The Obtain: Boosting prosperity with AI, and combating for a greater future

Predictions abound on how the rising record of generative AI fashions will rework the way in which we work and arrange our lives, offering prompt recommendation on all the pieces from monetary investments to the place to spend your subsequent trip.

However for economists, probably the most crucial query round our obsession with AI is how the fledgling expertise will (or gained’t) increase general productiveness, and if it does, how lengthy it’s going to take. Can the expertise result in renewed prosperity after years of stagnant financial development? Learn the complete story.

—David Rotman

Preventing for a future past the local weather disaster

With regards to local weather breakdown and the extinction disaster, the query usually requested is: How can we’ve hope? 

However perhaps hope is the unsuitable emotion to give attention to. As an alternative, we want shock and awe within the face of the majesty and fragility of nature, humility within the face of the vastness of the transformations our sort has set in movement—a bristling realization of imminent peril. Learn the complete story.

—Lydia Millet

This piece is from the forthcoming print difficulty of MIT Know-how Overview, which is celebrating 125 years of the journal! It’s set to go dwell on Wednesday August 28, so when you don’t already, subscribe now to get a duplicate when it lands.