February 6, 2025

The Download: AI companion dangers, and supersonic planes

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. An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it For the past five months, Al Nowatzki has been talking to an AI girlfriend, “Erin,” on…

Technology

Noise-canceling headphones use AI to let a single voice through

May 23, 2024
Modern life is noisy. If you don’t like it, noise-canceling headphones can reduce the sounds in your environment. But they muffle sounds indiscriminately, so you can easily end up missing something you actually want to hear. A new prototype AI system for such headphones aims to solve this. Called Target Speech Hearing, the system gives…

The Download: Nick Clegg on electoral misinformation, and AI’s carbon footprint

May 23, 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. Meta says AI-generated election content is not happening at a “systemic level” Meta has seen strikingly little AI-generated misinformation around the 2024 elections despite major votes in countries such as Indonesia, Taiwan, and…

AI is an energy hog. This is what it means for climate change.

May 23, 2024
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Tech companies keep finding new ways to bring AI into every facet of our lives. AI has taken over my search engine results, and new virtual assistants from Google and OpenAI announced…

Meta says AI-generated election content not happening at “systemic level”

May 22, 2024
Meta has seen strikingly little AI-generated misinformation around the 2024 elections despite there having been major elections in countries such as Indonesia, Taiwan, and Bangladesh, said the company’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg on Wednesday.  “The interesting thing so far — I stress, so far— is not how much, but how little AI-generated content…

The Download: how criminals use AI, and OpenAI’s Chinese data blunder

May 22, 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. Five ways criminals are using AI Artificial intelligence has brought a big boost in productivity—to the criminal underworld. Generative AI provides a new, powerful tool kit that allows malicious actors to work far…

OpenAI’s latest blunder shows the challenges facing Chinese AI models

May 22, 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. Last week’s release of GPT-4o, a new AI “omnimodel” that you can interact with using voice, text, or video, was supposed to be a big moment for OpenAI. But just days later,…

Spotify’s ‘Listening Party’ feature falls short of expectations

May 21, 2024

It’s been three years since Spotify acquired live audio startup Betty Labs, and yet the music streaming service isn’t leveraging the technology to its fullest potential—at least not in our opinion.  Betty Labs-owned Locker Room launched in 2020 as a sports-focused social audio app where sports fans could engage in live conversations, create watch parties, […]

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Five ways criminals are using AI

May 21, 2024
Artificial intelligence has brought a big boost in productivity—to the criminal underworld.  Generative AI provides a new, powerful tool kit that allows malicious actors to work far more efficiently and internationally than ever before, says Vincenzo Ciancaglini, a senior threat researcher at the security company Trend Micro.  Most criminals are “not living in some dark…

The Download: how to test AI, and treating paralysis

May 21, 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. AI models can outperform humans in tests to identify mental states Humans are complicated beings. The ways we communicate are multilayered, and psychologists have devised many kinds of tests to measure our ability…

Join me at EmTech Digital this week!

May 21, 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. I’m excited to spend this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’m visiting the mothership for MIT Technology Review’s annual flagship AI conference, EmTech Digital, on May 22-23.  Between the world leaders gathering in Seoul…