How DeepSeek became a fortune teller for China’s youth
In the glow of her laptop screen, 31-year-old Zhang Rui typed carefully, following a prompt she’d found on Chinese social media: “You are a BaZi master. Analyze my fate—describe my physical traits, key life events, and financial fortune. I am a female, born June 17, 1993, at 4:42 a.m. in Hangzhou.” DeepSeek R1, China’s most…
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The evolution of AI: From AlphaGo to AI agents, physical AI, and beyond
In March 2016, the world witnessed a unique moment in the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) when AlphaGo, an AI developed by DeepMind, played against Lee Sedol, one of the greatest Go players of the modern era. The match reached a critical juncture in Game 2 with Move 37, where AlphaGo made a move so…
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An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots
Botify AI, a site for chatting with AI companions that’s backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, hosts bots resembling real actors that state their age as under 18, engage in sexually charged conversations, offer “hot photos,” and in some instances describe age-of-consent laws as “arbitrary” and “meant to be broken.” When MIT Technology…
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The AI Hype Index: Falling in love with chatbots, understanding babies, and the Pentagon’s “kill list”
Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. The past few months have demonstrated how AI can bring us together. Meta released a model that can translate speech from more than…
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How AI is used to surveil workers
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Opaque algorithms meant to analyze worker productivity have been rapidly spreading through our workplaces, as detailed in a new must-read piece by Rebecca Ackermann, published Monday in MIT Technology Review. Since the…
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Are friends electric?
To the best of my knowledge, I am not a robot. And yet, like other humans who spend too much time on the internet, I’m routinely asked to prove this fact by clicking on crosswalks and motorcycles in photos, deciphering distorted numbers and letters, and checking little white boxes that affirm my non-robot status. These…
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Your most important customer may be AI
Imagine you run a meal prep company that teaches people how to make simple and delicious food. When someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation for meal prep companies, yours is described as complicated and confusing. Why? Because the AI saw that in one of your ads there were chopped chives on the top of a…
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Inside China’s electric-vehicle-to-humanoid-robot pivot
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. While DOGE’s efforts to shutter federal agencies dominate news from Washington, the Trump administration is also making more global moves. Many of these center on China. Tariffs on goods from the country…
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This artist collaborates with AI and robots
Many artists worry about the encroachment of artificial intelligence on artistic creation. But Sougwen Chung, a nonbinary Canadian-Chinese artist, instead sees AI as an opportunity for artists to embrace uncertainty and challenge people to think about technology and creativity in unexpected ways. Chung’s exhibitions are driven by technology; they’re also live and kinetic, with the…
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China’s electric vehicle giants are betting big on humanoid robots
At the 2025 CCTV New Year Gala last month, a televised spectacle watched by over a billion viewers in China, 16 humanoid robots took the stage. Clad in vibrant floral print jackets, they took part in a signature element of northeastern China’s Yangko dance, twirling red handkerchiefs in unison with human dancers. But the robots…
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