The Download: beyond freezing food, and AI mediation

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.

How refrigeration ruined fresh food

Three-quarters of everything in the average American diet passes through the cold chain—the network of warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, display cases, and domestic fridges that keep meat, milk, and more chilled on the journey from farm to fork.

As consumers, we put a lot of faith in terms like “fresh” and “natural,” but artificial refrigeration has created a blind spot. We’ve gotten so good at preserving (and storing) food, that we know more about how to lengthen an apple’s life span than a human’s, and most of us don’t give that extraordinary process much thought at all. 

We have used refrigeration to solve problems but haven’t done a true accounting of the environmental, nutritional, and even sociocultural costs, author Nicola Twilley argues in her new book Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. And all that convenience has come at the expense of diversity and deliciousness. Read the full story.

—Allison Arieff

This story is from the next print issue of MIT Technology Review, which comes out tomorrow and delves into the weird and wonderful world of food. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive a copy once it lands.

Would you trust AI to mediate an argument?

—Melissa Heikkilä

I’ve recently been feeling heartbroken. A close friend recently cut off contact with me. I don’t really understand why, and my attempts at fixing the situation have backfired. Situations like this are hurtful and confusing. So it’s no wonder that people are increasingly turning to AI chatbots to help solve them. And there’s good news: AI might actually be able to help.

Researchers from Google DeepMind recently trained a system of large language models to help people come to agreement over social or political issues. The AI model was trained to identify and present areas where people’s ideas overlapped. With the help of this AI mediator, small groups of study participants became less divided in their positions on various issues.

One of the best uses for AI chatbots is for brainstorming, but this latest research suggests they could help us to see things from other people’s perspectives too. So why not use AI to patch things up with my friend? Read the full story.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

What questions do you want to know about climate technology?

Do you have any burning questions about climate tech that you’ve always wanted to know? Well, we’ve got answers. MIT Technology Review’s climate team is hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit today at 1pm ET. Get your questions in now!

The must-reads

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

1 Rupert Murdoch’s news outlets are suing AI search engine Perplexity
They accuse it of “freeriding” on their content. (The Register)
+ They’re arguing that hallucinating news and attributing it to real papers is illegal. (Wired $)
+ Conveniently, Murdoch’s News Corp agreed a major deal with OpenAI earlier this year. (CNN)

2 Kamala Harris is facing an onslaught of online attacks 
As the US Presidential election approaches, she’s the target of a fresh wave of abuse and false claims. (WP $)
+ Women’s health startups are nervous about the potential of Trump’s reelection. (Insider $)

3 ByteDance accused an intern of sabotaging its AI models
By planting malicious code to interfere with training tasks. (Ars Technica)
+ Rumors about the sacking had been circulating across Chinese social media. (The Guardian)

4 The Pentagon is looking to recruit top tech minds
But can it persuade them to swap Silicon Valley for the Defense Department? (WSJ $)
+ Defense contractors are fixated on drone-destroying laser weapons. (FT $)

5 The rise and fall of a Kentucky bitcoin mine
The project was supposed to usher in prosperity, but it never even got off the ground. (Wired $)
+ How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Arkansas might be sitting on tons of lithium
It’s surely only a countdown until the exploratory mining starts now. (NYT $)
+ Residents in Hungary are fighting government plans for battery plants. (Rest of World)

7 India is keen to be part of the EV revolution
The problem is, it hasn’t got enough of the vehicles. (Rest of World)
+ Chinese-made EVs are flooding into the EU. (Bloomberg $)
+ Some countries are ending support for EVs. Is it too soon? (MIT Technology Review)

8 Estonia’s government is revisiting its defunct reactors
To investigate their potential as nuclear waste storage sites. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Why Microsoft made a deal to help restart Three Mile Island. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Don’t clear out your phone’s photo library
Photographing scenes of everyday life are actually pretty special after all. (New Yorker $)
+ The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age. (MIT Technology Review)

10 All hail comic sans
The much-derived font is having the last laugh. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“Perplexity proudly states that users can ‘skip the links’— apparently, Perplexity wants to skip the check.”

—Robert Thomson, CEO of publisher News Corp, accuses AI search engine Perplexity of dodging paying for its journalism in a new lawsuit, Variety reports.

The big story

How culture drives foul play on the internet, and how new “upcode” can protect us

August 2023

From Bored Apes and Fancy Bears, to Shiba Inu coins, self-­replicating viruses, and whales, the internet is crawling with fraud, hacks, and scams. 

And while new technologies come and go, they change little about the fact that online illegal operations exist because some people are willing to act illegally, and others fall for the stories they tell. 

Ultimately, online crime is a human story. Three new books offer explanations into why it happens, why it works, and how we can protect ourselves from falling for such schemes—no matter how convincing they are. Read the full story.

—Rebecca Ackermann

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.)

+ Stop—you’re cleaning your glasses all wrong! Here’s how to do it properly, free from smudges.
+ 1920s Vampires! Tom Holland! Christopher Nolan! We’re in.
+ We all get distracted sometimes, but overcoming it is all about maintaining momentum.
+ Andrew Garfield has got great taste in movies.

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