This is today's episode Loading, Our weekday newsletter, breaking down what's happening in tech, every day.
Big Tech's Big Bet on Controversial Carbon Removal Tactics
Microsoft, JP MorganChase and a consortium of technology companies that includes Alphabet, Meta, Shopify and Stripe recently struck multimillion-dollar deals to pay paper mill owners to capture at least hundreds of thousands of tons of this greenhouse gas by installing cleaning equipment in their plants. carbon.
The captured carbon dioxide would then be piped into saline aquifers more than a mile underground, where it would be permanently sequestered.
Big tech companies are suddenly betting on this form of carbon removal, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. However, experts have expressed a number of concerns. Read the full story.
—James Temple
Climate tech companies to watch in 2025: Kairos Power and its next generation nuclear reactors
Like many new nuclear startups, Kairos promises a path to reliable, 24/7 decarbonized energy. Unlike most, it already has prototypes under construction and permits to build several reactors.
The company uses molten salt to cool reactions and transfer heat, rather than the high-pressure water used in existing fission reactors. The company hopes its technology will enable commercial reactors that are cost-competitive with gas plants and operate more safely than conventional reactors, even in the event of a total loss of power. Read the full story.
—Mark Harris
Kairos Power is one of our 10 Climate Technology Companies to Watch, our annual list of the most promising climate technology companies on the planet. See the rest of the list here.
MIT Technology Review: Millions of IVF Embryos Inside a Strange Limbo
Millions of embryos created through IVF are frozen in time and stored in tanks around the world. This number is only growing thanks to advances in technology, the growing popularity of IVF and increasing success rates.
At a basic level, an embryo is just a tiny ball of a hundred or so cells. But unlike other types of body tissue, it has the potential for life. Many argue that this gives embryos a special moral status that requires special protection.
The problem is that no one can agree on what this status is. While these embryos remain in suspended animation, patients, doctors, embryologists and legislators must grapple with an important question: what should we do with them? What do these embryos mean to us? Who should be responsible for them?
This is our last story will be transformed into the MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish every week on Spotify And Apple Podcasts. Just head over to MIT Technology Review on any platform and follow us to receive all our new content as it's released.
A must read
I've scoured the internet to find you the funniest/important/scary/fascinating technology stories of today.
1 ChatGPT will start talking dirty to verified adults
The chatbot is getting a new erotic feature as part of OpenAI's attempt to “safely loosen” its restrictions. (Edge)
+ The company created its own wellness council to inform its decisions. (Ars Technique)
+ It's surprisingly easy to form a relationship with an AI chatbot. (MIT Technology Review)
2The Secret Surveillance Empire Tracked Thousands of People Around the World
The European-led First Wap organization has been operating in secret for more than two decades. (Mother Jones)
+ The group operated at least 10 fraudulent complexes across the country. (Wired $)
+ Inside the romance scam complex – and how people are tricked into ending up there. (MIT Technology Review)
3 YouTube ran an Israeli-funded ad that claimed there was food in the famine-stricken Gaza Strip.
And allowed them to remain online even after complaints from multiple government agencies. (W.P. $)
+ The companies deny any involvement in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. (Wired $)
4 Instagram Wants To Become A More Teen-Friendly Space
It introduces new age restrictions inspired by the PG-13 rating of films. (NBC News)
+ This policy will also apply to chatbots. (NOW $)
5 Mass pig slaughter in Cambodia was thwarted
This is the largest forfeiture action ever taken by the U.S. Department of Justice. (CNBC)
6 Waymo self-driving taxis coming to London
From next year, pedestrians will be able to welcome robotaxis. (WSJ $)
7 black patients were not medically assessed based on race
This delayed their access to life-saving kidney transplants. (Marking)
+ A woman in the United States has become the third person to receive a gene-edited pork kidney. (MIT Technology Review)
8. AI flood forecasting is helping farmers around the world
Nonprofit organizations use it to provide early intervention. (Rest of the world)
9. A man with paralysis can feel objects through another person's hand.
Thanks to a new brain implant. (New scientist $)
+ Meet other companies developing brain-computer interfaces. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Tech Internships Are Alive and Well
Despite all the concerns about A.I. (Insider $)
Quote of the day
“You've made ChatGPT 'pretty restrictive'? Really. Is that why it encourages children to harm themselves and kill themselves?”
— Josh Hawley, US Senator from Missouri, reacts to news that OpenAI plans to ease its restrictions on mail on X.
One more thing
Why we should thank pigeons for our discoveries in artificial intelligence
People looking for precursors to artificial intelligence often point to science fiction by authors such as Isaac Asimov or thought experiments such as the Turing test. But an equally important, if unexpected and less appreciated, predecessor is the American psychologist B.F. Skinner's studies with pigeons in the mid-20th century.
Skinner believed that association—learning through trial and error to associate an action with a punishment or reward—is the building block of all behavior, not just in pigeons, but in all living organisms, including humans.
His “behaviourist” theories fell out of favor with psychologists and animal researchers in the 1960s, but were taken up by computer scientists, eventually serving as the basis for many artificial intelligence tools from leading firms such as Google and OpenAI. Read the full story.
—Ben Relic
We can still have good things
A place for comfort, fun and entertainment that will brighten your day. (Any ideas? Write to me or shoot skeet at me.)
+ I like the sound Grateful Fishing TV– starring two fishermen who just love to hang out and fry fish. Really useful stuff (thanks to Chino Moreno from Perfectly Imperfect for the recommendation!)
+ Remain in power D'Angeloyour timeless melodies will live on.
+ If you're a stress watch lover, this list is complete disturbing classic.
+ One of the longest in the world Dinosaur Superhighways was discovered in a sleepy corner of England.
