A Google Gemini model now has a “dial” to adjust how much it reasons
Google DeepMind’s latest update to a top Gemini AI model includes a dial to control how much the system “thinks” through a response. The new feature is ostensibly designed to save money for developers, but it also concedes a problem: Reasoning models, the tech world’s new obsession, are prone to overthinking, burning money and energy…
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Adapting for AI’s reasoning era
Anyone who crammed for exams in college knows that an impressive ability to regurgitate information is not synonymous with critical thinking. The large language models (LLMs) first publicly released in 2022 were impressive but limited—like talented students who excel at multiple-choice exams but stumble when asked to defend their logic. Today’s advanced reasoning models are…
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AI is coming for music, too
Artificial intelligence was barely a term in 1956, when top scientists from the field of computing arrived at Dartmouth College for a summer conference. The computer scientist John McCarthy had coined the phrase in the funding proposal for the event, a gathering to work through how to build machines that could use language, solve problems…
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What is vibe coding, exactly?
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. When OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy excitedly took to X back in February to post about his new hobby, he probably had no idea he was about…
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A small US city experiments with AI to find out what residents want
Bowling Green, Kentucky, is home to 75,000 residents who recently wrapped up an experiment in using AI for democracy: Can an online polling platform, powered by machine learning, capture what residents want to see happen in their city? When Doug Gorman, elected leader of the county that includes Bowling Green, took office in 2023, it…
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Phase two of military AI has arrived
Last week, I spoke with two US Marines who spent much of last year deployed in the Pacific, conducting training exercises from South Korea to the Philippines. Both were responsible for analyzing surveillance to warn their superiors about possible threats to the unit. But this deployment was unique: For the first time, they were using…
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How AI is interacting with our creative human processes
In 2021, 20 years after the death of her older sister, Vauhini Vara was still unable to tell the story of her loss. “I wondered,” she writes in Searches, her new collection of essays on AI technology, “if Sam Altman’s machine could do it for me.” So she tried ChatGPT. But as it expanded on…
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Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military
For much of last year, about 2,500 US service members from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed aboard three ships throughout the Pacific, conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. At the same time, onboard the ships, an experiment was unfolding: The Marines in the unit responsible for…
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How AI can help supercharge creativity
Sometimes Lizzie Wilson shows up to a rave with her AI sidekick. One weeknight this past February, Wilson plugged her laptop into a projector that threw her screen onto the wall of a low-ceilinged loft space in East London. A small crowd shuffled in the glow of dim pink lights. Wilson sat down and started…
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AI companions are the final stage of digital addiction, and lawmakers are taking aim
On Tuesday, California state senator Steve Padilla will make an appearance with Megan Garcia, the mother of a Florida teen who killed himself following a relationship with an AI companion that Garcia alleges contributed to her son’s death. The two will announce a new bill that would force the tech companies behind such AI companions…
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