July 7, 2025

The Download: China’s winning at advanced manufacturing, and a potential TikTok sale

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 latest threat from the rise of Chinese manufacturing In 2013, a trio of academics showed convincing evidence that increased trade with China beginning in the early 2000s and the resulting flood of…

Technology

Democracies are fragile, and hardware is hard

December 16, 2023

Sometimes it’s important to state the obvious. That democracies are fragile but that technology can help. And also that crowdfunding isn’t always the best way to launch an innovative product.

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When it comes to generative AI in the enterprise, CIOs are taking it slow

December 15, 2023

To hear the hype from vendors, you would think that the enterprise buyers are all in when it comes to generative AI, but like any newer technology, large companies tend to move cautiously. Throughout this year, as vendors feverishly announced new generative-AI fueled products, CIOs took note. Some companies have actually been looking to cut […]

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Eric Schmidt has a 6-point plan for fighting election misinformation

December 15, 2023
The coming year will be one of seismic political shifts. Over 4 billion people will head to the polls in countries including the United States, Taiwan, India, and Indonesia, making 2024 the biggest election year in history. And election campaigns are using artificial intelligence in novel ways. Earlier this year in the US, the Republican…

The Download: beyond CRISPR, and OpenAI’s superalignment findings

December 15, 2023
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. Vertex developed a CRISPR cure. It’s already on the hunt for something better. The company that just got approval to sell the first gene-editing treatment in history, for sickle-cell disease, is already looking…

Vertex developed a CRISPR cure. It’s already on the hunt for something better.

December 15, 2023
The company that just got approval to sell the first gene-editing treatment in history, for sickle-cell disease, is already looking for an ordinary drug that could take its place. Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a 50-person team working “to make a pill that doesn’t do gene editing at all,” says David Altshuler, head of research at the…

Needle-free covid vaccines are (still) in the works

December 15, 2023
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. Covid shots do an admirable job of boosting our immune response enough to protect against serious illness, but they don’t boost immunity in the one spot…

A16Z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech

December 14, 2023

Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the US government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone — literally anyone — who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]

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Now we know what OpenAI’s superalignment team has been up to

December 14, 2023
OpenAI has announced the first results from its superalignment team, the firm’s in-house initiative dedicated to preventing a superintelligence—a hypothetical future computer that can outsmart humans—from going rogue. Unlike many of the company’s announcements, this heralds no big breakthrough. In a low-key research paper, the team describes a technique that lets a less powerful large…

Spotify confirms test of prompt-based AI playlists feature

December 14, 2023

Earlier this fall, Spotify was found to be developing a new feature that would allow its streaming app users to create playlists using AI technology and prompts. Now, that “AI playlists” feature has been spotted in the wild, as part of a test that to see how users will respond to AI-driven playlist creation. The […]

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Google DeepMind used a large language model to solve an unsolvable math problem

December 14, 2023
Google DeepMind has used a large language model to crack a famous unsolved problem in pure mathematics. In a paper published in Nature today, the researchers say it is the first time a large language model has been used to discover a solution to a long-standing scientific puzzle—producing verifiable and valuable new information that did…