The Download: carbon removal concerns, and Yahoo’s China controversy 

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.

Two former Department of Energy staffers warn we’re doing carbon removal all wrong

The carbon removal industry is just starting to take off, but some experts are warning that it’s already headed in the wrong direction. 

Two former staffers of the US agency responsible for advancing the technology argue that the profit-driven industry’s focus on cleaning up corporate emissions will come at the expense of helping to pull the planet back from dangerous levels of warming.

They warn that carbon dioxide removal isn’t a product that any person or company “needs,” in the traditional market sense. Rather, it provides a collective societal good, in the way that waste management does, only with larger global stakes. Read the full story.

—James Temple

Yahoo’s decades-long China controversy and the responsibility of tech companies

Back in the early 2000s, Yahoo was operating a popular search engine and email service in China, and it was one of the first tech companies to be found sharing user information with the Chinese government, leading to the imprisonment of a number of Chinese citizens.

The ensuing attention and subsequent lawsuit against Yahoo from the families of two political prisoners landed a big blow against the company. But the consequences of the company’s actions are still very much felt today—and we’re still learning about how Yahoo failed to help the very cyber dissidents it was supposed to be protecting. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter following technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

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

1 The COP28 summit has agreed to transition away from fossil fuels 
But not all countries are happy about the wording of the deal. (BBC)
+ 2023 has been awful for the climate. What does 2024 hold? (New Yorker $)

2 Welcome to crypto utopia
Dryden Brown is fundraising to build a new crypto city. But does anybody need it? (NYT $)
+ Crypto hackers stole more than $1 billion this year. (Bloomberg $)
+ Crypto millionaires are pouring money into Central America to build their own cities. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Blue Origin is aiming to launch a rocket next week
After being grounded for more than 15 months due to engine issues. (TechCrunch)
+ SpaceX is the world’s second-most valuable startup. (Bloomberg $)

4 The ban TikTok movement is losing momentum
It’s almost like it never made sense in the first place. (WP $)

5 Microsoft is betting on nuclear power to run its AI operations
In turn, it plans to use AI to streamline nuclear regulatory approval. (WSJ $)
+ To avoid AI doom, learn from nuclear safety. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Twitter’s staff used to think they were making the world a better place
In hindsight, they’re not so sure. (The Verge)

7 Anti-drink drinking technology is coming to your new car
US auto-safety regulators want to force carmarkers to integrate it into new vehicles from next year. (The Guardian)
+ We need new ethics experiments for self-driving cars. (IEEE Spectrum)

8 Anxiety is content now
But our online mental health conversations aren’t always helpful or constructive. (The Atlantic $)
+ The therapists using AI to make therapy better. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Resy’s version of Spotify Wrapped was a total flop
Restaurant reservations aren’t that interesting, unfortunately. (Insider $)

10 Netflix will finally tell us what the world’s been watching
Its lack of transparency was heavily criticized during the writers’ strikes. (FT $)
+ The number one show? The Night Agent. (Bloomberg $)
+ How to prevent your smart TV from tracking your habits. (The Markup)

Quote of the day

“Fossils is not the future.”

—Dan Jørgensen, a Danish minister, is optimistic that COP28’s climate agreement will force oil companies to change, he tells the Financial Times.

The big story

House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood

April 2022

When Michael Maxson found his dream home in Nevada, it was not owned by a person but by a tech company, Zillow. When he went to take a look at the property, however, he discovered it damaged by a huge water leak. Despite offering to handle the costly repairs himself, Maxson discovered that the house had already been sold to another family, at the same price he had offered.

During this time, Zillow lost more than $420 million in three months of erratic house buying and unprofitable sales, leading analysts to question whether the entire tech-driven model is really viable. For the rest of us, a bigger question remains: Does the arrival of Silicon Valley tech point to a better future for housing or an industry disruption to fear? Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Buckle up dinosaur fans: we may have discovered an entirely new one in the cliffs of Dorset.
+ Play your favorite song forever and ever using this eternal jukebox app.
+ The different ways we perceive the world is absolutely fascinating.
+ It’s time to brush up on the best singles of the past year.
+ Try to relax: cooking over the holidays doesn’t have to be stressful (but it probably is)

The Download: cleantech 2.0, and ‘jury duty’ on Chinese delivery apps

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.

Climate tech is back—and this time, it can’t afford to fail

A cleantech bust in 2011 left almost all the renewable-energy startups in the US either dead or struggling to survive.

Over a decade on, the excitement around cleantech investments and manufacturing is back, and the money is flowing again. A recent analysis estimates that total green investments reached $213 billion in the US during the 12 months beginning July, 2022.

However, as ‘cleantech 2.0’ startups inch towards commercialization, many of them still face the same issues that tripped up the green revolution a decade ago. Can they succeed where their predecessors failed? Read the full story. 

—David Rotman

Users are doling out justice on a Chinese food delivery app 

Jury trials are plentiful on Chinese apps—especially Meituan, the country’s most popular food delivery service. 

Offered as a way for restaurants to appeal bad reviews they believe are unreasonable, Meituan crowdsources help from users by showing them the review, details of the order, and notes from the restaurant. Then users can vote on whether to take down the review from the restaurant’s public page. More than six million users have now participated in ‘jury duty’ on the app.

Even though it has existed for a few years, many people have only recently become aware of Meituan’s public jury feature. It’s now frequently a viral topic on social media—and a source of joy for those nosy enough to weigh in on other people’s business. Read the full story. 

—Zeyi Yang

Meet the 15-year-old deepfake victim pushing Congress into action

In October, Francesca Mani was one of reportedly more than 30 girls at Westfield High School in New Jersey who were victims of deepfake pornography. Boys at the school had taken photos of Francesca and her classmates and used AI to create sexually explicit images of them without their consent.

The practice is actually stunningly commonplace, but we rarely hear such stories—at least in part because many victims understandably don’t want to talk publicly. But, within just a day of learning about the violation, 15-year-old Francesca started speaking out and calling on lawmakers to do something about the broader problem. Her efforts are already starting to pay off with new momentum for legislation. 

Francesca and her mother, Dorota, say that their activism aims particularly to support women and girls who might be less equipped to push for change. Our senior reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley spoke to them both—read her write-up of their interview.

This story is from The Technocrat, our weekly newsletter all about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. 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 Inside the bitter feuds that will shape the future of AI
It seems most of today’s top AI companies were born out of arguments between rich, egomaniacal men. (NYT $)
+ How Microsoft navigated the recent OpenAI board turmoil. (New Yorker $)
+ OpenAI agreed to buy $51 million of AI chips from a startup backed by Sam Altman. (Wired $)
+ Adam D’Angelo helped to fire Altman. Now he has to work with him. (WSJ $)
+ Not every AI expert thinks superintelligence is on its way. (CNBC)
 
2 Satellite images suggest nearly 98,000 buildings in Gaza are damaged
The pictures were taken before the seven-day suspension of hostilities, which has now ended. (BBC)
+ Inside the satellite tech being used to reveal the extent of Gaza’s destruction. (Scientific American $)
 
3 A group of 56 nations have agreed to phase out coal
Including the US, which sends a strong signal. (AP $)
+ Why the UN climate talks are a moment of reckoning for oil and gas companies. (MIT  Technology Review)
+ Climate experts are furious with the head of COP28 for spreading misinformation. (Sky)
 
4 We badly need to regulate AI in medicine
Here’s how we might approach that mammoth task. (Proto.Life)
+ Artificial intelligence is infiltrating health care. We shouldn’t let it make all the decisions. (MIT Technology Review)
 
5 Ozempic makes people want to drink less alcohol 
Researchers need to collect more data to understand why, but it’s a potentially promising finding. (Wired $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 As X descends into chaos, news outlets are turning to Reddit
The trouble is, it’s a very different beast. (WP $)
+ X is still struggling to lure back advertisers. (The Guardian)
 
7 What it’s like to get your hamburgers delivered by drone
Fun… but probably not economically viable, in the long-run. (The Information $)
+ Food delivery by drone is just part of daily life in Shenzhen. (MIT Technology Review)
 
8 Kiss is becoming a ‘virtual-only’ band
Their avatars can stay on tour forever, while the actual members of the group put their feet up. (BBC)
 
9 You probably don’t need that shiny new tech gadget this Christmas 
The days of constant, rapid advancements in consumer tech are over. (The Guardian)
 
10 Inside the audacious plan to bring the dodo back from the dead
The plan is to reintroduce it to its once-native habitat in Mauritius. (CNN)
+ It might never work out. But wouldn’t it be cool if it did? (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Other states are going to be watching and learning.”

—A former White House security official tells The Guardian that other nations are taking a keen interest in how Israel is using AI to select bombing targets in Gaza.

The big story

Ghost ships, crop circles, and soft gold: A GPS mystery in Shanghai

November 2019

On a sultry summer night in 2019, the MV Manukai was arriving at the port of Shanghai. The city would be the American container ship’s last stop in China before making its long homeward journey to California.

As the crew carefully maneuvered the 700-foot ship through the world’s busiest port, its captain watched his navigation screens closely. According to the Manukai’s screens, another ship was steaming up the same channel at about seven knots (eight miles per hour). Suddenly, the other ship disappeared from the AIS display. A few minutes later, the screen showed the other ship back at the dock. Then it was in the channel and moving again, then back at the dock, then gone once more.

Eventually, mystified, the captain picked up his binoculars and scanned the dockside. The other ship had been stationary at the dock the entire time. Now, new research and previously unseen data show that the Manukai, and thousands of other vessels, are falling victim to a mysterious new weapon that is able to spoof GPS systems in a way never seen before. Read the full story.

—Mark Harris

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.)

+ All aboard the booze train!
+ Treat yourself to these amazing BBC music performances, showcasing some of the best musicians of the past 50 years.
+ Gen Z is doling out dating advice to millennials, and it is savage.
+ Fortune telling with cheese? It doesn’t get much crazier than that.
+ The Conway Library archives are really quite remarkable.

The Download: generative AI’s carbon footprint, and a CRISPR patent battle

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.

Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone

The news: Generating a single image using a powerful AI model takes as much energy as fully charging your smartphone, according to a new study. This is the first time researchers have calculated the carbon emissions caused by using an AI model for different tasks. 

The significance: These emissions will add up quickly. The generative-AI boom has led big tech companies to integrate powerful AI models into many different products, from email to word processing. They are now used millions, if not billions, of times every single day. 

The bigger picture: The study shows that while training massive AI models is incredibly energy intensive, it’s only one part of the puzzle. Most of their carbon footprint comes from their actual use. Read the full story. 

—Melissa Heikkilä

The first CRISPR cure might kickstart the next big patent battle

By the middle of December, Vertex Pharmaceuticals is expected to receive FDA approval to sell a revolutionary new treatment for sickle-cell disease that’s the first in the US to use CRISPR to alter the DNA inside human cells. (Vertex has already received regulatory approval in the UK.)

But there’s a problem. The US patent on editing human cells with CRISPR isn’t owned by Vertex—it is owned by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, probably America’s largest gene research center, and exclusively licensed to a Vertex competitor, Editas Medicine, which has its own sickle-cell treatment in testing.

That means Editas will want Vertex to pay. And if it doesn’t, Editas and Broad could go to the courts to claim patent infringement, demand royalties and damages, or even potentially try to stop the treatment from being sold. Odds are we’re about to see a blockbuster lawsuit. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things health and biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

A high school’s deepfake porn scandal is pushing US lawmakers into action

On October 20, Francesca Mani was called to the counselor’s office at her New Jersey high school. A 14-year-old sophomore and a competitive fencer, Francesca wasn’t one for getting in trouble. But it turned out that over the summer, boys in the school had used artificial intelligence to create sexually explicit pictures of some of their classmates. The school administration told Francesca that she was one of more than 30 girls who had been victimized. 

Francesca didn’t see the photo of herself that day. And she still doesn’t intend to. Instead, she’s put all her energy into ensuring that no one else is targeted this way. 

And, in the past few weeks, her advocacy has already fueled new legislative momentum to regulate nonconsensual deepfake pornography in the US. Read the full story. 

—Tate Ryan-Mosley 

The must-reads

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

1 This is why we’re all sick right now
We’re contending with a lot more illnesses than we did in the pre-covid world. (The Atlantic $)
+ And covid hasn’t gone away either. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Climate disinformation is a big obstacle to action
And much of it is generated by influential nations, including China and Russia. (NYT $)
+ The US government has stopped warning social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns. (WP $)

3 Is the Turing Test dead? 
It was arguably never that reliable a measure of intelligence to begin with. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Mustafa Suleyman: My new Turing test would see if AI can make $1 million. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Hiring is still hot for prompt engineers, a year since ChatGPT launched. (Bloomberg $)

4 The long-delayed Tesla Cybertruck is finally on sale
And the price tag starts at $60,990. (The Guardian)
+ It has its detractors. But it has plenty of fans, too. (The Atlantic $)

5 College students are subject to alarming levels of surveillance 
Which is adding to their stress levels at an already stressful time in their lives. (The Markup)
+ Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University can’t agree on what privacy means. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How Huawei stunned the US with a new Chinese-made chip
Getting around sanctions will have been difficult, and very expensive. (FT $)
+ Huawei’s 5G chip breakthrough needs a reality check. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Anduril has launched a wild new jet-powered AI drone
The company says it could be used in Ukraine to intercept Russian drones. (Wired $)

8 Startups have had a bad year
Bankruptcies, layoffs, lower valuations and trouble fundraising have all featured heavily. (Bloomberg $)

9 AI is making LinkedIn even more boring
Its new AI features are convenient, but they have a flattening, homogenizing effect. (WP $)

10 What it takes to be in the 1%—of Taylor Swift fans 
More than 6,000 hours of listening to her music, for one. (WSJ $)
+ It seems Spotify Wrapped was subject to some form of hacking this year. (Vice)

Quote of the day

“It’s almost like election night.”

—Louisa Ferguson, Spotify’s global head of marketing experience, explains to The Guardian why the launch of the company’s Wrapped annual rundown is its busiest time of the year.

The big story

The uneasy coexistence of Yandex and the Kremlin

MARCIN WOLSKI

August 2020

While Moscow was under coronavirus lockdown between March and June 2020, the Russian capital emptied out—apart from the streams of cyclists in the trademark yellow uniform of Yandex’s food delivery service.

Often referred to in the West as Russia’s Google, Yandex is really more like Google, Amazon, Uber, and maybe a few other companies combined. It’s a Russian Silicon Valley unto itself. 

But Yandex’s success has come at a price. The Kremlin has long viewed the internet as a battlefield in its escalating tensions with the West and has become increasingly concerned that a company like Yandex, with the heaps of data it has on Russian citizens, could one day fall into foreign hands. Read the full story.

—Evan Gershkovich

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.)

+ Remembering the legend that was Shane MacGowan (RIP).
+ The US Transportation Security Administration wins all the awards for the cutest calendar of the year, featuring some of their cutest canine colleagues.
+ We already know that spending time in the great outdoors is good for us, but here’s how and why it’s so important.
+ How to write a love poem like a pro.
+ Who’s who in American fine dining? Read this handy list to find out.

The Download: unpacking OpenAI Q* hype, and X’s financial woes

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.

Unpacking the hype around OpenAI’s rumored new Q* model

Ever since last week’s dramatic events at OpenAI, the rumor mill has been in overdrive about why the company’s board tried to oust CEO Sam Altman.

While we still don’t know all the details, there have been reports that researchers at OpenAI had made a “breakthrough” in AI that alarmed staff members. The claim is that they came up with a new way to make powerful AI systems and had created a new model, called Q* (pronounced Q star), that was able to perform grade-school level math.

Some at OpenAI reportedly believe this could be a breakthrough in the company’s quest to build artificial general intelligence, a much-hyped concept of an AI system that is smarter than humans.

So what’s actually going on? And why is grade-school math such a big deal? Our senior AI reporter Melissa Heikkilä called some experts to find out how big of a deal any such breakthrough would really be. Here’s what they had to say.

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 X is hemorrhaging millions in advertising revenue 
Internal documents show the company is in an even worse position than previously thought. (NYT $)
+ Misinformation ‘super-spreaders’ on X are reportedly eligible for payouts from its ad revenue sharing program. (The Verge)
+ It’s not just you: tech billionaires really are becoming more unbearable. (The Guardian)
 
2 The brakes seem to now be off on AI development 
With Sam Altman’s return to OpenAI, the ‘accelerationists’ have come out on top. (WSJ $)
+ Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever. (MIT Technology Review)
 
3 How Norway got heat pumps into two-thirds of its households
Mostly by making it the cheaper choice for people. (The Guardian)
+ Everything you need to know about the wild world of heat pumps. (MIT Technology Review)
 
4 How your social media feeds shape how you see the Israel-Gaza war
Masses of content are being pumped out, rarely with any nuance or historical understanding. (BBC)
+ China tried to keep kids off social media. Now the elderly are hooked. (Wired $)
 
5 US regulators have surprisingly little scope to enforce Amazon’s safety rules
As demonstrated by the measly $7,000 fine issued by Indiana after a worker was killed by warehouse machinery. (WP $)
 
6 How Ukraine is using advanced technologies on the battlefield 
The Pentagon is using the conflict as a testbed for some of the 800-odd AI-based projects it has in progress. (AP $)
+ Why business is booming for military AI startups. (MIT Technology Review)
 
7 Shein is trying to overhaul its image, with limited success
Its products seem too cheap to be ethically sourced—and it doesn’t take kindly to people pointing that out. (The Verge)
+ Why my bittersweet relationship with Shein had to end. (MIT Technology Review)
 
8 Every app can be a dating app now 
As people turn their backs on the traditional apps, they’re finding love in places like Yelp, Duolingo and Strava. (WSJ $)
+ Job sharing apps are also becoming more popular. (BBC)
 
9 People can’t get enough of work livestreams on TikTok
It’s mostly about the weirdly hypnotic quality of watching people doing tasks like manicures or frying eggs. (The Atlantic $)
 
10 A handy guide to time travel in the movies
Whether you prioritize scientific accuracy or entertainment value, this chart has got you covered. (Ars Technica)

Quote of the day

“It’s in the AI industry’s interest to make people think that only the big players can do this—but it’s not true.”

—Ed Newton-Rex, who just resigned as VP of audio at Stability.AI, says the idea that generative AI models can only be built by scraping artists’ work is a myth in an interview with The Next Web. 

The big story

The YouTube baker fighting back against deadly “craft hacks”

STEPHANIE ARNETT/MITTR | ENVATO, GETTY

September 2022

Ann Reardon is probably the last person you’d expect to be banned from YouTube. A former Australian youth worker and a mother of three, she’s been teaching millions of subscribers how to bake since 2011. 

However, more recently, Reardon has been using her platform to warn people about dangerous new “craft hacks” that are sweeping YouTube, such as poaching eggs in a microwave, bleaching strawberries, and using a Coke can and a flame to pop popcorn.

Reardon was banned because she got caught up in YouTube’s messy moderation policies. In doing so, she exposed a failing in the system: How can a warning about harmful hacks be deemed dangerous when the hack videos themselves are not? Read the full story.

—Amelia Tait

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.)

+ London’s future skyline is looking increasingly like New York’s.
+ Whovians will never agree on who has the honor of being the best Doctor.
+ How to get into mixing music like a pro.
+ This Japanese sea worm has a neat trick up its sleeve—splitting itself in two in the quest for love.
+ Did you know there’s a mysterious tunnel under Seoul?

The Download: digital hide-and-seek, and AI for African languages

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.

This viral game in China reinvents hide-and-seek for the digital age

The “cat-and-mouse game” has gone viral in China this year, drawing thousands of people across the country to events every week. It’s a fun combination of a childhood game, in-person networking, the latest location-sharing technology, and meme-worthy experience. 

It’s not a typical hide-and-seek game, though, but rather one for the digital age: both the seekers and the hiders chase and evade each other by following their real-time locations on a map on their phones.Our reporter Zeyi Yang played a game with 40 strangers in a seven-acre park built on the site of the infamous Kowloon Walled City. Read about his experience here.

This company is building AI for African languages

Inside a co-working space in the Rosebank neighborhood of Johannesburg, Jade Abbott popped open a tab on her computer and prompted ChatGPT to count from 1 to 10 in isiZulu, a language spoken by more than 10 million people in her native South Africa. The results were “mixed and hilarious,” says Abbott, a computer scientist and researcher. 

Then she typed in a few sentences in isiZulu and asked the chatbot to translate them into English. Once again, the answers? Not even close.

Abbott’s experience mirrors the situation faced by Africans who don’t speak English. Many language models like ChatGPT do not perform well for African languages. 

But a new venture called Lelapa AI, a collaboration between Abbott and a biomedical engineer named Pelonomi Moiloa, is trying to use machine learning to create tools that specifically work for Africans. Read the full story.  

—Abdullahi Tsanni

A controversial US surveillance program is up for renewal. Critics are speaking out.

A debate is raging about the renewal of a controversial US surveillance program, created in 2008 to expand the power of US agencies to collect electronic “foreign intelligence information,” whether about spies, terrorists, or cybercriminals abroad, without a warrant. It compels tech companies to hand over communications records to US intelligence agencies. 

A lot of data about Americans who communicate with people internationally gets swept up in these searches. Critics say that is unconstitutional. Despite that, it’s been renewed in both 2012 and 2017. So is it likely to be renewed yet again? Here’s what you need to know. 

—Tate Ryan-Mosley

This story is from The Technocrat, our weekly newsletter all about politics, power, and Silicon Valley. 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 Microsoft has hired former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
He’ll lead a ‘new advanced AI research team’ along with a bunch of his other former OpenAI colleagues. (The Verge)
+ Dozens of OpenAI employees have said they’ll quit. (The Information $)
+ Trouble had been brewing at OpenAI for a while. (The Atlantic $)
+ Altman had been raising money for a new chip venture in the Middle East before he was pushed out. (Bloomberg $)
+ Who’s who on OpenAI’s board, the group behind Altman’s ouster. (CNBC)
+ Read our recent interview with OpenAI’s chief scientist, reportedly one of the board members who pushed Altman out. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Our 2020 feature on OpenAI uncovered many of the tensions that have come to a head this week. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Robotaxi company Cruise’s CEO has resigned 
The company is in chaos after being forced to pull its entire driverless fleet over safety concerns. (WP $)
+ Why city employees tend to dislike driverless cars. (NYT $)
+ Robotaxis are here. It’s time to decide what to do about them. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Inside Ukraine’s invisible war
Both sides are using radio signals to overwhelm communications links to drones and troops, locate targets, and trick guided weapons. (NYT $)

4 Ad execs are urging X’s CEO to step down
They say that by staying, Linda Yaccarino is endorsing Musk’s anti-semitic diatribes. (Forbes)
+ This is the growing list of companies pulling ads from X. (WP $)

5 The southern hemisphere is in for a sweltering summer
It’s highly likely it’ll see record-breaking temperatures over the coming months, scientists say. (Nature)
+ The richest 1% are responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, according to Oxfam. (The Guardian)

6 SpaceX’s Starship rocket reached space, but then exploded 
Or, as they like to put it, experienced a ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’. (CNBC)

7 Teen boys are falling for a Snapchat nude photo scam
It’s a classic—but devastating—example of online sextortion. (WSJ $)

8 Italy’s parliament has banned lab-grown meat 
The right-wing government said it posed a threat to the country’s way of life. (Quartz $)
+ Read our review of lab-grown chicken at a Michelin-starred restaurant. (MIT Technology Review)

9 We may have to wait longer for Apple’s Vision Pro headset than planned
There’s no way it’s going to launch in January as originally planned, insiders say. (Mashable)

10 The argument for using AI to log every moment of your life
It’s a dream for some… but a total nightmare to others. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“OpenAI is nothing without its people.”

—Wording that’s being posted online by a growing number of OpenAI employees, indicating that further resignations are still to come.

The big story

How to befriend a crow

GETTY IMAGES

October 2022

Nicole Steinke feeds a family of the birds from her apartment balcony in Alexandria, Virginia, twice daily. Once there’s no food left, they’ll look for her as she walks around her neighborhood. When one crow finds her, it will call to the others, and they’ll surround her.

The crows have become minor TikTok celebrities thanks to CrowTok, a small but active niche that has exploded in popularity. CrowTok isn’t just about birds, though. It also often explores the relationships that corvids—a family of birds including crows, magpies, and ravens—develop with human beings.

They’re not the only intelligent birds around, but in general, corvids are smart in a way that resonates deeply with humans. But how easy is it to befriend them? And what can it teach us about attention, and patience, in a world that often seems to have little of either? Read the full story.

—Abby Ohlheiser

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I can’t stop watching these extreme close-up videos of everyday objects.
+ Turn a clip of you singing into a roster of songs, thanks to this clever site.
+ Wildlife is everywhere in our cities, you just need to know where to look.
+ Start planning your escape for next year, courtesy of the best places to visit in 2024.
+ Brace yourself: it’s nearly Star Wars Holiday Special time.

The Download: teaching girls to build, and fixing government tech

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 nonprofit that lets girls build the world they want to see

Emily Pilloton-Lam didn’t grow up in a particularly handy household, but she did spend hours outside building treehouses out of logs and sticks. After years studying architecture at prestigious institutions, she realized she wanted to pursue what made her fall in love with building: working with her hands and with other people on projects that mattered. 

In 2008, at age 26, she founded a nonprofit that’s now called Girls Garage, to equip girls with both the personal power and the literal power tools to build the world they want to see.

The architecture, engineering, and construction industries are famously slow to innovate. But Girls Garage is helping to jump-start change. Read the full story.

—Allison Arieff

This piece is from the next magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on Wednesday. It’s all about society’s hardest problems, and how we should tackle them. If you don’t already, subscribe now to get a copy when it lands!

How to make government technology better

Who hasn’t tried to fill in a government form online and run into at least one issue? Or even just thought, Hmm, why can’t I easily just do this basic civic activity online, like renewing your license? Can you even imagine a world where you could submit a digital request to fill a pothole in your neighborhood (and it actually got filled)?

All too often, online experiences with government agencies are painfully inefficient. At the same time, examples of dangerous, eye-roll-inducing techno-solutionist thinking run rampant. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To see how government tech could improve, it’s worth studying the example of Massachusetts, and Boston in particular. Read the full story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley

Tate’s story is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly newsletter covering power and policy in Silicon Valley. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday.

2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Form Energy and its iron batteries

Form Energy is building iron-based batteries that could store renewable energy on the grid for long stretches, saving up for times when electricity sources such as wind and solar aren’t available. 

Iron, one of the most common metals on the planet, could help the company build batteries that are cheap enough to be practical. Read more about Form Energy, and check out the rest of the list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.

25% off MIT Technology Review

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The must-reads

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

1 Big Tech firms are being urged to take sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict
Blacklists of employees who’ve voiced support for Palestine are appearing online. (WP $)
+ Palestinians say that online censorship is endangering lives. (Wired $)
+ The CEO of a tech conference has resigned over his comments on the conflict. (Reuters)

2 Japan is investigating Google over potential antitrust violations 
It echoes the ongoing case the company is currently fighting in the US. (Bloomberg $)

3 Inside a cash-for-bitcoin laundering ring in New York
The scheme, which ran for years, raked in millions of dollars for criminals. (404 Media)

4 The US military hopes AI will give it the edge over China
But experts fear that startup ScaleAI’s ambitions could rush advanced AI onto the battlefield before it’s ready. (WP $)
+ Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Chinese authorities are investigating iPhone maker Foxconn
The Taiwan-based firm is being investigated over tax and land use. (FT $)
+ Apple can’t shake its dependence on third parties to make iPhones. (WSJ $)

6 Sustainable aviation is edging closer to taking off
But you have to cut through a whole load of greenwashing to get to the truth. (Vox)
+ Everything you need to know about the wild world of alternative jet fuels. (MIT Technology Review)

7 How to make your food last longer
Expiration dates aren’t always accurate. Algorithms can fill in the gaps. (The Atlantic $)

8 This startup wants to use a headset to induce lucid dreaming
The problem is, there’s no proof it will work. (Slate $)
+ I taught myself to lucid dream. You can too. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Meet the teens who actually want their parents to track them
However, knowing where someone is not the same as knowing they’re safe. (WSJ $)

10 The uncanny reality of AI-generated newsreaders
They don’t need breaks or salaries, but they can’t meet their fans, either. (The Guardian)
+ Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Religion is all about spirituality… If AI writes a sermon from A to Z, it can’t be soulful.”

—Kim Min-joon, CEO of AI bible chatbot company Awake Corp, which uses ChatGPT to answer its users’ faith-based questions, tells the Financial Times why he cautions pastors against lifting entire sermons from its app

The big story

What does breaking up Big Tech really mean?

June 2021

For Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet, covid-19 was an economic blessing. Even as the pandemic sent the global economy into a deep recession and cratered most companies’ profits, these companies—often referred to as the “Big Four” of technology—not only survived but thrived.

Yet at the same time, they have come under unprecedented attack from politicians and government regulators in the US and Europe, in the form of new lawsuits, proposed bills, and regulations. There’s no denying that the pressure is building to rein in Big Tech’s power. But what would that entail? Read the full story.

—James Surowiecki

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Galapagos giant tortoises are being put to work: as dedicated ecosystem engineers.
+ These extreme close ups demonstrating how pens distribute ink are going to give me nightmares.
+ Ancient Egypt’s ‘mummy portraits’ are really quite remarkable.
+ There’s only one Eric Cantona, who, not content with going down in history as a European footballing legend, is turning his hand to singing.
+ How to make a gigantic Mars Bar, because why not?

The Download: the problem of plastic, and how AI could boost batteries

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.

Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.

The problem of plastic waste hides in plain sight, a ubiquitous part of our lives we rarely question. But a closer examination of the situation is shocking. 

To date, humans have created around 11 billion metric tons of plastic. 72% of the plastic we make ends up in landfills or the environment. Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled. 

To make matters worse, plastic production is growing dramatically; in fact, half of all plastics in existence have been produced in just the last two decades. Production is projected to continue growing, at about 5% annually. So what do we do? Sadly, solutions such as recycling and reuse aren’t equal to the scale of the task. The only answer is drastic cuts in production in the first place. Read the full story. 

—Douglas Main

This story is from the next magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on October 25. It’s all about hard problems—and guaranteed to be fascinating! If you don’t subscribe already, sign up now to get a copy when it lands. 

How AI could supercharge battery research

One of the reasons we can dare to hope for electric aviation is the potential of AI to speed up battery research. That’s according to Venkat Viswanathan, who cofounded a startup in 2018 called Aionics to do exactly that.

So why is AI so promising for batteries? On stage at our ClimateTech conference last week, Viswanathan pointed to a fitness tracker on his wrist. Landing on the battery chemistry for this tiny product took over 55,000 iterations, as there’s an almost unfathomable number of potential materials, and combinations of materials, to use in batteries. 

That’s where AI can help, thanks to its ability to rapidly sort through a wide range of options and design new materials. To learn more about how, read this piece by our climate reporter Casey Crownhart.This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things climate-related. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Inside the quest for equitable climate solutions

Sweeping legislation in the US is infusing hundreds of billions of dollars into new climate and energy technologies. But as the money begins to flow, there are open questions regarding who will benefit most, and who might bear the brunt of unexpected consequences.

Shalanda Baker, director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the US Department of Energy, spoke at MIT Technology Review’s ClimateTech event in Cambridge about the need to simultaneously address climate change and equity and the possibility of seeking justice during the energy transition. Read our Q&A with her, and watch her full talk.

2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Climeworks and its carbon-sucking fans

To prevent catastrophic global warming, we must remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in addition to eliminating fossil fuels. Climeworks is pioneering one of the most promising approaches: direct air capture, in which giant machines suck carbon out of the sky. Read all about how it’s doing that. 

Climeworks is one of our 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch this year. Check out the rest of the list.

The must-reads

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

1 Israel’s tech sector is being enlisted in the war
Many of its workers are reservists, and they’re now being called upon to fight. (WP $) 
+ The conflict is leading to some fraught and ugly discussions online. (NBC)
+ The EU is pleading with Meta to be more vigilant about misinformation around the conflict. (CNBC)
+ Some Jewish parents are being advised to delete social media apps from their kids’ phones. (BBC)

2 A monkey got a new kidney from a pig—and survived for two years
It’s a promising finding, but we’re still a way off from this technique working in people.  (Wired $)
+ The entrepreneur dreaming of a factory of unlimited organs. (MIT Technology Review) 

3 The China-US tech cold war is only escalating
A new blockade on AI systems is coming. (The Atlantic $) 
+ American and Chinese scientists are collaborating less and less, to the detriment of both countries. (The Economist $)

4 Researchers are testing a ‘treasure trove’ from the asteroid Bennu
Materials like waterlogged clay minerals could help to illuminate the earliest days of the solar system. (NYT $)

5 Things sure aren’t looking good for Sam Bankman-Fried 
His ex-girlfriend has masses of evidence that suggests he knew exactly what he was doing. (The Verge)

6 A world-first trial of gene therapy to cure deafness has begun
It’s being tested in up to 18 children from the UK, Spain, and the US. (Ars Technica)
+ Forget designer babies. Here’s how CRISPR is really changing lives. (MIT Technology Review)

7 This man is in a relationship with an AI chatbot 
Try to suspend your judgment and you’ll find this is a surprisingly sad and touching read. (Insider $)

8 TikTok has a big problem in Southeast Asia 
Its biggest economy, Indonesia, has banned TikTok shopping. Others are expected to follow. (South China Morning Post)

9 Google’s AI can now force you to smile in photos
Is this what we really want? (WP $)

10 Inside the US community that banned cars
It’s an experiment in Phoenix that’s going surprisingly well so far. (The Guardian)
+ Robotaxis are here. It’s time to decide what to do about them. (MIT Technology Review) 

Quote of the day

“The biggest challenge I’m still thinking of: what are LLMs [large language models] truly useful for, in terms of helpfulness?”

—Googler Cathy Pearl, a user experience lead for the company’s AI chatbot, Bard, questions the utility of these sorts of tools in a Discord chat, Bloomberg reports.

The big story

She risked everything to expose Facebook. Now she’s telling her story.

CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK

July 2021

When Sophie Zhang went public with explosive revelations detailing the political manipulation she’d uncovered during her time as a data scientist at Facebook, she supplied concrete evidence to support what critics had long been saying on the outside: that Facebook makes election interference easy, and that unless such activity hurts the company’s business interests, it can’t be bothered to fix the problem.

By speaking out and eschewing anonymity, Zhang risked legal action from the company, harm to her future career prospects, and perhaps even reprisals. Her story reveals that it is really pure luck that we now know so much about how Facebook enables election interference globally. To regulators around the world considering how to rein in the company, this should be a wake-up call. Read the full story.

—Karen Hao

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Merry Clayton’s vocals on Gimme Shelter give me goosebumps. 
+ When you’re disembarking, you want someone you can rely on. 
+ As a keen outdoor swimmer, I loved this short BBC radio program on why it’s so good for you. 
+ This Dave Grohl/Lionel Ritchie scene makes me laugh a lot.
+ Next time you go for a walk, try making it meditative. ($)

The Download: what to expect from US Congress’s first AI meeting

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 to know about Congress’s inaugural AI meeting

The US Congress is heading back into session, and they’re hitting the ground running on AI. We’re going to be hearing a lot about various plans and positions on AI regulation in the coming weeks, kicking off with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s first AI Insight Forum on Wednesday. 

This and planned future forums will bring together some of the top people in AI to discuss the risks and opportunities it poses and how Congress might write legislation to address them.

Although the forums are closed to the public and press, our senior tech policy reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley has chatted with representatives from attendee AI company Hugging Face about what they are expecting, and what exactly these forums are hoping to achieve. Read the full story.

Tate’s story first appeared in The Technocrat, her weekly newsletter covering policy and Silicon Valley. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday.

Why regulating AI is such a challenge

Lawmakers around the world are trying to work out how to regulate AI. We’re holding the second MIT Technology Review Roundtable tomorrow at 12pm ET: a 30-minute conversation with our writers and editors—and this one will dig deep into what it’ll take to govern AI properly.

Melissa Heikkilä, our senior reporter for AI, will be chatting with news editor Charlotte Jee about what should be done to keep AI companies in line. Roundtables are free for MIT Technology Review subscribers, so if you’re not already, you can become one today from just $80 a year.

The must-reads

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

1 Meta is working on a AI large language model
Which, if it all goes to plan, will be as powerful as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. (WSJ $)
+ The company is focusing on AI and turning its back on news. (Wired $)
+ Meta’s AI leaders want you to know fears over AI existential risk are “ridiculous.” (MIT Technology Review)

2 Google is preparing for a historic new antitrust case
It’s a crucial test of President Biden’s efforts to hold Big Tech to account. (FT $)
+ Google is accused of unlawfully quashing its competition. (Wired $)

3 Starlink should keep supplying Ukraine with satellite internet
That’s according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after it was revealed Elon Musk had turned off the system to scupper a Ukrainian drone attack. (Bloomberg $)
+ A Ukrainian official accused Musk of “committing evil.” (The Guardian)

4 Island nations are hoping to legally force polluters to clean up their act
Carbon emissions are causing them to sink. Now, they want to punish the perpetrators. (Bloomberg $)+ The state of the climate is pretty dire right now. (Vox)
+ What’s changed in the US since the breakthrough climate bill passed a year ago? (MIT Technology Review)

5 Tax evaders in the US are risking detection by AI
It’s helping the US tax agency to complete audits on a previously-unachievable scale. (NYT $)

6 X is host to more bot activity than ever before
Which suggests the company’s anti-bots campaign isn’t really working. (The Guardian)

7 How Lisbon quietly became a crypto paradise
The picturesque Portuguese city has embraced crypto as many others shun it. (CNBC)
+ How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Silicon Valley’s great and the good are getting full body medical scans
Despite the fact that no official medical body has sanctioned it. (WP $)

9 Why streaming is such a mess
Choosing what to watch isn’t as tough a quandary as how to watch it. (The Atlantic $)
+ Live sports is caught in a major TV battle. (Slate $)

10 Super apps are not so super
They reinforce monopolies and encourage more tracking than ever. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“People just thought we were insane. Google was the best thing since sliced bread.”

—Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute and a veteran antitrust activist, explains to the Washington Post how he wasn’t taken seriously when he tried to push US officials to take antitrust action against Google in the early 2000s.

The big story

This super-realistic virtual world is a driving school for AI

February 2022

Building driverless cars is a slow and expensive business. After years of effort and billions of dollars of investment, the technology is still stuck in the pilot phase.

Autonomous technology company Waabi thinks it can do better. Last year it revealed the controversial new shortcut to autonomous vehicles it’s betting on. The big idea? Ditch the cars.

Waabi has built a super-realistic virtual environment called Waabi World. Instead of training an AI driver in real vehicles, it plans to do it entirely inside the simulation. But simulation alone is a bold strategy, and how far it can go depends on how realistic Waabi World really is. Read the full story. 

—Will Douglas Heaven

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Imagine being a professional royal impersonator.
+ Preparing for the cheese olympics sounds profoundly stressful to me.
+ The surface of Mars is home to some seriously weird things.
+ The trailer for Cat Person, a new movie based on the viral short story of the same name, has landed.
+ We’re witnessing a rise in Omani art.

The Download: how to talk to kids about AI, and China’s emotional chatbots

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.

You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say.

In the past year, kids, teachers, and parents have had a crash course in artificial intelligence, thanks to the wildly popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.

In a knee-jerk reaction, some schools banned the technology—only to cancel the ban months later. Now that many adults have caught up with what ChatGPT is, schools have started exploring ways to use AI systems to teach kids important lessons on critical thinking. 

At the start of the new school year, here are MIT Technology Review’s six essential tips for how to get started on giving your kid an AI education. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams & Melissa Heikkilä

My colleague Will Douglas Heaven wrote about how AI can be used in schools for our recent Education issue. You can read that piece here.

Chinese AI chatbots want to be your emotional support

Last week, Baidu became the first Chinese company to roll out its large language model—called Ernie Bot—to the general public, following regulatory approval from the Chinese government.

Since then, four more Chinese companies have also made their LLM chatbot products broadly available, while more experienced players, like Alibaba and iFlytek, are still waiting for the clearance.

One thing that Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, noticed was how the Chinese AI bots are used to offer emotional support compared to their Western counterparts. Given that chatbots are a novelty right now, it raises questions about how the companies are hoping to keep users engaged once that initial excitement has worn off. Read the full story.

This story originally appeared in China Report, Zeyi’s weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things happening in tech in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

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

1 China’s chips are far more advanced than we realized
Huawei’s latest phone has US officials wondering how effective their sanctions have really been. (Bloomberg $)
+ It suggests China’s domestic chip tech is coming on in leaps and bounds. (Guardian)
+ Japan was once a chipmaking giant. What happened? (FT $) 
+ The US-China chip war is still escalating. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Meta’s AI teams are in turmoil 
Internal groups are scrapping over the company’s computing resources. (The Information $)
+ Meta’s latest AI model is free for all. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Conspiracy theorists have rounded on digital cash 
If authorities can’t counter those claims, digital currencies are dead in the water. (FT $)
+ Is the digital dollar dead? (MIT Technology Review)
+ What’s next for China’s digital yuan? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Lawyers are the real winners of the crypto crash
Someone has to represent all those bankrupt companies. (NYT $)
+ Sam Bankman-Fried is adjusting to life behind bars (NY Mag $)

5 Renting an EV is a minefield
Collecting a hire car that’s only half charged is far from ideal. (WSJ $)
+ BYD, China’s biggest EV company, is eyeing an overseas expansion. (Rest of World)
+ How new batteries could help your EV charge faster. (MIT Technology Review)

6 US immigration used fake social media profiles to spy on targets
Even though aliases are against many platforms’ terms of service. (Guardian)

7 The internet has normalized laughing at death 
The creepy groups are a digital symbol of human cruelty. (The Atlantic $)

8 New York is purging thousands of Airbnbs  
A new law has made it essentially impossible for the company to operate in the city. (Wired $)+ And hosts are far from happy about it. (NY Mag $)

9 Men are already rating AI-generated women’s hotness
In another bleak demonstration of how AI models can perpetuate harmful stereotypes. (Motherboard)
+ Ads for AI sex workers are rife across social media. (NBC News)

10 Meet the young activists fighting for kids’ rights online
They’re demanding a say in the rules that affect their lives. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“It wasn’t totally crazy. It was only moderately crazy.”

—Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, reflects on the company’s early desire to chase the theoretical goal of artificial general intelligence, according to Wired.

The big story

Marseille’s battle against the surveillance state

June 2022

Across the world, video cameras have become an accepted feature of urban life. Many cities in China now have dense networks of them, and London and New Delhi aren’t far behind. Now France is playing catch-up.

Concerns have been raised throughout the country. But the surveillance rollout has met special resistance in Marseille, France’s second-biggest city.

It’s unsurprising, perhaps, that activists are fighting back against the cameras, highlighting the surveillance system’s overreach and underperformance. But are they succeeding? Read the full story.

—Fleur Macdonald

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ How’d ya like dem apples? Quite a lot, actually.
+ Why keeping cocktails cold without ice isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
+ There’s no single explanation for why we get creeped out.
+ This fearless skater couldn’t be cuter.
+ Here’s how to get your steak perfectly tender.

The Download: China’s AI chatbots go public, and how climate change is affecting hurricanes

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.

Chinese ChatGPT alternatives just got approved for the general public

The news: Baidu, one of China’s leading artificial-intelligence companies, has announced it’s opening up access to its ChatGPT-like large language model, Ernie Bot, to the general public.

The context:  Launched in mid-March, Ernie Bot was the first Chinese ChatGPT rival. Since then, many Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, have followed suit and released their own models. Yet all of them force users to sit on waitlists or go through approval systems, making the products mostly inaccessible for ordinary users

What’s next: On August 30, Baidu posted on social media that it will also release a batch of new AI applications within the Ernie Bot as the company rolls out open registration today. But even with the new access, it’s unclear how many people will use the products. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

Here’s what we know about hurricanes and climate change

It’s now possible to link climate change to all kinds of extreme weather, from droughts to flooding to wildfires.

Hurricanes are no exception—scientists have found that warming temperatures are causing stronger and less predictable storms. That’s a concern, because hurricanes are already among the most deadly and destructive extreme weather events around the world. In the US alone, three hurricanes each caused over $1 billion in damages in 2022. In a warming world, we can expect the totals to rise.

But the relationship between climate change and hurricanes is more complicated than most people realize. Here’s what we know, and—as Hurricane Idalia batters the Florida coast—what to expect from the storms to come. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

Casey’s story is part of MIT Technology Review Explains, designed to help you make sense of what’s coming next. Check out the rest of the stories in the series.

If you’d like to read more about how climate charge can supercharge hurricanes, take a look at the most recent edition of The Spark, Casey’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

The must-reads

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

1 X wants to collect your biometric data
Elon Musk’s ongoing crusade to rid the platform of bot accounts has taken a sinister turn. (Bloomberg $)
+ Audio and video calls are also in the company’s pipeline. (Mashable)

2 The United Arab Emirates is getting into generative AI
It hopes to bring bilingual LLMs to more than 400 million Arabic speakers worldwide. (FT $)
+ German startup Aleph Alpha wants to be the European OpenAI. (Wired $)
+ How AWS spectacularly fumbled its AI lead. (The Information $)
+ The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Meta has declined to suspend the account of Cambodia’s leader
Despite the request coming from its own board. (WP $)
+ The company has internally admitted stifling legitimate political speech. (The Intercept)

4 A grocery delivery app encouraged its workers to brave Hurricane Idalia  
‘Bad Weather = Good Tips,’ it told them. (Motherboard)
+ Georgia has declared a state of emergency. (The Guardian)
+ Conspiracy theorists are attempting to downplay natural disasters online. (NYT $)

5 YouTube’s radicalization crackdown appears to have worked
Extremist videos are harder to find, but learning from the past remains critical. (The Atlantic $)
+ YouTube’s algorithm seems to be funneling people to alt-right videos. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Cheap Chromebooks aren’t the good deal they used to be
And schools end up stuck with piles of increasingly useless machines. (WSJ $)

7 It’s scarily easy to track someone on the NYC subway
Your journey history is available to anyone with your financial details. (404 Media)

8 Burning Man is seriously bad for the planet
Just traveling to the festival comes has a high environmental cost. (Vox)

9 Smashing up asteroids creates new space debris
Which we need to keep an eye on to make sure it’s not more dangerous than the original threat. (Wired $)
+ Watch the moment NASA’s DART spacecraft crashed into an asteroid. (MIT Technology Review)

10 We’re learning more about how to treat chronic pain
For some patients, electrical nerve stimulation is offering relief when nothing else works. (Economist $)
+ Brain waves can tell us how much pain someone is in. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“It just gives me a negative vibe.”

—Belinda Davey, a 36-year-old retail worker in Australia, tells the Wall Street Journal why she created a shortcut that replaces X’s new logo with the original Twitter bird.

The big story

We used to get excited about technology. What happened?

October 2022

As a philosopher who studies AI and data, Shannon Vallor’s Twitter feed is always filled with the latest tech news. Increasingly, she’s realized that the constant stream of information is no longer inspiring joy, but a sense of resignation.

Joy is missing from our lives, and from our technology. Its absence is feeding a growing unease being voiced by many who work in tech or study it. Fixing it depends on understanding how and why the priorities in our tech ecosystem have changed. Read the full story.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I’m loving these photos of the blue supermoon from across the world (did you see it?)
+ Wait, is that Bob Dylan?
+ Dreaming isn’t just for humans—spiders may do it too.
+ It’s officially time to bring back 1930s slang (it’ll blow your wig)
+ Who doesn’t love pistachios?