we shouldn’t undertake it at all. (Undark Magazine)
+ Meet the scientist at the center of the covid lab leak controversy. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Altermagnetism could be computing’s next big thing
It would lead to faster, more reliable electronic devices. (FT $)

9 Why some people need so little sleep
Gene mutations appear to hold at least some of the answers. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Babies spend most of their time asleep. New technologies are beginning to reveal why. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Inside the creeping normalization of AI movies
The world’s largest TV manufacturer wants to make films for people too lazy to change the channel. (404 Media)
+ Unsurprisingly, it’ll push targeted ads, too. (Ars Technica)
+ How AI-generated video is changing film. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“They’ve made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies.”

—Felipe Rodriguez, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, explains why murder suspect Luigi Mangione is being lionized online to Reuters.

The big story

Why AI could eat quantum computing’s lunch

November 2024

Tech companies have been funneling billions of dollars into quantum computers for years. The hope is that they’ll be a game changer for fields as diverse as finance, drug discovery, and logistics.

But while the field struggles with the realities of tricky quantum hardware, another challenger is making headway in some of these most promising use cases. AI is now being applied to fundamental physics, chemistry, and materials science in a way that suggests quantum computing’s purported home turf might not be so safe after all. Read the full story.

—Edd Gent

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.)

+ Working life getting you down? These pictures of bygone office malaise will make you feel a whole lot better (or worse—thanks Will!)
+ Gen Z are getting really into documenting their lives via digital cameras, apparently.
+ If you believe that Alan MacMasters invented the first electric bread toaster, I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve fallen for an elaborate online hoax.
+ The case for a better Turing test for AI-generated art.

The Download: Bluesky’s impersonators, and shaking up the economy with ChatGPT

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.

Bluesky has an impersonator problem 

—Melissa Heikkilä

Like many others, I recently joined Bluesky. On Thanksgiving, I was delighted to see a private message from a fellow AI reporter, Will Knight from Wired. Or at least that’s who I thought I was talking to. I became suspicious when the person claiming to be Knight said they were from Miami, when Knight is, in fact, from the UK. The account handle was almost identical to the real Will Knight’s handle, and used his profile photo.

Then more messages started to appear. Paris Marx, a prominent tech critic, slid into my DMs to ask me how I was doing. Both accounts were eventually deleted, but not before trying to get me to set up a crypto wallet and a “cloud mining pool” account. Knight and Marx confirmed to us these accounts did not belong to them, and that they have been fighting impersonator accounts of themselves for weeks.

They’re not alone. The platform has had to suddenly cater to an influx of millions of new users in recent months as people leave X in protest of Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform. But this sudden wave of new users —and the inevitable scammers — means Bluesky is still playing catch up. Read the full story.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.

You can practically hear the shrieks from corner offices around the world: “What is our ChatGPT play? How do we make money off this?”

Whether it’s based on hallucinatory beliefs or not, an AI gold rush has started to mine the anticipated business opportunities from generative AI models like ChatGPT.

But while companies and executives see a clear chance to cash in, the likely impact of the technology on workers and the economy on the whole is far less obvious.

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which 
we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 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 Cruise is exiting the robotaxi business
Once one of the biggest players, it says it costs too much to develop the tech. (Bloomberg $)
+ The news came as a shock to Cruise employees. (TechCrunch)

2 Google asked the US government to kill Microsoft’s cloud deal with OpenAI
It wants the opportunity to host the firm’s models itself. (The Information $)

3 The season of coughs and sneezes is upon us
Here’s what will actually keep a cold at bay—and what won’t. (Vox)
+ RFK Jr’s alternative medicine movement is unlikely to help. (The Atlantic $)
+ Flu season is coming—and so is the risk of an all-new bird flu. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Trump’s new Commerce Secretary champions a stablecoin favored by criminals
Tether regularly crops up in international criminal cases. (FT $)
+ The crypto industry is obsessed with ‘debanking.’ (NBC News)

5 A Russian influence operation probably used AI voice generation models
ElevenLabs’ technology was highly likely to have been abused by the campaign. (TechCrunch)
+ How this grassroots effort could make AI voices more diverse. (MIT Technology Review)

6 These satellites are designed to create solar eclipses on demand
It’ll allow scientists to study the sun’s outer atmosphere. (WP $)

7 WhatsApp is for so much more than just messaging
It’s been repurposed by communities across the world. (Rest of World)
+ How Indian health-care workers use WhatsApp to save pregnant women. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Paris is turning its parking spaces into tiny parks
Cars are out, trees are in. (Fast Company $)

9 How AI is shedding light on an ancient board game
Oddly enough, they didn’t come with instructions 4,500 years ago. (New Scientist $)

10 What a quarter-century of robotic dogs has taught us
The Aibo is one of the few robots that’s made it into homes worldwide. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Generative AI taught a robot dog to scramble around a new environment. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“In case it was unclear before, it is clear now: GM are a bunch of dummies.”

—Kyle Vogt, founder of robotaxi firm Cruise, criticizes parent company General Motors’ decision to exit the industry in a post on X.

The big story

Inside NASA’s bid to make spacecraft as small as possible

October 2023

Since the 1970s, we’ve sent a lot of big things to Mars. But when NASA successfully sent twin Mars Cube One spacecraft, the size of cereal boxes, in November 2018, it was the first time we’d ever sent something so small.

Just making it this far heralded a new age in space exploration. NASA and the community of planetary science researchers caught a glimpse of a future long sought: a pathway to much more affordable space exploration using smaller, cheaper spacecraft. Read the full story.

—David W. Brown

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.)

+ This fascinating tool creates fake video game screenshots in the blink of an eye—give it a whirl.
+ Where and how did the people of the submerged territory of Doggerland live before rising seas pushed them away thousands of years ago? We’re getting closer to learning the answers.
+ Home Alone is a surprisingly brutal movie, as these doctors can attest.
+ Cats love boxes. But why?

The Download: the Russia-Ukraine war’s effect on tech, and shaking up AI search

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 the Ukraine-Russia war is reshaping the tech sector in Eastern Europe

It might have been hard a few years ago to imagine soldiers heading to battle on oversized toys made by a tech startup with no military heritage. But Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s attacks has been a miracle of social resilience and innovation—and the way the country has mobilized is serving both a warning and an inspiration to its neighbors.

In the desperate early days of the war, Ukrainian combat units wanted any equipment they could get their hands on, and they were willing to try out ideas—like a military scooter—that might not have made the cut in peacetime.

But while governments and companies alike are investing billions into defense tech, some experts warn that Europe has only partially learned the lessons from Ukraine’s resistance. And, if it wants to be ready to meet the threat of attack, it needs to find new ways of working with the tech sector. Read the full story.

—Peter Guest

This is our latest Big Story—MIT Technology Review’s most important, ambitious reporting on technologies that are coming next and what they will mean for us and the world we live in. Check out the rest of the section here.

The startup trying to turn the web into a database

What’s new: A startup called Exa is pitching a new spin on generative search. It uses the tech behind large language models to return lists of results that it claims are more on point than those from its rivals, including Google and OpenAI.

Exa already provides its search engine as a back-end service to companies that want to build their own applications on top of it. Now it’s launching the first consumer version of that search engine, called Websets. 

What’s the goal here? The aim is to turn the internet’s chaotic tangle of web pages into a kind of directory, with results that are specific and precise. It’s aimed at power users who need to look for things that other search engines aren’t great at finding, such as types of people or companies. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Beyond gene-edited babies

In the future, CRISPR will get easier and easier to administer, potentially opening up paths for tinkering with human evolution. What will that mean for our species?

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which 
we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 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 The US is struggling to kick Chinese hackers out of its networks 
Six months after its investigations into their intrusions began. (Axios)
+ Authorities are advising concerned users to switch to encrypted apps. (WP $)

2 Russia is using civilians as target practice for its killer drones
Creating an atmosphere of psychological terror for Ukraine’s residents. (FT $)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Can anyone topple Nvidia?
Many have tried, but none—yet—have succeeded. (NYT $)
+ China is claiming the US-made chips pose a security risk. (Reuters)
+ Meanwhile, Apple is using Amazon’s custom chips for its search. (CNBC)
+ Amazon has lofty plans for a colossal AI supercomputer made of chips. (WSJ $)

4 Mark Zuckerberg is hankering for an ‘active role’ in Trump’s administration
It sounds like the former enemies could be on the verge of burying the hatchet. (The Guardian)
+ Meta’s claims that it previously ‘overdid’ moderation will be music to Trump’s ears. (Insider $)
+ Trump offered billionaire Stephen Feinberg the job of deputy defense secretary. (WP $)

5 Inside Chicago’s ambitious plans to become a quantum hub
It’s carving its own path away from Silicon Valley. (WSJ $)
+ Quantum computing is taking on its biggest challenge: noise. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Abortion policy in America is at a stalemate
The ability to travel for reproductive care is the next frontier. (The Atlantic $)

7 Why we should think carefully about geoengineering  
Blocking sunlight isn’t without risks. (Undark Magazine)
+ The inadvertent geoengineering experiment that the world is now shutting off. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The unstoppable rise of raw milk
RFK has become the poster boy for the unpasteurised movement. (NY Mag $)
+ Raw milk could also act as a vehicle for bird flu right now. (MIT Technology Review)

9 What happens when you fall in love with an AI?
These people have firsthand experience of just that. (The Verge)

10 What sweat can teach us about our health
A lot more than you might think. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“I can’t give you a running commentary on conversations I was not part of.”

—Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, plays coy when asked by the Verge about Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg’s recent dinner with President-elect Donald Trump.

The big story

How this Turing Award–winning researcher became a legendary academic advisor

October 2023

Every academic field has its superstars. But a rare few achieve superstardom not just by demonstrating individual excellence but also by consistently producing future superstars.

Computer science has its own such figure: Manuel Blum, who won the 1995 Turing Award—the Nobel Prize of computer science. He is the inventor of the captcha—a test designed to distinguish humans from bots online.

Three of Blum’s students have also won Turing Awards, and many have received other high honors in theoretical computer science, such as the Gödel Prize and the Knuth Prize. More than 20 hold professorships at top computer science departments. But is there some formula to his success? Read the full story.

—Sheon Han

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.)

+ Why does everyone sing ‘caught in the middle’ like that? Music theory has an answer.
+ The mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder has completely reengineered the sound from the first 20 minutes of Mad Max: Fury Road and it’s great.
+ This 16-year old Australian sprinter might just be the next Usain Bolt.
+ Don’t expect Dune and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve to direct a Star Wars movie any time soon.