This is at this time’s version of The Download, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s happening on this planet of know-how.
Our favourite tales of 2022
We wish to suppose we’ve had a terrific 12 months right here at MIT Technology Review. Our tales have received quite a few awards (this story from our journal received Gold within the AAAS awards) and our investigations have helped make clear unjust insurance policies.
So this 12 months we requested our writers and editors to comb again by the previous 12 months and attempt to choose only one story that they liked essentially the most—after which inform us why. This is what they mentioned.
What’s subsequent for AI
In 2022, AI bought inventive. AI fashions can now produce remarkably convincing items of textual content, photos, and even movies, with just a bit prompting. It’s solely been 9 months since OpenAI set off the generative AI explosion with the launch of DALL-E 2, a deep-learning mannequin that may produce pictures from textual content directions. That was adopted by a breakthrough from Google and Meta: AIs that may produce movies from textual content. And it’s solely been a couple of weeks since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the newest massive language mannequin to set the web ablaze with its shocking eloquence and coherence.
The tempo of innovation this 12 months has been exceptional—and at occasions overwhelming. Who may have seen it coming? And how can we predict what’s subsequent?
Our in-house consultants Will Douglas Heaven and Melissa Heikkilä inform us the 4 largest tendencies they anticipate to form the AI panorama in 2023. Read the complete story
Brain stimulation could be extra invasive than we predict
Today, there are many neurotechnologies that may learn what’s happening in our brains, modify the way in which they perform, and alter the wiring. Deep mind stimulation, for instance, includes implanting electrodes deep into the mind to stimulate neurons and management the way in which mind areas hearth. It’s thought of fairly invasive, within the medical sense.
Other remedies, similar to transcranial magnetic stimulation, which includes passing a tool formed like a determine 8 over an individual’s head to ship a magnetic pulse to components of the mind and to intrude with its exercise, are thought of “noninvasive” as a result of they act from exterior the mind. But if we will attain into an individual’s thoughts, even with out piercing the cranium, how noninvasive is the know-how actually? Read the complete story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
Jessica’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly e-newsletter overlaying all the things value figuring out in biotech. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.
Podcast: the way forward for farming lies in area
AI is utilized in agriculture to exactly goal weeds and optimize irrigation practices. It’s additionally being utilized in methods you may not anticipate, like for monitoring the well being of cow pastures—from area. We journey from check farms to orchards within the first of a two-part collection on agriculture, AI, and satellites.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you usually get your podcasts.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you at this time’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Sam Bankman-Fried has been launched on $250 million bail
He’s dealing with residence detention whereas he awaits trial. (BBC)
+ It’s one of many largest bails in US historical past. (Bloomberg $)
+ Crypto Twitter will not be impressed by his soft circumstances. (CoinTelegraph)
2 A extreme storm is forcing US airways to cancel flights
+ Disrupting Christmas journey left, proper, and middle. (WSJ $)
+ It’s on account of sweep throughout many of the US and into Canada. (Wired $)
3 We don’t know the way efficient nasal covid vaccines are
And as a result of we’re not gathering the correct of knowledge, we might by no means know. (The Atlantic $)
+ Two inhaled covid vaccines have been authorized—however we don’t know but how good they’re. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Life expectancy within the US has fallen once more. (Axios)
4 Twitter is beginning to present how many individuals have seen your tweets
It’s one more of Elon Musk’s wheezes. (TechCrunch)
+ Twitter seems to be prefer it’s crumbling proper now. (The Atlantic $)
+ We’re witnessing the mind dying of Twitter. (MIT Technology Review)
5 ByteDance has been monitoring journalists
Its employees improperly gained entry to their IP addresses to try to work out in the event that they’d crossed paths with ByteDance employees. (Forbes)
+ After all that, the corporate failed to seek out any leaks. (FT $)
+ TikTok is desperately making an attempt to curry favor within the US. (Reuters)
6 NFTs are at a crossroads
Their worth has plummeted, however evangelists are refusing to surrender. (Wired $)
+ Some of the crypto trustworthy are attempting to take their losses on the chin. (Vice)
7 Immigrant tech employees who’ve been laid off are caught in limbo
Losing their jobs means their households are additionally unable to work, leaving many with no selection however to go away the US. (The Guardian)
+ For this startup founder, his enterprise going bust got here as a little bit of a aid. (The Information $)
8 This has been a landmark 12 months for EVs
They’re not simply synonymous with Tesla any extra. (Vox)
+ Why EVs received’t change hybrid vehicles anytime quickly. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Japan’s area company is sending a toy-like rover to the moon
The cute ball is designed by widespread toymaker Tomy. (New Yorker $)
+ The Perseverance rover has dropped off its first pattern tube. (The Register)
10 We’re dwelling by the primary ever BeReal Christmas 
Unfortunately, originality is vanishingly uncommon. (Vice)
Quote of the day
“Against all odds, and doom and gloom scenarios, Ukraine didn’t fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking.”
—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanks the US Congress for its monetary assist of Ukraine and its folks 10 months after Russia invaded, CNN experiences.
The massive story
Startups are racing to breed breast milk within the lab
December 2020
Like many moms, Leila Strickland discovered breastfeeding troublesome. She struggled to feed her son, and three years later, her daughter, and spent all day, day by day, nursing or pumping to stimulate her milk move.
Strickland, a professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University within the Netherlands, started desirous about how she would possibly be capable to use a course of like that pioneered by Dutch meals know-how firm Mosa Meat to create synthetic beef, however for cells that produce breast milk.
For years she struggled to maintain the venture funded, and she or he got here near abandoning the concept. But in May 2020, Biomilq, an organization she had based, obtained $3.5 million from a bunch of buyers led by Bill Gates. Biomilq is now in a race with opponents to shake up the world of toddler vitamin in a approach not seen because the beginning of the now $42 billion system trade. Read the complete story.
—Haley Cohen Gilliland
We can nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Got any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of flirting with onion emojis till now. 
+ Even millennials are beginning to discover millennials cringe.
+ An intrepid information to all Netflix’s tacky festive films—watch at your peril.
+ This chef is bravely reimagining the Italian Christmas traditional panettone, with a bit of Silician aptitude.
+ How to make new 12 months’s resolutions you’ll truly follow.