Field: AI
Albert Einstein said automation caused the Great Depression. It didn’t.
Einstein blamed automation for the widespread unemployment of the Great Depression, but his reasoning was based on a false premise.
Has AI made “learn to code” obsolete?
Freethink talks to the creator of the world's most popular AI coding assistant to find out whether learning to code is still worthwhile.
AI is already in the classroom. It’s time colleges caught up.
Rather than banning AI, schools should adapt by designing assignments that promote responsible use and keep the focus on learning.
Google AI exec: “The mistake would be thinking this is hype.”
Bestselling author and Google Labs' Editorial Director Steven Johnson talks about the future of AI at Freethink's Great Progression event.
Siri co-founder: “No matter how smart AI gets, it’s not going to solve all our problems by itself.”
Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri and VP of AI Experience at Airbnb, talks about the future of AI at Freethink's Great Progression event.
A call to innovators in Silicon Valley and beyond to help chart the new way forward
Peter Leyden sums up the key themes and big ideas of his new series at a Freethink Conversation in San Francisco.
The AGI economy is coming faster than you think
The impact of AGI on the economy will be big, it’ll happen fast, and it’ll be disruptive. Here's how the disruption could play out.
What if you could start civilization over with AI?
Innovators in every industry and field should adopt the same mantra: If you could start fresh with AI, then what would you do?
Three founders look to the future at Freethink’s inaugural Great Progression event
The tech community came together for the launch of the Great Progression event series, curated by Peter Leyden and produced by Freethink.
Why AI today is more toddler than Terminator
In "Raising AI," author De Kai argues that AIs are more like society's children than machines under our control.
How proof-of-human tech could save the internet
Sam Altman’s World Network uses iris-scanning Orbs to give people a way to prove that they are people — and not AIs — online.
The AI social network war has begun
A secret prototype, a hardware deal with Jony Ive, and millions of AI images suggest OpenAI is making a play for your social media feed.
Are large language models dyslexic?
Despite outperforming humans at many tasks, multimodal LLMs struggle to read time on a clock — just like many people with dyslexia.
AI thinks “vegetative electron microscopy” is real — it’s not
The appearance of a nonsense term in multiple scientific papers has exposed how flawed data in training sets can become embedded in AIs.
Jony Ive has found his new Steve Jobs
Jony Ive and Sam Altman join forces as OpenAI acquires io, Ive’s secretive AI hardware startup, for $6.5 billion.
Why Substack will be the intellectual engine of the 21st century
The 21st-century version of the Royal Society could be the Substack network that we are just starting to build out today.
Vibe coding is rewriting the rules of technology
Rather than meticulously crafting each line of code, developers can now “vibe” with AI tools using natural language.
Cheap AI is causing a power shift in the world’s militaries
The militaries that leverage the low-cost capabilities of AI the most will have a decisive advantage in the future.
Media has a blind spot when covering the AI panic
When news outlets quote warnings of an impending AI catastrophe, they rarely mention the two main movements behind this narrative.
How AI could usher in The New Enlightenment
AI could trigger a civilization-scale change for humanity the same way the steam engine helped usher in The Enlightenment 250 years ago.
The missing tech case for how we create an era of abundance
AI and other new technologies could make things that are costly and scarce today, cheap and abundant for all tomorrow.
Why America reinvents itself every 80 years — and is doing so again
Three separate theories help explain why America enters a period of great progress every 80 years — and why another is coming soon.
How DeepSeek rewrote the rules of the AI race
Chinese startup DeepSeek has proven that vast quantities of capital and cutting-edge chips aren't prerequisites for world-class AI.
Kevin Kelly points a new way forward into the Age of AI
One of the most original and optimistic thinkers in America helps build out some big through lines on what's possible with AI in the next 25 years.
The artifact isn’t the art: Rethinking creativity in the age of AI
ChatGPT's Studio Ghibli imitations invite questions about the creative value of people and what we really mean when we talk about creativity.
The next era of psychedelics may be precision-designed states of consciousness
A look inside Mindstate Design Labs' effort to design drugs that reliably produce specific states of consciousness.
How technology has transformed private espionage
Combining AI and a deluge of open data has enabled some intelligence vendors to surpass the capabilities of government agencies.
Will LLMs lead to an artificial general intelligence?
An exclusive excerpt from AI podcaster Dwarkesh Patel's first book, The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI 2019-2025.
A dozen reasons to read Peter Leyden at this critical juncture in history
To truly understand our historic moment, you need a comprehensive, big-picture, long-term perspective that deeply understands artificial intelligence and the next wave of transformative technologies.
What is The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050?
We have a historic opportunity to harness AI and other transformative technologies in order to make a much better world in the next 25 years.
Humanoid helpers are now entering our homes
Robotics startup 1X Technologies is now sending its humanoid robots into homes to help people with chores and provide companionship.
Fire-resilient prefabs are helping LA build back better
Victims of LA's wildfires are opting for tech company Cover's prefab homes over traditional new builds. Here's why.
Arc Institute’s new AI can read and write the code of life
Training on the DNA of nearly 130,000 species taught Evo 2 how to generate DNA sequences the same way other AIs do text or images.
All PCs will be AI PCs “pretty soon,” says Intel exec
Manufacturers are now equipping their PCs with the hardware needed to run the latest AI applications locally. Here's what that means for you.
How AI is reshaping the legal profession
AI-powered tools may already be giving some lawyers the upper hand in court.
Sal Khan wants to give every student on Earth a personal AI tutor
Khan Academy's new AI tutor, Khanmigo, has the potential to revolutionize education for students and teachers alike.
Inside the “Virtual Lab” where AIs and humans collaborate
A “Virtual Lab” populated by AI scientists could overcome one of the biggest challenges in interdisciplinary research.
The startup using “digital twins” to protect homes from wildfires
Stand Insurance is using computer simulations and "digital twins" to help homeowners make their properties fire resilient.
Pantheon creator Craig Silverstein on uploading our brains to the internet
How the cult hit sci-fi show imagines a “techno-realist” future.
How AI is being drafted for a digital cold war
"Technology has always been co-opted for war, but truly intelligent AI, let alone a superintelligence, is a different beast entirely."
Should we turn the electricity grid over to AI?
AI could one day be woven throughout the grid management system — here are the pros and cons.
AI skeptic Gary Marcus on AI’s moral and technical shortcomings
From hallucinations to regulatory battles, Gary Marcus argues the AI status quo has failed us and it's time citizens demand something more.
Flexport is using generative AI to create the “holy grail” of shipping
Flexport is using generative AI to read documents, talk to truckers, and create a "knowledge agent" that's an expert in shipping.
The West needs more water. This Nobel winner may have the answer.
Paul Migrom has an Emmy, a Nobel, and a successful company. There’s one more big problem on the to-do list.
Can we automate science? Sam Rodriques is already doing it.
People need to anticipate the revolution that’s coming in how humans and AI will collaborate to create discoveries, argues Sam Rodrigues.
AI is now designing chips for AI
AI-designed microchips have more power, lower cost, and are changing the tech landscape.
Why futurist Amy Webb sees a “technology supercycle” headed our way
Amy Webb's data suggests we are on the cusp of a new tech revolution that will reshape the world in much the same way the steam engine and internet did in the past.
AI chatbots may ease the world’s loneliness (if they don’t make it worse)
AI chatbots may have certain advantages when roleplaying as our friends. They may also come with downsides that make our loneliness worse.
Will AI supercharge hacking — if it hasn’t already?
The future of hacking is coming at us fast, and it isn’t clear yet whether AI will help attackers and defenders more.
No, LLMs still can’t reason like humans. This simple test reveals why.
Most AI models are incredible at taking tests but easily bamboozled by basic reasoning. “Simple Bench” shows us why.
The future of fertility, from artificial wombs to AI-assisted IVF
A look back at the history of infertility treatments and ahead to the tech that could change everything we thought we knew about reproduction.
“Model collapse” threatens to kill progress on generative AIs
Generative AIs start churning out nonsense when trained on synthetic data — a problem that could put a ceiling on their ability to improve.
The AI chip startup that could take down Nvidia
A new kind of AI chip developed by a team of Harvard dropouts could shift the ground beneath our massive AI economy.
The future of data centers — on land, at sea, and in space
As our digital world grows, demand for data centers is also increasing. To meet that demand sustainably, developers are getting creative.
LLMs are a dead end to AGI, says François Chollet
AI researcher François Chollet thought we needed a better way to measure progress on the path to AGI — so he made one.
Meet Thresh, the world’s first professional gamer
Was Elon Musk any good at Quake? “He’s a legit gamer,” but…
You’re thinking of the metaverse all wrong, says Matthew Ball
Rumors of the metaverse’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Perplexity, Google, and the battle for AI search supremacy
AIs that generate answers to user queries could transform search, but only if someone can get the tech and the business model right.
How AI is rewriting Silicon Valley’s relationship with the Pentagon
Silicon Valley is warming to the Department of Defense as it works to get new AI systems developed and deployed en masse.
Ray Kurzweil explains how AI makes radical life extension possible
Life expectancy gains in developed countries have slowed in recent decades, but AI may be poised to transform medicine as we know it.
Microsoft’s “parallel bets” strategy won the PC Wars. Will it work for AI?
Microsoft made parallel bets to make sure they held their OS lead. They'll do the same for AI — will it work?
Pager panic: When beepers were infiltrating schools
Cities and schools once actually arrested students for carrying this dangerous technology.
Tesla’s new self-driving software throws out its old code entirely
Tesla made a bold move ahead of its robotaxi launch, completely overhauling the code for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software.
How Google’s new AI could revolutionize medicine
Google DeepMind's AlphaFold 3 could be the future of drug discovery — and the journey to its creation started more than a century ago.
Will generative AI change everything for filmmaking?
We asked an experimental filmmaker, an MIT economist, and an AI startup executive how generative AIs could impact the world of filmmaking.
Why ChatGPT feels more “intelligent” than Google Search
There will be a moment, coming soon, when AI makes the leap from tool to entity.
New AI generates CRISPR proteins unlike any seen in nature
An AI that generates CRISPR proteins is opening the door to gene editors with capabilities beyond what we’ve found in nature.
How Brilliant Labs CEO is creating a “symbiosis of humanity and artificial intelligence”
CEO Bobak Tavangar discusses the philosophy behind Brilliant’s latest device, Frame, and his vision for the future of AI.
“Bionic eye” discovers Plato’s final resting place
Plato’s final resting place has been identified thanks to a “bionic eye” built to read the Herculaneum scrolls.
“I’m not interested in reality”: AI artist Refik Anadol on creative coding, hallucinations, and the future of art
By painting with code and bits of data, AI artist Refik Anadol reveals surprisingly deep insights into what it means to create art.
DARPA is testing this autonomous tank with glowing “eyes”
DARPA just tested an autonomous tank that could help keep soldiers safe — and even more self-driving military vehicles are on the horizon.
Why AI celebrities are teaching kids math and physics
Onlock Learning uses the attention-grabbing strategies that make brain-rot content virtually irresistible to package educational content.
Meet the humanoids: 8 robots ready to revolutionize work
Everything you need to know about the humanoids that will soon enter the workforce — or are in it already.
How to build the skills needed for the age of AI
Knowledge-based workers already need to skill-up to coexist with sophisticated artificial intelligence technologies.
See how Moderna is using OpenAI tech across its workforce
A partnership between Moderna and OpenAI provides a real-world example of what can happen when a company leans into generative AI.
Shining a light on oil fields to make them more sustainable
Sensors and analytics give oil well operators real-time alerts when things go wrong, so they can respond before they become disasters.
OpenAI’s GPT-4 outperforms doctors in another new study
OpenAI’s most powerful AI model, GPT-4, outperformed junior doctors in deciding how to treat patients with eye problems.
Watch the first AI vs. human dogfight using military jets
An AI fighter pilot faced off against a human pilot in a “dogfight” using actual planes — a huge milestone in military automation.
AI can help predict whether a patient will respond to specific tuberculosis treatments
Instead of a one-size-fits-all treatment approach, AI could help personalize treatments for each patient to provide the best outcomes.
New AI music generator makes songs from text prompts
AI music generators — AIs that create new music based on users’ text prompts — are lowering the bar for music creation, for better or worse.
Meta’s AI assistant just got a major upgrade — here’s how you can use it
Meta has upgraded its AI assistant, Meta AI, with a new LLM (Llama 3) and made it available in far more places.
Boston Dynamics retires dancing Atlas robot — and debuts its electric replacement
A day after retiring its hydraulic Atlas robot, Boston Dynamics released a video debuting its all-electric, workplace-ready replacement.
Why a neurodivergent team will be a golden asset in the AI workplace
Since AI is chained to linear reasoning, workplaces that embrace it will do well to have neurodivergent colleagues who reason more creatively.
When an antibiotic fails: MIT scientists are using AI to target “sleeper” bacteria
Most antibiotics target metabolically active bacteria, but AI can help efficiently screen compounds that are lethal to dormant microbes.
OpenAI and Microsoft are reportedly planning a $100B supercomputer
Microsoft is reportedly planning to build a $100 billion data center and supercomputer, called "Stargate," for OpenAI.
Elon Musk: Tesla will unveil a “robotaxi” on 8/8
While denying reports that Tesla won't be making a low-cost EV, CEO Elon Musk announced plans to unveil a “robotaxi” on August 8, 2024.
Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?
“Making stuff up” and “being creative” may be two sides of the same coin — but you have to be able to tell the difference.
When AI prompts result in copyright violations, who has to pay?
Who is responsible for copyright violations when they're produced by generative AI? The technology is outpacing the law.
Google’s Deep Mind AI can help engineers predict “catastrophic failure”
How vulnerable is the electrical grid to a malicious attacker who destroys select substations? Google's Deep Mind can help predict the answer.
Does AI need a “body” to become truly intelligent? Meta researchers think so.
We’re finally starting to see what can happen when we put an advanced AI “brain” in a state-of-the-art robot “body” — and it’s remarkable.
AI “tastes” beer — then tells brewers how to make it better
An AI that can predict how to improve the taste of a beer could help brewers develop the next beloved brew.
Bipedal robot takes a beating, keeps on hiking
LimX Dynamics’s bipedal robot, P1, can keep its footing, even when traversing rough terrain unlike any it’s seen before.
Would you trust big work-life decisions to an AI coach?
The fast-growing coaching industry is being disrupted by generative AI, which excels at “performance coaching.”
Generative AI tech is dreaming up new antibodies
A new tool for designing antibodies relies on the same kind of tech underpinning DALL-E and other image-generating AIs.
AI-powered wearable “speaks” for people with vocal cord problems
Bioengineers at UCLA are developing an AI-powered wearable that could make it easier for people with vocal cord problems to talk.
Humanoid robots are joining the Mercedes-Benz workforce
German automaker Mercedes-Benz is deploying Apptronik’s Apollo robots at a manufacturing plant in Hungary.
Autonomous auto racing promises safer driverless cars on the road
Autonomous racing is a testbed where competition spurs innovation and AI-controlled cars chart a course toward safer autonomous vehicles.
Google’s AI can create a video game based on a napkin drawing
Named Genie, the AI can create a short video games from a single image. It could one day create a wide range of interactive environments.
The brief history of artificial intelligence: The world has changed fast – what might be next?
Despite their brief history, computers and AI have fundamentally changed what we see, what we know, and what we do.
Startup unveils “world’s first” complete AI software engineer
Cognition Labs has unveiled Devin, an AI software engineer that can build websites from scratch, debug code, and more.