December 18, 2024

This is where the data to build AI comes from

AI is all about data. Reams and reams of data are needed to train algorithms to do what we want, and what goes into the AI models determines what comes out. But here’s the problem: AI developers and researchers don’t really know much about the sources of the data they are using. AI’s data collection…

The Download: growing Africa’s food, and deleting your 23andMe data

October 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. Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past After falling steadily for decades, the prevalence of global hunger is now on the rise—nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa. Conflicts,…

How to… delete your 23andMe data

October 14, 2024
MIT Technology Review’s How To series helps you get things done.  Things aren’t looking good for 23andMe. The consumer DNA testing company recently parted ways with all its board members but CEO Anne Wojcicki over her plans to take the company private. It’s also still dealing with the fallout of a major security breach last October, which…

Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past

October 14, 2024
The first time the rains failed, the farmers of Kanaani were prepared for it. It was April of 2021, and as climate change had made the weather increasingly erratic, families in the eastern Kenyan village had grown used to saving food from previous harvests. But as another wet season passed with barely any rain, and…