The EU Just Passed Sweeping New Rules to Regulate AI

The European Union today agreed on the details of the AI Act, a far-reaching set of rules for the people building and using artificial intelligence. It’s a milestone law that, lawmakers hope,... Read more »

The First Crispr Medicine Is Now Approved in the US

Casgevy uses the Nobel Prize-winning technology Crispr to modify patients’ cells so that they produce healthy hemoglobin instead. The Crispr system has two parts: a protein that cuts genetic material and a... Read more »

5 things we didn’t put on our 2024 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies

We haven’t always been right (RIP, Baxter), but we’ve often been early to spot important areas of progress (we put natural-language processing on our very first list in 2001; today this technology... Read more »

The Download: inside the first CRISPR treatment, and smarter robots

The news: A new robot training model, dubbed “KnowNo,” aims to teach robots to ask for our help when orders are unclear. At the same time, it ensures they seek clarification only... Read more »

Google’s NotebookLM Aims to Be the Ultimate Writing Assistant

Steven Johnson has written 13 books, on topics ranging from a London cholera outbreak to the value of video games. He’s been a television presenter and a podcast host. He’s a keynote... Read more »

Medical microrobots are (still) on their way

Okay, I know what you’re probably thinking. We’ve been hearing about the use of tiny robots in medicine for years, maybe even decades. And they’re still not here. Where are my medical... Read more »

‘Den of Wolves’ Will Be a Sci-Fi Heist—With a ‘Power Fantasy’ Soundtrack

Following two years of preproduction, game developer 10 Chambers finally announced its new heist game—Den of Wolves—Thursday during the 2023 Game Awards. Set in 2097 in a highly corrupt city located in... Read more »

Elijah Wood and Mike Tyson Cameo Videos Were Used in a Russian Disinformation Campaign

For around $340, actor Elijah Wood can record you a personalized video wishing you happy birthday. John McGinley, best known for his role in medical TV show Scrubs, will give you a... Read more »

End-to-End Encrypted Instagram and Messenger Chats: Why It Took Meta 7 Years

Since 2016, the social behemoth now known as Meta has been working to deploy end-to-end encryption in its communication apps. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even promised in 2019 that the data privacy protection... Read more »

Google’s Gemini Is the Real Start of the Generative AI Boom

The history of artificial intelligence has been punctuated by periods of so-called “AI winter,” when the technology seemed to meet a dead end and funding dried up. Each one has been accompanied... Read more »