Technology

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’s impact on elections is being overblown —Felix M. Simon is a research fellow in AI and News at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; Keegan McBride is an assistant professor…

This year, close to half the world’s population has the opportunity to participate in an election. And according to a steady stream of pundits, institutions, academics, and news organizations, there’s a major new threat to the integrity of those elections: artificial intelligence.  The earliest predictions warned that a new AI-powered world was, apparently, propelling us…

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first, sign up here. This back-to-school season marks the third year in which AI models like ChatGPT will be used by thousands of students around the globe (among them my nephews, who tell me with glee each time they…

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. How “personhood credentials” could help prove you’re a human online As AI models become better at mimicking human behavior, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real human internet users and sophisticated systems…

As AI models become better at mimicking human behavior, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real human internet users and sophisticated systems imitating them.  That’s a real problem when those systems are deployed for nefarious ends like spreading misinformation or conducting fraud, and it makes it a lot harder to trust what you encounter…

The power grid is underpinned by a single gas that is used to insulate a range of high-voltage equipment. The problem is, it’s also a super powerful greenhouse gas, a nightmare for climate change. Sulfur hexafluoride (or SF6) is far from the most common gas that warms the planet, contributing around 1% of warming 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. How machine learning is helping us probe the secret names of animals The news: Do animals have names? It seems so, after new research appears to have discovered that small monkeys called marmosets…

Your breath can give away a lot about you. Each exhalation contains all sorts of compounds, including possible biomarkers for disease or lung conditions, that could give doctors a valuable insight into your health. Now a new smart mask, developed by a team at the California Institute of Technology, could help doctors check your breath…

Do animals have names? According to the poet T.S. Eliot, cats have three: the name their owner calls them (like George); a second, more noble one (like Quaxo or Cricopat); and, finally, a “deep and inscrutable” name known only to themselves “that no human research can discover.” But now, researchers armed with audio recorders and…

When someone loses part of a leg, a prosthetic can make it easier to get around. But most prosthetics are static, cumbersome, and hard to move. Now a new neural interface developed by MIT researchers and colleagues connects a bionic lower limb to nerve endings in the thigh, allowing it to be controlled by the…