Here’s the defense tech at the center of US aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. After weeks of drawn-out congressional debate over how much the United States should spend on conflicts abroad, President Joe Biden signed a $95.3 billion aid package into law on Wednesday. The bill will send a significant quantity of supplies to Ukraine and Israel, while also supporting Taiwan with submarine technology to aid its defenses against China. It’s also sparked renewed calls for stronger crackdowns on Iranian-produced drones. Though much of the money […]
The Download: how to tell when a chatbot is lying, and RIP my biotech plants
Chatbot answers are all made up. This new tool helps you figure out which ones to trust. The news: Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk. A new tool created by Cleanlab, an AI startup spun out of a quantum computing lab at MIT, is designed to give high-stakes users a clearer sense of how trustworthy these models really are. How it works: The Trustworthy Language Model gives any […]
My biotech plants are dead
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. Six weeks ago, I pre-ordered the “Firefly Petunia,” a houseplant engineered with genes from bioluminescent fungi so that it glows in the dark. After years of writing about anti-GMO sentiment in the US and elsewhere, I felt it was time to have some fun with biotech. These plants are among the first direct-to-consumer GM organisms you can buy, and they certainly seem like the coolest. But when I unboxed my two petunias this […]
Chatbot answers are all made up. This new tool helps you figure out which ones to trust.
Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk. A new tool, created by Cleanlab, an AI startup spun out of a quantum computing lab at MIT, is designed to give high-stakes users a clearer sense of how trustworthy these models really are. Called the Trustworthy Language Model, it gives any output generated by a large language model a score between 0 and 1, according to how reliable that output is. […]
The Download: hyperrealistic deepfakes, and clean energy’s implications for mining
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 startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary Until now, AI-generated videos of people have tended to have some stiffness, glitchiness, or other unnatural elements that make them pretty easy to differentiate from reality. For the past several years, AI video startup Synthesia has produced these kinds of AI-generated avatars. But today it launches a new generation, its first to take advantage of the latest advancements in generative AI, and they are […]
Want less mining? Switch to clean energy.
Political fights over mining and minerals are heating up, and there are growing environmental and sociological concerns about how to source the materials the world needs to build new energy technologies. But low-emissions energy sources, including wind, solar, and nuclear power, have a smaller mining footprint than coal and natural gas, according to a new report from the Breakthrough Institute released today. The report’s findings add to a growing body of evidence that technologies used to address climate change will likely lead to a future with less mining than a world powered by fossil fuels. However, experts point out that […]
Hydrogen could be used for nearly everything. It probably shouldn’t be.
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. From toaster ovens that work as air fryers to hair dryers that can also curl your hair, single tools that do multiple jobs have an undeniable appeal. In the climate world, hydrogen is perhaps the ultimate multi-tool. It can be used in fuel cells or combustion engines and is sometimes called the Swiss Army knife for cleaning up emissions. I’ve written about efforts to use hydrogen in steelmaking, cars, and aviation, just to name a few. And […]
An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary
I’m stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? This makes it sound like I’m dying, but it’s the opposite. I am, in a way, about to live forever, thanks to the AI video startup Synthesia. For the past several years, the company has produced AI-generated avatars, but today it launches a new generation, its first to take advantage of the latest advancements in generative AI, and they are more realistic and expressive than anything I’ve ever seen. While today’s release means almost anyone will now be able to make a digital double, on […]
A new kind of gene-edited pig kidney was just transplanted into a person
A month ago, Richard Slayman became the first living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig. Now, a team of researchers from NYU Langone Health reports that Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from New Jersey, has become the second. Her new kidney has just a single genetic modification—an approach that researchers hope could make scaling up the production of pig organs simpler. Pisano, who had heart failure and end-stage kidney disease, underwent two operations, one to fit her with a heart pump to improve her circulation and the second to perform the kidney transplant. She is still […]
Almost every Chinese keyboard app has a security flaw that reveals what users type
Almost all keyboard apps used by Chinese people around the world share a security loophole that makes it possible to spy on what users are typing. The vulnerability, which allows the keystroke data that these apps send to the cloud to be intercepted, has existed for years and could have been exploited by cybercriminals and state surveillance groups, according to researchers at the Citizen Lab, a technology and security research lab affiliated with the University of Toronto. These apps help users type Chinese characters more efficiently and are ubiquitous on devices used by Chinese people. The four most popular apps—built […]