The Download: child online safety laws, and ClimateTech is coming

Posted on by Rhiannon Williams

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.

Child online safety laws will actually hurt kids, critics say

This summer, the Senate moved two bills dealing with online privacy for children and teens out of committee. We’ve also seen many states pick up (and politicize) laws about online safety for kids in recent months. Some focus on children’s data, while others try to limit how much and when kids can get online.

Supporters say these laws are necessary to mitigate the risks that big tech companies pose to young people—risks that are increasingly well documented. 

But as with most things, it’s not really that simple. There are also vocal critics who argue that child safety laws are actually harmful to kids. To learn why, read our story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley

This story is from The Technocrat, our weekly newsletter covering power and policy in Silicon Valley. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday.

If you’re interested in reading more about kids and tech policy, why not take a look at:

+ Why child safety bills are popping up all over the US. They’re shaping consequential policies around privacy, parental rights, and speech in the US. Read the full story.

+ China is escalating its war on kids’ screen time. What Beijing’s new restrictions on child internet use mean for privacy protection. Read the full story.

Sign up for ClimateTech

How can we build a more sustainable, greener future? This week, MIT Technology Review is holding our second annual ClimateTech conference to discuss the innovations accelerating the transition to a green economy.

ClimateTech is taking place at the MIT Media Lab on MIT’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 4-5. You can register for the event and either attend in-person or online, here—before it’s too late!

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The scientists behind mRNA covid vaccines won a Nobel Prize
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman’s work was largely overlooked before the pandemic. (NYT $)
+ Their research has saved millions of lives across the world. (CNN)
+ What’s next for mRNA vaccines. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Sam Bankman-Fried has become crypto’s scapegoat
The disgraced FTX founder’s trial, which begins tomorrow, marks an industry reckoning. (FT $)
+ Former allies are united in their desire to see him held to account. (NYT $)
+ Bankman-Fried’s endless chattering won’t do him any favors. (WP $)

3 The EU is starting to investigate the AI chip market
It wants to establish whether Nvidia’s dominance amounts to potential abuse. (Bloomberg $)
+ The chip patterning machines that will shape computing’s next act. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Carbon prices are taking off
When it works, it’s the cheapest way for countries to fight climate change. (Economist $)
+ Exporters in the UK are facing hefty carbon border taxes. (FT $)
+ These three charts show who is most to blame for climate change. (MIT Technology Review)

5 AI-written knock-off books are rife on Amazon
The poor-quality tomes are based on real titles by real authors. (The Guardian)
+ Tom Hanks has distanced himself from a deepfake dental ad created without his permission. (Variety $)

6 China is pushing smart car firms to establish standards
Working together in a new type of pseudo-consortia is one way to do it. (Reuters)
+ Europe is about to crack down on Chinese electric cars. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Can a plastic toy company ever be sustainable?
Lego has built an empire on oil-based plastic bricks. But green alternatives are proving evasive. (Wired $)

8 Outspoken Chinese web users are posting as a pink dinosaur
By adopting the same name and image, they’re able to vent about controversial issues. (Rest of World)

9 This dating app makes matches based on users’ faces
What could possibly go wrong? (WSJ $)

10 We’re still oversharing online
Social media may feel less social these days, but it’s just as confessional. (Vox)

Quote of the day

 “When you’re taking their money, you’re selling your soul.”

— Manoj Vekaria, a software engineer in Seattle, warns of the dangers of working for AI labs funded by the likes of Amazon and Microsoft, he tells the Washington Post.

The big story

These scientists are working to extend the life span of pet dogs—and their owners

August 2022

Matt Kaeberlein is what you might call a dog person. He has grown up with dogs and describes his German shepherd, Dobby, as “really special.” But Dobby is 14 years old—around 98 in dog years.

Kaeberlein is co-director of the Dog Aging Project, an ambitious research effort to track the aging process of tens of thousands of companion dogs across the US. He is one of a handful of scientists on a mission to improve, delay, and possibly reverse that process to help them live longer, healthier lives.

And dogs are just the beginning. One day, this research could help to prolong the lives of humans. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ All hail the unsung women of indie sleaze.
+ It’s officially October!
+ This list of sartorial advice has been entertaining us at MIT Technology Review—how many points do you agree with?
+ Put down the expired milk, it’s got a whole lot more to give. 🥛
+ Some top tips for remembering your dreams more fully: should you want to, that is.

Child online safety laws will actually hurt kids, critics say

Posted on by Tate Ryan-Mosley

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here.

This summer, the Senate moved two bills dealing with online privacy for children and teens out of committee. Both have been floating around Congress in various forms over the last few years and are starting to get some real bipartisan support. 

At the same time, we’ve also seen many states pick up (and politicize) laws about online safety for kids in recent months. These policies vary quite a bit from state to state, as I wrote back in April. Some focus on children’s data, and others try to limit how much and when kids can get online. 

Supporters say these laws are necessary to mitigate the risks that big tech companies pose to young people—risks that are increasingly well documented. They say it’s well past time to put guardrails in place and limit the collecting and selling of minors’ data.

“What we’re doing here is creating a duty of care that makes the social media platforms accountable for the harms they’ve caused,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is co-sponsoring a child online safety bill in the Senate, in an interview with Slate. “It gives attorneys general and the FTC the power to bring lawsuits based on the product designs that, in effect, drive eating disorders, bullying, suicide, and sex and drug abuse that kids haven’t requested and that can be addictive.”

But—surprise, surprise—as with most things, it’s not really that simple. There are also vocal critics who argue that child safety laws are actually harmful to kids because all these laws, no matter their shape, have to contend with a central tension: in order to implement laws that apply to kids online, companies need to actually identify which users are kids—which requires the collection or estimation of sensitive personal information. 

I was thinking about this when the prominent New York–based civil society organization S.T.O.P. (which stands for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project) released a report on September 28 that highlights some of these potential harms and makes the case that all bills requiring tech companies to identify underage users, even if well intentioned, will increase online surveillance for everyone. 

“These bills are sold as a way to protect teens, but they do just the opposite,” S.T.O.P. executive director Albert Fox Cahn said in a press release. “Rather than misguided efforts to track every user’s age and identity, we need privacy protections for every American.”  

There’s a wide range of regulations out there, but the report calls out several states that are creating laws imposing stricter—even drastic—restrictions on minors’ internet access, effectively limiting online speech. 

A Utah law that will take effect in March 2024, for instance, will require that parents give consent for their kids to access social media outside the hours of 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., and that social media companies build features enabling parents to access their kids’ accounts. 

Critics—especially those who advocate for online privacy and free speech, including but not limited to S.T.O.P.—have taken issue with different aspects of these various bills. But beyond the specific regulations, the common complaint is that there’s no privacy-preserving—or easy—way to confirm that an underage user is in fact underage.

There’s not exactly a gold standard for how to do this. Some bills, such as Utah’s, require that users provide official age verification, such as a government-issued ID, before accessing certain websites or products. (Er, would you really want X having a copy of your license?) Others, like a law in California, let companies do their own age estimations based on the data they already have from users. 

I, for one, keep coming back to the argument that these verification systems could have impacts far beyond the intended underage users. Putting the burden of verification on users and on tech companies could, as S.T.O.P. argues, end up blocking adults from certain types of content. If this happens, S.T.O.P. says, it would limit internet freedom, especially for members of marginalized communities who may be more hesitant to share age information, like undocumented migrants. 

As the report argues: “These laws mandate or coerce the use of new, invasive measures that verify users’ legal name, age, and address for nearly every internet service they use. … This change would be invasive and insecure for every user, but it would pose a particularly potent threat to undocumented communities, LGBTQ+ communities, and those seeking reproductive care.”

Honestly, it can be hard to know how to make sense of these laws. On the one hand, the evidence of the harm social media platforms pose to young people in particular is truly overwhelming. But … it’s complicated! I’ve reported on issues related to both sides of the issue. And the laws really do differ greatly between states. 

My two cents is that this would all be much easier if there were a comprehensive privacy law in the US that regulated user data and safety for both children and adults. 

What else I am reading

  • This feature from Gerry Shih in the Washington Post, which uncovers the digital campaign of Hindu nationalists in India. It’s a fascinating look at the growth of disinformation in the country, as well as the impact of private messaging apps, like WhatsApp, on conflicts.
  • Alex Reisner at the Atlantic has a blockbuster investigation into the data used to train one of Meta’s large language models, LLaMA, the company’s ChatGPT competitor. It includes a cool search tool—which readers can use themselves!—documenting over 180,000 books that the model was trained on. Copyright much?
  • Dhruv Mehrotra and Dell Cameron at Wired have a great scoop about how the owners of policing tech company ShotSpotter purchased the company that created PredPol, a predictive policing company. The acquisition could mark a terrifying combination of controversial and fringey police technologies, and I’ll be watching this industry closely as companies race to become the preferred tech vendor for law enforcement.

What I learned this week

Forgive me for taking a policy break, but … I guess I’m gonna need to buy an exoskeleton? My colleague Rhiannon wrote about wearable robots that might make people run faster, according to a new study in Science Robotics. The exoskeleton collects data from sensors about the runner’s gait, and then encourages the athlete to take more steps over the same distance, increasing speed. 

The Download: brain bandwidth, and artificial wombs

Posted on by Rhiannon Williams

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.

Elon Musk wants more bandwidth between people and machines. Do we need it?

Last week, Elon Musk made the bold assertion that sticking electrodes in people’s heads is going to lead to a huge increase in the rate of data transfer out of, and into, human brains.

The occasion of Musk’s post was the announcement by Neuralink, his brain-computer interface company, that it was officially seeking the first volunteer to receive an implant that contains more than twice the number of electrodes than previous versions to collect more data from more nerve cells.

The entrepreneur mentioned a long-term goal of vastly increasing “bandwidth” between people, or people and machines, by a factor of 1,000 or more. But what does he mean, and is it even possible? Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

This story is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

Everything you need to know about artificial wombs

Earlier this month, US Food and Drug Administration advisors met to discuss how to move research on artificial wombs from animals into humans.

These medical devices are designed to give extremely premature infants a bit more time to develop in a womb-like environment before entering the outside world. They have been tested with hundreds of lambs (and some piglets), but animal models can’t fully predict how the technology will work for humans. 

Regulators are grappling with the question of how much of the unknown is acceptable as this research moves out of the lab and into first-in-human trials. But selecting the right participants will be tricky. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Microsoft suggested that Apple buy Bing in 2020 
The deal would have installed Bing as the iPhone’s default search engine, but it never came to fruition. (Bloomberg $)
+ Microsoft could overtake Apple as the world’s most valuable firm. (Economist $)

2 A jury will decide whether Tesla’s autopilot caused a driver’s death
The plaintiffs claim that Tesla overhyped the system’s capabilities to make it appear more autonomous than it actually is. (WP $)
+ Should a self-driving car kill the baby or the grandma? Depends on where you’re from. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Take a look inside Huawei’s lobbying playbook
Confidential group chats, gifted gadgets, and secret agreements. (NYT $)
+ Meanwhile, Apple met with Chinese officials to forge a friendly agreement. (WSJ $)

4 The US power grid largely avoided blackouts this summer
That’s no guarantee it’ll hold up in the future, though. (Vox)
+ Stitching together the grid will save lives as extreme weather worsens. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Startups are desperate to become chummy with chipmakers 
Access to powerful chips can make or break an enterprise. (The Information $)
+ These simple design rules could turn the chip industry on its head. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Forever chemicals are absolutely everywhere
And even a lawsuit from the US Department of Justice will stop one company from using them. (Bloomberg $)
+ Plastic pollution persists, even in the absence of humans. (Motherboard)

7 Venture capitalists really don’t want to fund women’s health startups
Investors are mostly male, and largely uninterested. (Proto.Life)
+ Why can’t tech fix its gender problem? (MIT Technology Review)

8 What comes after smartphones?
Experts can’t agree on whether the future contains more screens—or none at all. (Inverse)
+ Even seemingly unassailable apps aren’t invincible. (WP $)

9 The world’s oldest active torrent has turned 20 years old
Happy anniversary to The Fanimatrix! (Motherboard) 

10 Is it time to banish the group chat?
Please, one-on-one texts only from now on. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“I work at X, he worked at Twitter.” 

—Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, insists the company’s culture has changed since its former Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, was driven into hiding after Elon Musk blamelessly accused him of supporting child sexualisation last year, the Verge reports.

The big story

How big science failed to unlock the mysteries of the human brain

August 2021

In September 2011, Columbia University neurobiologist Rafael Yuste and Harvard geneticist George Church made a not-so-modest proposal: to map the activity of the entire human brain.

That knowledge could be harnessed to treat brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, autism, schizophrenia, depression, and traumatic brain injury, and help answer one of the great questions of science: How does the brain bring about consciousness? 

A decade on, the US project has wound down, and the EU project faces its deadline to build a digital brain. So have we begun to unwrap the secrets of the human brain? Or have we spent a decade and billions of dollars chasing a vision that remains as elusive as ever? Read the full story.

—Emily Mullin

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Enjoy this dreamy Stone Roses intro on a Friday morning.
+ You know what doesn’t get enough appreciation? A good pie recipe.
+ Building your own PC may be time-consuming, but it also gives you an enormous sense of wellbeing.
+ Aww, why can’t my emotional support alligator come to the ball game with me? 🐊
+ The prevailing mystery of what trilobites ate has finally been solved: and it sounds pretty tasty.

Everything you need to know about artificial wombs

Posted on by Cassandra Willyard

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.

On September 19, US Food and Drug Administration advisors met to discuss how to move research on artificial wombs from animals into humans. These medical devices are designed to give extremely premature infants a bit more time to develop in a womblike environment before entering the outside world. They have been tested with hundreds of lambs (and some piglets), but animal models can’t fully predict how the technology will work for humans. 

“The most challenging question to answer is how much unknown is acceptable,” said An Massaro, FDA’s lead neonatologist in the Office of Pediatric Therapeutics, at the committee meeting. That’s a question regulators will have to grapple with as this research moves out of the lab and into first-in-human trials.

What is an artificial womb?

An artificial womb is an experimental medical device intended to provide a womblike environment for extremely premature infants. In most of the technologies, the infant would float in a clear “biobag,” surrounded by fluid. The idea is that preemies could spend a few weeks continuing to develop in this device after birth, so that “when they’re transitioned from the device, they’re more capable of surviving and having fewer complications with conventional treatment,” says George Mychaliska, a pediatric surgeon at the University of Michigan.

One of the main limiting factors for survival in extremely premature babies is lung development. Rather than breathing air, babies in an artificial womb would have their lungs filled with lab-made amniotic fluid, that mimics the amniotic fluid they would have hadjust like they would in utero. Neonatologists would insert tubes into blood vessels in the umbilical cord so that the infant’s blood could cycle through an artificial lung to pick up oxygen. 

The device closest to being ready to be tested in humans, called the EXTrauterine Environment for Newborn Development, or EXTEND, encases the baby in a container filled with lab-made amniotic fluid. It was invented by Alan Flake and Marcus Davey at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is being developed by Vitara Biomedical. 

Other researchers are working on artificial wombs too, though they’re a bit farther behind. Scientists in Australia and Japan are developing a system very similar to EXTEND. In Europe, the Perinatal Life Support project is working on its own technology. And in Canada, researchers have been testing their version of an artificial womb on piglets. Researchers at the University of Michigan are working on similar technology intended to be used within preemies for whom conventional therapies aren’t likely to work. Rather than floating in fluid, the infants would only have their lungs filled. It’s a system that could be used in existing ICUs with relatively few modifications, so “we believe that that has more clinical applicability,” says Mychaliska,who is leading the project.  

When will this technology be tested in humans?

The technology used in the EXTEND system has been tested on lamb fetuses, about 300 so far, with good results. The lambs can survive and develop inside the sack for three or even four weeks.

To move forward with human testing, the company needs an investigational device exemption from the FDA. At a meeting in June, Flake said Vitara might be ready to request that exemption in September or October. But at the September advisory committee meeting, when Flake was directly asked how far the technology had advanced he declined to answer. He said he could discuss timing with the advisory committee during the portion of the meeting that was closed to the public. To greenlight a trial, FDA officials need to be convinced that babies who try EXTEND are likely to benefit from the system, and that they’ll fare at least as well as babies who receive the current standard of care.

What would the first human tests look like?

The procedure requires a carefully choreographed transfer. First, the baby must be delivered via cesarean section and immediately have tubes inserted into the umbilical cord before being transferred into the fluid-filled container.

The technology would likely be used first on infants born at 22 or 23 weeks who don’t have many other options. “You don’t want to put an infant on this device who would otherwise do well with conventional therapy,” Mychaliska says. At 22 weeks gestation, babies are tiny, often weighing less than a pound. And their lungs are still developing. When researchers looked at babies born between 2013 and 2018, survival among those who were resuscitated at 22 weeks was 30%. That number rose to nearly 56% at 23 weeks. And babies born at that stage who do survive have an increased risk of neurodevelopmental problems, cerebral palsy, mobility problems, hearing impairments, and other disabilities. 

Selecting the right participants will be tricky. Some experts argue that gestational age shouldn’t be the only criteria. One complicating factor is that prognosis varies widely from center to center, and it’s improving as hospitals learn how best to treat these preemies. At the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, for example, survival rates are much higher than average: 64% for babies born at 22 weeks. They’ve even managed to keep a handful of infants born at 21 weeks alive. “These babies are not a hopeless case. They very much can survive. They very much can thrive if you are managing them appropriately,” says Brady Thomas, a neonatologist at Stead. “Are you really going to make that much of a bigger impact by adding in this technology, and what risks might exist to those patients as you’re starting to trial it?”

Prognosis also varies widely from baby to baby depending on a variety of factors. “The girls do better than the boys. The bigger ones do better than the smaller ones,” says Mark Mercurio, a neonatologist and pediatric bioethicist at the Yale School of Medicine. So “how bad does the prognosis with current therapy need to be to justify use of an artificial womb?” That’s a question Mercurio would like to see answered.

What are the risks?

One ever-present concern in the tiniest babies is brain bleeds. “That’s due to a number of factors—a combination of their brain immaturity, and in part associated with the treatment that we provide,” Mychaliska says. Babies in an artificial womb would need to be on a blood thinner to prevent clots from forming where the tubes enter the body. “I believe that places a premature infant at very high risk for brain bleeding,” he says.  

And it’s not just about the baby. To be eligible for EXTEND, infants must be delivered via cesarean section, which puts the pregnant person at higher risk for infection and bleeding. Delivery via a C-section can also have an impact on future pregnancies.  

So if it works, could babies be grown entirely outside the womb?

Not anytime soon. Maybe not ever. In a paper published in 2022, Flake and his colleagues called this scenario “a technically and developmentally naive, yet sensationally speculative, pipe dream.” The problem is twofold. First, fetal development is a carefully choreographed process that relies on chemical communication between the pregnant parent’s body and the fetus. Even if researchers understood all the factors that contribute to fetal development—and they don’t—there’s no guarantee they could recreate those conditions. 

The second issue is size. The artificial womb systems being developed require doctors to insert a small tube into the infant’s umbilical cord to deliver oxygenated blood. The smaller the umbilical cord, the more difficult this becomes.

What are the ethical concerns?

In the near term, there are concerns about how to ensure that researchers are obtaining proper informed consent from parents who may be desperate to save their babies. “This is an issue that comes up with lots of last-chance therapies,” says Vardit Ravitsky, a bioethicist and president of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute. 

If the artificial wombs work, more significant questions will come up. When these devices are used to save infants born too soon, “this is obviously potentially a wonderful technology,” Ravitsky says. But as with any technology, other uses might arise. Imagine that a woman wants to terminate a pregnancy at 21 or 22 weeks and this technology is available. How would that impact a woman’s right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term? “When we say that a woman has the right to terminate, do we mean the right to physically separate from the fetus? Or do we mean the right not to become a biological mother?” Ravitsky asks.

With the technology at an early stage, that situation might seem far-fetched, but it’s worth thinking about the implications now. Elizabeth Chloe Romanis, who studies health-care law and bioethics at Durham University in the UK, argued at the advisory meeting that “an entity undergoing gestation outside the body is a unique human entity,” one that might have different needs and require different protections. 

The advent of an artificial womb raises all kinds of questions, Ravitsky says: “What’s a fetus, what’s a baby, what’s a newborn, what’s birth, what’s viability?” These questions have ethical implications, but also legal ones. “If we don’t start thinking about it, now we’re going to have lots of blind spots,” she says.  

Elon Musk wants more bandwidth between people and machines. Do we need it?

Posted on by Antonio Regalado

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.

Last week, a post by Elon Musk on X (formerly known as Twitter) caught my eye. The entrepreneur claimed that sticking electrodes in people’s heads is going to lead to a huge increase in the rate of data transfer out of, and into, human brains.

The occasion of Musk’s post was the announcement by Neuralink, his brain-computer interface (BCI) company, that it was officially seeking the first volunteer to receive the “N1,” an implant comprising 1,024 electrodes able to listen in on brain neurons.

This volunteer, the company said, will be someone who has ALS or has been paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury. The point of the experiment is to let them “control external devices with their thoughts”—specifically, move a computer cursor, or control a phone app. There’s little doubt they can do it. Such experiments have been going on for decades.  

One difference is that the N1 device has more than twice the number of electrodes as used in previous implant experiments. More electrodes means Neuralink can collect more data from more nerve cells.

That brings us to to Musk’s post, in which he discussed a long-term goal of vastly increasing “bandwidth” between people, or people and machines, by a factor of 1,000 or more. What did he mean, and, I wondered, is this really possible? Are we talking about some kind of fast telepathy where I could tell you about my day in nanoseconds?

Here’s what his X post said:

Musk post that says

After speaking with a few scientists, I can report to you that the idea that a brain implant can speed up communication between, say, you and me, is largely hogwash. However, speeding up the rate at which machines can read from the brain is very real, and it is key to some cutting-edge uses of mind-reading interfaces, like allowing profoundly paralyzed people to “speak” via a computer.

“Bandwidth” in this case simply refers to a rate of data transfer. Scientists have estimated that humans share information at a speed of around 40 bits per second, no matter what language they use. That’s pretty slow. (A computer download is a million times faster). And there are reasons why it might never speed up. Ever have two people talk to you at the same time? Your ears let the information in, but your brain can’t process it. The speed of thinking itself sets a limit on your bandwidth.

“The idea that we’re going to hook up two people with bits of wire and do better than what you and I can do right now, speaking, is folly,” says Lee Miller, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who works with brain interfaces. “If that’s the plan, I’m not investing.”

Yet scientists concede there are situations in which faster data transfer could allow a fundamental change in how we express ourselves. Say you’ve been mugged and you want to describe the face of your assailant to a sketch artist. Even though you can picture it clearly, it’s going to take a while for you to communicate those details at your spoken-word rate of 40 bits per second.

Yet, in theory, mental images could be communicated directly between minds. Researchers pointed me to the case of Krista and Tatiana Hogan, twins conjoined at the head who share part of their brains. It’s claimed they can see through one another’s eyes, in effect sharing information coming off the retina into the optic nerve at 10 million bits a second.

In fact, Neuralink has started investigating whether its implant electrodes can stimulate the visual cortex of monkeys. Vision produced in this way is extremely crude—essentially, just a few spots of light—but it could get better with more and more electrodes. One day, it might be possible to transmit a picture between two brains over a cable. 

“Elon thinks a lot about mental imagery, and I believe he’s imagining a future where the image that I’m thinking of could be presented to you, or stimulated directly in your cortex,” says Vikash Gilja, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

So that’s where more bandwidth could make a difference—not in speeding up speech, but in unexpected forms of thought transfer. It’s also possible, for example, to detect emotional states, like whether a person is depressed, by measuring the brain. Those feelings are not only hard to describe, but you might not even be aware of them.

“I think that there are going to be profoundly interesting things that BCI can read out that people can’t, let’s say, communicate volitionally very easily right now,” says Matt Angle, CEO of Paradromics, a Texas company which has developed its own implant system with around 1,600 electrodes. “Electrodes reading from different brain areas could give access to information that’s not … consciously accessible.”

But let’s return to Earth and the near-term applications of brain-computer interfaces. Do they need more bandwidth? The main use of these devices is to let a paralyzed person operate a computer by moving a cursor with their thoughts. For that, more bandwidth isn’t really required. Scientists can do that by listening in on a few neurons, and adding more will typically bring diminishing returns.

Where collecting more information will be helpful—and where implants with more electrodes will help—is to unlock more natural communication. We saw some of those this year, including when two paralyzed people were able to speak through a computer, using their thoughts.

This works because when the subjects imagine saying words, the electrodes measure their motor neurons, whose firing rate contains information about how they are trying to move their tongue and larynx. From these data it is now possible to determine what words people are thinking of saying with surprising accuracy. Researchers believe that with more electrodes listening to more neurons, and more bandwidth, they’ll get even better at it.

“We don’t need more electrodes for cursor control, but for speech, we are in a regime where data rate matters a lot,” says Angle. “It’s very clear we need to increase the channel count to make those systems viable. With a thousand electrodes, it will be as good as a cell phone transcribing your speech. So in this situation, yes, you’re increasing the information rate by 10 or a hundred times.”

Bottom line: When it comes to enhancing communication between nondisabled people my sources were skeptical that more bandwidth matters. The brain’s going to get in the way. But when it comes to restoring function, it does matter. It takes a lot of neurons—and a lot of data—to get a patient back to communicating at that basic 40 bits a second.

​​Read more from Tech Review’s archive

In 2021, I profiled Dennis DeGray, a paralyzed man who, at that time, was the world record holder for direct brain-to-computer communication. He could type via his thoughts  at 18 words a minute “It’s almost a conversation between the device and myself,” DeGray told me. “It’s a very personal interaction.”

But speed records keep falling. This August, researchers demonstrated that two people who’d lost the ability to speak–one due to a stroke, another because of ALS–were able to quickly utter words through a computer connected to implants placed in their brains. Read the report by Cassandra Willyard here. 

A few years back, Adam Piore recounted the bizarre tale of Phil Kennedy, a pioneering brain-implant researcher who took the extreme step of getting an implant installed in his own brain. 

From around the web

A second person has received a heart from a gene-modified pig. Lawrence Faucette, a Navy vet with heart failure, underwent transplant surgery on September 20 in Maryland. The previous subject lived two months after the surgery. (Associated Press)

Scientific sleuths are getting better at uncovering rotten research. (WSJ)

Those new generation weight-loss drugs were prescribed to 1.7% of Americans in 2023. And you can expect the market for semaglutide to expand fast. That’s because more than 40% of Americans are obese. (CNN)

The Download: fusion power’s future, and robotic running

Posted on by Rhiannon Williams

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.

Why the dream of fusion power isn’t going away

There’s a joke about fusion power that always comes up when people start talking about the technology. It goes like this: Fusion is the energy of the future … and it always will be.

Fusion reactors could someday deliver cheap, abundant power with no carbon emissions. But the promise of “someday” has been around for a long time without payoff. Fusion has generated so much excitement but also so much skepticism. It’s the ultimate long shot in energy technology. 

But despite the massive technical challenges, the promise of fusion’s round-the-clock power with no carbon emissions means that experts say we mustn’t give up on it. Read the full story.

Psst: our climate reporter Casey Crownhart will be discussing the future of long-shot climate technologies like fusion during our second annual ClimateTech conference, taking place at MIT on October 4 and 5. Nab your ticket now!

This story first appeared in The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

This robotic exoskeleton can help runners sprint faster

What’s happened: A wearable exoskeleton can help runners increase their speed by encouraging them to take more steps, allowing them to cover short distances more quickly, a new study has found.

How it works: The researchers built a lightweight exosuit with steel cables powered by electrical motors attached to the runner’s thighs. The motors pull the cables, mimicking the contraction of muscles. The exosuit helps people run faster by assisting their hip extension—the powerful motion that propels a runner forward.

Big ambitions: Buoyed by their findings, the researchers want to see if their exosuit can help a runner to beat the men’s world record for running 100 meters. They’re working on a customized exosuit for Kyung-soo Oh, a former national elite runner in South Korea who had retired, in a bid to break Usain Bolt’s record of 9.58 seconds. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

MIT Technology Review flash sale!

It’s the final day of our flash sale, allowing you to subscribe to MIT Technology Review from just $8 a month for digital-only access, or $99 a year for both digital access and to receive our print issues in the post.

Even better, you’ll receive a free copy of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2023 issue as well. Sign up today and save 17% off the full price.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Meta has released a slew of AI chatbots with famous personas
Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg-inspired AI chatbots are coming to its apps. (The Verge)
+ Its new conversational chatbot Meta AI is its answer to ChatGPT. (WP $)
+ Meta is confident that private data hasn’t been used to train the model. (Reuters)
+ Chinese AI chatbots want to be your emotional support. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The Hollywood writers’ strike is over
After they managed to secure protections against AI writing scripts. (TechCrunch)
+ Studios can still present writers with AI-generated material, though. (Motherboard)
+ There’s no contracted agreement with the major AI firms in place, either. (Wired $)

3 OpenAI is secretly working on a consumer device 
In conjunction with tech design supremo Jony Ive, no less. (FT $)
+ Hardware for the AI age is an interesting proposition. (The Information $)
+ The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Google is increasingly handing over location data to the police
And innocent people’s information is often caught up in the process. (Bloomberg $)

5 X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino says it will make a profit next year
Despite Elon Musk’s recent announcement about a major drop in advertising revenue. (WSJ $)
+ Yaccarino says 90% of its top advertisers have returned. (Bloomberg $)

6 We’re living in the age of the austerity influencer
Money-saving experts hold a huge sway over their budget-conscious audience. (The Guardian)

7 We don’t build cities anymore
But trying to fix the ones we already have isn’t simple, either. (The Atlantic $)
+ The smart city is a perpetually unrealized utopia. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Wikiracing is seriously wholesome
The art of racing between Wikipedia articles in as few clicks as possible is harder than it sounds. (Slate $)

9 Online creators are having an identity crisis
They’ve outgrown their personal brands, but their fans won’t let them change. (Bustle)

10 Scientists are releasing armies of crabs in Florida 🦀
They’re essential to helping save its vulnerable reefs from the ravages of climate change. (Vox)
+ The desperate race to cool the ocean before it’s too late. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I think it’ll be more fun to fight someone who actually fights.” 

—Mark Zuckerberg sets his sights on a match with a more worthy opponent, after his brawl with rival Elon Musk never came to fruition, he tells the Verge. 

The big story

Uber’s facial recognition is locking Indian drivers out of their accounts

December 2022

One evening in February 2021, Uber driver Niradi Srikanth was getting ready to start his shift ferrying passengers around the Indian city of Hyderabad. He pointed the phone at his face to take a selfie to verify his identity. The process usually worked seamlessly. But this time he was unable to log in.

Srikanth suspected it was because he had recently shaved his head. After further attempts to log in were rejected, Uber informed him that his account had been blocked. He is not alone. 

In a survey conducted by MIT Technology Review of 150 Uber drivers in the country, almost half had been either temporarily or permanently locked out of their accounts because of problems with their selfie. It’s a glitch that can have devastating consequences for affected workers. Read the full story.

—Varsha Bansal

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Acting legend Brian Cox has no time for AI.
+ How Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour captured a sociopolitical moment in time.
+ The ‘90s is well and truly back, and it’s coming for the next generation. ($)
+ It’s time to jam on tiny toy pianos.
+ If you’ve been planning a trip to somewhere as far-flung as possible, these locations are well worth a look.

Why the dream of fusion power isn’t going away

Posted on by Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

There’s a joke about fusion power that always comes up when people start talking about the technology. It goes like this: Fusion is the energy of the future … and it always will be.

Fusion reactors could someday deliver cheap, abundant power with no carbon emissions using abundant fuel. But the promise of “someday” has been around for a long time without payoff. I’m fascinated by the way fusion has generated so much excitement and also so much skepticism. It’s the ultimate long shot in energy technology. 

At our ClimateTech event next week, I’ll be chatting with Daniel Brunner, co-founder and chief technology officer of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. So for the newsletter this week, let’s consider the role of long-shot technologies like fusion that could change everything for climate change. 

Promise and perils

Fusion is sometimes referred to as a “moonshot” technology: a lofty goal that would be transformative, but is technically really tough to pull off. 

The original moonshot that popularized the term was literally about the moon—US President John F. Kennedy announced in 1962 a goal of getting to the moon by the end of the decade. (It says something about how long we’ve been waiting for fusion that research on the technology actually predates this first moonshot.)

A fusion reactor slams atoms into each other, causing them to fuse and release vast amounts of energy. The process uses cheap, abundant fuel. That could mean around-the-clock power that doesn’t generate any carbon emissions: a dream combination for addressing climate change. 

But getting this fusion to happen in a controlled way requires multiple feats of science and engineering. Temperatures inside the reactor need to top 100 million °C (180 million °F), and companies have to rely on lasers, super-powerful magnets, or equally high-tech contraptions to hold the fuel in place.

Because of all that complicated engineering, some modelers predict that fusion might not actually turn out to be all that cheap, falling somewhere around or just above the cost of renewables. (Read more in this story from Wired earlier this year.) I see the argument here, but also, forecasters have underestimated the potential of solar panels for over a decade, so I’m not sure I’m ready yet to make a solid argument one way or another about fusion’s eventual cost. 

Regardless, this is a potentially transformative technology. The question is when fusion will be ready for prime time, and if that will be soon enough to do anything about climate change. 

Path and progress

When it comes to future prospects for fusion, I’m watching with interest, excitement, and a healthy serving of skepticism. It’s important to go after long-shot technologies, even if the odds are stacked against any single company or approach working out. 

This feels like an especially positive moment for fusion, because as you might remember, the technology had a huge scientific moment a little less than a year ago. For the first time, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were able to generate more energy from a fusion reaction than what was delivered into the fuel.

With those reactions, fusion reached what’s sometimes called scientific breakeven—a huge milestone by any definition. But, of course, there were caveats. 

The lasers in this reactor are some of the most powerful in the world, but they’re also pretty inefficient. In the end, more power was pulled from the grid than what the fusion reactions produced. And most experts agree that this version of fusion isn’t super practical for power plants, at least in the near term. 

While this was a milestone, it was more symbolic than practical. And it’s notable that in the meantime, the world’s largest and most famous fusion project is languishing—the massive international collaboration ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) has been plagued with delays and exploding costs. 

But amid slow progress from national and international research efforts, the private sector has shown a lot of interest in fusion power. Cumulative investment reached $6.2 billion earlier this year. Investors are still putting money into the technology, with many citing the need for innovative climate technologies and recent progress in the private sector.

While no private fusion company has achieved net energy (or at least, hasn’t announced it), there have been some milestones to mark. Commonwealth Fusion Systems has broken records for magnetic field strength with its new superconductor materials, a technology that could be the key to making fusion work economically at scale. Other startups, like TAE Technologies, have celebrated temperatures of 75 million °C, or even hotter, another key stepping stone to reaching viable fusion reactors. 

I think it’s exciting to see more startups jumping in on fusion energy. There’s a sense of urgency from these companies, because they need to make progress and continue raising money or risk going out of business. 

Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans to flip on its reactor and generate net energy around 2025, and have a plant running in the early 2030s. Helion Energy (which at one point planned to be operational by 2020) is now planning for its plant to come online as early as 2028. The company already has a power purchase agreement in place with Microsoft. 

But experts are skeptical, as my colleague James Temple outlined in his story about Helion’s announced timeline earlier this year.

Potential and prospects

I wouldn’t necessarily bet the planet on fusion, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening.

We have technologies on the table to address climate change right now. For the next decade or so, deploying wind and solar power, electric vehicles, and other available tech will be what helps us reach our emissions goals. 

There’s often a concern that funding fusion will pull money away from the technologies that have a higher chance of having an impact in the near term. But investments aren’t necessarily a zero-sum game. The pot also feels bigger now, with the Inflation Reduction Act in the US putting a half-trillion dollars toward climate technology over the next decade.

It’s possible to acknowledge that existing tech is going to have the biggest impact in the near term while also believing that new technologies, like next-generation batteries, hydrogen-powered heavy industry, and even fusion, could potentially play a massive role in a future version of our world. Having more options on the table come 2030 or even 2040 definitely couldn’t hurt—and while I’m not sure yet which ones those might be, I’m keeping my eyes out. 

If you’re interested to hear more about high-risk, high-reward technologies, be sure to join us at ClimateTech next week—there’s still time to register! In our final session, I’ll be speaking with experts on fusion, large-scale carbon removal, and electric aviation, technologies that could really change everything. Hope to see you there!

Related Reading

Here’s what the first fusion reactor reaching breakeven really means for clean energy.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems thinks its reactor could be the first commercial success for fusion power. My colleague James Temple wrote about the company’s progress when it mostly still looked like a hole in the ground.

Helion claims its first commercial reactor is just five years from startup, but experts have doubts this moonshot will land so soon.

MIT Technology Review has been bringing you the news on fusion for over half a century. Check out a few excerpts on fusion from the archives.

Another thing

The European Commission could be putting the brakes on China’s electric vehicle exports. China’s newfound status as a major auto exporter has raised red flags in Europe, where about 6% of the continent is employed in the domestic auto industry. 

Read more about the fascinating geopolitics of EVs in the latest story from my colleague Zeyi Yang. And if you want to hear more about how China came to dominate the world of EVs, check out his story from February.

Keeping up with climate  

Lego has axed plans to make its iconic bricks from recycled bottles. Using the material required extra steps and more energy, so it didn’t help cut carbon emissions, according to the company. (BBC)

Firefighters have a new tool in the fight against wildfires: AI. The technology can help spot blazes sooner, which could be crucial as climate change makes fires more frequent in some parts of the world. (Bloomberg)

I loved this deep dive about sweat and how climate change is pushing the limits of the human body. (Grist) 

Long duration energy-storage projects just got a big boost, to the tune of $325 million from the US Department of Energy. This type of technology could be crucial to support renewables on the grid. (Canary Media)

→ Among the winners: Eos and its zinc-based batteries. The company recently received a loan from the DOE for its Pennsylvania factory. (MIT Technology Review)

→ Italian startup Energy Dome also received funding. Learn more about how the company is using compressed carbon dioxide for energy storage in this 2022 story. (MIT Technology Review)

Remember that multibillion-dollar factory Ford was building to produce low-cost EV batteries? It’s on pause. The company cited concerns about being able to competitively operate the plant. Auto workers currently on strike say the move is a veiled threat to cut jobs. (Yahoo)

→ I’ve been following the factory since the company announced plans in February. It could be a big deal for lithium iron phosphate batteries, a low-cost technology. (MIT Technology Review)

There are a lot of potential problems with carbon offsets—businesses and individuals paying for others to reduce emissions on their behalf. This new wide-ranging project from Carbon Brief attempted to round up lots of evidence to this effect. (Carbon Brief) 

Efforts to cut down on emissions from shipping have had an unintended consequence: heating up the planet. The effect is especially clear in the high-traffic Atlantic Ocean. (Science)

Usually we think of hydrogen as a fuel we need to make, using either fossil fuels or renewable electricity. But there could be more hydrogen resources underground than previously thought. (New Scientist)

ClimateTech is almost here

Posted on by Niall Firth

Nations around the globe have begun to put in place the policies, capital and technologies needed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but the world still must move far faster to address the rising dangers of climate change.

MIT Technology Review’s ClimateTech conference will bring together leading scientists, investors, entrepreneurs and officials working to accelerate the transition to a greener economy—and to create a safer, more sustainable world.

ClimateTech runs from October 4-5, 2023. You can buy tickets here.

This robotic exoskeleton can help runners sprint faster

Posted on by Rhiannon Williams

A wearable exoskeleton can help runners increase their speed by encouraging them to take more steps, allowing them to cover short distances more quickly.

While previous studies have focused on how wearable exoskeletons can help people reduce the energy they expend while running, the new study, published today in Science Robotics, examines how wearable robots can assist runners as they sprint.

The exosuit could prove a useful tool for athletes looking to speed up during training. “Although this is a preliminary study, we can say the exosuit can augment the human ability to run,” says Giuk Lee, an associate professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, who led the research.

Lee and his team built a lightweight exosuit with steel cables powered by electrical motors attached to the runner’s thighs. The motors pull the cables, mimicking the contraction of muscles. The exosuit helps people run faster by assisting their hip extension—the powerful motion that propels a runner forward.

The exosuit tracks the wearer’s lower-body movements in real time through sensors on both thighs. This data feeds into an algorithm designed to monitor gait, which works in tandem with other algorithms to track each runner’s individual running style and speed.

The team tested the exosuit on nine young male runners, none of whom were considered to be elite athletes. They were given three-minute training sessions on how the exosuit works before they ran for short bursts on a treadmill to familiarize themselves with how it feels to wear. 

They then sprinted outside in a straight line for 200 meters twice, once wearing the exosuit and once without. They rested for a minimum of 30 minutes between trials.

On average, the participants managed to run the distance 0.97 seconds faster when they were wearing the suit than when they weren’t. 

The researchers observed that the less time it took runners to complete the distance, the more steps they took, suggesting that the exosuit helps shorten the sprint time by increasing the frequency of the runner’s steps.

Buoyed by their findings, the researchers have set themselves ambitious goals. They’re working on a customized exosuit for Kyung-soo Oh, a former national elite runner in South Korea who had retired, in a bid to beat the world record for running 100 meters. The current men’s record is 9.58 seconds, set by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in 2009.

The researchers are also starting to work with a disabled runner to examine whether an assistive exosuit could offer a benefit.

“It’s a great achievement, what they have done,” says Kaspar Althoefer, head of the Center for Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary University of London, who was not involved in the study. He is curious about how the exosuit could help sprinters cover even shorter distances. 

“If they could manage to make a world-record holder run 0.68 seconds faster over 100 meters, I think it would be massive,” he adds. 

However, training wearing such exosuits is unlikely to help athletes to run more quickly in races where they’re not allowed to don assistive technology. Although the suit encourages wearers to move their legs faster, it doesn’t help their muscles grow stronger, Althoefer says, pointing out that over-reliance on exosuits could, in theory, make runners weaker over time.