Their startup journey is a wild example of how if you build it well and the timing is lucky, they will definitely come.
Read more The flood of AI-generated sexual imagery has spurred concern from state and congressional officials alike.
Read more The $400 million round was led by Dragoneer.
Read more Think TikTok, but every single video you come across is a short episode of a fictional story.
Read more Elon Musk’s AI company had installed and operated 35 natural gas turbines without permits, something the EPA now says was illegal.
Read more 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 coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced.
Depending who you ask, AI-powered coding is either giving software developers an unprecedented productivity boost or churning out masses of poorly designed code that saps their attention and sets software projects up for serious long term-maintenance problems.
The problem is right now, it’s not easy to know which is true.
As tech giants pour billions into large language models (LLMs), coding has been touted as the technology’s killer app. Executives enamored with the potential are pushing engineers to lean into an AI-powered future. But after speaking to more than 30 developers, technology executives, analysts, and researchers, MIT Technology Review found that the picture is not as straightforward as it might seem. Read the full story.
—Edd Gent
Generative coding is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Learn more about why that is, and check out the rest of the list!
This story was also part of our Hype Correction package. You can read the rest of the stories here.
The biotech trends to watch for in 2026
Earlier this week, MIT Technology Review published our annual list of Ten Breakthrough Technologies.
This year’s list includes tech that’s set to transform the energy industry, artificial intelligence, space travel—and of course biotech and health. Our breakthrough biotechnologies for 2026 involve editing a baby’s genes and, separately, resurrecting genes from ancient species. We also included a controversial technology that offers parents the chance to screen their embryos for characteristics like height and intelligence. Here’s the story behind our biotech choices.
—Jessica Hamzelou
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter all about the latest in health and biotech. Sign upto receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
MIT Technology Review Narrated: What’s next for AI in 2026
Our AI writers have made some big bets for the coming year—read our story about the five hot trends to watch, or listen to it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Minnesota shows how governing and content creation have merged
In another era, we’d have just called this propaganda. (NPR)
+ MAGA influencers are just straight up lying about what is happening there. (Vox)
+ Activists are trying to identify individual ICE officers while protecting their own identities. (WP $)
+ A backlash against ICE is growing in Silicon Valley. (Wired $)
2 There’s probably more child abuse material online now than ever before
Of all Big Tech’s failures, this is surely the most appalling. (The Atlantic $)
+ US investigators are using AI to detect child abuse images made by AI. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Grok is still being used to undress images of real people. (Quartz)
3 ChatGPT wrote a suicide lullaby for a man who later killed himself
This shows it’s “still an unsafe product,” a lawyer representing a family in a tragically similar case said. (Ars Technica)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Videos emerging from Iran show how bloody the crackdown has become
Iranians are finding ways around the internet blackout to show the rest of the world how many of them have been killed. (NBC)
+ Here’s how they’re getting around the blackout. (NPR)
5 China dominates the global humanoid robot market 
A new report by analysts found its companies account for over 80% of all deployments. (South China Morning Post)
+ Just how useful are the latest humanoids, though? (Nature)
+ Why humanoid robots need their own safety rules. (MIT Technology Review)
6 How is Australia’s social media ban for kids going?
It’s mixed—some teens welcome it, but others are finding workarounds. (CNBC)
7 Scientists are finding more objective ways to spot mental illness
Biomarkers like voice cadence and heart rate proving pretty reliable for diagnosing conditions like depression. (New Scientist $)
8 The Pebble smartwatch be making a comeback
This could be the thing that tempts me back into buying wearables… (Gizmodo)
9 A new video game traps you in an online scam center
Can’t see the appeal myself, but… each to their own I guess? (NYT $)
10 Smoke detectors are poised to get a high-tech upgrade
And one of the technologies boosting their capabilities is, of course, AI. (BBC)
Quote of the day
“I am very annoyed. I’m very disappointed. I’m seriously frustrated.”
—Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla tells attendees at a healthcare conference this week his feelings about the anti-vaccine agenda Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been implementing, Bloomberg reports.
One more thing
ARIEL DAVIS
How close are we to genuine “mind reading?”
Technically speaking, neuroscientists have been able to read your mind for decades. It’s not easy, mind you. First, you must lie motionless within a fMRI scanner, perhaps for hours, while you watch films or listen to audiobooks.
If you do elect to endure claustrophobic hours in the scanner, the software will learn to generate a bespoke reconstruction of what you were seeing or listening to, just by analyzing how blood moves through your brain.
More recently, researchers have deployed generative AI tools, like Stable Diffusion and GPT, to create far more realistic, if not entirely accurate, reconstructions of films and podcasts based on neural activity. So how close are we to genuine “mind reading?” Read the full story.
—Grace Huckins
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ Still keen to do a bit of reflecting on the year behind and the one ahead? This free guide might help!
+ Turns out British comedian Rik Mayall had some pretty solid life advice.
+ I want to stay in this house in São Paolo.
+ If you want to stop doomscrolling, it’s worth looking at your sleep habits. ($)
Earlier this week, MIT Technology Review published its annual list of Ten Breakthrough Technologies. As always, it features technologies that made the news last year, and which—for better or worse—stand to make waves in the coming years. They’re the technologies you should really be paying attention to.
This year’s list includes tech that’s set to transform the energy industry, artificial intelligence, space travel—and of course biotech and health. Our breakthrough biotechnologies for 2026 involve editing a baby’s genes and, separately, resurrecting genes from ancient species. We also included a controversial technology that offers parents the chance to screen their embryos for characteristics like height and intelligence. Here’s the story behind our biotech choices.
A base-edited baby!
In August 2024, KJ Muldoon was born with a rare genetic disorder that allowed toxic ammonia to build up in his blood. The disease can be fatal, and KJ was at risk of developing neurological disorders. At the time, his best bet for survival involved waiting for a liver transplant.
Then he was offered an experimental gene therapy—a personalized “base editing” treatment designed to correct the specific genetic “misspellings” responsible for his disease. It seems to have worked! Three doses later, KJ is doing well. He took his first steps in December, shortly before spending his first Christmas at home.
KJ’s story is hugely encouraging. The team behind his treatment is planning a clinical trial for infants with similar disorders caused by different genetic mutations. The team members hope to win regulatory approval on the back of a small trial—a move that could make the expensive treatment (KJ’s cost around $1 million) more accessible, potentially within a few years.
Others are getting in on the action, too. Fyodor Urnov, a gene-editing scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, assisted the team that developed KJ’s treatment. He recently cofounded Aurora Therapeutics, a startup that hopes to develop gene-editing drugs for another disorder called phenylketonuria (PKU). The goal is to obtain regulatory approval for a single drug that can then be adjusted or personalized for individuals without having to go through more clinical trials.
US regulators seem to be amenable to the idea and have described a potential approval pathway for such “bespoke, personalized therapies.” Watch this space.
Gene resurrection
It was a big year for Colossal Biosciences, the biotech company hoping to “de-extinct” animals like the woolly mammoth and the dodo. In March, the company created what it called “woolly mice”—rodents with furry coats and curly whiskers akin to those of woolly mammoths.
The company made an even more dramatic claim the following month, when it announced it had created three dire wolves. These striking snow-white animals were created by making 20 genetic changes to the DNA of gray wolves based on genetic research on ancient dire wolf bones, the company said at the time.
Whether these animals can really be called dire wolves is debatable, to say the least. But the technology behind their creation is undeniably fascinating. We’re talking about the extraction and analysis of ancient DNA, which can then be introduced into cells from other, modern-day species.
Analysis of ancient DNA can reveal all sorts of fascinating insights into human ancestors and other animals. And cloning, another genetic tool used here, has applications not only in attempts to re-create dead pets but also in wildlife conservation efforts. Read more here.
Embryo scoring
IVF involves creating embryos in a lab and, typically, “scoring” them on their likelihood of successful growth before they are transferred to a person’s uterus. So far, so uncontroversial.
Recently, embryo scoring has evolved. Labs can pinch off a couple of cells from an embryo, look at its DNA, and screen for some genetic diseases. That list of diseases is increasing. And now some companies are taking things even further, offering prospective parents the opportunity to select embryos for features like height, eye color, and even IQ.
This is controversial for lots of reasons. For a start, there are many, many factors that contribute to complex traits like IQ (a score that doesn’t capture all aspects of intelligence at any rate). We don’t have a perfect understanding of those factors, or how selecting for one trait might influence another.
Some critics warn of eugenics. And others note that whichever embryo you end up choosing, you can’t control exactly how your baby will turn out (and why should you?!). Still, that hasn’t stopped Nucleus, one of the companies offering these services, from inviting potential customers to have their “best baby.” Read more here.
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.
California’s finance watchdog claims Nexo made nearly 5,500 loans to Californians without a valid license and did not properly assess their ability to repay.
Bitcoin has become an “element of resistance” in Iran, providing liquidity in an increasingly restricted economic environment, says Chainalysis.
The Kaito.ai and Cookie DAO tokens fell over 15% after X’s ban, a move X’s head of product Nikita Bier said should improve user experience on the social media platform.