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Bird flu has been spreading in dairy cows in the US—and the scale of the spread is likely to be far worse than it looks. In addition, 14 human cases have been reported in the US since March. Both are worrying developments, say virologists, who fear that the country’s meager response to the virus is…

AI-generated falsehoods and deepfakes seem to have had no effect on election results in the UK, France, and the European Parliament this year, according to new research.  Since the beginning of the generative-AI boom, there has been widespread fear that AI tools could boost bad actors’ ability to spread fake content with the potential to…

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. There are more than 120 AI bills in Congress right now More than 120 bills related to regulating artificial intelligence are currently floating around the US Congress. This flood of bills is indicative…

More than 120 bills related to regulating artificial intelligence are currently floating around the US Congress. They’re pretty varied. One aims to improve knowledge of AI in public schools, while another is pushing for model developers to disclose what copyrighted material they use in their training.  Three deal with mitigating AI robocalls, while two address…

Before I get to Snap’s new Spectacles, a confession: I have a long history of putting goofy new things on my face and liking it. Back in 2011, I tried on Sony’s head-mounted 3D glasses and, apparently, enjoyed them. Sort of. At the beginning of 2013, I was enamored with a Kickstarter project I saw…

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 OpenAI’s new model is such a big deal Last week OpenAI released a new model called o1 (previously referred to under the code name “Strawberry” and, before that, Q*) that blows GPT-4o…

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first, sign up here. Last weekend, I got married at a summer camp, and during the day our guests competed in a series of games inspired by the show Survivor that my now-wife and I orchestrated. When we were…

Early next year, Google and its partners plan to launch the first in a series of satellites that together would provide close-up, frequently refreshed images of wildfires around the world, offering data that could help firefighters battle blazes more rapidly, effectively, and safely. The online search giant’s nonprofit and research arms have collaborated with the…

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 we need an AI safety hotline —Kevin Frazier is an assistant professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and senior research fellow in the Constitutional Studies Program at the University of…

In the past couple of years, regulators have been caught off guard again and again as tech companies compete to launch ever more advanced AI models. It’s only a matter of time before labs release another round of models that pose new regulatory challenges. We’re likely just weeks away, for example, from OpenAI’s release of…

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. Chatbots can persuade people to stop believing in conspiracy theories The internet has made it easier than ever before to encounter and spread conspiracy theories. And while some are harmless, others can be…

Have you ever found yourself lost in a building that felt impossible to navigate? Thoughtful building design should center on the people who will be using those buildings. But that’s no mean feat. It’s not just about navigation, either. Just think of an office that left you feeling sleepy or unproductive, or perhaps a health…

The internet has made it easier than ever before to encounter and spread conspiracy theories. And while some are harmless, others can be deeply damaging, sowing discord and even leading to unnecessary deaths. Now, researchers believe they’ve uncovered a new tool for combating false conspiracy theories: AI chatbots. Researchers from MIT Sloan and Cornell University…

As long as chatbots have been around, they have made things up. Such “hallucinations” are an inherent part of how AI models work. However, they’re a big problem for companies betting big on AI, like Google, because they make the responses it generates unreliable.  Google is releasing a tool today to address the issue. Called…

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. Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense Drones have come to define the brutal conflict in Ukraine that has now dragged on for more than two and a half years. And most…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. One way to know where a field is going? Take a look at what the sharpest new innovators are working on. Good news for all of us: MIT Technology Review’s list of…

Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov hates going to the front line. The risks terrify him. “I’m really not happy to do it at all,” he says. But to perform his particular self-appointed role in the Russia-Ukraine war, he believes it’s critical to exchange the relative safety of his suburban home north of the capital for places where…

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 says it’s made a quantum computing breakthrough that reduces errors The news: Google researchers claim to have made a breakthrough in quantum error correction, one that could pave the way for quantum…

I was raised in the 1980s and ’90s, and for my generation and generations before us, the public library was an equalizing force in every town, helping anyone move toward the American dream. In Chantilly, Virginia, where I grew up, it didn’t matter if you didn’t have a computer or your parents lacked infinite money…

Google researchers claim to have made a breakthrough in quantum error correction, one that could pave the way for quantum computers that finally live up to the technology’s promise. Proponents of quantum computers say the machines will be able to benefit scientific discovery in fields ranging from particle physics to drug and materials design—if only…

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. Introducing: our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2024 Tomorrow’s technologies are being developed today. And every year, we recognize young people from around the world who are leading the way through their…

Shawn Shan is one of MIT Technology Review’s 2024 Innovators Under 35. Meet the rest of this year’s honorees.  When image-generating models such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion kick-started the generative AI boom in early 2022, artists started noticing odd similarities between AI-generated images and those they’d created themselves. Many found that their work…

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first, sign up here. Video game development has long been plagued by fear of the “crunch”—essentially, being forced to work overtime on a game to meet a deadline. In the early days of video games, the crunch was often…

Robots perceive the world around them very differently from the way humans do.  When we walk down the street, we know what we need to pay attention to—passing cars, potential dangers, obstacles in our way—and what we don’t, like pedestrians walking in the distance. Robots, on the other hand, treat all the information they receive…