The Download: AI tracking birds, and a pig kidney transplant
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.
AI is changing how we study bird migration
In a warming world, migratory birds face many existential threats. Scientists rely on a combination of methods to track the timing and location of their migrations, but each has shortcomings. And there’s another problem: Most birds migrate at night, when it’s more difficult to identify them visually and while most birders are in bed.
For over a century, acoustic monitoring has hovered tantalizingly out of reach as a method that would solve ornithologists’ woes. Now, finally, machine-learning tools are unlocking a treasure trove of acoustic data for ecologists. Read the full story.
—Christian Elliot
This story is from the forthcoming magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 6—it’s all about the exciting breakthroughs happening in the world right now. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive a copy.
A woman in the US is the third person to receive a gene-edited pig kidney
Towana Looney, a 53-year-old woman from Alabama, has become the third living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig.
Looney, who donated one of her kidneys to her mother back in 1999, developed kidney failure several years later following a pregnancy complication that caused high blood pressure. She started dialysis treatment in December of 2016 and was put on a waiting list for a kidney transplant soon after.
But it was difficult to find a match. So Looney’s doctors recommended the experimental pig organ as an alternative. After eight years on the waiting list, Looney was authorized to receive the kidney. Read the full story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
Roundtables: The Worst Technology Failures of 2024
Each year, MIT Technology Review publishes a list of the worst technologies of the past 12 months.
Antonio Regalado, our senior editor for biomedicine, sat down to discuss 2024’s worst failures with our executive editor Niall Firth in a subscriber-exclusive online Roundtable event yesterday. Watch their conversation about what made the cut here, and to make sure you don’t miss out in the future, subscribe!
MIT Technology Review Narrated: Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense
Despite it being over 100 years old, radio technology is still critical in almost all aspects of modern warfare—including in the drones that have come to dominate the Russia-Ukraine war.
Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, who has been obsessed with radios since childhood, has become an unlikely hero of the conflict, sharing advice and intel. His work may determine the future of Ukraine, and wars far beyond it.
This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which
we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Conspiracy theories are still circulating about those mysterious drones
What are they? And where have they come from? (NY Mag $)
+ Authorities are attempting to quell public hysteria, but theories abound. (WP $)
+ Realistically, they’re probably just standard drones out for a night-time flight. (AP News)
2 AI poses a major threat to the power grid
That’s according to the US industry watchdog, which is feeling the pressure. (FT $)
+ AI’s emissions are about to skyrocket even further. (MIT Technology Review)
3 SpaceX and Elon Musk are under investigation
US federal agencies are probing their repeated failures to comply with reporting rules. (NYT $)
4 Nvidia has unveiled a tiny, affordable AI supercomputer
Which is handy for roboticists looking to bypass connecting to remote data centers. (Gizmodo)
+ While it’s not the company’s most powerful device, it’s pretty speedy. (WSJ $)
+ Microsoft is gobbling up more of Nvidia’s chips than anyone else. (FT $)
+ Blacklisted Chinese AI chip firms gained access to cutting-edge UK tech. (The Guardian)
5 Bitcoin’s value is rocketing even higher
The industry continues to boom in the wake of Trump’s election victory. (Bloomberg $)
+ So much so, luxury brands are weighing up accepting crypto payments. (Reuters)
6 Hepatitis B is an extremely treatable disease
So why are so many people still dying from it? (New Yorker $)
+ We’re starting to understand the mysterious surge of hepatitis in children. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Earth—briefly—had an extra second moon
And scientists believe it originated from the actual moon we know and love. (New Scientist $)
8 The future of deep-sea mining
A set of rules governing how we should do it is highly contentious—and up for debate.(Hakai Magazine)
+ These deep-sea “potatoes” could be the future of mining for renewable energy. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Resist the temptation to outsource your Christmas shopping to a bot
You never know what you’ll end up with. (Insider $)
+ It’s probably quicker to browse the web yourself. (WP $)
10 Our snacks could soon be designed by AI 
Confectionary giant Mondelez is using the tech to tweak recipes and test new ones. (WSJ $)
+ Forget cookies—this creamy vegan cheese was made with AI. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“It takes a lot for an uber-wealthy, creative-type CEO, many of whom lean left, to suck it up and deal with Trump. But what choice do they have?”
—A Washington lobbyist explains to the Financial Times why the steady stream of tech executives paying their respects to US President-elect Donald Trump shows no sign of slowing.
The big story
What does GPT-3 “know” about me?
August 2022
One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it.
These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.
Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found.
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ 2024 was a seriously weird year, as evidenced by this completely bonkers list.
+ Who knew Seal was such a grunge head?
+ These Charli xcx Christmas mashups will haunt my dreams forever, and not in a good way.
+ Next summer I feel the need to level up my sandcastle game.
