That is as we speak’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s happening on the planet of expertise.
Our favourite tales of 2022
We prefer to assume we’ve had an awesome 12 months right here at MIT Know-how Overview. Our tales have gained quite a few awards (this story from our journal gained 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 via the previous 12 months and attempt to choose only one story that they beloved essentially the most—after which inform us why. That is what they stated.
What’s subsequent for AI
In 2022, AI bought inventive. AI fashions can now produce remarkably convincing items of textual content, footage, 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 photographs 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 giant language mannequin to set the web ablaze with its stunning eloquence and coherence.
The tempo of innovation this 12 months has been outstanding—and at instances overwhelming. Who may have seen it coming? And the way can we predict what’s subsequent?
Our in-house specialists Will Douglas Heaven and Melissa Heikkilä inform us the 4 greatest developments they count on to form the AI panorama in 2023. Learn the complete story
Mind stimulation could be extra invasive than we expect
At the moment, there are many neurotechnologies that may learn what’s happening in our brains, modify the way in which they operate, and alter the wiring. Deep mind stimulation, for instance, entails 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.
Different therapies, comparable to transcranial magnetic stimulation, which entails passing a tool formed like a determine 8 over an individual’s head to ship a magnetic pulse to elements of the mind and to intrude with its exercise, are thought of “noninvasive” as a result of they act from outdoors the mind. But when we will attain into an individual’s thoughts, even with out piercing the cranium, how noninvasive is the expertise actually? Learn the complete story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
Jessica’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly e-newsletter protecting every little thing value realizing in biotech. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.
Podcast: the way forward for farming lies in house
AI is utilized in agriculture to exactly goal weeds and optimize irrigation practices. It’s additionally being utilized in methods you won’t count on, like for monitoring the well being of cow pastures—from house. We journey from check farms to orchards within the first of a two-part collection on agriculture, AI, and satellites.
Hear on Apple Podcasts or wherever you usually get your podcasts.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 Sam Bankman-Fried has been launched on $250 million bail
He’s going through house detention whereas he awaits trial. (BBC)
+ It’s one of many largest bails in US historical past. (Bloomberg $)
+ Crypto Twitter is just not impressed by his soft situations. (CoinTelegraph)
2 A extreme storm is forcing US airways to cancel flights
+ Disrupting Christmas journey left, proper, and middle. (WSJ $)
+ It’s resulting from sweep throughout a lot of the US and into Canada. (Wired $)
3 We don’t understand how efficient nasal covid vaccines are
And since we’re not amassing the proper of information, we might by no means know. (The Atlantic $)
+ Two inhaled covid vaccines have been accepted—however we don’t know but how good they’re. (MIT Know-how Overview)
+ 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 Know-how Overview)
5 ByteDance has been monitoring journalists
Its employees improperly gained entry to their IP addresses to attempt to work out in the event that they’d crossed paths with ByteDance employees. (Forbes)
+ In any case 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 $)
+ A number of the crypto devoted try to take their losses on the chin. (Vice)
7 Immigrant tech employees who’ve been laid off are caught in limbo
Shedding their jobs means their households are additionally unable to work, leaving many with no alternative however to go away the US. (The Guardian)
+ For this startup founder, his enterprise going bust got here as a little bit of a reduction. (The Info $)
8 This has been a landmark 12 months for EVs
They’re not simply synonymous with Tesla any extra. (Vox)
+ Why EVs gained’t exchange hybrid vehicles anytime quickly. (MIT Know-how Overview)
9 Japan’s house company is sending a toy-like rover to the moon
The lovable ball is designed by in style toymaker Tomy. (New Yorker $)
+ The Perseverance rover has dropped off its first pattern tube. (The Register)
10 We’re residing via the primary ever BeReal Christmas 
Sadly, originality is vanishingly uncommon. (Vice)
Quote of the day
“In opposition to all odds, and doom and gloom situations, Ukraine didn’t fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking.”
—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanks the US Congress for its monetary help 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, every single day, nursing or pumping to stimulate her milk circulate.
Strickland, a professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht College within the Netherlands, started occupied with how she may have the ability to use a course of like that pioneered by Dutch meals expertise firm Mosa Meat to create synthetic beef, however for cells that produce breast milk.
For years she struggled to maintain the undertaking funded, and he or she got here near abandoning the thought. However in Might 2020, Biomilq, an organization she had based, acquired $3.5 million from a gaggle of buyers led by Invoice Gates. Biomilq is now in a race with rivals to shake up the world of toddler vitamin in a means not seen because the start of the now $42 billion formulation trade. Learn the complete story.
—Haley Cohen Gilliland
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre instances. (Acquired any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ I need 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 Silician aptitude.
+ The best way to make new 12 months’s resolutions you’ll truly keep on with.
