The Best of MIT Technology Review
20+ most popular MIT Technology Review articles, as voted by our community.
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A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent
My avatars were cartoonishly pornified, while my male colleagues got to be astronauts, explorers, and inventors.
A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?
Robot vacuum companies say your images are safe, but a sprawling global supply chain for data from our devices creates risk.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023
Every year, we pick the 10 technologies that matter the most right now. We look for advances that will have a big impact on our lives and break down why they matter.
We’re witnessing the brain death of Twitter
An analysis of Musk’s tweets shows him at the center of conversations once kept on the fringes of Twitter.
MIT Technology Review on Artificial Intelligence
Our weird behavior during the pandemic is screwing with AI models
Anyone looking for an illustration of how rapidly shopping habits changed when covid-19 hit needed only to glance at the top 10 search terms on Amazon in the week of April 12 to 18. In place of former…
We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says
The company's star ethics researcher highlighted the risks of large language models, which are key to Google's business.
MIT Technology Review on Biotech
A biotech startup is making cow-free ice cream. Would you eat it?
Perfect Day says it’s figured out how to make ice cream that’s creamy without any animal protein.
MIT Technology Review on China
Who needs democracy when you have data?
Here’s how China rules using data, AI, and internet surveillance.
China has started a grand experiment in AI education. It could reshape how the world learns.
In recent years, the country has rushed to pursue “intelligent education.” Now its billion-dollar ed-tech companies are planning to export their vision overseas.
MIT Technology Review on Deepfakes
Memers are making deepfakes, and things are getting weird
Grace Windheim had heard of deepfakes before. But she had never considered how to make one. It was a viral meme using the technology that led her to research the possibility—and discover that it was…
The year deepfakes went mainstream
In 2020, AI-synthetic media started moving away from the darker corners of the internet.
MIT Technology Review on Genetics
EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies
A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing.
Has this scientist finally found the fountain of youth?
Editing the epigenome, which turns our genes on and off, could be the “elixir of life”.
MIT Technology Review on Machine Learning
Machine learning could vastly speed up the search for new metals
It’s a development that could be useful for applications from outer space to the deep sea.
Why Meta’s latest large language model only survived three days online
Galactica was supposed to help scientists. Instead, it mindlessly spat out biased and incorrect nonsense.
MIT Technology Review on Quantum Computing
Machine learning, meet quantum computing
A quantum version of the building block behind neural networks could be exponentially more powerful.
«The big advantage of quantum computing is that it allows an exponential increase in the number of dimensions it can process.»
A startup uses quantum computing to boost machine learning
If it fulfills its promise, quantum machine learning could transform AI.
MIT Technology Review on Science
AI has cracked a key mathematical puzzle for understanding our world
Unless you’re a physicist or an engineer, there really isn’t much reason for you to know about partial differential equations. I know. After years of poring over them in undergrad while studying…
AI is wrestling with a replication crisis
Last month Nature published a damning response written by 31 scientists to a study from Google Health that had appeared in the journal earlier this year. Google was describing successful trials of an…
MIT Technology Review on Techbio
Inside the billion-dollar meeting for the mega-rich who want to live forever
Hope, hype, and self-experimentation collided at an exclusive conference for ultra-rich investors who want to extend their lives past 100. I went along for the ride.
Biotech labs are using AI inspired by DALL-E to invent new drugs
Two groups have announced powerful new generative models that can design new proteins on demand not seen in nature.
MIT Technology Review on Technology
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2022
This list represents a glimpse into our collective future.
AI is learning how to create itself
Is AI that learns on its own the path to truly intelligent machines?
«The new system, called AutoML Zero, tries to build an AI from the ground up using nothing but the most basic mathematical concepts that govern machine learning.»
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10 Breakthrough Technologies 2020
MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2020 outlines scientific discoveries, available now or in the very near future, that could most profoundly change people’s lives. Included this year: unhackable internet service; individual designer drugs; the proliferation of digital currency; anti-aging treatments; AI molecule searches for better medicines; satellite constellations boosting remote internet access; new uses for quantum computers, tiny, powerful AI apps for phones; bolstering Census privacy; and more accurate climate change forecasts.
He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addiction
Three years ago, the company began building "responsible AI." This is the story of how it failed.
«The researcher’s team also found that users with a tendency to post or engage with melancholy content—a possible sign of depression—could easily spiral into consuming increasingly negative material that risked further worsening their mental health. The team proposed tweaking the content-ranking models for these users to stop maximizing engagement alone, so they would be shown less of the depressing stuff.»
How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation
The tech giants are paying millions of dollars to the operators of clickbait pages, bankrolling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world.
«Scammers used to make their $$ from naive people. Now they get their payments straight from some of the world's biggest tech companies.»
First Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing the Nature of Society
Dating websites have changed the way couples meet. Now evidence is emerging that this change is influencing levels of interracial marriage and even the stability of marriage itself.
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance.
The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.
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