The Download: how to talk about climate tech, and Sam Altman’s past
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. Your guide to talking about climate tech over Thanksgiving Ah, the holidays. Time for good food, quality moments with family, and hard questions about climate change … or is that just us? Our…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/23/1083839/the-download-talk-climate-tech-sam-altmans-past/
Your guide to talking about climate tech over the holidays
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Ah, the holidays. Time for good food, quality moments with family, and hard questions about climate change … or is that last one just something that happens to me? I’m a climate…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/23/1083826/talking-about-climate-tech/
The Download: chaos at OpenAI, and building a better power grid
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’s behind the chaos at OpenAI? Sam Altman has been reinstated as the CEO of OpenAI, rounding off a wild few days for the industry’s hottest AI firm. If you’re as intrigued by…
This Chinese map app wants to be a super app for everything outdoors
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Thanksgiving is almost here. This year, when you get together with your family, may I suggest a fun little game that reinvents hide-and-seek for the digital age? When I was in Hong…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/22/1083805/chinese-map-super-app-game/
Four ways AI is making the power grid faster and more resilient
The power grid is growing increasingly complex as more renewable energy sources come online. Where once a small number of large power plants supplied most homes at a consistent flow, now millions of solar panels generate variable electricity. Increasingly unpredictable weather adds to the challenge of balancing demand with supply. To manage the chaos, grid…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/22/1083792/ai-power-grid-improvement/
The Download: OpenAI’s dramatic breakdown, and Meta’s transparency library
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’s next for OpenAI The past few days have been a fever dream in the AI world. The board of OpenAI, the world’s hottest AI company, shocked everyone by firing CEO Sam Altman.…
The 2024 35 Innovators Under 35 competition is now open for nominations
We like to think of the annual 35 Innovators Under 35 competition as the flip side of our popular 10 Breakthrough Technologies list. With 10 Breakthrough Technologies we ask: What groundbreaking innovations will affect our lives over the next few years? With Innovators Under 35, we ask: Which young people are doing the most promising…
Meta responds to calls for greater transparency with a new research database
Meta is releasing a new transparency product called the Meta Content Library and API, according to an announcement from the company today. The new tool will allow select researchers to access publicly available data on Facebook and Instagram in an effort to give a more overarching view of what’s happening on the platforms. The move…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/21/1083760/meta-transparency-research-database-nick-clegg/
What’s next for OpenAI
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. OpenAI, are you okay, babe? This past weekend has been a fever dream in the AI world. The board of OpenAI, the world’s hottest AI company, shocked everyone by firing CEO…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/20/1083715/whats-next-for-openai/
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…
A controversial US surveillance program is up for renewal. Critics are speaking out.
This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. For the past week my social feeds have been filled with a pretty important tech policy debate that I want to key you in on:…
This viral game in China reinvents hide-and-seek for the digital age
On a late October evening, I found myself hiding in the shadows of a tree in a Hong Kong park. I was on high alert, warily eyeing everyone walking toward me. I was checking my phone every few seconds, watching the locations of dozens of people who were trying to hunt me down. I wasn’t…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/20/1083660/game-china-hide-seek-map/
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…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/17/1083637/lelapa-ai-african-languages-vulavula/
The Download: what is death, and jailbreaking generative AI
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 is death? Just as birth certificates note the time we enter the world, death certificates mark the moment we exit it. This practice reflects traditional notions about life and death as binaries.…
The pain is real. The painkillers are virtual reality.
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. I hate needles. I am a grown woman who owns a Buzzy, a vibrating, bee-shaped device you press against your arm to confuse your nerves and…
Text-to-image AI models can be tricked into generating disturbing images
Popular text-to-image AI models can be prompted to ignore their safety filters and generate disturbing images. A group of researchers managed to get both Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion and OpenAI’s DALL-E 2’s text-to-image models to disregard their policies and create images of naked people, dismembered bodies, and other violent and sexual scenarios. Their work, which…
The Biggest Questions: What is death?
Just as birth certificates note the time we enter the world, death certificates mark the moment we exit it. This practice reflects traditional notions about life and death as binaries. We are here until, suddenly, like a light switched off, we are gone. But while this idea of death is pervasive, evidence is building that…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/17/1082937/what-is-death/
The Download: defining AGI, and making sense of the complicated universe
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 DeepMind wants to define what counts as artificial general intelligence AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is one of the hottest topics in tech today. It’s also one of the most controversial. A…
Behind Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s push to get AI tools in developers’ hands
In San Francisco last week, everyone’s favorite surprise visitor was Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. At OpenAI’s DevDay—the company’s first-ever event for developers building on its platform—Nadella bounded on stage to join OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, blowing the hair back on an already electrified audience. “You guys have built something magic,” he gushed. Two days later…
The Download: attempting to read someone’s mind, and AI weather forecasting
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. Is it possible to really understand someone else’s mind? 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…