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The Download: AI’s impact on jobs, and data centres in space

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The one piece of data that could actually shed light on your job and AI Within Silicon Valley’s orbit, an AI-fueled jobs apocalypse is spoken about as a given. Now even economists who have…
The one piece of data that could actually shed light on your job and AI

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Within Silicon Valley’s orbit, an AI-fueled jobs apocalypse is spoken about as a given. The mood is so grim that a societal impacts researcher at Anthropic, responding Wednesday to a call for…
AI is changing how small online sellers decide what to make

For years Mike McClary sold the Guardian LTE Flashlight, a heavy-duty black model, online through his small outdoor brand. The product, designed for brightness and durability, became one of his most popular items ever. Even after he stopped offering it around 2017, customers kept sending him emails asking where they could buy it. When McClary…
Four things we’d need to put data centers in space

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. In January, Elon Musk’s SpaceX filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission to launch up to one million data centers into Earth’s orbit. The…
The Download: plastic’s problem with fuel prices, and SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Fuel prices are soaring. Plastic could be next. As the war in Iran continues, one of the most visible global economic ripple effects has been fossil-fuel prices. But looking ahead, further consequences could…
Fuel prices are soaring. Plastic could be next.

As the war in Iran continues to engulf the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, one of the most visible global economic ripple effects has been fossil-fuel prices. In particular, you can’t get away from news about the price of gasoline, which just topped an average of $4 a gallon in the…
The Download: gig workers training humanoids, and better AI benchmarks

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The gig workers who are training humanoid robots at home When Zeus, a medical student in Nigeria, returns to his apartment from a long day at the hospital, he straps his…
The gig workers who are training humanoid robots at home

When Zeus, a medical student living in a hilltop city in central Nigeria, returns to his studio apartment from a long day at the hospital, he turns on his ring light, straps his iPhone to his forehead, and starts recording himself. He raises his hands in front of him like a sleepwalker and puts a…
Shifting to AI model customization is an architectural imperative

In the early days of large language models (LLMs), we grew accustomed to massive 10x jumps in reasoning and coding capability with every new model iteration. Today, those jumps have flattened into incremental gains. The exception is domain-specialized intelligence, where true step-function improvements are still the norm. When a model is fused with an organization’s…
The Download: AI health tools and the Pentagon’s Anthropic culture war

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. There are more AI health tools than ever—but how well do they work? In the last few months alone, Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI have all launched medical chatbots. There’s a clear demand…