Business Report p. 63 The Future of Work

Feature p. 54 Shocking Brain Repairs

Feature p. 48 Lyft: Sell Your Car

VOL.  NO.  NOVEMBER/DECEMBER  US . /CAN .

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Here are some English-language tweets debate about whether social media from jihadis fighting for the Islamic had been instrumental in the success- State of Iraq and Syria, also known ful uprising against the dictatorships as ISIS: “I just noticed our martyred of North Africa. Pollock’s reporting in brother r.a. had a tumblr (I know, how “Streetbook” (September/October 2011) could I have missed it). Make sure to showed that there would have been no check it out.” And: “This Syrian guy next Arab Spring without Facebook, because 2 me (AbuUbayadah) is so stoked for our social media “connected people to each op he almost shot his foot oƒ. Come on other and to the world” and those con- bro—safety 1st. :p” And: “Put the chicken nections allowed people to organize and wings down n come to jihad bro.” protest on the street, “where history In “Fighting ISIS Online” (page 72), happens.” MIT Technology Review’s senior writer, But Pollock’s main insight was that David Talbot, describes what a we shouldn’t be too surprised that a policy director has called the “viral youth revolt used the preferred tools moment on social media” that ISIS is of the young: “The young make up the enjoying. Talbot reviews the early and bulk of these movements, and inevi- small-scale counter-eƒorts designed to tably they bring youth’s character to “make one-on-one contact online with their fight for change … Organizing or the people absorbing content from ISIS attending protests gets fitted between and other extremist groups and becom- flirting, studying, and holding down ing radicalized.” a job. Action for this generation is as He writes of a “decentralized” social- likely to be mediated through screens … media campaign by ISIS, supported by as face to face.” sympathizers in the Middle East, North So too, if less attractively, with ISIS. Africa, and elsewhere, who repost ISIS’s “In trying to understand why ISIS is so gruesome videos or produce videos in adept at [using social media to radical- their own languages that inflame local ize young Muslims], one comes back tribal and national grievances in an to a simple explanation,” writes Talbot. eƒort to join their regions to the self- “The people doing it grew up using the declared caliphate. tools.” Talbot quotes Humera Khan, The reason we care about ISIS’s executive director of Muflehun, a think social-media campaign is that it has tank that opposes extremism among been an animating force in recruiting Muslims: “When you say ‘terrorist use about 25,000 people to fight in Syria of social media,’ it sounds ominous, and Iraq, at least 4,500 of them from but when you look at it as ‘youth use of Europe and North America. Social social media,’ it becomes easier to under- media helped create an army that estab- stand … Of course they are using social lished a new state. media! They are doing the same thing ISIS’s viral moment recalls another youth are doing everywhere.” recent historical moment in the Middle The inescapable conclusion is that East when a movement was called into only widespread rejection of ISIS on being by social media. In 2011, MIT social media by other young Muslims is Technology Review sent John Pollock likely to eƒectively counter ISIS’s own to Egypt and Tunisia to report on the social-media campaign. Arab Spring. At the time, journal- But write to me at jason.pontin@ ists, new-media critics, and academ- technologyreview.com and tell me what

ics were engaged in an acrimonious you think. VITTI GUIDO

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Front Back The Islamic State’s 2 From the Editor mastery of social media, p. 72 BUSINESS REPORT 8 Feedback 63 The Future of Work Technology is changing what VIEWS we do and how we do it. What 12 The Coal Conundrum does that mean for our jobs? India, desperate for clean energy, is stuck with coal for REVIEWS the foreseeable future. 72 Fighting ISIS Online 12 Artificial Creativity The Islamic State is an Internet Computers can make art, phenomenon as much as a but only up to a point. military one. 13 The Treatment Gap By David Talbot Too often, people suering 78 The Hit Charade from mental disorders don’t An algorithm may have created get eective care. the playlist you just listened to. But humans make better ones. UPFRONT By Will Knight

15 Planting Generic GMOs 84 Will Alphabet Become Monsanto no longer controls Something? one of agriculture’s biggest Google’s new holding company innovations. will have to find a way to commercialize what it invents. 17 Construction Drones By Jon Gertner The boss can track progress on the job site, from above. ‰Š YEARS AGO 18 Bionic Hearing Gadgets Prototype earbuds will help November/December 2015 92 The Case for the Cab you tune out unwanted noise. Decades before Lyft and Uber, a scholar argued for an army of 20 More Life, Less Death 26 | India’s Energy Crisis less-regulated taxis. Population estimates rise even Can India bring electricity to hundreds of millions of as women have fewer babies. people without destroying the climate in the process? ON THE COVER: 22 Meltdown-Proof Reactors By Richard Martin Will molten-salt reactors make nuclear cool again? 48 | Lyft’s Search for a New Mode of Transport 22 Leader Speaks Uber’s archenemy thinks the world will be better o if Gavin Andresen on his plans to we treat cars as a form of public transportation. save the digital currency. By Ryan Bradley 24 Pig Hearts for People A company is genetically 54 | A Shocking Way to Fix the Brain engineering pigs so we can Neurosurgeons hope implanted electrodes could treat use their organs in transplants. intractable mental disorders. But will it work? Illustration by By Adam Piore Tomer Hanuka

JAVIER JAÉN JAVIER

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1 2 3 4 5 Tech’s Enduring The Next Great Paying for Solar Teaching Machines Inside Amazon

Great-Man Myth GMO Debate Power to Understand Us What a fascinating photo (born in South There are potentially The economics of solar I get nervous when I read essay. Note the paucity of Africa) isn’t responsible for unlimited di“ erent kinds without subsidies is stron- statements like “LeCun human beings in all these the Superman culture in of RNA, and the nucleo- ger in areas without says systems that grasp pictures of Amazon’s mas- the U.S. He’s just satisfying tides in a strand of RNA access to cheap natu- ordinary language could sive warehouse operation. the local market demand are the major determinant ral gas or without strong get to know us well enough It seems as though robot- for supermen. of what e“ ect the RNA will power grids. This includes to understand what’s good ization inevitably equals a —Miroslav Pivoda have on an organism . So Spain, Japan and other for us.” Once it can distin- reduction in rank-and-fi le yes, as the article states, island nations, India, China, guish between “good” and workers with an increase The article paints in we’ve been eating RNA as and Africa. These markets “bad,” who will control the in production eŸ ciency. black and white. Because long as we’ve been eating, will open up earlier for the decision-making process? That’s not necessarily a the government spon- but that’s like saying we’ve solar cells from Bu“ alo —Rudolf01 bad thing, but it’s certainly sored a lot of fundamen- been eating food as long than the U.S. market will. something to ponder. tal research, it deserves Given time, software will as we’ve been eating. —gametheoryman —UConnRon credit. But it takes a man mimic that curious fi ve- —fanofhawking of grand vision and convic- When exactly are we going year-old, where every sen- Disgustingly beautiful. tion to put together all the The 1 percent of insects to end the billions in subsi- tence is interrupted by a —Medhi B. elements required . Imag- that survive will be a di“ er- dies the fossil-fuel industry question. All the annoying ine the fi rst iPhone sold by ent strain, and if the sur- receives? This practice is but necessary details we anyone other than Steve vivors are altered by RNA so entrenched now that adult humans need but Jobs. —pallavsingh treatment, there is no way we don’t even talk about rarely ask for. to predict what this shift ending a ridiculous long- —websco137 in the insects’ genome will standing largesse. cause. —bubbabooboo —jcoleman

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