Meet the 15-year-old deepfake victim pushing Congress into action
This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. I want to share a story about an inspirational young woman and her mother, who have stepped into the fray on AI policy issues after…
Users are doling out justice on a Chinese food delivery app
There are no jury trials in Chinese courts—but if you think the noodles you just got delivered were too hot, a jury of your peers will quickly determine guilt in the app where you ordered it. Jury trials, in fact, are plentiful on Chinese apps—especially Meituan, the country’s most popular food delivery service, where millions…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/04/1084288/food-delivery-user-jury-meituan/
Climate tech is back—and this time, it can’t afford to fail
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Lost in a stupor of déjà vu, I rang the intercom buzzer a second time. I had the odd sensation of being unstuck in time. The headquarters of this solar startup looked strangely similar to its previous offices, which I had visited more than a decade before. The name of the company had changed from…
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…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/01/1084204/the-download-ai-carbon-footprint-crispr-battle/
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. That day, a rumor had been circulating the halls: over the summer, boys in the school had used artificial intelligence to create sexually explicit…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/01/1084164/deepfake-porn-scandal-pushing-us-lawmakers/
The first CRISPR cure might kickstart the next big patent battle
That’s a real nice CRISPR cure you have there. It would be a pity if anything happened to it. Okay. Drop the tough-guy accent and toss the black fedora aside. But I do believe that similar conversations could be occurring now that a historic gene-editing cure is coming to market, as soon as this year.…
Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone
Each time you use AI to generate an image, write an email, or ask a chatbot a question, it comes at a cost to the planet. In fact, generating an image using a powerful AI model takes as much energy as fully charging your smartphone, according to a new study by researchers at the AI…
Sustainability starts with the data center
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When asked why he targeted banks, notorious criminal Willie Sutton reportedly answered, “Because that’s where the money is.” Similarly, when thoughtful organizations target sustainability, they look to their data centers—because that’s where the carbon emissions are. The International Energy Agency (IEA) attributes about 1.5% of total global electricity use to data centers and data transmission…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/30/1083909/sustainability-starts-with-the-data-center/
The Download: abandoning carbon offsets, and creating new materials
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 University of California has all but dropped carbon offsets—and thinks you should, too In the fall of 2018, the University of California tasked a team of researchers with identifying projects from which…
The University of California has all but dropped carbon offsets—and thinks you should, too
In the fall of 2018, the University of California (UC) tasked a team of researchers with identifying tree planting or similar projects from which it could confidently purchase carbon offsets that would reliably cancel out greenhouse gas emissions across its campuses. The researchers found next to nothing. “We took a look across the whole market…
Google DeepMind’s new AI tool helped create more than 700 new materials
From EV batteries to solar cells to microchips, new materials can supercharge technological breakthroughs. But discovering them usually takes months or even years of trial-and-error research. Google DeepMind hopes to change that with a new tool that uses deep learning to dramatically speed up the process of discovering new materials. Called graphical networks for material…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/29/1084061/deepmind-ai-tool-for-new-materials-discovery/
Augmenting the realities of work
Imagine an integrated workplace with 3D visualizations that augment presentations, interactive and accelerated onboarding, and controlled training simulations. This is the future of immersive technology that global head of Immersive Technology Research at JPMorgan Chase, Blair MacIntyre is working to build. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies can blend physical and digital dimensions…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/29/1083726/augmenting-the-realities-of-work/
The Download: the year’s most-read climate stories, and Amazon’s chatbot
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. A look back at the year’s most-read climate stories 2023 has been a big year for climate news. Wildfires, floods and heatwaves displaced and killed thousands of people across the world as extreme…
Procurement in the age of AI
Procurement professionals face challenges more daunting than ever. Recent years’ supply chain disruptions and rising costs, deeply familiar to consumers, have had an outsize impact on business buying. At the same time, procurement teams are under increasing pressure to supply their businesses while also contributing to business growth and profitability. Deloitte’s 2023 Global Chief Procurement…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/28/1083628/procurement-in-the-age-of-ai/
The Download: COP28 controversy and the future of families
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. Why the UN climate talks are a moment of reckoning for oil and gas companies The United Arab Emirates is one of the world’s largest oil producers. It’s also the site of this…
Why the UN climate talks are a moment of reckoning for oil and gas companies
The United Arab Emirates is one of the world’s largest oil producers—it’s also the site of this year’s UN COP28 climate summit, which kicks off later this week in Dubai. It’s certainly a controversial location choice, but the truth is that there’s massive potential for oil and gas companies to help address climate change, both…
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…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/27/1083894/the-download-openai-q-hype-x-financial-woes/
Unpacking the hype around OpenAI’s rumored new Q* model
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Ever since last week’s dramatic events at OpenAI, the rumor mill has been in overdrive about why the company’s chief scientific officer Ilya Sutskever and its board decided to oust CEO Sam…
Finding value in generative AI for financial services
With tools such as ChatGPT, DALLE-2, and CodeStarter, generative AI has captured the public imagination in 2023. Unlike past technologies that have come and gone—think metaverse—this latest one looks set to stay. OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, is perhaps the best-known generative AI tool. It reached 100 million monthly active users in just two months after launch,…
The Download: OpenAI’s wild year, and tech’s cult of personality
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. Inside OpenAI’s wild year Few companies can say they’ve had more of a rollercoaster year than OpenAI. At the beginning of 2023, the world’s hottest AI startup was riding high on the success…