July 8, 2025

How scientists are trying to use AI to unlock the human mind 

Today’s AI landscape is defined by the ways in which neural networks are unlike human brains. A toddler learns how to communicate effectively with only a thousand calories a day and regular conversation; meanwhile, tech companies are reopening nuclear power plants, polluting marginalized communities, and pirating terabytes of books in order to train and run…

Technology

Optimizing the supply chain with a data lakehouse

May 15, 2024
When a commercial ship travels from the port of Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia to Tokyo Bay, it’s not only carrying cargo; it’s also transporting millions of data points across a wide array of partners and complex technology systems. Consider, for example, Maersk. The global shipping container and logistics company has more than 100,000 employees,…

The Download: Google’s new AI agent, and our tech pessimism bias

May 15, 2024
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’s Astra is its first AI-for-everything agent What’s happening: Google is set to launch a new system called Astra later this year. It promises that it will be the most powerful, advanced type…

Hong Kong is safe from China’s Great Firewall—for now

May 15, 2024
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. We finally know the result of a legal case I’ve been tracking in Hong Kong for almost a year. Last week, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal granted an injunction that permits…

Technology is probably changing us for the worse—or so we always think

May 15, 2024
MIT Technology Review is celebrating our 125th anniversary with an online series that draws lessons for the future from our past coverage of technology.  Do we use technology, or does it use us? Do our gadgets improve our lives or just make us weak, lazy, and dumb? These are old questions—maybe older than you think.…

Google’s Astra is its first AI-for-everything agent

May 14, 2024
Google is set to introduce a new system called Astra later this year and promises that it will be the most powerful, advanced type of AI assistant it’s ever launched.  The current generation of AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, can retrieve information and offer answers, but that is about it. But this year, Google is…

The Download: OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and what’s coming at Google I/O

May 14, 2024
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. OpenAI’s new GPT-4o lets people interact using voice or video in the same model The news: OpenAI just debuted GPT-4o, a new kind of AI model that you can communicate with in real…

What to expect at Google I/O

May 14, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. In the world of AI, a lot can happen in a year. Last year, at the beginning of Big Tech’s AI wars, Google announced during its annual I/O conference that it…

The Download: the future of chips, and investing in US AI

May 13, 2024
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 in chips Thanks to the boom in artificial intelligence, the world of chips is on the cusp of a huge tidal shift. There is heightened demand for chips that can train…

What’s next in chips

May 13, 2024
MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. Thanks to the boom in artificial intelligence, the world of chips is on the cusp of a huge tidal shift. There is heightened demand for chips that…

Eric Schmidt: Why America needs an Apollo program for the age of AI

May 13, 2024
The global race for computational power is well underway, fueled by a worldwide boom in artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s Sam Altman is seeking to raise as much as $7 trillion for a chipmaking venture. Tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon are building AI chips of their own. The need for more computing horsepower to train and…