The Download

What's up in emerging technology

March 25-26, 2019

San Francisco, CA

Artificial intelligence is here. Own what happens next.

It's difficult to discern facts from fiction in the rapidly shifting landscape of AI. What do you need to know to stay ahead of the competition? Get the insight and intelligence you need at EmTech Digital.

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Intelligent Machines

Harvard researchers want to school Congress about AI

A tech boot camp will teach US politicians and policymakers about the potential, and the risks, of artificial intelligence.
Sustainable Energy

Brazil’s presidential election could mean billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases

Policies leading to more destruction of the Amazon and Cerrado would have a huge impact on climate change.
Intelligent Machines

Is this AI? We drew you a flowchart to work it out

The definition of artificial intelligence is constantly evolving, and the term often gets mangled, so we are here to help.
Intelligent Machines

AI is not “magic dust” for your company, says Google’s Cloud AI boss

Andrew Moore says getting the technology to work in businesses is a huge challenge.
Sustainable Energy

China’s giant transmission grid could be the key to cutting climate emissions

But are the country’s next-generation power lines a clean-power play or a global power move?
Sustainable Energy

People will never vote for a carbon tax, so let’s stop asking

Voters in the state of Washington rejected, once again, what would have been the US’s first carbon tax.
Intelligent Machines

A robot scientist will dream up new materials to advance computing and fight pollution

Kebotix is using AI and robotics to brainstorm—and then test—novel compounds.
Business Impact

Your boss is now more likely to train you up, thanks to a dwindling talent pool

In a tight labor market, employers are investing in their existing workforce.
Intelligent Machines

Cookbooks, Wikipedia, and auto-generated Spanglish: The quirky ways AI researchers gather data

Here are four of the most creative data collection methods used by experts at the leading annual conference on natural-language processing.

From Our Current Issue

MIT Technology Review: November/December 2018

Medicine is becoming hyper-personalized, hyper-accurate… and hyper-unequal.

Your genome, on demand

How your detailed genetic profile can predict your risk of diseases and improve your health.

Photo illustration of a doll's face filled with colorful beads each containing a letter of a nucleotide. A black, unmarked bead appears in a set of tweezers above the face.

DNA databases are too white. This man aims to fix that.

Carlos D. Bustamante’s hunt for genetic variations between populations should help us better understand and treat disease.

Photo of Carlos D. Bustamante

35 Innovators Under 35

Better gene editing. Smarter AI. Cheaper solar cells. Stretchable electronics. This year’s list of 35 Innovators Under 35 will give you a sense of what’s coming next—and what kinds of people are making it happen.

See the Collection

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2018

Dueling neural networks. Artificial embryos. AI in the cloud. Welcome to our annual list of the 10 technology advances we think will shape the way we work and live now and for years to come.

See the Collection

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Next-Generation Robots Need Your Help 27:36

Access to broadband is as important as access to water and electricity 01:15

We shouldn't preserve "willy nilly" the cost of production 01:00

Coffee-fetching robots 02:08

Automating things on wheels 00:50

Humans versus machines: Chopin edition 02:06

Teaching systems to dance 01:44

3-D printed potato chips 01:15

Robots as nurses' assistants 00:36

AI in Industry: Intelligent Health Care 29:27

MIT professor Dina Katabi is building a gadget that can sit in one spot and track everything from breathing to walking, no wearables required.

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Rewriting Life

Reprogramming our bodies to make us healthier.

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  1. United Nations considers a test ban on evolution-warping gene drives

    Debate over a new idea for stopping malaria is pitting some environmental groups against Bill Gates.
    by Antonio Regalado

  2. Genes I wish they would find

    Enough with the useless genes. Here are some that would actually come in handy.
    by Sarah Cooper

  3. Editor’s letter: The precision medicine issue

    Precision medicine has led to incredibly effective treatments for cancer and inherited disease. But not everyone gets treated.
    by Gideon Lichfield
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SPONSORED COLLECTION

Innovations, Ideas, and Insights

Provided by BBVA

  1. SPONSORED

    The crisis of social reproduction and the end of work

    High-income societies are facing the rise of precarious employment.
    by Helen Hester and Nick Snircek

  2. SPONSORED

    Advanced tech, but growth slow and unequal: paradoxes and policies

    Slowing productivity growth in major economies amid seemingly booming technology presents a paradox.
    by Zia Qureshi

  3. SPONSORED

    From the age of perplexity to the era of opportunities

    Finance for Growth
    by Francisco Gonzalez
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Features

Rewriting Life

Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever

Your family and friends will be able to interact with a digital “you” that doles out advice—even when you’re gone.

by Courtney Humphries

Photo of Hossein Rahnama
Rewriting Life

We can now customize cancer treatments, tumor by tumor

But can any company afford to manufacture one-off medical care?

Photo illustration of vials of colorful liquid
Rewriting Life

Your next doctor’s appointment might be with an AI

A new wave of chatbots are replacing physicians and providing frontline medical advice—but are they as good as the real thing?

Illustration of medical equipment and ipad

Intelligent Machines

Artificial intelligence and robots are transforming how we work and live.

All Topics

  1. Should a self-driving car kill the baby or the grandma? Depends on where you’re from.

    The infamous “trolley problem” was put to millions of people in a global study, revealing how much ethics diverge across cultures.
    by Karen Hao

  2. The US military is testing stratospheric balloons that ride the wind so they never have to come down

    A sensor that can spot the wind direction from miles away will let DARPA’s surveillance balloons hover at the very edge of space in one spot indefinitely.
    by David Hambling

  3. Harvard researchers want to school Congress about AI

    A tech boot camp will teach US politicians and policymakers about the potential, and the risks, of artificial intelligence.
    by Karen Hao
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