The Download: a Nobel winner on AI, and the case for fixing everything
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
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. Three things in AI to watch, according to a Nobel-winning economist. A few months before he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024, Daron Acemoglu published a paper that earned him few fans in Silicon Valley. He argued that AI would give only a small boost to US productivity and would not eliminate the need for human work. Two years later, Acemoglu’s measured take has not caught on. The technology has advanced quite a bit since his cautious predictions, but the data is still largely on his side. MIT Technology Review spoke with him to understand if any of the latest developments have changed his thesis. Here are the three things Acemoglu is paying closest attention to in AI right now. —James O’Donnell 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. The case for fixing everything Stewart Brand, the counterculture icon and tech industry legend, considers maintenance a “civilizational” act. His new book argues that taking responsibility for maintaining something, whether a motorcycle, a monument, or the planet, can be radical. Brand argues that maintainers haven’t gotten the laurels they deserve—and he’s right. Yet his vision of maintenance often feels solitary: profound, but more about personal fulfillment than tending to a shared world or making it better. Read the full review of his handsome new book, Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One. —Lee Vinsel Lee Vinsel is an associate professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech, a cofounder of The Maintainers, and the host of Peoples & Things, a podcast about human life with technology. This story is from the latest edition of our print magazine, which is all about nature. Subscribe now to read the full issue and receive future print copies once the