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. Make no mistake—AI is owned by Big Tech —By Amba Kak, Sarah Myers West and Meredith Whittaker, members of the AI Now Institute Until late November, when the epic saga of OpenAI’s board…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. World leaders are currently in Dubai for the UN COP28 climate talks. As 2023 is set to become the hottest year on record, this year’s meeting is a moment of reckoning for oil and gas companies. There is also renewed focus and enthusiasm on boosting...

Until late November, when the epic saga of OpenAI’s board breakdown unfolded, the casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that the industry around generative AI was a vibrant competitive ecosystem.  But this is not the case—nor has it ever been. And understanding why is fundamental to understanding what AI is, and what threats it poses. Put simply, in the context of the current...

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to reach a record high by the end of 2023. And a new report shows just how insignificant technologies that pull greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere are by comparison.  Worldwide, those emissions are projected to reach 36.8 billion metric tons in 2023, a 1.1% increase from 2022 levels, according to this year’s Global Carbon Budget...

Advances in machine learning (ML) and AI are emerging on a near-daily basis—meaning that industry, academia, government, and society writ large are evolving their understanding of the associated risks and capabilities in real time. As enterprises seek to capitalize on the potential of AI, it’s critical that they develop, maintain, and advance state-of-the-art ML practices and processes that...

On a picturesque fall day a few years ago, I opened the mailbox and took out an envelope as thick as a Bible that would change my life. The package was from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and it contained a consent form to participate in a clinical trial for a new gene-editing drug to treat sickle cell disease. A week prior, my wife and I had talked on the phone with Haydar Frangoul, an oncologist and...

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…

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…

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 of users have volunteered to arbitrate complaints...

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…

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…

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 and even pornographic photos of some of their...

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. By the middle of December, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, based in Boston, is expected to...

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 startup Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University. However, they found that using an AI model to generate text...

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...

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…

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…

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 exploration...

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...

Money can’t buy happiness, but X Prize founder Peter Diamandis hopes it might be able to buy better health. Today the X Prize Foundation, which funds global competitions to spark development of breakthrough technologies, announced a new $101 million prize—the largest yet—to address the mental and physical decline that comes with aging. The winners will have to prove by 2030 that their...

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 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...

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…

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 by cleaning up their operations and by investing...

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…

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 Altman. While we still don’t know all the details, there have been reports...

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, surpassing even TikTok and...

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…

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…