AI
Artificial intelligence news, research, and commentary.
How to encourage smarter AI use in the classroom
This article is from Making AI Work, MIT Technology Review’s limited-run newsletter examining how to apply LLMs across industries. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here. Chatbots took many schools
The Download: kids outlearning AI, and space travel agents
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. Kids outlearn AI—and we still don’t know why Teaching a comput
Kids outlearn AI—and we still don’t know why
People have been talking to each other for at least 100,000 years, as best we can tell. And in all that time, there has been only one thing in the world that could learn a human language to perfect fl
The Download: threats from space mirrors and credit for AI drugs
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. This company’s plans to deploy space mirrors could jeopardize
This company’s plans to deploy space mirrors could jeopardize the night sky for many
A company that plans to beam sunlight from space to Earth on demand might unintentionally brighten the night sky for many more people than intended, according to a new study. Later this year, the US c
When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit?
When the biotech company Insilico Medicine used its computer models to propose a promising drug for pulmonary fibrosis, it enthusiastically claimed in a press release that the molecule had been “disco
Mother tongue
“Daddy?” Theo curled against my side in bed. “Where do words go when they die?” I’d orchestrated the bedtime routine flawlessly: bath (taken), teeth (brushed), potty (tinkled), books (two), song (one,
Debates over AI consciousness are a trap
“Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators. Prominent tech leaders such
The Download: polycrisis support networks and a hydrogen gold rush
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. Support networks aim to help kids through the polycrisis Somet
The next big thing in hydrogen could be underground
There’s a hunt for new sources of hydrogen, and the gas (or at least the right conditions to make it) could be hiding beneath our feet. Hydrogen can be used as a fuel in everything from large trucks t
Unlocking hidden revenue streams with market models
Each day, an airline transports tens of thousands of passengers on hundreds of flights. Often these are not straightforward point-to-point routes, with passengers requiring multiple connections. The a
Support networks aim to help kids through the polycrisis
Sometime in the late 2000s, Pim Sullivan-Tailyour was sitting in the back of a car, headed toward her great-grandmother’s tiny town in the south of Thailand. She watched big mountains pass by out the
VentureBeat names Rob Strechay as its first Lead Analyst, expanding its enterprise AI research push
Rob Strechay, until recently managing director and principal analyst at theCUBE Research, has joined VentureBeat as our first Lead Analyst and a founding analyst of VentureBeat Research. His arrival i
The Download: AI’s self-improvement problem, and what’s driving the heat
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 recursive self-improvement might not come so quickly afte
Child-monitoring apps might need a reboot
Pam Wisniewski’s digital adolescence showed her the best and the worst of the internet. At 14, she left an abusive home, where she’d been isolated in a fifth-wheel trailer at the end of a seven-mile
The Download: how people really use AI, and Flock’s design choices
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. We still don’t know how people are really using AI AI companie
We still don’t know how people are really using AI
AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using products like Claude and ChatGPT, but they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say. “Ther
AI’s recursive self-improvement might not come so quickly after all
The AI industry’s boldest promise right now is that AI will soon improve itself, with almost no need for human oversight. LLMs can already write code, generate synthetic data for training, and optimiz