Back in the old days — the really old days — the task of designing materials was laborious. Investigators, over the course of 1,000-plus years, tried to make gold by combining things like lead, mercury, and sulfur, mixed in what they hoped would be just the right proportions. Even famous scientists like Tycho Brahe, Robert…
When sound waves reach the inner ear, neurons there pick up the vibrations and alert the brain. Encoded in their signals is a wealth of information that enables us to follow conversations, recognize familiar voices, appreciate music, and quickly locate a ringing phone or crying baby. Neurons send signals by emitting spikes — brief changes…
Imagine the bustling floors of tomorrow’s manufacturing plant: Robots, well-versed in multiple disciplines through adaptive AI education, work seamlessly and safely alongside human counterparts. These robots can transition effortlessly between tasks—from assembling intricate electronic components to handling complex machinery assembly. Each robot’s unique education enables it to predict maintenance needs, optimize energy consumption, and innovate…
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. In December, our small but mighty AI reporting team was asked by our editors to make a prediction: What’s coming next for AI? In 2024, AI contributed both to Nobel Prize–winning…
Vijay Gadepally, a senior staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, leads a number of projects at the Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center (LLSC) to make computing platforms, and the artificial intelligence systems that run on them, more efficient. Here, Gadepally discusses the increasing use of generative AI in everyday tools, its hidden environmental impact, and some…
Agents are the hottest thing in tech right now. Top firms from Google DeepMind to OpenAI to Anthropic are racing to augment large language models with the ability to carry out tasks by themselves. Known as agentic AI in industry jargon, such systems have fast become the new target of Silicon Valley buzz. Everyone from…
Whether you’re describing the sound of your faulty car engine or meowing like your neighbor’s cat, imitating sounds with your voice can be a helpful way to relay a concept when words don’t do the trick. Vocal imitation is the sonic equivalent of doodling a quick picture to communicate something you saw — except that…
MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. For the last couple of years we’ve had a go at predicting what’s coming next in AI. A fool’s game given how fast this industry moves. But…
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. The start of a new year, and maybe especially this one, feels like a good time for a gut check: How optimistic are you feeling about the future of technology? Our…
We all know what it means, colloquially, to google something. You pop a few relevant words in a search box and in return get a list of blue links to the most relevant results. Maybe some quick explanations up top. Maybe some maps or sports scores or a video. But fundamentally, it’s just fetching information…