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Pump jacks and pipelines clutter the Elk Hills oil field of California, a scrubby stretch of land in the southern Central Valley that rests above one of the nation’s richest deposits of fossil fuels.
Oil production has been steadily declining in the state for decades, as tech jobs have boomed and legislators have enacted rigorous environmental and climate rules. Companies, towns, and residents across Kern County, where the poverty rate hovers around 18%, have grown increasingly desperate for new economic opportunities.
In late 2023, one of the state’s largest oil and gas producers secured draft permits from the US Environmental Protection Agency to develop a new type of well in the oil field, which it asserts would provide just that. If the company gets final approval from regulators, it intends to drill a series of boreholes down to a sprawling sedimentary formation roughly 6,000 feet below the surface, where it will inject tens of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide to store it away forever.
Hundreds of similar projects are looming across the state, the US, and the world. Proponents hope it’s the start of a sort of oil boom in reverse, kick-starting a process through which the world will eventually bury more greenhouse gas than it adds to the atmosphere. But opponents insist these efforts will prolong the life of fossil-fuel plants, allow air and water pollution to continue, and create new health and environmental risks that could disproportionately harm disadvantaged communities surrounding the projects, including those near the Elk Hills oil field.
This story was written by senior climate and energy editor James Temple and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com. -
Robots that can do many of the things humans do in the home—folding laundry, cooking meals, cleaning—have been a dream of robotics research since the inception of the field in the 1950s.
While engineers have made great progress in getting robots to work in tightly controlled environments like labs and factories, the home has proved difficult to design for. Out in the real, messy world, furniture and floor plans differ wildly; children and pets can jump in a robot’s way; and clothes that need folding come in different shapes, colors, and sizes. Managing such unpredictable settings and varied conditions has been beyond the capabilities of even the most advanced robot prototypes.
But now, the field is at an inflection point. A new generation of researchers believes that generative AI could give robots the ability to learn new skills and adapt to new environments faster than ever before. This new approach, just maybe, can finally bring robots out of the factory and into the mainstream.
This story was written by senior AI reporter Melissa Heikkilä and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com -
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We live in an undeniably gamified world. We stand up and move around to close colorful rings and earn achievement badges on our smartwatches; we meditate and sleep to recharge our body batteries; we plant virtual trees to be more productive; we chase “likes” and “karma” on social media sites and try to swipe our way toward social connection.
But instead of liberating us from drudgery and maximizing our potential, gamification has turned out to be just another tool for coercion, distraction, and control. Why did we fall for it?
This story was written by Bryan Gardiner and narrated by Noa (newsoveraudio.com) -
A Silicon Valley startup wants to supercharge trees to soak up more carbon and cool the climate. Is this the great climate solution or a whole lot of hype?
This story was written by Boyce Upholt and narrated by Noa. -
Artificial intelligence is the hottest technology of our time. But what is it? It sounds like a stupid question, but it’s one that’s never been more urgent.
MIT Technology Review takes a deep dive into the competing answers from titans of industry and helps us understand how we got here—and why you should care, no matter who you are.
This story was written by senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and narrated by Noa. -
The growing business of surf pools wants to bring the ocean experience inland, making surfing more accessible to communities far from the coasts.
These pools can use—and lose—millions upon millions of gallons of water every year. With many planned for areas facing water scarcity, who bears the cost of building the perfect wave?
This story was written by senior features and investigations reporter Eileen Guo and narrated by Noa. -
Open-world video games are inhabited by vast crowds of computer-controlled characters. These animated people—called NPCs, for “nonplayer characters”—populate the bars, city streets, or space ports of games. They make virtual worlds feel lived in and full. Often—but not always—you can talk to them.
After a while, however, the repetitive chitchat (or threats) of a passing stranger forces you to bump up against the truth: This is just a game.
It may not always be like that. Just as it’s upending other industries, generative AI is opening the door to entirely new kinds of in-game interactions that are open-ended, creative, and unexpected. Future AI-powered NPCs that don’t rely on a script could make games—and other worlds—deeply immersive.
This story was written by executive editor Niall Firth and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com -
At any given time, the US organ transplant waiting list is about 100,000 people long. Martine Rothblatt sees a day when an unlimited supply of transplantable organs—and 3D-printed ones—will be readily available, saving countless lives.
This story was written by senior biomedicine editor Antonio Regalado and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com -
Design thinking suggests that we are all creatives, and we can solve any problem if we empathize hard enough. The methodology was supposed to democratize design, but it may have done the opposite. Where did it go wrong?
This story was written by Rebecca Ackermann and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com -
Tokelau is a group of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand (of which it’s an official territory) and Hawaii. Its population hovers around 1,400 people. Reaching it requires a boat ride from Samoa that can take over 24 hours. To say that Tokelau is remote is an understatement: it was the last place on Earth to be connected to the telephone… in 1997.
Despite its size, Tokelau has become an internet giant. Until recently, its .tk domain had more users than any other country’s: a staggering 25 million. Yet only one website with a .tk domain is actually from Tokelau. Nearly all the others are used by spammers, phishers, and cybercriminals.
This is the story of how Tokelau unwittingly became the global capital of cybercrime—and its fight to fix its reputation.
This story was written by Jacob Judah and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com -
An AI startup created a hyperrealistic deepfake of MIT Technology Review’s senior AI reporter that was so believable, even she thought it was really her at first. This technology is impressive, to be sure. But it raises big questions about a world where we increasingly can’t tell what’s real and what's fake.
This story was written by senior AI reporter Melissa Heikkilä and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com -
Though “user” seems to describe a relationship that is deeply transactional, many of the technological relationships in which a person would be considered a user are actually quite personal. That being the case, is the term “user” still relevant?
This story was written by Taylor Majewski and narrated by Noa. -
We've known of Europa’s existence for more than four centuries, but for most of that time, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon was just a pinprick of light in our telescopes— a bright and curious companion to the solar system’s resident giant. Over the last few decades, however, as astronomers have scrutinized it through telescopes and six spacecraft have flown nearby, a new picture has come into focus. Europa is nothing like our moon.
Observations suggest that its heart is a ball of metal and rock, surrounded by a vast saltwater ocean that contains more than twice as much water as is found on Earth.
In the depths of its ocean, or perhaps crowded in subsurface lakes or below icy surface vents, Jupiter’s big, bright moon could host life.
MIT Technology Review articles are narrated by Noa (News Over Audio), an app offering you professionally-read articles from the world’s best publications. To stay ‘truly’ informed on Science & Technology, Business & Investing, Current Affairs & Politics, and much more, download the Noa app or visit newsoveraudio.com. -
Despite all their runaway success, nobody knows exactly how—or why—large language models work. And that’s a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
This story was written by senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and narrated by Noa ((News Over Audio), an app offering you professionally-read articles from the world’s best publications. -
Moore’s Law holds that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years or so. In essence, it means that chipmakers are always trying to shrink the transistors on a microchip in order to pack more of them in. The cadence has been increasingly hard to maintain now that transistor dimensions measure in a few nanometers. In recent years ASML’s machines have kept Moore’s Law from sputtering out. Today, they are the only ones in the world capable of producing circuitry at the density needed to keep chipmakers roughly on track.
Martin Van den Brink is the outgoing co-president and CTO of ASML. He joined the Dutch company in 1984 when it was founded and has played a major role in guiding it to it current dominant position. He explains to MIT Technology Review how the company overtook its competition and how it can stay ahead.
MIT Technology Review articles are narrated by Noa (News Over Audio), an app offering you professionally-read articles from the world’s best publications. To stay ‘truly’ informed on Science & Technology, Business & Investing, Current Affairs & Politics, and much more, download the Noa app or visit newsoveraudio.com. -
AI consciousness isn’t just a devilishly tricky intellectual puzzle; it’s a morally weighty problem with potentially dire consequences. Fail to identify a conscious AI, and you might unintentionally subjugate, or even torture, a being whose interests ought to matter. Mistake an unconscious AI for a conscious one, and you risk compromising human safety and happiness for the sake of an unthinking, unfeeling hunk of silicon and code.
Philosophers, cognitive scientists, and engineers are grappling with what it would take for AI to achieve consciousness—and whether it's even possible.
This story was written by Grace Huckins and narrated by NOA. -
Three years ago this week we launched this podcast on a mission to show the world how AI touches our everyday lives. It's been our great honor and privilege to make it through three seasons, a global pandemic, an unbelievable nineteen (19!!) award nominations, and a whole lot of tests and demos.
Goodbyes are very hard to say, so instead we'll leave you with some of the show's highlights and an invitation to follow us as we continue our journey with a new show called SHIFT. Sign up for updates at shiftshow.ai and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
This series was created by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens with the support of Gideon Lichfield and Michael Reilly. Its producers have been Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green. The editors have included Gideon Lichfield, Michael Reilly and Mat Honan with support from Karen Hao and Tate Ryan Mosley. You can thank Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski for the original music and excellent sound design. The weekly art was from Stephanie Arnett with album art from Eric Mongeon.
Thanks for listening.
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Hidden away in our voices are signals that may hold clues to how we’re doing, what we’re feeling and even what’s going on with our physical health. Now, AI systems tasked with analyzing these signals are moving into healthcare.
We meet:
Lina Lakoczky-Torres, student at Menlo College
Angela Schmiede, Vice President of Menlo College.
Grace Chang, CEO of Kintsugi
David Liu, CEO of Sonde Health
Liam Kaufman, former CEO of Winterlight Labs.
Margaret Mitchell, Chief Ethics Scientist of Hugging Face
Bjoern Schuller, professor of artificial intelligence at Imperial College London
Credits:
This episode was reported by Hilke Schellmann, produced by Jennifer Strong, Emma Cillekens and Anthony Green, edited by Mat Honan and mixed by Garret Lang with original music by Garret Lang and Jacob Gorski. Artwork by Stephanie Arnett. Special thanks to the Knight Science folks at MIT for their support with this reporting. - Vis mere
