A short history of AI, and what it is (and isn’t)
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. It’s the simplest questions that are often the hardest to answer. That applies to AI, too. Even though it’s a technology being sold as a solution to the world’s problems, nobody…
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AI can make you more creative—but it has limits
Generative AI models have made it simpler and quicker to produce everything from text passages and images to video clips and audio tracks. Texts and media that might have taken years for humans to create can now be generated in seconds. But while AI’s output can certainly seem creative, do these models actually boost human…
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Robot-packed meals are coming to the frozen-food aisle
Advances in artificial intelligence are coming to your freezer, in the form of robot-assembled prepared meals. Chef Robotics, a San Francisco–based startup, has launched a system of AI-powered robotic arms that can be quickly programmed with a recipe to dole out accurate portions of everything from tikka masala to pesto tortellini. After experiments with leading…
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AI is poised to automate today’s most mundane manual warehouse task
Before almost any item reaches your door, it traverses the global supply chain on a pallet. More than 2 billion pallets are in circulation in the United States alone, and $400 billion worth of goods are exported on them annually. However, loading boxes onto these pallets is a task stuck in the past: Heavy loads…
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What is AI?
Internet nastiness, name-calling, and other not-so-petty, world-altering disagreements AI is sexy, AI is cool. AI is entrenching inequality, upending the job market, and wrecking education. AI is a theme-park ride, AI is a magic trick. AI is our final invention, AI is a moral obligation. AI is the buzzword of the decade, AI is marketing…
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The Chinese government is going all-in on autonomous vehicles
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. There’s been so much news coming out of China’s autonomous-vehicle industry lately that it’s hard to keep track. The government is finally allowing Tesla to bring its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature to…
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Can AI help me plan my honeymoon?
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. I’m getting married later this summer and am feverishly planning a honeymoon together with my fiancé. It has been at times overwhelming trying to research and decide between what seem like…
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How to use AI to plan your next vacation
MIT Technology Review’s How To series helps you get things done. Planning a vacation should, in theory, be fun. But drawing up a list of activities for a trip can also be time-consuming and stressful, particularly if you don’t know where to begin. Luckily tech companies have been competing to create tools that can help…
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AI lie detectors are better than humans at spotting lies
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. Can you spot a liar? It’s a question I imagine has been on a lot of minds lately, in the wake of various televised political debates. Research has…
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What are AI agents?
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 ChatGPT was first released, everyone in AI was talking about the new generation of AI assistants. But over the past year, that excitement has turned…
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