Technology

The Download: combating audio deepfakes, and AI in the classroom

July 15, 2025
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. AI text-to-speech programs could one day “unlearn” how to imitate certain people The news: A new technique known as “machine unlearning” could be used to teach AI models to forget specific voices. How…

AI text-to-speech programs could “unlearn” how to imitate certain people

July 15, 2025
A technique known as “machine unlearning” could teach AI models to forget specific voices—an important step in stopping the rise of audio deepfakes, where someone’s voice is copied to carry out fraud or scams. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have revolutionized the quality of text-to-speech technology so that people can convincingly re-create a piece of…

AI’s giants want to take over the classroom

July 15, 2025
School’s out and it’s high summer, but a bunch of teachers are plotting how they’re going to use AI this upcoming school year. God help them.  On July 8, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic announced a $23 million partnership with one of the largest teachers’ unions in the United States to bring more AI into K–12…

California is set to become the first US state to manage power outages with AI

July 14, 2025
California’s statewide power grid operator is poised to become the first in North America to deploy artificial intelligence to manage outages, MIT Technology Review has learned.  “We wanted to modernize our grid operations. This fits in perfectly with that,” says Gopakumar Gopinathan, a senior advisor on power system technologies at the California Independent System Operator—known…

The Download: cybersecurity’s shaky alert system, and mobile IVF

July 11, 2025
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. Cybersecurity’s global alarm system is breaking down Every day, billions of people trust digital systems to run everything from communication to commerce to critical infrastructure. But the global early warning system that alerts…

Cybersecurity’s global alarm system is breaking down

July 11, 2025
Every day, billions of people trust digital systems to run everything from communication to commerce to critical infrastructure. But the global early warning system that alerts security teams to dangerous software flaws is showing critical gaps in coverage—and most users have no idea their digital lives are likely becoming more vulnerable. Over the past eighteen…

The first babies have been born following “simplified” IVF in a mobile lab

July 11, 2025
This week I’m sending congratulations to two sets of parents in South Africa. Babies Milayah and Rossouw arrived a few weeks ago. All babies are special, but these two set a new precedent. They’re the first to be born following “simplified” IVF performed in a mobile lab. This new mobile lab is essentially a trailer…