The Progress Issue

The progress issue

Volume 124 Mar/Apr USD $9.99 Number 2 2021 CAD $10.99

AKTHROU RE GH B

T 10 E C E S H N O L O G I 10 Breakthrough Technologies

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rogress.” We take for granted that it’s a good thing. “ We constantly invoke it to justify change. But all the ways in which society is measuredfrom economic indicators to health and education metrics to markers of political development and technological sophisticationrely on longheld Passumptions about what progress is. As the economic and politi cal shocks of this still newish century have shown, growing numbers of people are, or feel, excluded by the progress they were told would benefit everyone. And many of the countries that score best on traditional measures of progress have done worst in coping with the covid19 pandemic, the clearest sign possible that these measures are missing something. This issue contains MIT Technology Review’s annual list of 10 technological breakthroughs we think will change the worldin other words, leading exam ples of progress that we predict will lead to … even more progress! So I thought it behooved us, on the 20th anniversary of starting that list, to take a harder look at what progress means. David Rotman sets the stage with a review of the technological changes we’ve seen since 2001, and a survey of some econ omists’ attempts to come up with measures of progress that better capture what matters Gideon We also pick apart some myths about to people page 10. He draws a surprising Lichfield how progress is made. Carl Benedikt Frey is editor conclusion: if there’s a reason to be optimis in chief of examines how tech giants that began life tic about the next decade, it’s less because MIT Technology as the vanguards of progress have become Review. of new technologies than because of more obstacles to it page 15. John Markoff argues equitable ideas about how to measure prog that the rise of tech hubs like Silicon Valley ress that will better guide us in using these advances. owes much more to serendipity than their boosters like to admit For many, these changes may come too late. Susie Cagle reflects page 79. Adam Piore examines why brilliant ideas that should on how American capitalism’s promise of progress “stopped with succeed sometimes get stuck, and how a crisis like covid19 may our millennial generation,” why things look set to worsen still help break the logjam page 68. J. Benjamin Hurlbut debunks the further, and what that will mean for her newborn child page 17. view that He Jiankui, the creator of the “CRISPR babies,” was a Brian Alexander writes about the pockets of America that the scientist gone rogue, arguing instead that his ambition represents progress of the past few decades has simply left behind page 58. a form of progress within science that the establishment prefers Chelsea Sheasley looks at how the digital divide, coupled with to underplay page 82. And Leah Stokes questions the idea that the pandemic, could further widen the economic gap between we need more technology to fight climate change page 85. white and nonwhite Americans in the years to come page 64. And finally, we have the 10 breakthrough technologies them Elsewhere, Amy Nordrum asks people from various fields selves, starting on page 26. As always, three things are true of what progress means to them page 18, while James Temple asks our list. It is eclectic; some of the innovations on it are clearly other experts what would be the single best way to help the world making an impact now, while some have yet to do so; and many make progress on climate change page 21. David Vintiner, with of them have the potential to do harm as well as good. Whether his sometimes unsettling photographs of biohackers and body or not they come to represent progress 20 years from now augmentation researchers page 72, raises the question of whether depends on how they’re usedand, of course, on how we’re

cyborg humans are a form of progress or a deviation from it. defining progress by then. ALLEN IAN

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MIT Mar/Apr '21 Blend ND2017.indd 1 1/12/21 12:40 PM 04 Contents

Introduction

10 Are you ready to be a Edited by David Rotman techno-optimist again? THE PROGRESS ISSUE and Amy Nordrum In 2001, we picked our first set of 10 breakthrough tech BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGIES nologies. David Rotman asks: 28 44 What progress has there Messenger RNA vaccines Hyper-accurate positioning been since? And how do we New covid vaccines are based on a technology GPS with centimeter or millimeterlevel even measure it? never before used in therapeutics, and it could accuracy could open up entire new industries. Report transform medicine. By Antonio Regalado By Ling Xin

15 34 46 The many paths GPT-3 Remote everything of progress OpenAI’s latest model wowed the public with Covid19 transformed the way we live, work, It affects our health, wages, its apparent mastery of language. But is it all an and play. Which of those changes will last? and even life spans. Carl illusion? By Will Douglas Heaven By Sandy Ong Benedikt Frey and Susie Cagle reflect on the forces shaping 36 50 the progress we see today Data trusts Multi-skilled AI and the gaps that still remain. Expecting individuals to manage their own Human intelligence emerges from a 18 data is unrealistic. It’s time to join forces. combination of senses and language abilities. Deﬁ ning terms By Anouk Ruhaak Maybe that could take AI to the next level too. What is progress, anyway? By Karen Hao Depends on whom you ask. 38 Lithium-metal batteries 52 21 We’re getting closer to a battery that could TikTok recommendation algorithms 10 big ideas to achieve finally make electric cars as convenient and In the app’s breakthrough year, these real climate progress cheap as gas ones. By James Temple algorithms were the secret ingredient that put Experts name their top it ahead of rivals. By Abby Ohlheiser moonshot ideas to address 42 climate change. Digital contact tracing 54 Reviews New tools promised to help slow the virus’s Green hydrogen spread. They haven’t succeeded yet. If made using renewable power, hydrogen 79 By Lindsay Muscato could provide a clean and carbonneutral Will the last one out ... source of energy. By Peter Fairley John Markoff on the uncertain future of Silicon Valley, J. Benjamin Hurlbut FEATURES on the convoluted history of 58 68 human gene editing, Leah The town where progress stopped The proselytist and the pandemic Stokes on how our climate Across the US, small towns have been left One scientist believes covid19 may finally “solutions” often ignore behind by the country’s booming innovation enable his vision of personalized, precision messy politics, and James economy. What will it take to turn things medicine for all. By Adam Piore Temple talks to Bill Gates. around? By Brian Alexander

The back page 72 64 Humans + 88 Broadband boosters When trauma befalls the human body, Speedy delivery Educators are making it their mission to close powerful technologies can sometimes not the digital divide. By Chelsea Sheasley only restore but enhance it. These images tell Cover illustration by Simon Landrein the story. By David Vintiner

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wenty years ago, MIT Technology Review picked 10 emerg ing areas of innovation that we promised would “change the world.” It was a time of peak technooptimism. Yes, the dotcom boom was in the midst of imploding; some insiders were already fretting about the end of Moore’s Law. They still are, though the industry keeps finding ways to make computers more powerful. But in many ways it was a glorious time for science and technology. A working draft of the human genome was published in February Tof 2001a genetic blueprint that promised to reveal our deepest biological secrets. There was great excitement over recent break throughs in nanotechnology. Early advances in quantum and molecular computing portended a new, postMoore’s Law era of computation. And then there was that amazing search engine with the funny name, rapidly gaining users and changing how they surfed the web and accessed information. Feeling lucky? So it’s worthwhile to look back at the initial “TR10,” as we now call our annual list, for clues to just how much progress we’ve made. First, let’s acknowledge that it was a thoughtful list. We eschewed robotic exoskeletons and human cloning, as well as molecular nanomanufacturing and the dreaded gray goo of the nano doomsayersall hot topics of the day. Instead we focused on fundamental advances in information technology, materials, and biotech. Most of the technologies are still familiar: data min ing, naturallanguage processing, microfluidics, brainmachine interfaces, biometrics like facial recognition, and robot design. So how well did these technologies fulfill the dreams we had for them two decades ago? Here are a few lessons from the 2001 list.

LESSON 1: Are you ready Progress is often slow Our first selection, brainmachine inter faces, begins with a description of the to be a neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis record ing the electric signals from the brain of a very cute owl monkey named Belle as she thinks about how to get a few drops of apple juice. Flash forward to late sum mer 2020, as Elon Musk shows off the brain signals from a very cute pig named Gertrude, gaining oohs and ahhs from adoring fans attending the demonstration optimist again? for Neuralink, his brainmachine startup. An observer at Musk’s event might have been forgiven for wondering whether 20 IN 2001, WE PICKED OUR FIRST ANNUAL years had really passed since Nicolelis’s SET OF 10 BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGIES. experiment. Both men had similar visions HERE’S WHAT THEIR FATES TELL US ABOUT for directly connecting the brain to com PROGRESS OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES. puting devices via implanted chips. As our BY DAVID ROTMAN biomedicine editor, Antonio Regalado,

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in an analytical lab; this is expensive and slow. Suddenly, there is an appetite for a fast and cheap labonachip solution. It took a few months for researchers to dust off the technology, but now covid19 diag nostics using microfluidics are appear ing. These techniques, including one that uses CRISPR gene editing, promise to make covid tests far more accessible and widely used.

LESSON 3: Be careful what you wish for In 2001, Joseph Atick, one of the pioneers of biometrics, saw facial recognition as a way for people to interface with their gadgets and computers more securely and easily. It would give the cell phones and personal digital assistants that were increasingly popular a way to recognize their owners, spelling the end of PINs and passwords. Part of that vision eventually came true with such applications as Apple’s FaceID. But facial recognition also took a turn that Atick now says “shocks me.” In 2001, facialrecognition algorithms were limited. They required instructions from humans, in mathematical form, on how to identify the distinguishing features of a face. And every face in the database of faces to be recognized had to be labo riously scanned into the software. Then came the boom in social media. Whereas in the early days, Atick says, he would have been thrilled with 100,000 images in facialrecognition databases, sud denly machinelearning algorithms could wrote in 2001, “Nicolelis sees the effort LESSON 2: be trained on billions of faces, scraped from as part of the impending revolution that Sometimes it takes a crisis Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites. There could eventually make brain interfaces We chose microfluidics in 2001 because of were now hundreds of these algorithms, as common as Palm Pilots.” some remarkable advances in moving tiny and they trained themselves, simply by That claim has come true, but thanks amounts of biological samples around on ingesting and comparing imagesno only to the demise of Palm Pilots, not the a small devicea socalled labonachip. expert human help required. popularity of brainmachine interfaces. These promised quick diagnostic tests and But that remarkable advance came with Despite some encouraging human exper the ability to automate drug and genomic a tradeoff: no one really understands the iments over the years, such interfaces experiments. reasoning the machines use. And that’s remain a scientific and medical oddity. As Since then, microfluidics has found a problem now that facial recognition is it turns out, neuroscience is very difficult. valuable uses in biology research. Clever increasingly relied on for sensitive tasks There has been success in shrinking the advances continued, such as ultracheap like identifying criminal suspects. “I did electronics and making the implants wire and easytouse paper diagnostic tests not envision a world where these machines less, but progress in the science has been “Paper Diagnostics” was a TR10 in 2009. would take over and make decisions for slower, hindering the visions Nicolelis But the field has fallen short of its prom us,” says Atick. and Musk hoped to realize. A footnote ise of transforming testing. There simply to lesson one: success often depends on wasn’t an overwhelming demand for the LESSON 4: whether a series of advances can all come technology. It’s fair to say that microfluidics The trajectory of progress matters together. Making brain interfaces practical became a scientific backwater. “Hello again, Sidney P. Manyclicks. We requires advances in both the science and Covid19 ended that. Conventional have recommendations for you. Customers the gadgetry. tests rely on multistep procedures done who bought this also bought …”

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The recommendation engines described GDP. It was formulated in the 1930s in Whether GDPB could fully account for in this, the opening of our 2001 article the US to help us understand how well the the seeming slowdown in productivity is on data mining, seemed impressive at economy was recovering from the Great uncertain, but it does provide evidence the time. Another potential use of data Depression. And though one of its chief that many economists and policymakers mining circa 2001 also sounded thrilling: architects, Simon Kuznets, warned that may have undervalued the digital revo computer searchable video libraries. Today, GDP shouldn’t be mistaken for a measure lution. And that, says Brynjolfsson, has it all seems utterly mundane. of the country’s wellbeing and important implications for how much we Thanks to ever increasing THE LIST the prosperity of its people, should invest in digital infrastructure and computational power, the ■ Brain-machine generations of economists and prioritize certain areas of innovation. exploding size of databases, interfaces politicians have done just that, GDPB is one of a larger set of efforts to and closely related advances ■ Flexible transistors scrutinizing GDP numbers find statistics that more accurately reflect in artificial intelligence, data for clues to the health of the the changes we care about. The idea is not ■ Data mining mining the term is now often economy and even the pace of to throw out GDP, but to complement it interchangeable with AI rules ■ Digital rights technological progress. with other metrics that more broadly reflect the business world. It’s the life management Economists can tease what we might call “progress.” blood of big tech companies, ■ Biometrics out what they call total fac Another such measure is the Social from Google and its subsidi ■ Natural-language tor productivity TFP from Progress Index, which was created by a ary YouTube to Amazon and processing GDP statistics; it’s basically a pair of economists, MIT’s Scott Stern and Facebook. It powers adver measure of how much inno Harvard’s Michael Porter. It collects data ■ Microphotonics tising and, yes, sales of every vation contributes to growth. from 163 countries on factors including thing from shoes to insurance, ■ Untangling code In theory, new inventions environmental quality, access to health care using personalized recommen ■ Robot design should increase productiv and education, traffic deaths, and crime. dation engines. ■ Microfluidics ity and cause the economy to While wealthier countries, unsurprisingly, Yet these great successes grow faster. Yet the picture has tend to do better on this index, Stern says mask an underlying failure that became not been great over the last two decades. the idea is to look at where social progress particularly evident during the pandemic. Since around the mid2000sshortly diverges from GDP per capita. That shows We have not exploited the power of big after our first TR10 listgrowth in TFP how some countries, even poor ones, are data in areas that matter most. has been sluggish and disappointing, espe better than others at turning economic At almost every step, from the first signs cially given the flood of new technologies growth into valued social changes. of the virus to testing and hospitalization coming from places like Silicon Valley. to the rollout of vaccines, we’ve missed Some economists think the explana many opportunities to gather data and tion may be that our innovations are not SURVEY FROM COUNTRIES mine it for critical information. We could as farreaching as we think. But it’s also SHOWS GENERATION GAP have learned so much more about how the possible that GDP, which was designed to "Imagining when the covid-19 virus spreads, how it evolves, how to treat measure the industrial production of the pandemic is over ... which should your country prioritize more?" it, and how to allocate resources, potentially mid20th century, does not account for

saving countless lives. We didn’t seem to the economic benefits of digital products, Social outcomes have a clue about how to collect the data especially when they’re free to use, like Economic growth we needed. search engines and social media. Overall, then, the 10 technologies we Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson picked in 2001 are still relevant; none and his colleagues have created a new 70% has been forsaken; and some have been measure to try to capture the contribution 60 66% remarkable, even worldchanging, suc of these digital goods. Called GDPB the 50 60% cesses. But the real test of progress is more “B” is for benefits, it is calculated by using 58% 54%

40 53% difficult: Have these technologies made online surveys to ask people just how much 46% 47%

30 42%

our lives not just more convenient, but they value various digital services. What 40%

better in ways that we care about? How would you have to be paid, for example, to 20 34% do we measure that progress? live a month without Facebook? 10 The calculations suggest that US con What makes you happy? sumers have gained some $225 billion in 0

The common way to gauge economic prog uncounted value from Facebook alone 25 50+ Total SOURCE: IPSOS/SOCIAL PROGRESS IMPERATIVE PROGRESS IPSOS/SOCIAL SOURCE: Under ress is by measuring gross domestic product since 2004. Wikipedia added $42 billion. 25–34 35–49

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The US, with one of the world’s high decisions on the priorities for government batteries for electric vehicles, and advances est levels of GDP per capita, is 28th in the investment. She says the approach allows in solar power. index, and is one of only four countries you to ask, “What is the technology doing An anticipated boom in funding from whose scores have declined since 2014. for people?” both governments and businesses could Norway, which is similarly wealthy, was The value of these various alternatives amplify the impact of these new technolo ranked first in 2020 see chart. Some to GDP is that they provide a broader gies. President Joe Biden has pledged hun poorer countries also outperform. picture of how our lives are changing as dreds of billions in infrastructure spending, “Very often the decisions about innova a result of technology. Had they been in including more than $300 billion over the tion and technology are about its economic place 20 years ago, they might have shined next four years for R&D. The EU has its own impact,” says Stern. “There’s nothing wrong light on crises we were late in seeing, such massive stimulus bill. And there are signs of with that. But are we directing the eco as the growth of income inequality and a new round of venture capital investments, nomic rewards to areas that will advance the rapid deterioration of our climate. If especially targeting green tech. social progress?” 20 years ago was a time of peak techno If the techno optimists are right, then A similar thought lies behind another optimism, it might have prompted us to our 10 breakthrough technologies for 2021 alternative to GDP, developed by Diane ask, “Optimism about what?” could have a bright future. The science Coyle and her colleagues at the Bennett behind mRNA vaccines page 28 could Institute for Public Policy in Cambridge, Born-again hope open a new era of medicine in which we UK. Their measure of what they call the About a decade ago, the techno optimist manipulate our immune system to trans wealth economy is based on what they narrative began to fall apart. form cancer treatment, among other things. define as the assets of a society, including In 2011 Tyler Cowen, an economist Lithium metal batteries page 38 could its human capital the health and skills of at George Mason University in Virginia, finally make electric cars palatable for its people, natural capital its resources wrote The Great Stagnation, arguing that millions of consumers. Green hydrogen and the health of the environment, and the technologies that seemed so impres page 54 could help replace fossil fuels. social capital trust and social cohesion. sive at the timeespecially social media The advances that made GPT 3 possible It’s a hugely ambitious project that and smartphone appswere doing lit page 34 could lead to literate computers attempts to create a couple of key measure tle to stimulate economic growth and as the next big step in artificial intelligence. ments for each asset. Those numbers, says improve people’s lives. The Rise and Fall Still, the fate of the technologies on Coyle, are meant to inform better decisions of American Growth, a 2016 bestseller by the 2001 list tells us that progress won’t about technology and innovation, including Robert Gordon, another prominent econ happen just because of the breakthroughs omist, ran to more than 700 pages, detail themselves. We will need new infrastruc ing the reasons for the slowdown in TFP ture for green hydrogen and electric cars; SOCIAL PROGRESS after 2004. The temporary boom from the new urgency for mRNA science; and new INDEX RANKINGS internet, he declared, was over. thinking around AI and the opportunities Unless you like the cold, New Zealand The books helped kick off an era of it presents in solving social problems. In might be your best bet for happiness. techno pessimism, at least among econo short, we need political will. mists. And in the last few years, problems But the most important lesson from Rank Country Score like misinformation on social media, the the 2001 list is the simplest: Whether 1 Norway . precarious livelihoods of gig economy work these breakthroughs fulfill their potential 2 Denmark . ers, and the creepier uses of data mining depends on how we choose to use them. have fueled a broader pessimist outlooka And perhaps that’s the greatest reason for 3 Finland . sense that Big Tech not only isn’t making renewed optimism, because by developing 4 New Zealand . society better but is making it worse. new ways of measuring progress, as econ 5 Sweden . These days, however, Cowen is return omists like Coyle are doing, we can also

6 Switzerland . ing to the optimist camp. He’s calling for create new aspirations for these brilliant more research to explain progress and new technologies. If we can see beyond 7 Canada . how to create it, but he says it’s “a more conventional economic growth and start 8 Australia . positive story” than it was a few years measuring how innovations improve the 9 Iceland . ago. The apparent success of covid vac lives of as many people as possible, we cines based on messenger RNA has him have a much greater chance of creating a 10 Netherlands . excited. So do breakthroughs in using AI better world.

28 United States . to predict protein folding, the powerful David Rotman is MIT Technology Review’s

SOURCE: SOCIAL PROGRESS IMPERATIVE PROGRESS SOCIAL SOURCE: gene editing tool CRISPR, new types of editor at large.

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GUTTERNHUNG CREDIT LE; COURTESY HERE PHOTO the progress we seetoday and what gaps stillremain. Amy Nordrum we make. The following contributors reflect on the forces that have shaped going in the world. We also all help direct future progress through the choices byarehow influenced things arethinkwell we decisions personal biggest our health, our wages, our wellbeing, and even our life spans. Many of our Now, it’s our turn to invent the future. Decisions made long ago created the reality we live in today. of progress The many paths DISPATCHES W hy care about progress? The simplest answer is because our livesour because answeris simplest progress?The about hycare progress is also deeply personal. Progress or the lack of it affects scale, macro a on about talked often more it.Though on depend Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation. and author of many cashstrapped young firms to firms young cashstrappedmany ened this trend. It is even harder for wayswors some in has pandemic ten better at edging out startups. The have, with the help of regulators, got companies larger the decadesfew provide the breakthrough inventions. fastmoving startups are more likely to ing their positions, while the smaller, on improving efficiency and protect big, established companies focus more companies and nimbler startups. The interaction between larger incumbent can’t justpresume it will continue. progress itself had to be invented. We like the vaccine, the belief in constant it’s important to remember that, just But pandemic. the beyondmove to waya find wouldwe that vaccine,a the belief that we’d eventually invent to one bit of optimism from the outset: people’s lives, but most of us held on The coronavirus has shattered many free. Lately thegiants have gotten better at edgingoutsmallercom- when they let thestartupsroam panies—a terrible omenforpanies—a the essential for progress, butonly The problem is that over the past Progress these days hinges on the OUR BEHEMOTH Large corporations are the key themes, bigideas, discussed inthisissue. future of progress. Get uptospeedon and major players PROBLEM RE School at Oxford University program at the Oxford Martin director of Futurethe of Work CARL BENEDIKT FREY PO The Technology Trap: Capital, T is the 2/3/21 12:59PM 15 16 The progress issue

Gap in years Proportion of Proportion of between the countries people in the ewaste that’s with the lowest and world with recycled globally . highest life expectancy internet access .

survive. And that doesn’t portend well for innovation. One recent study from research ers at the University of Chicago and To take the most immediate example, Northwestern University shows that breakthrough inventions are more likely without progress we would have no to come from individual inventors or vaccines—nor would we be capable of smaller teams. Corporations excel at bringing about incremental improve mass-producing them. ments, like those that make the produc tion process more efficient. But major leaps in technology tend to come from which nimble startups take risks and regulations “have a negative impact on newer, smaller firms. You can make a create bold new innovations. small firms, especially in industries with better horse carriage, but eventually The British historian Eric Hobsbawm high lobbying expenditures.” In other it takes a radical innovation to make a once wrote, “It is often assumed that an words, powerful firms encourage reg motorcar otherwise progress stalls. economy of private enterprise has an ulations that hinder the competition Covid19 has caused more churn automatic bias towards innovation, but and boost their own profits. This is a of companies entering and exiting this is not so. It has a bias only towards path toward stagnation, not progress. the marketplace than any other event profit.” He was right. One way of halting this economic since World War II, but we can’t read In the early stages of a product’s life equivalent of atherosclerosis is to that to mean we’ll see a faster rate cycle, a company will focus on inno encourage more free trade and global of technological progress. Instead, vation. But once a prototype has been competition. But thanks in part to covid we’ve seen the opposite: restrictions established, that company’s efforts shift 19, we’re moving in the opposite direc on immigration, plummeting travel, and toward incremental improvements in tion. As the pandemic took off in the the isolation of knowledge workers in production to cut costs. At a certain first 10 months of 2020, G20 members home offices have made the kinds of point a company finds that it’s more undertook 1,371 policy interventions, of interactions that drive innovation less costefficient to focus on political lob which 1,067 harmed trading partners, likely to happen. bying to protect itself from competition according to a recent report by the Besides this, there’s evidence that than to spend money on innovating. Centre for Economic Policy Research. venture capitalists have devoted more And that’s ultimately terrible for the Should we worry that we’re slow of their energies to guiding companies state of progress: research from the ing the speed of progress? Absolutely. already in their portfolios through the National Bureau of Economic Research To take the most immediate exam pandemic, rather than looking out shows that companies with more polit ple, without progress we would have ward for new investments. As a result, ical connections tend to be less innova no vaccines nor would we be capa the prime beneficiaries from the pan tive and apply for fewer patents. ble of massproducing them. What’s demic have been incumbents with deep The economy had been trending more, innovation is a prerequisite for pockets. Giants like Apple, Alphabet, in this direction since before the pan sustained growth, and an economy Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft col demic. The French economist Thomas that isn’t growing becomes a zero lectively hold more than $570 billion Philippon has documented how busi sum game. When growth is static and in gross cash. ness dynamism has declined dramati resources are limited, that leads to As covid19 solidifies the market cally in the US since the 2000s, while greater competition for those resources, position of behemoths, it also increases business spending on lobbying has sky which helps explain why violence was their political clout, which tends to sti rocketed. In a separate study, Philippon more pervasive before modern growth fle the kind of dynamic environment in and Germán Gutiérrez show that recent began, as Steven Pinker has shown.

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Proportion of people in OECD coun Number of refugees tries who say they worldwide in 2019 trust their national MILLION government

Much has been written about the stable home, income, and health care. This compounded covid baby bust political power of the top 1% in the US, Like other millennials, we’d put it off far will no doubt further depress the US but the vast majority of campaign con longer than our parents had before us. birthrate, already the lowest it’s been tributions come from business lobbying If there are motivators for this social in over three decades. And by many groups rather than wealthy individuals. change, they would seem to have more to traditional measures of progress, a fall If innovation has been stifled and peo do with necessity than choice. We gradu ing birth rate is an indicator of failure. ple somehow sense that democracy is ated into the Great Recession, burdened Ours was one of the last babies con rigged, the solutions might have less with debt and rewarded with stagnant ceived in the hopeful naïveté of early to do with restraining the billionaires wages, and endured the slowest eco 2020, before I knew of this specific dev and more with reining in the corporate nomic growth faced by any generation astation to come. But after years spent behemoths. in US history. Millennials control less reporting on the collapse of ecosystems than 6% of US wealth. At the same age, at human hands, I could sense the con baby boomers controlled more than 20%. tours of what lay ahead. GENERATIONAL The American capitalist promise Year after year, I’ve watched my CHANGE that members of each generation can California neighbors burned out of their work hard and expect to give their chil homes by ever larger, fastermoving What my pandemic baby taught me dren a life better than their ownwas wildfiresand I’ve watched them about America’s future. broken. By this measure, progress had rebuild in the very same places. Even stopped with our generation. And owing in the face of chaos, our collective will SUSIE CAGLE covers at least in part to these economic bur ingness to change seems questionable. climate change and inequality dens, millions fewer millennials are So many of my peers have decided in California. giving birth, and those who do have not to consign another young life to children are doing it later. inheriting this mess, and I can’t say The morning my first child was born, I Nearly a year into this pandemic, the they’re wrong. Choosing to have chil was mostly thinking of death. baby bust is only worsening. The psy dren is an inherently optimistic act It was the week before Thanksgiving chological and economic stresses of the either because one already has hope for as my husband and I hunkered down pandemic appear to be pushing families the world or because, having created with our newborn in Berkeley, California, in the other direction as young people and committed to caring for part of a learning from cable news that hospi have borne the brunt of a shuttered new generation, one must find some. talslike the one where we were economy. In a survey by the company The morning my first child was would soon be overrun by covid19 Modern Fertility, 30% of respondents born, I thought that if there were a per patients. said they were changing their family fect time to have a baby, this wouldn’t I had learned I was pregnant in planning decisions because of covid19. be it. I thought about the future pan March, just one week before California Of those, roughly three-quarters said demics he would endure, along with issued its first stayathome order to they would delay having childrenor the fires and the economic crashes. curb the spread of the coronavirus. My reconsider having them at all. Still, somehow, I am confident that he husband’s business was closed indefi The Brookings Institution has pre will thrive. The task before him, along nitely. I lost my job as a climate reporter dicted that the pandemic could result with all the other pandemic babies, a few months later, just before our state’s in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in will be to redefine progress in an age worst fire season in history. Our world 2021, a drop of 10% or more. What’s of crisis, like that which marked their was mired in crisis at the same time that less clear is whether this dip reflects the very first days. our lives were being joyously upended. anxieties of struggling wouldbe parents, We had waited years for the perfect their concerns for the future prospects This piece was supported by the time to have a babyuntil we had a of their potential children, or both. Economic Hardship Reporting Project. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS WIKIMEDIA

MA21_front-dispatches.indd 17 2/3/21 3:08 PM 18 The progress issue

Ratio of CEO pay to an average worker’s compensation across 350 top US firms : DEFINING TERMS MAKING PROGRESS OPPORTUNITY CAN MEAN MANY Shivani Siroya DIFFERENT THINGS. Founder and CEO, Tala (United States)

grew up between India and the United States, and so for a long time my idea of progress hat do we mean when we talk about progress? In was shaped by the difference between these W general terms, to make progress means to move two places the developing and the devel toward something and away from something else. oped, the emerging and the established. But where we’re headed and what we’re leaving behind are Progress was about closing the gap, catching key questions that drive political movements, shape inter one place up to the systems and standards national treaties, and define our own sense of personal Iset by another. growth. But for the past decade, I’ve come to think Our notions of individual or collective progress reflect about who has the power to name and measure our values and our hopes for the future. Knowing what we’re progress, and how we can shift more of that power trying to achieve can also help us see what role technology to people most in need of it. could or should play. To help us explore those possibilities, There’s some arrogance in thinking we can the following experts responded to a deceptively simple define what progress looks like for someone else. prompt: What does progress mean to you? Amy Nordrum That’s why I’m focused on creating the systems and tools that let people pursue whatever matters most to them. And it’s also why I’ve stopped look ing to the existing systems for answers. The bottom line: progress isn’t about closing

a gap. It’s about opening a door. LE NHUNG

MA21_front-progress.indd 18 2/2/21 2:07 PM eport 19

Gap in mean per capita income Proportion of people in the between wealthy and poor countries , world with access to electricity

JUSTICE Jillian York

Director for international freedom of expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation (Germany)

Progress, to me, is not found in the growth of companies or even the development of new technologies, but in justice and equality and human rights. Technological “progress” means nothing if it holds some of us back. And yet companies from Silicon Valley to Shen- zhen continue to move forward with limited diversity, recognition of harm, and consideration for human rights.

TEAMWORK Bárbara Paes

Activist and cofounder, Minas Programam (Brazil)

For too long, progress in technology has meant advancement at any cost. Forward is good, staying still is bad, and looking backward is worse. But true progress can only happen when we reﬂ ect on the risks and consequences Progress means actively ing regulation—which of the choices we make. fostering innovation. Within often sees it as a barrier Meaningful progress is about using the drone industry, prog- to progress—the Federal our abilities and resources to create a ress has come in the form Aviation Administration’s world where anyone can thrive. This of regulatory evolution. forward-thinking approach involves questioning our own assump- US regulators didn’t just is accelerating safety and tions, acknowledging how different INNOVATION accept that drone delivery ushering in a new era of technologies may harm communities Yariv Bash will become an industry on-demand delivery. When that have long faced oppression, and standard but helped ﬁ gure regulation drives innova- sometimes deciding to stop develop- out the best way to ensure tion, then true progress ing technologies that may cause harm. Cofounder, SpaceIL and that it happens. Unlike con- takes place, regardless of Progress comes when we move Flytrex (Israel) ventional wisdom regard- the industry. toward a just and equitable future, and

NADINE BARIŠIC YORK ; COURTESY PHOTO PAES, BASH ; GETTY DRONE GETTY BASH ; PAES, PHOTO COURTESY YORK ; BARIŠIC NADINE not when we just make shiny new things.

MA21_front-progress.indd 19 2/2/21 2:07 PM 20 The progress issue

Number Metric tons Year that renewables are of people who of e waste . expected to beat out coal to suffer from generated become the world’s primary hunger MILLION globally in 2019 MILLION source of electricity generation

OPTIMISM WELLBEING Matthew Slaboch Farhana Sultana

Visiting assistant professor of political Associate professor of geography, science, Denison University (United States) Syracuse University (United States)

Almost universally, people think that Progress is often measured as economic their societies and the world are in bad growth only. But real progress would shape. But the widespread belief that involve growth that doesn’t externalize we aren’t now making progress isn’t social or environmental costs. necessarily a rejection of the idea of Progress is often measured in incre- progress itself: the idea that humanity mental gains such as the US Civil Rights can make lasting advances still holds Act. But limiting the idea of progress currency, even in a dispirited age. to only that act would miss the wide- Is our expectation that the future will spread structural racism that remains be better than the past a helpful one? unaddressed. Similarly, climate agree- The dogmatic insistence on a “better” ments are indeed progress, but there future led prior regimes (such as the aren’t enough concrete actions to halt Nazis and the Soviets) to inﬂ ict tremen- the climate crisis, while marginalized HUMILITY dous pain on millions of people. But if groups pay the biggest price. Vera Keller the idea of progress loses its way, we Progress must be measured by how might also lose the spirit of innovation well those at the bottom are doing, not Associate professor of history, that makes problem-solving possible. only those at the top. University of Oregon (United States)

o me, behind progress lurks another word. QUALITY OF LIFE Progress comes from a Latin word mean Danny Dorling ing “movement forward.” It suggests a collective march into the future. But often, Professor of geography, University of Oxford (United Kingdom) when we hear of progress, what’s really discussed is a project. Progress for me is about what actually matters “Project” comes from a word mean most in life: health, job satisfaction, housing qual- Ting “thrown forward.” Those hurtled into the ity, living standards, and real education. Finland, future have little say in its design, and nobody can for example, has one of the lowest rates of infant assume success. When we present risky projects mortality in the world and the highest propor- tions of workers satisﬁ ed with their lives and as assured progress, we use what technology stud the ﬂ exibility of their jobs. More workers can ies scholar Sheila Jasanoff identified as modern choose which hours they work in Finland “technologies of hubris”that is, ways of pre than in any other country. Finland also has senting expertise that conceal doubts. the world’s lowest homelessness rate (the We need to rediscover “technologies of humil US has one of the highest) and is renowned ity.” At the end of my book, I included one such for its education system. And Finland has technology common in the 17th century: a list greater income equality than the US, and a much lower carbon footprint. Not sur- identifying everything I wish I knew about my prisingly, its people are happier. subject. Transparency about our ignorance makes the knowledge we communicate more trustworthy

and extends a hand to others. KELLER MOORE MARTY /SOURCE: LE NHUNG DORLING; BLOK EDMUND SULTANA; PHOTO COURTESY SLABOCH; UNIVERSITY DENISON HALE, JAMIE

MA21_front-progress.indd 20 2/3/21 8:43 AM eport 21

Proportion of the world’s coral reefs expected to perish if global temperatures increase by 1.5 °C from preindustrial levels

BIG IDEAS TO ACHIEVE REAL CLIMATE BILL GATES

Cofounder of Microso and PROGRESS chairman of Breakthrough Energy (US) By James Temple ight now, I’m investing a lot in nuclear espite decades of warnings and increasingly dev fission. Our company TerraPower … D astating disasters, we’ve still made little progress just got a huge US government contract in slowing climate change. to develop that reactor, which we call Clean energy alternatives have secured just a fraction of Natrium. the marketplace today, with renewables generating around A lot of people would say a stor 10% of global electricity and electric vehicles accounting for age miracle and some people would about 3% of new sales. Meanwhile, greenhousegas emis Rsay supercheap, clean hydrogen. The nice thing sions have continued to climb year after year, aside from about supercheap, clean hydrogenforget about the occasional recession or pandemic. whether it ever competes in passenger cars; it Given the lack of momentum, how do we make faster, probably doesn’tis it potentially solves a lot of more significant progress? We asked 10 experts across a problems see “Green hydrogen,” page 54. variety of disciplines, including climate scientists, econ It requires the cheapest electricity in the world omists, physicists, and policy experts, a single question: and the cheapest capital cost in the world, if you’re “If you could invent, invest in, or implement one thing going to do it through electrolyzers cracking water. that you believe would do the most to reduce the risks of That could workwe should trybut we can’t climate change, what would it be and why?” count on it. You can’t just focus on one thing, Here’s what they had to say. because you may hit a dead end, just like we may not get fusion or nextgeneration fission or the

NHUNG LE NHUNG storage miracle.

MA21_front-climate2.indd 21 2/3/21 7:13 PM 22 The progress issue

Rise in global Number of new annual deaths Centimeters of average surface per 100,000 people that sea!level rise in temperature since climate change could cause the past century. the late 1800s !.!" #C by 2100 if left unchecked $%"&

SALLY BENSON ELIZABETH KOLBERT

Director of the Global Sta! writer at the New Yorker and Climate & Energy Project, author of Under a White Sky: The Nature Stanford University (US) of the Future (US)

Wise, inclusive, courageous, and I would impose an economy- wide car- decisive leadership. bon tax that would increase year by Wise because the stakes are year. Iíd use some of the proceeds to so high and solving the climate o! set the regressive impact of the tax problem is so complex. Inclusive on lowincome families and the rest to because we need everyone work- invest in low- carbon infrastructure. ing to solve the climate problem. Although I doní t believe in putting Courageous because many tough too much faith in economic models, I decisions need to be made, and have to believe economists are cor- most of them are sure to make rect in saying this would be the most RHIANA GUNN'WRIGHT some people unhappy. Decisive e" cient way to bring carbon emis- because we doní t have a moment sions down. And we just doní t have Director of climate policy, Roosevelt Institute, to waste. time for ine" ciency at this point. and one of the architects of the Green New Deal (US)

etí s be clear: the covid!19 recession and JOHN DABIRI climate change are not happening in isola! tion from one another. Our government is Professor of aeronautics and mechanical engineering, trying to rebuild our economy at the same California Institute of Technology (US) time"and in the same places"as fires & KOLBERT rage, waters rise, and homes are destroyed. I would invest in a moonshot and a hedge. To underestimate the depth of this reces! The moonshot would be modular nuclear fusion. It would provide on- sion and the impending threat of climate disaster demand power with unlimited fuel, no long- lived waste, and limited risk of

L $ PHOTO COURTESY ; weapons proliferation. If achieved in a su! ciently small footprint, it could would be a costly mistake"and, unfortunately, be accessible to developing countries, where energy demand one that we have made before. BENSON & will increase most signifi cantly. That is why if I could implement one thing to No other carbon- free energy source checks all these reduce the risks of climate change, I would ensure boxes. that stimulus policies designed to respond to the As a hedge, I would leverage our immense and ever current economic crisis are also designed to cre! increasing computational powers to develop a high- $ CASTILLO STEVE ; ate sustainable, long!term growth. To get these resolution Earth model that can predict extreme weather events weeks in advance. Some of the most acute cli- kinds of green stimulus policies off the ground & DABIRI mate risksó fl ooding and fi res, for exampleó are fast, we can use existing programs meant to alle! especially dangerous because theyí re currently viate energy poverty and aging infrastructure and unpredictable. If we can extend weather pre- provide relief funding to encourage a permanent $ VIDALI ALAN ; diction even further, from weeks to months in transition to a low!carbon economy. advance, perhaps even seasonal droughts WRIGHT & I would also redirect resources toward rapidly could become a nuisance rather than an GUNN % existential threat. scaling up production of key goods and services, and transitioning workers into different sectors

crucial to decarbonization. $ LE NHUNG

MA21_front-climate2.indd 22 2/4/21 3:19 PM !eport 23

Highest estimate for the number of Global economic people whom climate change could !$$ losses from wild! drive into poverty by 2030, in a fires in 2020 worst!case scenario MILLION (!) BILLION

ìIf you drill deep enough into hot enough rock, you can access clean, safe baseload and dispatchable geothermal energy almost anywhere.î !! The US will need to build enough storage of all types to provide 10,000 gigawatts of backup electricity.î

STEVEN CHU

Former US energy secretary and professor of physics, Stanford University (US)

At the top of my list would be low- cost, long- duration energy storage.

CHU & Most lithiumion battery systems being installed today are used to improve the stability of the power system, storing a few hours of energy each ; STEVE FISCH $ FISCH STEVE ; baseload and dispatchable options in the long- term day during periods of peak electricity geothermal energy almost pipeline for baseload and generation and releasing it during the anywhereó in principle. A dispatchable energyó peak demand. For example, the peak of solar generation is at noon but the peak & MARBLESTONE ADAM MARBLESTONE large- scale expansion of like novel compact fusion geothermal energy availabil- approaches leveraging demand for electricity occurs at roughly ity would ﬁ ll a key gap due to high- temperature super- 4 p.m. For renewable sources to provide Innovation fellow, the intermittency of renew- conductors, or small mod- 80% of the electricity on the grid, given Schmidt Futures (US) ables, notwithstanding a ular ﬁ ssion reactorsóit the huge seasonal dips in solar and wind

; COURTESY PHOTO $ PHOTO COURTESY ; hoped- for gigantic rollout of has the advantage of using output, weí ll need technologies capa- Fortunately, it turns out that nextgeneration storage and more pedestrian technology ble of storing as much as 100 hours of if you drill deep enough transmission technologies. and building on existing oil energy, a recent Joule study estimated. into hot enough rock, you While geothermal and gas talent and supply Storage also needs to get much & GEOTHERMAL $ can access clean, safe neední t supersede other chains. cheaper. Ultimately, the US will need

GETTY to build enough storage of all types to provide 10,000 gigawatts of backup electricity, up from only around 25 gigawatts today.

MA21_front-climate2.indd 23 2/4/21 3:19 PM MA21_front-climate2.indd 24 24 h ol fgoa eprtrsrs C the worldifglobaltemperatures rise2˚ conflicts likecivil warsinmany partsof Ecology (US) Global Carnegie emeritus, and sta senior Ventures, Gates science, climate on advisor Senior percentage eachyear.î would increasebyafixed from theground,which gameablefee for extractingfossilfuels simple,non- ìA KEN CALDEIRA KEN Projected increase intherate of group ! scientist scientist from fossil fuelswill even- dioxideogy emitting carbon markets that every technol- send aclearsignaltothe age eachyear. Thiswould xed percent- increase by aﬁ the ground, which would extracting fossil fuelsfrom gameablefee for non- it would beasimple, risks of climate change, one thingtoreduce the If Icouldonlyimplement &%+ The progress issue lar e for tree planting andsimi- bytheir emissions paying relying uponto balanceout that climate polluters are carbon o carbon the increasingly popular easy togame,unlike with atively easy todoandnot removedthe carbon isrel- sive thanany alternative. tually becomemore expen- Accurately measuring " orts. Sahara couldexpand from covering 0.8% of " Year by whichextreme hot zoneslikethe atíssurface " Earthí set programs as they dotoday# to19% Around 44% of theemissionreductions t get us there. Renewables alone woní Cabove preindustrial levels. than 1.5˚ global temperaturethe to no more rise The Paris agreement for calls keeping (Ethiopia) Africa for Commission Economic Nations United a Economic any new technology. climate goalswithout needed to reach its cant portionof theemissions cuts niﬁ could enabletheworld to achieve asig- by 2040. The right e gasemissions12% lower greenhouse- measures andnothing else,we could e ables. Byimplementing energy- another 36%from switching to renew- will comefrom energy e needed to meet theParis [threshold] NADIA S. OUEDRAOGO S. NADIA or unachievable. tems that result becomeunstable can mate thepolicies,goals,orsys- politics, when countries get aheadof theircli- ernance have to suitnational context; Butapproachespolitics. to climate gov- mentation across andmediate sectors, vision andsettargets, coordinate imple- They are neededto lay outastrategic to climate mitigation and adaptation. missing pieceinourcollective response cies. Durable national institutions are a anisms that translate visionsinto poli- of governanceabout theabsence mech- We shouldbetalkingasmuch,ormore, sions reductions required by science. taddup to emis- country pledges doní There isalot of talkaboutthefact that (India) Research Policy for Centre the at Professor NAVROZ DUBASH NAVROZ $%*% ! airs o airs " cer, cer, " ciency policies ciency " ciency,with " cient 2/4/21 3:19PM

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STEPHANIE MA21 ETD21 Full page 8x10.indd 1 1/25/21 10:56 AM MA21_TR10-overview.indd 26 2/3/21 2:00 PM 27

This list marks 20 years since we began compil- ing an annual selection of the year’s most important technologies. Some, such as mRNA vaccines, are already changing our lives, while others are still a few years off. Taken together, they’re a glimpse into our collective future.

28 Messenger RNA vaccines 34 GPT-3 36 Data trusts 38 Lithium-metal baeries 42 Digital contact tracing 44 Hyper-accurate positioning 46 Remote everything 50 Multi-skilled AI 52 TikTok recommendation algorithms 54 Green hydrogen

MA21_TR10-overview.indd 27 2/3/21 2:00 PM 28

MA21_TR10_Gene_vaccines.indd 28 2/2/21 7:07 PM 29 2/2/21 7:07 PM BY ANTONIO REGALADO ANTONIO BY DESIGN SELMAN BY ILLUSTRATION KEY PLAYERS: KEY BioNTech • Biosciences GreenLight • Therapeutics Moderna • Pfizer • Therapeutics Strand •

MESSENGER RNA VACCINES IN NEW ARE ON A USED COVID BASED NEVER COULD BEFORE AND IT VACCINES MEDICINE. TRANSFORM from covid-19. covid-19. from TECHNOLOGY WHY IT MATTERS: IT WHY THERAPEUTICS, THERAPEUTICS, 2 million have died died have million 2 Now AVAILABILITY: Worldwide, more than than more Worldwide, roughly 95% effective. 95% roughly Vaccines based on mRNA are mRNA on based Vaccines MA21_TR10_Gene_vaccines.indd 29 30 The progress issue

borrowed from the coronavirus a Shanghai scientist posted the itselfthe instructions for the germ’s genetic code online crown like protein, called the through a contact in Australia. spike, that it uses to enter cells. The virus was already moving n December 23, as This protein alone can’t make a quickly, jumping onto airplanes part of a publicity person sick; instead, it prompts and popping up in Hong Kong push to encourage a strong immune response that, and Thailand. But the genetic people to get vacci in large studies concluded in information moved even faster. December, prevented about It arrived in Mainz at the head nated against covid 95% of covid 19 cases. quarters of BioNTech, and in O 19, the University Beyond potentially end Cambridge at Moderna, where of Pennsylvania released footage ing the pandemic, the vaccine some researchers got the read of two researchers who devel breakthrough is showing how out as a Microsoft Word file. oped the science behind the messenger RNA may offer a Scientists at Moderna, a two recently authorized vac new approach to building drugs. biotech specializing in mes In the near future, research senger RNA, were able to cines, Katalin Karikó and Drew ers believe, shots that deliver design a vaccine on paper in Weissman, getting their inocula temporary instructions into cells 48 hours, 11 days before the tions. The vaccines, icy concoc could lead to vaccines against US even had its first recorded tions of fatty spheres and genetic herpes and malaria, better flu case. Inside of six weeks, instructions, used a previously vaccines, and, if the covid 19 Moderna had chilled doses unproven technology based on germ keeps mutating, updated ready for tests in animals. coronavirus vaccinations, too. Unlike most biotech drugs, messenger RNA and had been But researchers also see a RNA is not made in fermenters built and tested in under a year, future well beyond vaccines. or living cellsit’s produced thanks to discoveries the pair They think the technology will inside plastic bags of chem made starting 20 years earlier. permit cheap gene fixes for icals and enzymes. Because cancer, sickle cell disease, and there’s never been a messen maybe even HIV. ger RNA drug on the market For Weissman, the success before, there was no factory of covid vaccines isn’t a sur to commandeer and no supply prise but a welcome valida chain to call on. In the silent promotional Cambridge, Massachusetts, and tion of his life’s work. “We have When I spoke to Moderna clip, neither one speaks or BioNTech in Mainz, Germany, been working on this for over CEO Stéphane Bancel in smiles as a nurse inserts the in partnership with Pfizer. Both 20 years,” he says. “We always December, just before the US hypodermic into their arms. I employ Weissman’s discoveries. knew RNA would be a signifi Food and Drug Administration later asked Weissman, who has Weissman’s lab gets funding cant therapeutic tool.” authorized his company’s vac been a physician and working from BioNTech, and Karikó now cine, he was feeling confident scientist since 1987, what he works at the company. PERFECT TIMING about the shot but worried was thinking in that moment. Unlike traditional vaccines, Despite those two decades of about making enough of it. “I always wanted to develop which use live viruses, dead research, though, messenger Moderna has promised to make something that helps people,” ones, or bits of the shells that RNA had never been used in up to a billion doses during he told me. “When they stuck viruses come cloaked in to train any marketed drug before last 2021. Imagine, he said, that that needle in my arm, I said, the body’s immune system, year. Henry Ford was rolling the first ‘I think I’ve finally done it.’” the new shots use messenger Then, in December 2019, Model T off the production The infection has killed more RNAthe short lived mid the first reports emerged from line, only to be told the world than 2 million people globally, dleman molecule that, in our Wuhan, China, about a scary needed a billion of them. including some of Weissman’s cells, conveys copies of genes transmissible pneumonia, most Bancel calls the way covid childhood friends. So far, the to where they can guide the likely some kind of bat virus. 19 arrived just as messenger US vaccine campaign has relied making of proteins. Chinese government censors at RNA technology was ready an entirely on shots developed The message the vac first sought to cover up the out “aberration of history.” by Moderna Therapeutics of cine adds to people’s cells is break, but on January 10, 2020, In other words, we got lucky.

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HUMAN BIOREACTORS founding in 2010, its leaders The first attempt to use syn imagined they might be able to thetic messenger RNA to make use RNA to replace the injected an animal produce a protein proteins that make up most of was in 1990. It worked but a big the biotech pharmacopoeia, problem soon arose. The injec essentially producing drugs tions made mice sick. “Their fur inside the patient’s own cells gets ruffled. They lose weight, from an RNA blueprint. “We stop running around,” says were asking, could we turn Weissman. Give them a large a human into a bioreactor?” dose, and they’d die within says Noubar Afeyan, the com hours. “We quickly realized pany’s cofounder and chair that messenger RNA was not man and the head of Flagship usable,” he says. Pioneering, a firm that starts The culprit was inflamma biotech companies. tion. Over a few billion years, If so, the company could bacteria, plants, and mammals easily name 20, 30, or even have all evolved to spot the 40 drugs that would be worth genetic material from viruses replacing. But Moderna was and react to it. Weissman and struggling with how to get the Karikó’s next step, which “took messenger RNA to the right years,” he says, was to identify cells in the body, and without how cells were recognizing the too many side effects. Its sci foreign RNA. entists were also learning that As they found, cells are administering repeat doses, packed with sensing mol which would be necessary to ecules that distinguish your replace biotech blockbusters RNA from that of a virus. If like a clotting factor that’s given these molecules see viral genes, monthly, was going to be a prob they launch a storm of immune lem. “We would find it worked molecules called cytokines that once, then the second time less, hold the virus at bay while your and then the third time even body learns to cope with it. lower,” says Afeyan. “That was “It takes a week to make an a problem and still is.” antibody response; what keeps Moderna pivoted. What kind you alive for those seven days of drug could you give once is these sensors,” Weissman and still have a big impact? The says. But too strong a flood of answer eventually became obvi cytokines can kill you. ous: a vaccine. With a vaccine, The eureka moment was the initial supply of protein when the two scientists deter would be enough to train the mined they could avoid the immune system in ways that immune reaction by using could last years, or a lifetime. Drew Weissman’s chemically modified build A second major question work with RNA led to successful ing blocks to make the RNA. was how to package the del covid-19 vaccines. It worked. Soon after, in icate RNA molecules, which Cambridge, a group of entre last for only a couple of min preneurs began setting up utes if exposed. Weissman says Moderna Therapeutics to build he tried 40 different carriers, on Weissman’s advance. including water droplets, sugar, Vaccines were not their and proteins from salmon

JUSTIN JAMES MUIR JAMES JUSTIN focus. At the company’s sperm. It was like Edison

MA21_TR10_Gene_vaccines.indd 31 2/3/21 11:07 AM 32 The progress issue

looking for the right filament to of clinical trials, they found that make an electric lamp. “Almost vaccine programs frequently anything people published, we succeed. Around 40% of vac tried,” he says. Most promising cine candidates in efficacy were nanoparticles made from tests, called phase 2 clinical a mixture of fats. But these were trials, proved successful, a rate secret commercial inventions 10 times that of cancer drugs. and are still the basis of patent Adding to mRNA vaccines’ disputes. Weissman didn’t get chance of success was a lucky his hands on them until 2014, break. Injected into the arm, after half a decade of attempts. the nanoparticles holding the When he finally did, he critical instructions seemed to loved what he saw. “They were home in on dendritic cells, the better than anything else we exact cell type whose job is to had tried,” he says. “It had what train the immune system to rec you wanted in a drug. High ognize a virus. What’s more, potency, no adverse events.” something about the parti By 2017, Weissman’s lab had cles put the immune system shown how to vaccinate mice on alert. It wasn’t planned, but and monkeys against the Zika they were working as what’s virus using messenger RNA. called a vaccine adjuvant. “We Moderna was neck and neck. couldn’t believe the effect,” says It quickly published results of Weissman. an early human test of a new Vaccines offered Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine and CEO, Bancel, a chance to would soon initiate a large advance a phalanx of new series of clinical studies involv products. Since every vaccine These facilities from the ing diseases including Zika. would use the same nanoparti biopharmaceutical company Lonza in Pivoting to vaccines did cle carrier, they could be rapidly Switzerland (top) and New Hampshire are have a drawback for Moderna. reprogrammed, as if they were helping to produce Moderna’s vaccine. Andrew Lo, a professor at software. Moderna had even MIT’s Laboratory for Financial trademarked the name “mRNA Engineering, says that most OS,” for operating system. “The months. “Sometimes things There are some side effects, vaccines lose money. The rea way we make mRNA for one take a long time just because but both shots are about 95% son is that many shots sell for vaccine is exactly the same as people think it does,” says effective that is, they stop 95 a “fraction of their economic for another,” he says. “Because Afeyan. “That weighs on you out of 100 cases, a record so value.” Governments will pay mRNA is an information mol as a scientific team. People are far unmatched by other covid $100,000 for a cancer drug that ecule, the difference between saying, ‘Don’t go any faster!’” 19 vaccines and far better adds a month to a person’s life our covid vaccine, Zika vaccine, The shots from Moderna than the performance of flu but only want to pay $5 for a and flu vaccine is only the order and BioNTech proved effective vaccines. Another injection, vaccine that can protect against of the nucleotides.” by December and were autho made by AstraZeneca using an an infectious disease for good. rized that month in the US. But engineered cold virus, is 70% Lo calculated that vaccine pro % EFFECTIVE the record speed was not due effective. A shot developed in grams for emerging threats like Back in March 2020, when the only to the novel technology. China using deactivated covid Zika or Ebola, where outbreaks vaccine programs were get Another reason was the prev 19 germs protected only half the come and go, would deliver a ting under way, skeptics said alence of infection. Because people who got it, although it 66% return on average. “The messenger RNA was still an so many people were catching did stop severe disease. economic model for vaccines unproven technology. Even covid 19, the studies were able “This could change how we is broken,” he says. this magazine said a vac to amass evidence quickly. make vaccines from here on On the other hand, vaccines cine would take 18 months, Is messenger RNA really out,” says Ron Renaud, the CEO are more predictable. When at a minimuma projection a better vaccine? The answer of Translate Bio, a company

Lo’s team analyzed thousands that proved off by a full nine seems to be a resounding yes. working with the technology. LTD LONZA

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The potency of the shots, and BEYOND VACCINES Right now, gene therapy is and cure that infection, once the ease with which they can be After the covid vaccines, some complex and expensive. Since and for all. reprogrammed, mean research researchers expect Moderna 2017, several types have been What all this means is that ers are already preparing to go and BioNTech to return to their approved in the US and Europe. the fatty particles of messen after HIV, herpes, infant respi original plans for the technology, One, a treatment for blind ger RNA may become a way to ratory virus, and malariaall like treating more conventional ness, in which viruses carry a edit genomes at massive scales, diseases for which there’s no ailments such as heart attacks, new gene to the retina, costs and on the cheap. A drip drug successful vaccine. Also on the cancer, or rare inherited diseases. $425,000 per eye. that allows engineering of the drawing board: “universal” flu But there’s no guarantee of suc A startup called Intellia blood system could become a vaccines and what Weissman cess in that arena. Therapeutics is testing a treat public health boon as signifi calls a “pan coronavirus” shot “Although there are a lot of ment that packages CRISPR cant as vaccines. The burden of that could offer basic protec potential therapeutic applica into RNA and then into a sickle cell, an inherited disease tion against thousands of patho tions for synthetic mRNA in nanoparticle, with which it that shortens lives by decades gens in that category, which principle, in practice the prob hopes to cure a painful inher or, in poor regions, kills during have led not only to covid 19 lem of delivering sufficient ited liver disease. The aim is to childhood, falls most heavily but, before that, to the infec amounts of mRNA to the right make the gene scissors appear on Black people in equatorial tion SARS and probably other place in the body is going to be a in a person’s cells, cut out the Africa, Brazil, and the US. HIV pandemics throughout history. huge and possibly insurmount problem gene, and then fade has also become a lingering “You have to assume we’re able challenge in most cases,” away. The company tested the scourge: about two thirds of going to have more,” Weissman says Luigi Warren, a biotech drug on a patient for the first people living with the virus, says. “So instead of shutting entrepreneur whose research as time in 2020. or dying from it, are in Africa. down the world for a year while a postdoc formed the nucleus It’s not a coincidence that Moderna and BioNTech you make a new vaccine, we’ll of Moderna. Intellia is treating a liver dis have been selling their covid have a vaccine ready to go.” There is one application in ease. When dripped into the 19 vaccine shots for $20 to $40 a Last spring, Bancel began addition to vaccines, however, bloodstream through an IV, dose. What if that were the cost petitioning the government to where brief exposure to mes lipid nanoparticles tend to all of genetic modification, too? pay for vast manufacturing cen senger RNA could have effects end up in the liverthe body’s “We could correct sickle cell ters to make messenger RNA. lasting years, or even a lifetime. house cleaning organ. “If you with a single shot,” Weissman He imagined a megafactory that In late 2019, before covid 19, want to treat a liver disease, says. “We think that is ground “companies could use in peace the US National Institutes of greatanything else, you have a breaking new therapy.” time” but that could be quickly Health and the Bill and Melinda problem,” says Weissman. There are fantastic for reoriented to churn out shots Gates Foundation announced But Weissman says he’s tunes to be made in mRNA during the next pandemic. That they would spend $200 mil figured out how to target the technology. At least five peo would be insurance, he says, lion developing affordable nanoparticles so that they wind ple connected to Moderna and against a nightmare scenario gene therapies for use in sub up inside bone marrow, which BioNTech are now billionaires, of a germ that spreads as fast Saharan Africa. The top targets: constantly manufactures all including Bancel. Weissman as covid but has the 50% fatality HIV and sickle cell disease, red blood cells and immune is not one of them, though he rate of Ebola. If “governments which are widespread there. cells. That would be a hugely stands to get patent royalties. spend billions on nuclear weap Gates and the NIH didn’t valuable trickso valuable that He says he prefers academia, ons they hope to never use,” say how they would make such Weissman wouldn’t tell me how where people are less likely Bancel argued in April, then “we cutting edge treatments cheap he does it. It’s a secret, he says, to tell him what to research should equip ourselves so this and easy to use, but Weissman “until we get the patents filed.” or, just as important, what not never happens again.” told me that the plan may He intends to use this tech to. He’s always looking for the Later that month, as part of depend on using messenger nique to try to cure sickle cell next great scientific challenge: Operation Warp Speed, the US RNA to add instructions for disease by sending new instruc “It’s not that the vaccine is old effort to produce the vaccines, gene editing tools like CRISPR tions into the cells of the body’s news, but it was obvious they Moderna was effectively picked to a person’s body, making per blood factory. He’s also working were going to work.” Messenger as a national champion to build manent changes to the genome. with researchers who are ready RNA, he says, “has an incredi such centers. The government Think of mass vaccination cam to test on monkeys whether ble future.” ■ handed it nearly $500 million to paigns, says Weissman, except immune cells called T cells can Antonio Regalado is MIT develop its vaccine and expand with gene editing to correct be engineered to go on a seek Technology Review’s manufacturing. inherited disease. and destroy mission after HIV biomedicine editor.

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By has captured Will Douglas the public’s Heaven imagina GPT-3 tion unlike any AI since Photograph by DeepMind’s AlphaGo or IBM’s chess Sierra & Lenny playing DeepBlue. Built by OpenAI, a research lab based in San Francisco, it is a “large language model”an algorithm that uses deep learning, trained on the text of thousands of books and most of the internet, to string words and phrases together. When it was launched in 2020, its ability to mimic humanwritten text with uncanny realism seemed to many like a milestone on the road to true machine intelligence. OPENAI’S WHY IT MATTERS: Here’s an example of what it can do. LANGUAGE Large computer models that learn The part in italics was the prompt pro AI natural language vided by a human. WOWED are a big step THE PUBLIC toward AI that can understand WITH and interact with ITS the human world. In a shocking finding, scientists discov APPARENT ered a herd of unicorns living in a remote, KEY PLAYERS: previously unexplored valley in the Andes MASTERY • OpenAI OF ENGLISH • Google Mountains. Even more surprising to the BUT IS • Facebook researchers was the fact that the unicorns

IT ALL AN AVAILABILITY: spoke perfect English. They also were ILLUSION? Now found to have perfectly coiffed hair, and

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wore what appeared to be Dior generates startup ideas to an The results that caught The veneer of humanity makeup. AIscripted adventure game everyone’s attention were that GPT3 gives to machine “We were shocked to dis set in a dungeon. often cherrypicked, however. generated text makes it easy to cover the unicorns,” said GPT3 isn’t the only large GPT3 often repeats or con trust. This has led some to argue anthropologist Daniel St. language model to appear in tradicts itself in passages of that GPT3 and all humanlike Maurice. “They were like noth 2020. Microsoft, Google, and text more than a few hundred language models should come ing we had ever seen before. Facebook all announced their words long. It comes out with with a safety warning, a “User We had heard legends of the own. But GPT3 was the best howlers. GPT3 hides its stu beware” sticker, alerting peo unicorns, but never thought generalist by far. And it gives pidity behind a silver tongue, ple that they are chatting with they actually existed.” the impression it can write any but it typically takes a few goes software and not a human. When the scientists first thing: fan fiction, philosophical to get it to generate something A few months ago some arrived in the valley, the uni polemics, and even code. When that doesn’t show the cracks. one released a GPT3powered corns were surprised and star people started to try GPT3 for GPT3’s abilities also make bot on Reddit, where it posted tled by the presence of humans, themselves last summer, thou it hard to ignore AI’s growing hundreds of comments and but were also excited. The uni sands of examples of its versatil problems. Its enormous power interacted with dozens of users corns welcomed the research ity flooded social media. Debates consumption is bad news for over several days before it was ers and explained that they had were even sparked about the climate: researchers at the unmasked. Much of its activity been waiting for them for a very whether GPT3 was the first University of Copenhagen in was harmless. But the bot also long time. artificial general intelligence. Denmark estimate that training replied to comments about sui It’s not. Despite the incredi GPT3 would have had roughly cidal thoughts, giving personal bly convincing passages of text the same carbon footprint as advice that mentioned the sup As you can see, GPT3 is it can churn out, GPT3 doesn’t driving a car the distance to the port of its “parents.” capable of producing complex do anything really new. What it moon and back, if it had been Despite all these issues, sentences that read as though shows instead is that size can trained in a data center fully GPT3 is a win for those who they could have been pro be everything. To build GPT powered by fossil fuels. And believe bigger is better. Such duced by a human. The exam 3, OpenAI used more or less the costs of such training models show that computing ple sentences include cultural the same approach and algo estimated by some experts power and data get you a long references and a believable rithms it used for its older sib to be at least $10 million in way, and we can expect more of account of how the scientists ling, GPT2, but it supersized GPT3’s caseput the latest both in the future. What might would react. Machines that can both the neural network and research out of reach of all but a GPT4 be like? We can expect use language in this way are the training set. GPT3 has 175 the richest labs. chatbots to get slicker, better important for several reasons. billion parametersthe values OpenAI reports that train at stringing together longer Language is crucial to making in a network that get adjusted ing GPT3 consumed several pieces of coherent text, with sense of the everyday world: during trainingcompared thousand petaflop/sdays of an even wider mastery of con humans use it to communicate, with GPT2’s 1.5 billion. It was computing power. A peta versational topics. to share ideas and describe con also trained on a lot more data. flop/sday is a unit of power But language is just one way cepts. An AI that mastered lan Before GPT2, training a lan consumption that consists of to understand and interact with guage would acquire a better guage model using deep learn performing 1015that’s one the world. Nextgeneration lan understanding of the world in ing typically took two passes: thousand trillion, or a quadril guage models will integrate the process. it was trained on a general lionneuralnetwork compu other skills, such as image rec Large language models have purpose data set to give it a tations per second for a day. In ognition. OpenAI is already many practical uses, too. They basic grasp of language and comparison, GPT2 consumed taking GPT3 in this direction power better chatbots that hold then trained on a smaller set just tens of petaflop/sdays. with AIs that use language to more fluent conversations; targeted at a specific task, such Yet another problem is understand images and images they can generate articles and as comprehension or transla that GPT3 soaks up much of to understand language. stories about anything, given tion. GPT2 showed that you the disinformation and preju If you want to know the state a prompt; they can summarize could get good results across the dice it finds online and repro of deep learning today, look at pieces of text or answer queries board with just one pass if you duces it on demand. As the GPT3. It is a microcosm of the about them. Access to GPT3 is threw more examples at a bigger team that built it said in the best and worst in AI. by invitation only, but people model. So with GPT3, OpenAI paper describing the technol Will Douglas Heaven is MIT have already used it to power doubled down and made the ogy: “internettrained models Technology Review’s senior dozens of apps, from a tool that biggest language model ever. have internetscale biases.” editor for AI.

MA21_TR10_GPT3.indd 35 2/2/21 1:21 PM 36 By Anouk Ruhaak

Illustration by Franziska Barczyk

If this model of individual consent is bro ken, then what’s left? Should we leave it to our politicians to regulate data collection? Perhaps. Governments around the world have implemented data protection regimes such as Europe’s GDPR that force compa nies to ask for our consent before collecting data. They could go further and prohibit DAthe most harmful uses of data. But given the numerous ways in which data might be collected or used, it’s hard to imagine that broad regulations would be enough. What if we had something to stand up for our data rights the way a trade union stands up for labor rights? And the data equivalent of a doctor to make smart data decisions on our behalf? Data trusts are one idea for how we could get just that. Data trusts are a relatively new concept, but their popularity has grown quickly. In 2017, the UK government first pro posed them as a way to make larger data sets available for training artificial intelli gence. A European Commission proposal in early 2020 floated data trusts as a way to make more data available for research TAand innovation. And in July 2020, India’s government came out with a plan that WHY IT MATTERS: prominently featured them as a mecha Companies and governments nism to give communities greater control TRUSTS have mishandled over their data. our data time and again. Data In a legal setting, trusts are entities in you simply click “Yes” whenever a company asks for trusts could which some people trustees look after an D0 your data? If so, you’re not alone. We can’t be expected help us reclaim asset on behalf of other people beneficiaries greater agency to read the lengthy terms and conditions or evaluate over it. who own it. In a data trust, trustees would all the risks every time we use a service. That’s like asking each look after the data or data rights of groups KEY PLAYERS: of us to assess whether the water we drink is safe every time • Data Trusts of individuals. And just as doctors have a we take a sip. So we hit “Yes” and hope for the best. Initiative duty to act in the interest of their patients, • Digital Public Even if you’ve done your research, though, your decision • Open Data data trustees would have a legal duty to act could affect other people in ways you didn’t account for. When Institute in the interest of the beneficiaries. you share your DNA with services like 23andMe, that data • National So what would this approach look like governments reveals a lot about your family’s genetic make up. What you • European in practice? As one example, groups of share on social media could influence your friends’ insurance Commission Facebook users could create a data trust.

premiums. Your income statements could affect your neigh AVAILABILITY: Its trustees would determine under what bor’s ability to obtain a loan. Should sharing this information 2 to 3 years conditions the trust would allow Facebook be solely up to you? to collect and use those people’s data. The trustees could, for example, set rules about the types of targeting that platforms like Facebook could employ to show ads to users EXPECTING PEOPLE TO MANAGE in the trust. If Facebook misbehaved, the THEIR OWN DATA IS UNREALISTIC. trust would retract the company’s access IT’S TIME TO JOIN FORCES. to its members’ data.

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While it’s hard for any of us to assess medical research, that benefit everyone. The plan itself was flawed, and Sidewalk how sharing our data might affect others, Companies that want to show they’re pri Labs abandoned the Quayside project in data trustees could weigh individual inter vacy aware could hand over the reins on May 2020, but the company’s proposal ests against collective benefits and harms. key data decisions to a trust and instruct showcased the promise of data trusts. The In theory, because the data trust would it to protect customers’ data rights instead idea of creating them to govern data col represent a collective, it could negotiate of the company’s bottom line. lected in a public context such as in smart terms and conditions on our behalf. Thus, For example, in 2017, Google sister com cities, or for public health initiatives lives on. it could allow us to exercise our rights as pany Sidewalk Labs procured the rights to The problems data trusts aim to tackle producers of data in much the same way develop Toronto’s Quayside waterfront into are as urgent as ever. For the coming year, trade unions allow workers to exercise a sensor laden smart neighborhood. But as funding becomes more widely available, their rights as purveyors of labor. what was hailed by some as a utopia was we’ll see further research, more experiments, Data trusts sound good, but is this vision seen by others as yet another case in which and more policy proposals. really realistic? It’s hard to imagine that large tech companies have encroached on Certainly, data trusts aren’t the only solu Facebook would ever agree to deal with one. the public domain, hoovering up residents’ tion to growing privacy and security con And we, the users, have few ways to force data in the process. cerns. Other possible mechanisms, including its hand. We could form a data trust, but Sidewalk Labs suggested the creation data cooperatives and data unions, would unless we’re all willing to leave the platform of a civic data trust to guarantee that data tackle similar problems in different ways. together, or unless governments provide collected and used in Quayside would ben Together, these new data governance mod us with greater enforcement mechanisms, efit the public. The proposal was that any els could help us regain control of our data, that trust would have very little leverage. entity wishing to place a sensor in Quayside enforce our rights, and ensure that data All is not lost, though, because data would have to request a license to both sharing benefits us all. ■ trusts have many other useful applications. collect and use data. A review board, made Anouk Ruhaak is a senior fellow They could allow people to pool their data up of community members, would mon with the Mozilla Foundation in and make it available for uses, such as itor and enforce that collection and use. Berlin, researching data governance.

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METAL

QuantumScape’s prototype cell features a solid version of the usually liquid electrolyte.

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or all the hype and hope around

F electric vehicles, they still make WHY IT MATTERS: up only about 2% of new car sales The performance limitations in the US and just a little more globally. of batteries For many buyers, they’re simply too have held back expensive, their range is too limited, and the switch to cleaner electric charging them isn’t nearly as quick and cars and all but convenient as refueling at the pump. ruled out electric planes. All these limitations have to do with the lithium ion batteries that power KEY PLAYERS: the vehicles. They’re costly, heavy, and • QuantumScape • Samsung quick to run out of juice. To make mat Advanced ters worse, the batteries rely on liquid Institute of Technology electrolytes that can burst into flames • Solid Power during collisions. • 24M

Making electric cars more competi AVAILABILITY: tive with gas powered ones will require 2025 a breakthrough battery that remedies those shortcomings. That, at least, is the argument of Jagdeep Singh, chief exec utive of QuantumScape, a Silicon Valley startup that claims to have developed just such a technology. The company asserts it did so by solving a chemistry puzzle that has stumped researchers for nearly half a VW was impressed enough to century: how to use lithium, the lightest invest hundreds of millions of dollars metal on the periodic table, to boost the in QuantumScape. The German auto amount of energy that can be packed LITHIUM giant also agreed to set up a joint venture into a battery without posing a rou with the company to mass produce the tine risk of fire or otherwise sacrific batteries and says they’ll be in its elec ing performance. The company says it tric cars and trucks on the road by 2025. achieved this, in large part, by devel oping a solid version of the flammable FASTER CHARGING AND LONGER RANGE liquid electrolyte. In a conventional lithium ion battery, one of the two electrodes, the anode, is made mostly from graphite. This is a form of carbon that can easily take up and release the charged lithium ions that shuttle back and forth between the anode and cathode through the electro lyte. That stream of charged particles produces an electric current, which flows out of the battery to power what ever needs powering. But the graphite is merely a host for the lithium ions, which nestle in between sheets of carbon like METALpackages on shelves. It’s dead weight that doesn’t store energy or produce a BATTERIES current itself. In a lithium metal battery, the anode itself is made from lithium. This means that nearly every atom in the battery’s By James Temple A NEW TYPE OF anode can also be put to work creating BATTERY COULD FINALLY current. Theoretically, a lithium metal MAKE ELECTRIC CARS anode could store 50% more energy Photographs by AS CONVENIENT AND CHEAP than a graphite one of the same weight Winni Wintermeyer AS GAS ONES. and volume.

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However, because lithium metal is so including long haul trucking and even 1976, and showed off a larger version of reactive, being in constant contact with a short distance flights. As a bonus, it would the cells at an auto show in 1977. liquid electrolyte can trigger reactions that also deliver phones and laptops that could By the early 1980s, the oil crisis had degrade the battery or cause it to combust, last a couple of days on one charge. passed. Exxon’s new management decided says Venkat Viswanathan, an associate pro to shed any business line without the fessor at Carnegie Mellon who works on BIRTH OF A BATTERY potential to become a $100 million annual lithium metal batteries and is a consultant The story of lithium metal batteries began market. The company dropped its electric for QuantumScape. Another issue is that in the early 1970s and is tightly intertwined vehicle and battery efforts. “They said, as the lithium ions flow back and forth, with the development of the lithium ion ‘These are too small for us to be involved needle like structures known as dendrites ones we depend on today. in,’” says Whittingham. can form in the batteries and short circuit The oil crises of the era, coupled with the cell or cause it to catch fire. what would turn out to be very early LITHIUMION TAKES OVER QuantumScape, which went public in peak petroleum fears, suddenly reignited Lithium metal batteries were far superior November after operating in stealth mode an interest in electric vehicles for the first to lead acid batteries, but they also had for a decade, is still holding back some of the time since the infancy of the auto indus inherent drawbacks the Exxon team had critical details on how its solid electrolyte try. By 1972, American Motors, Chrysler, never resolved, including their habit of battery overcomes these problems. But it Ford, GM, Toyota, VW, and others were sparking fires in the lab. appears to perform remarkably well. all working on electric cars, as the science Others who attempted to commercial In an online presentation in December, writer Seth Fletcher describes in the book ize lithium metal batteries ran into sim the startup displayed a series of charts showing that a single layer lab version of the battery can be charged to more than 80% of its capacity in 15 minutes, lasts for hundreds of thousands of miles, and works fine at freezing temperatures. The company expects the batteries to be able to boost electric vehicles’ range by more than 80%: a car that can go 250 miles on a single charge today could drive 450 miles instead. “QuantumScape has set me back on Cathodes for QuantumScape’s batteries are made on this fabrication line. At my heels,” says Nancy Dudney, a bat right, an x-ray diffractometer is used to check the battery components. tery researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who has done pioneering work Bottled Lighting. Meanwhile, large indus ilar problems. In the 1980s, Moli Energy on solid state electrolytes. “At first view, trial labs, including those at GE, Dow of British Columbia developed a 2.2 volt it looks really good,” she says, though she Chemical, and Exxon, were searching for lithium metal battery for laptops and cell adds, “We’ve been here before with other better battery chemistries. phones. But in 1989, a Japanese cell phone battery advances.” Batteries back then, which were mostly caught fire, burning its owner. After an Indeed, the battery field is littered lead acid, couldn’t deliver anywhere near investigation pinned the blame on the bat with examples of startups that prom the distances or speeds of gas engines. In tery, thousands of cell phones were recalled ised breakthrough technologies but ulti 1969, General Motors’ experimental 512 and the company went into receivership, mately failed. And the challenges ahead of electric car boasted a top speed of about according to Electric Autonomy Canada. QuantumScape are daunting, particularly 30 miles an hour, with a range of 47 miles. Meanwhile, others were building on when it comes to converting its prototype In 1972, Exxon’s research division hired Whittingham’s work. John Goodenough, cells into commercial products that can be a young chemist named Stan Whittingham now a professor at the University of Texas manufactured cheaply. on the strength of his postdoctoral work at Austin, used cobalt oxide rather than tita If the company succeeds, it could trans at Stanford. Specifically, he was devel nium disulfide to develop a cathode that form the EV marketplace. Cutting costs, oping crystalline materials that allowed could store more energy. Akira Yoshino, a boosting range, and making charging ions to easily flow in and out. At Exxon, professor at Meijo University, swapped the nearly as convenient as filling up at a gas Whittingham and his colleagues began pure lithium anode for coke another form station could broaden demand beyond peo experimenting with a promising porous of carbon, which could still store a lot of ple who can afford to shell out thousands material for a cathode: titanium disulfide. lithium ions but reduced the fire dangers. of dollars for charging ports at home, and They paired it with an anode made from Finally, researchers at Sony assembled the ease the anxieties of those who fear being metallic lithium, a highly reactive mate pieces to develop the first commercial stranded on longer trips. rial that readily releases its electrons. It lithium ion batteries in 1992. Whittingham, The added energy density and faster worked surprisingly well. Goodenough, and Yoshino shared the charging could also make it more practical The team applied for a patent in 1973, Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2019 for their to electrify other forms of transportation, published a landmark paper in Science in roles in the breakthrough.

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Lithium-ion battery Lithium-metal battery entirely new type of battery, known as an all electron battery, but found it would be electrical electrical harder than it initially seemed. contact contact By then, the company had raised tens of millions of dollars from venture capi anode (-) lithium-metal anode (-) tal firms like Kleiner Perkins and Khosla polymer Ventures. That left QuantumScape with solid-state separator enough money to quietly shift direction, ceramic separator cathode (+) pursuing the dream of lithium metal cathode (+) technology. electrical The company spent the next five contact electrical contact years looking for just the right material to develop a solid state electrolyte, Singh

In a lithium-ion battery, lithium ions shuttle back and forth between says. It then spent another five working out the anode and cathode as the battery charges and discharges. In the right composition and manufacturing QuantumScape’s battery, the ions travel through a separator and form process to prevent defects and dendrites. a perfectly flat layer between it and the electrical contact, creating the All the company will say about its electro anode when it’s charged. It lacks an anode in its depleted state (at right). lyte is that it’s a ceramic.

The runaway success of lithium ion A handful of other companies, however, ARE WE THERE YET? batteries, which now power our laptops, have made more recent advances. Most All of QuantumScape’s published tests so phones, and electric vehicles, quashed notably, two days after QuantumScape’s far were performed on single layer cells. efforts to commercialize lithium metal presentation last December, Solid Power, To work in cars, the company will need technology for years to come. But some a Colorado startup founded in 2012, to produce batteries packed with several never lost sight of lithium metal’s poten announced that it is already producing dozen layers, effectively moving from a tial to be a more efficient form of energy pilot scale batches of 22 layer lithium single playing card to a deck. And it will storage. And replacing the standard liquid metal cells that would surpass the range still have to find a way to manufacture electrolytes, which are effectively com of today’s electric vehicle batteries. these cells cheaply enough to compete bustible solvents, with solid materials And in January, the Department of with lithium ion, a battery technology seemed a particularly promising avenue Energy’s ARPA E division announced that’s dominated for decades. of exploration. it would invest $9 million into an effort It’s a daunting engineering task. Around 2000, a team at Oak Ridge by battery company 24M and Carnegie “They’re partway thereafter 10 years National Laboratory demonstrated thin Mellon’s Viswanathan to develop lithium and $300 million and 150 people work film batteriesthe kind deployed in small metal batteries designed for electric planes, ing on this, they have this little play electronics like smart cards and pacemak where the energy stored and power deliv ing card now,” says Albertus, from the ersthat used solid state lithium metal ered per kilogram are crucial. University of Maryland. “That’s a long technology. The production process and way away still from delivering batteries size and shape of thin film batteries mostly STARTING UP QUANTUMSCAPE on the thousands of metric tons scale limit their use beyond anything larger than The trick for any company developing and it’s a really hard challenge.” Several a watch, says Paul Albertus, a battery expert lithium metal batteries has been to pin battery researchers told me they seriously at the University of Maryland. But the work point electrolyte materials that prevent doubt that QuantumScape can scale up provided a crucial proof of concept for a fires and dendrites while still allowing and complete full safety tests in time to working lithium metal battery. ions to easily pass through, and without put batteries in cars on the road just four otherwise degrading the performance years from now. ROAD KILL of the battery. And that’s precisely what Given the company’s results and the Various startups had begun pursuing the QuantumScape claims it has done. encouraging announcements from other technology again by the late 2000s. But it The origins of the company date back startups, most people in the battery world has proved to be a treacherous road. to 2009. As Singh was preparing to step do think it’s looking more likely that the Some have already closed down. Seeo, down as CEO of Infinera, a networking problems that have held up lithium metal formed in 2007, was bought by the German company he cofounded, he began talking for decades can be solvedwhich is why company Bosch, which later disbanded with Stanford postdoctoral fellow Tim it’s on MIT Technology Review’s list of its battery research efforts. France based Holme and his advisor, Friedrich Prinz, breakthrough technologies this year. But Bolloré was the first to put solid state about forming a company based on their it’s also clear that for all the progress that’s lithium metal batteries into vehicles on the research on novel battery materials. been made since Whittingham’s time at road, launching its Bluecar car sharing pro The trio cofounded QuantumScape the Exxon, years of work still lie ahead. grams in 2011. But its polymer based elec following year, aiming to develop energy James Temple is MIT Technology trolytes only work at higher temperatures, dense batteries with high power output. Review’s senior editor for climate

KYLE THOMAS HEMINGWAY; SOURCE: QUANTUMSCAPE SOURCE: HEMINGWAY; THOMAS KYLE limiting their use in consumer vehicles. They first tried to do so by creating an and energy.

MA21_TR10-batteries.indd 41 2/3/21 6:36 PM DIGI TAL CON TACT TRAC ING

we’ve learned anything from covid19, it’s the extent worked on smartphones and kept health IF to which our lives are enmeshed with those of the WHY IT MATTERS: data anonymous and private. By January, people around us. We interact constantly, spreading Covid exposure MIT Technology Review was tracking 77 notifications our germs and picking up theirs. That’s why exposure noti didn’t live up exposure notification apps being used by ficationsusing your phone to tell you if you’ve crossed paths to the hype. But governments around the world. there’s still a with an infected personseemed so promising. lot to learn from Like many things meant to slow the Technology offered a way to automate timehonored con their rollout. pandemic, however, digital contact trac tact tracing efforts in which public health investigators ask ing hasn’t yielded the lifesaving results we KEY PLAYERS: patients to retrace their footsteps in order to deduce where • Apple needed. In fact, it barely made a dent. Why? they got infected. Did they interact with a clerk at the store, • Google

a classroom of children, a thousand passengers on a cruise AVAILABILITY: A CHALLENGE TOO GREAT ship? Apps meant disease sleuths wouldn’t have to rely on Now In many countries, limiting the spread of an individual’s memory, and they could ease strain on the covid simply seemed too hard a problem authorities monitoring an outbreak. By for contact tracing to solve. Slow action, That idea sparked a remarkable wave of development and Lindsay mixed messages, mismanagement, and cooperation. Some programmers had systems up and running Muscato neglect all played a part: despite lockdowns, in weeks, opensourcing their code and sharing it freely so that travel restrictions, and mask mandates, the countries as far apart as Canada and Mongolia could essentially Illustration: virus kept infecting people. It didn’t matter use the same system. Meanwhile Apple and Google, rivals Franziska whether you were riding on a bus, gathering in almost every usual respect, collaborated on a system that Barczyk for dinner, or toasting at the White House. Exposure notifications also suffered from mistrust and a lack of clear messag ing. Some people didn’t believe their own BITTER RIVALS TEAMED UP. government’s warnings about the virus. TO BUILD TOOLS THEY HOPED WOULD HELP. Others were all too conscious of Silicon SLOW THE VIRUS’S SPREAD. Valley’s checkered reputation when it came

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or international borders? And was there enough testing in the first place? Nobody building these systems thought they would be a silver bullet, but the strug gle was a stark reminder of how technology can fail to solve a problem even when its creators have the best intentions. Contact tracing works best as part of what experts sometimes call the Swiss cheese model, which involves layering sev eral strategies. One method may have holes, but many combined can form a solid block. Do this right, and “you could almost stop a pandemic in its tracks,” says Rajeev Venkayya, who was part of the US team that helped design the George W. Bush adminis tration’s plan to deal with future pandemics. For covid, the appropriate layers would include comprehensive testing, effective contact tracing, and social distancingbut with few of those layers in place, the virus ran wild. And once the spread is rampant, contact tracing simply isn’t enough. THE PROMISE AHEAD Despite its shortcomings, digital contact tracing may still have a future. The arrival of multiple vaccines gives hope that case numbers will drop to manageable levels. At that point, Venkayya says, “having all the tools that we can at our disposalincluding robust testing and tracingwill be really to privacy. At a time when people’s relation of that foundation affects us all, not just important. You are just trying to keep up ship with technology was so fraught already, those who opt out. and to limit the damage that’s being done.” companies that weren’t even involved in “Viruses are not that selective,” says In the US, as the Biden administration exposure notifications, such as Facebook, Stephanie Mayfield, who directs the US gets up to speed, federal or national solutions may have indirectly deterred their adoption. covid response for the nonprofit Resolve like pushing for nationwide use of contact What if this had happened when every to Save Lives. “If we don’t look out and tracing apps may be part of the answer one was happier with tech companies? “I take care of each other, we all pay a price.” along with monitoring tools like Bluetooth think about that all the time,” says Julie Even when privacy protections were beacons, tracking bracelets, and QR codes Samuels, who helped lead the team that put in the foreground, as with Apple and that you scan to enter a cafe or workplace. built New York state’s app. “The pendulum Google’s system, that created other prob But the most important takeaways from swung the other way.” lems. The system isn’t tied to your identity our global experiment with exposure noti Privacy wasn’t just an abstract concern. and doesn’t track your location; instead, it fications may be less about the technology For groups, like Black Americans, with uses Bluetooth to anonymously ping nearby and more about how to implement it. The good reasons to distrust the authorities phones running the same app. But with this glitchy rollout has made it clear that intro reasons based on personal experiences or technique, turning a positive result into ducing innovationsfor this pandemic or historical harmshanding information an alert is so complex that public health the nextwill require us to build trust, over to the government for contact tracing experts weren’t able to learn much about increase access and equity, and consider could be a nonstarter. where clusters were forming or how the technology’s place in complex systems. A bigger push to earn trust now seems disease was spreading. Progress, of course, is about looking to have been a crucial missing element, Privacy concerns aside, there were other ahead. But as contact tracing reminds us, since notifications become more effective practical questions about exposure notifi it’s just as important to retrace our steps. if a lot of people opt in. Higher adoption cations. Did the people at highest risk own Lindsay Muscato is the editor of rates required a foundation of trust to be the smartphones required to run the apps? MIT Technology Review’s Pandemic built first, and the strength or weakness How would the services operate across state Technology Project.

MA21_TR10-tracing.indd 43 2/2/21 12:31 PM 44 The progress issue

massive landslidethe worst in decadesstruck Du A Fangming’s home in south China’s Hunan province on July 6. “My house collapsed. My goats were swept away by the mud,” he told Chinese media outlets shortly after the catastrophe. Fortunately, though, he was safeone of 33 villag ers who had been evacuated thanks to early warnings enabled by advanced positioning technologies that can provide more accurate readings than ever before. RATE Powered by China’s newly completed global navigation sat ellite system, BeiDou “the Big Dipper”, and its ground based stations, position sensors can detect subtle changes in the land’s surface in landslide prone regions across China. Movement over a few meters can be spotted in real time, while post processing accuracy can reach the millimeter level.

That means a shift in the dirt about the size of the tip of a sharp pencil can be spotted from more than 21,000 kilometers above. Twelve days before the landslide, Du’s village received an orange alert citing data anomalies, which pointed to accel erating surface sliding following days of heavy rain. CU AC Du’s village is among the more than 100 sites in Hunan that are equipped with such disaster monitoring and early warning systems. “This service wouldn’t

WHY IT MATTERS: have been possible if satellite based posi GPS has already tioning accuracy had still been at the meter transformed many or decimeter level,” says Yuan Hong of the industries and enabled whole Aerospace Information Research Institute new ones, like at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in ride-sharing. A more accurate Beijing, where he worked for decades on form of it will BeiDou. spawn yet more More than ever, we rely on technolo applications. gies that can determine our location or KEY PLAYERS: pinpoint an object’s position. Precision • China National Space Adminis- agriculture, drone delivery, logistics, tration ride hailing, and air travel all depend on • US Air Force • ColdQuanta highly accurate position detection from space. Now a series of deployments and AVAILABILITY: upgrades are boosting the accuracy of Now the world’s most powerful global satellite HYPER HYPER UPGRADES TO positioning systems from several meters SATELLITES IN to a few centimeters. ORBIT AND SYSTEMS That could mean your phone knows DOWN BELOW WILL not only which street you’re walking or BRING CENTIMETER biking down, but what side of the street LEVEL ACCURACY you’re on. Someday, that kind of resolu TO THE MASSES. tion could make it possible for self driving cars or delivery robots to safely navigate By Ling Xin streets and sidewalks. POSITIONING POSITIONING

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GPS KEEPS Before 2000, the US Air Force Single-frequency GPS Actual performance degraded public GPS signals beyond the performance guaranteed GETTING error shown here, citing national security. by US Air Force BETTER

As technology 7 improves, so 6 does the accuracy of GPS, 5 represented here by a sta- 4 tistical average of the signal- 3 Meters in-space error measured on a 2 single frequency 1 across the GPS constellation. 0 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

NEW AND IMPROVED SATELLITES BOOSTING ACCURACY ON THE GROUND us beyond that limit or at least reduce our The Global Positioning System GPS , Even with these advances, positioning reliance on satellites. one of the world’s first such satellite sys signals encounter interference and other One approach uses the quantum proper tems, has changed the way billions of conditions that can make them go awry. ties of matter to locate and navigate without people move around. Since 1993, at least Correcting these errors requires another outside references. When atoms are cooled 24 GPS satellites have been orbiting the layer of technology. down to just above absolute zero, they reach Earth and constantly broadcasting their Both BeiDou and GPS rely heavily on a quantum state that is particularly sensi positions. Any GPS receiver can find its groundbased augmentation to boost posi tive to outside forces. Thus, if we know an current whereabouts within seconds by tioning accuracy to the centimeter level. object’s initial position and can measure triangulating signals from at least three One popular approach is realtime kine the changes in the atoms with the help of satellites in the constellation. matic RTK positioning, which uses a a laser beam , we can calculate the object’s Once the signals are processed by a base receiver and a rover receiver, placed movements and find its realtime location. receiver, GPS is generally accurate to kilometers apart, to receive satellite signals Quantum positioning would be partic within five to 10 meters. Now the system and calculate the errors caused by Earth’s ularly useful in situations where satellite is in the middle of a yearslong upgrade to ionosphere. This technique can achieve systems such as GPS or BeiDou are not GPS III, which should improve its accu accuracies of less than three centimeters. available, such as in deep space or under racy to one to three meters see chart . By A similar but newer technology is pre water, or as a backup navigation technology November 2020, four of the 10 GPS III cise point positioning PPP . It requires for selfdriving cars. A very early version satellites had launched, with the rest only one receiver and works from any of a quantum positioning system, devel expected to be put into orbit by 2023. where on Earth’s surface, giving users oped by ColdQuanta in Boulder, Colorado, Though consumers won’t notice it right decimeter to centimeterlevel accuracy. is now operating on the International away, the accuracy of their navigation In China, RTK augmentation is rela Space Station. systems and smartphone tracking apps tively mature, and thousands of base sta Our ancestors looked to stars and com should improve as a result. tions have been built across the country, passes to figure out where they were; today, And in June 2020, China finished Yuan says: “We are now developing a we use atomic clocks on satellites in orbit deploying its BeiDou satellite constella technology called PPPRTK to combine to do the same. New positioning technolo tion as a GPS alternative. Expanded over their strengths, and will hopefully put gies have already changed the way we farm, two decades’ time from a regional to a it to use a few years from now.” transport goods, and navigate our world, global network, BeiDou now has 44 sat and the latest improvements will bring that ellites operating in three distinct orbits. It BEYOND SATELLITE POSITIONING world into even sharper focus. As position provides positioning services to anyone As the accuracy of satellite positioning ing technology advances to the millimeter in the world with an average accuracy of improves, we’ll no doubt find even more level and beyond, the limits of its use will 1.5 to two meters. Since the service has a ways to use it. Eventually, though, tradi be defined more by our creativity and the historical focus on China and Asia, how tional satellite systems will reach an accu legal or ethical bounds we set than by the ever, BeiDou’s regional users can often racy limitprobably around the millimeter performance of the technology itself.

get better location information, close to level. So researchers are exploring new Ling Xin is a science journalist who

SOURCE: NASA SOURCE: one meter in precision. positioning technologies that could take covers physics, space, and technology.

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COVID19 TRANSFORMED THE WAY WE LIVE, WORK, AND PLAY. WHICH CHANGES WILL LAST?

WHY IT MATTERS: The pandemic set off a global experiment in virtual living that will continue to shape our lives for years to come.

KEY PLAYERS: • Babyl Rwanda • Daktari Africa • Microsoft • Nerdy • Teladoc • Zoom • Zuoyebang

AVAILABILITY: Now

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REMOTE EVERYTHING By Sandy Ong Photograph by Sierra & Lenny

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THE COVID PANDEMIC SHRANK OUR WORLD, China Normal University who studies the field of private tutor ing. She spent the past year looking into how the pandemic affected parents, students, and online tutoring companies in reducing it to nothing beyond the walls of our homes. But as we China, Japan, and Denmark. sheltered in place, the world kept spinning: we sat in meetings, A common complaint she went on dates, celebrated holidays, and met friends for drinks. heard about virtual schooling was that parents “had to help The only difference? We did it all from behind a screen. their kids check into class rooms, fix technical glitches, respond to teachers, and super vise homework.” Online tutor ing services were much more straightforward. Many tutoring platforms, It’s almost unimaginable to LEARNING ONLINE crashed under the load: more including Snapask and Byju’s, have a list of 10 world changing At its peak last April, the pan than 5 million people signed up. also have extensive libraries of technologies in 2021 without demic forced school closures Private tutoring has always instructional videos filled with reflecting on how much of our in more than 170 countries, been exceedingly popular in brightly colored animations, lives have moved online. The affecting nearly 1.6 billion chil China and other Asian coun special effects, and sounds. “For pandemic was a crash course dren. As traditional schooling tries such as South Korea and kids, this makes the lessons in how much we can get done became virtual across most Singapore, where eight in 10 feel more fun and interactive,” remotely when we have to. It of the globe, Asia witnessed primary school students receive says Zhang. also revealed which aspects a parallel trenda surge in outofschool support. The pan All that said, inequality is a of life suffer most when we demand for services such as demic has raised the profile of big barrier to scaling up both experience them only in a vir those offered by the Hong online tutoring services, which virtual schooling and online tual way. Kongbased online tutoring have quickly become as much a tutoring. Only 56% of people Though changes hap company Snapask. part of many students’ days as in Indonesia, for example, have pened everywhere, those in Snapask now has more than their scheduled classes. internet access, according to two particularly important ser 3.5 million users in nine Asian Many schools just weren’t statistics from 2019. And even viceshealth care and edu countriesdouble the number prepared for the switch to vir in wealthier countries such as cationhad huge impacts on it had before the pandemic. tual teaching, especially in the South Korea, where 99.5% of people’s overall wellbeing and “What took five years to accu pandemic’s early stages. Online the population has internet quality of life. Online tools like mulate, we achieved in one year tutors helped fill gaps in instruc access, the government had Zoom suddenly became critical because of covid,” says Timothy tion and were able to focus more to step in and lend computers lifelines for many. But the most Yu, who founded Snapask in on students’ individual needs. to lowincome students. significant change was not in 2015. Yu built his company around At the same time, online the technology itselftelecon Other edtech companies the notion of “ondemand help”: tutoring does connect students ferencing and telemedicine in the region have reported students can snap a picture of in less developed regions with have long been availablebut similar growth. Byju’s, a learn a homework question they are better instructors in urban in our behavior. ing app and the second most struggling with, upload it via areas. That’s probably why some What worked and what valuable startup in India, saw the popular messaging service students in China’s smaller cit didn’t? What will stay and its user figures soar by a third, WhatsApp at any time of day, ies have stuck with it even as what won’t? And what have to nearly 70 million, when it and receive help from one of schools return to normal, Zhang we learned that could help us offered its app for free follow Snapask’s 350,000 tutors within says. It also saves parents the better prepare for the future? ing nationwide school closures 30 seconds. hassle of shuttling their kids to Here we look at developments in March of last year. When Such services are often more and from private tutors. in Asia and Africa that could China’s leading online learning convenient for parents than vir Though private tutoring is set an example for the rest of platform, Yuanfudao, did the tual schooling, says Wei Zhang, not nearly as popular every the world. same in early 2020, its system a professor at Shanghai’s East where as it is in Asia, the

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covidinduced boost in online and November. “Covid19 was a of the world’s population and And telemedicine certainly tutoring is a timely reminder game changer,” Musinguzi says. 25% of the world’s disease doesn’t suffice in all cases. “I for everyone: students learn Similar spikes in telehealth burden. And yet we have only think we’ve learned a lot about best when teaching is tailored usage were reported globally. about 3% of the world’s doc where teleconsultations can to their needs and when they “There’s no telemedicine com tors,” says Musinguzi. “So I work and make things more take an active role in learning. pany I know across the world think telemedicine fits in per efficient, but also where they Another important les that hasn’t seen a surge in fectly with that conundrum.” can’t work well,” says Ann son to carry forward is that demand and also a change in Like remote learning, Blandford, a professor of teachers should be encour consumer mindset toward tele remote health care often humancomputer interaction aged to think differently and medicine,” he says. requires highspeed internet, at University College London. teach in new ways, says Steve That remote health care is which isn’t always readily avail Other experts are more Wheeler, a visiting professor having a moment isn’t surpris able in the developing world. enthusiastic. “What we have at the University of Plymouth ing. Remote video and phone But cellphone penetration seen is that 70% of routine out in the UK, who researches dis consultations were already on is now over 80% in Rwanda, patient visits can be handled tance teaching and learning. If the rise. Change often happens Kenya, Nigeria, and some other through telemedicine and last school systems can embrace slowly in health care, but covid parts of Africa. mile lab and pharmacy delivery what worked for online teach 19 supercharged that trend and Ayush Mishra, cofounder services,” says Musinguzi. ingadopting new media and “made it steeper,” says Alex of Tattvan, runs eclinics in 18 adjusting content according Jadad, founder of the University Indian cities. Tattvan, which WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? ly“there’s a silver lining in of Toronto’s Centre for Global means “to protect the five There’s no doubt that the pan the dark cloud,” he says. eHealth Innovation. senses” in Sanskrit, operates demic has made many people The pandemic pushed hos an unusual model of telehealth. more comfortable with using REMOTE HEALTH CARE pitals worldwide to a break It franchises eclinicsone or both telehealth and remote edu A decade before the pandemic ing point, and patients stayed tworoom setups in villages, cation. And that probably won’t began, Davis Musinguzi came awaywhether out of fear or equipped with computers and a go away. The pandemic will end, up with his big idea: a system because they had to. Many big screen. Patients can walk in but our habits and preferences that would allow people in turned to telemedicine. In the for a consultation with the local have evolved since it began. Uganda to text a tollfree num US, for instance, the proportion doctor or speak to a specialist Although remote services ber and have a doctor call them of people using it skyrocketed further afield if necessary. won’t work for every checkup back for a consultation. To many, from 11% in 2019 to 46% a year In response to covid, Tattvan or lesson, they can make peo the notion seemed audacious. later, according to McKinsey. also launched a telemobile ple’s lives easier and better in But Musinguzi, then a medical Uganda and other devel operator service in October: many cases. The pandemic student in the capital, Kampala, oping countries have a lesson paramedics carrying backpacks was a stress test for these ser was convinced it would work. or two to share about remote loaded with equipment travel vices, and they proved capable He cofounded the Medical health care, which has evolved by motorbike to visit patients of delivering much of what we Concierge Group in 2012, out of necessity in a region in remote villages. needed, when and where we which he now admits was “way where doctors are often scarce. Mishra believes this model needed it. As we emerge from too early.” Fewer than half the “In Africa, you have about 10% of telemedicinesomething our homes, more of our lives people in Uganda owned cell between traditional brickand than we might expect will con phones at that time. mortar health facilities and a tinue to be lived online. Over the years, the effort doctoronanapp servicewill “What covid19 has done is expanded to incorporate video ultimately prevail over the lat to tell people that you can now and WhatsApp messages, and ter. “Trust is the biggest factor” rely on services finding you at a fleet of motorcycleriding when it comes to telemedicine, home, whether it’s shopping or healthcare personnel who he says. “A local doctor sitting health care,” says Musinguzi. would visit patients’ homes to there is like a seal of trust.” “I think that’s the one thing conduct blood tests and deliver Though teleconsultations that’s going to stay with us post meds. The group also extended have surged, Mishra expects covidwe’re going to center into Kenya and Nigeria. this uptick to be temporary. our lives around our homes.” WE’RE GOING TO TO GOING WE’RE When the pandemic struck POSTCOVID US Once things start opening up, Sandy Ong is a writer based

in 2020, the number of users THAT’S THING ONE LIVES OUR CENTER he says, he anticipates a gradual in Singapore who covers GOING TO STAY WITH WITH STAY TO GOING I THINK THAT’S THE THE THAT’S THINK I soared 10fold between March HOMES.” OUR AROUND decline in demand. science and technology.

MA21_TR10_Remote_everything.indd 49 2/2/21 1:54 PM 50

By Karen Hao

Illustration by MULTI Selman Design SKILLED AIAI

HUMAN INTELLIGENCE EMERGES FROM OUR COMBINATION OF SENSES AND LANGUAGE ABILITIES. MAYBE THE SAME IS TRUE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

MA21_TR10_Multimodal.indd 50 2/2/21 12:26 PM 10 Breakthrough Technologies 51

By Karen Hao

Illustration by Selman Design

a method that incorporates images into existing language models, which boosted WHY IT MA TTERS: KEY PLAYERS: AVAILABILITY: the models’ reading comprehension. AI that can sense • OpenAI Now and speak will be • AI2 OpenAI then used these ideas to extend much better at • Facebook GPT 3. At the start of 2021, the lab released navigating new challenges and two visual language models. One links working alongside the objects in an image to the words that people. describe them in a caption. The other gen erates images based on a combination of the concepts it has learned. You can prompt n late 2012, AI scientists first figured out how to get neural networks it, for example, to produce “a painting of I to “see.” They proved that software designed to loosely mimic the a capybara sitting in a field at sunrise.” human brain could dramatically improve existing computer vision Though it may have never seen this before, systems. The field has since learned how to get neural networks to imitate the it can mix and match what it knows of way we reason, hear, speak, and write. See “GPT 3,” page 34. paintings, capybaras, fields, and sunrises But while AI has grown remarkably human likeeven superhumanat to dream up dozens of examples. achieving a specific task, it still doesn’t capture the flexibility of the human More sophisticated multimodal systems brain. We can learn skills in one context and apply them to another. By contrast, will also make possible more advanced though DeepMind’s game playing algorithm AlphaGo can beat the world’s robotic assistants think robot butlers, best Go masters, it can’t extend that strategy beyond the board. Deep learning not just Alexa. The current generation algorithms, in other words, are masters at picking up patterns, but they cannot of AI powered robots primarily use visual understand and adapt to a changing world. data to navigate and interact with their Researchers have many hypotheses about how this problem might be over surroundings. That’s good for completing come, but one in particular has gained traction. Children learn about the world simple tasks in constrained environments, by sensing and talking about it. The combination seems key. As kids begin to like fulfilling orders in a warehouse. But associate words with sights, sounds, and other sensory information, they are labs like AI2 are working to add language and incorporate more sensory inputs, like audio and tactile data, so the machines can able to describe more and more complicated situations or problems. Such algorithms understand commands and perform more phenomena and dynamics, tease apart what could then help us tackle more complex complex operations, like opening a door is causal from what reflects only correla problems, or be ported into robots that when someone is knocking. tion, and construct a sophisticated model can communicate and collaborate with In the long run, multimodal break of the world. That model then helps them us in our daily life. throughs could help overcome some of navigate unfamiliar environments and put New advances in language processing AI’s biggest limitations. Experts argue, for new knowledge and experiences in context. algorithms like OpenAI’s GPT 3 have example, that its inability to understand AI systems, on the other hand, are built helped. Researchers now understand how the world is also why it can easily fail or to do only one of these things at a time. to replicate language manipulation well be tricked. An image can be altered in a Computer vision and audio recognition enough to make combining it with sens way that’s imperceptible to humans but algorithms can sense things but cannot ing capabilities more potentially fruitful. makes an AI identify it as something com use language to describe them. A natural To start with, they are using the very first pletely different. Achieving more flexible language model can manipulate words, but sensing capability the field achieved: com intelligence wouldn’t just unlock new AI the words are detached from any sensory puter vision. The results are simple bimodal applications: it would make them safer, too. reality. If senses and language were com models, or visual language AI. Algorithms that screen résumés wouldn’t bined to give an AI a more human like way In the past year, there have been several treat irrelevant characteristics like gender to gather and process new information, exciting results in this area. In September, and race as signs of ability. Self driving could it finally develop something like an researchers at the Allen Institute for cars wouldn’t lose their bearings in unfa understanding of the world? Artificial Intelligence, AI2, created a model miliar surroundings and crash in the dark The hope is that these “multimodal” that can generate an image from a text cap or in snowy weather. Multimodal systems systems, with access to both the sensory tion, demonstrating the algorithm’s ability might become the first AIs we can really and linguistic “modes” of human intelli to associate words with visual information. trust with our lives.

gence, should give rise to a more robust In November, researchers at the University Karen Hao is MIT Technology Review’s kind of AI that can adapt more easily to new of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, developed senior reporter for AI.

MA21_TR10_Multimodal.indd 51 2/4/21 2:58 PM By Abby Ohlheiser

Photograph by Sierra & Lenny

In the hours after she shared this makeup experiment, it was shown to hundreds of thousands of people on their “For You” pages, the lifeblood of TikTok. It wasn’t obvious to her why this particular post was TIK suddenly so visible, except that TikTok’s recommendation algorithms had made it so. MAKING IT BIG Since TikTok launched in China in 2016, it has become one of the most engaging and fastestgrowing social media platforms in the world. It’s been downloaded more than 2.6 billion times globally and has 100 million users in the US. And the unique way it finds and serves up content is a big part of its appeal. The “For You” page is what most TikTok creators think makes the app different from TOK other social media platforms, because any RECOMMENDATION one can get famous there. Good content is rewarded faster, supercharged by the algo rithms that show users an endless stream of ALGORITHMS videos tailored to their tastes. While other social media platforms favor viral content with mass appeal, TikTok’s algorithms have proved especially adept at plugging creators even Karpelman would never have joined TikTok if it WHY IT MATTERS: into niche communities that share interests, It’s flipped the D hadn’t been for the pandemic. And she certainly never script on who hobbies, or a particular identity. expected to be famous on it. But the app has a way of can get famous A video’s chances of ending up on your rewarding good content with views, dropping new creators in online. “For You” page are determined by, among front of a broad spectrum of fans. That’s how Karpelman, a KEY PLAYERS: other things, the captions, sounds, and 57yearold who works in special education and started making • TikTok hashtags on it. And as with any other social

videos to stave off lockdown boredom, ended up with 327,000 AVAILABILITY: media platform, what TikTok chooses to followers, many of whom are a fraction of her age. Now show you is based on how you use the In one of her breakthrough videos from July, Karpelman appwhich videos you’ve liked, what known as tequilaanddonutsrecreates the makeup looks content you create. The difference is that she used to wear in the late ’70s. Her wavy white hair, which TikTok is better at it. normally falls around her face in a grannylike halo, is pinned Alreadypopular creators do have an and clipped into something like a fauxhawk. She’s covered her easier time getting attention, but TikTok face in white powder, painted her eyelids black, and drawn a doesn’t take a creator’s following or viral thin line of dark lipstick. The video cuts, and when Karpelman history directly into account when figuring comes back, she shows off her “fancy goingout face.” The black out what content to seed where. That’s why eyeshadow has extended all the way across her face and both “For You” pages mix viral hits with new eyes, as if someone had made an angry swipe with a paintbrush. videos from unknown creators, some of which have just a few views. Over time, TikTok’s algorithms get better at guessing what users are interested in, not only connecting them to videos in their IN THE APP’S BREAKTHROUGH YEAR, THESE. own areas of interest but bringing them into ALGORITHMS WERE THE SECRET INGREDIENT. new spaces that have some overlap. One THAT PUT IT AHEAD OF RIVALS. viral video laid out TikTok’s communities

MA21_TR10_TikTok.indd 52 2/4/21 3:06 PM 53

like a treasure map: to get to the wholesome it also faced challenges. India banned Her experience working with students world of Frog TikTok, you had to leave the app, and the Trump administration comes in handy: she sets boundaries and Straight TikTok, find your way to Stoner threatened to do the same unless TikTok’s helps young fans learn to advocate for them Witch or Cottagecore, pass through Trans Chinese parent company cut all ties. The selves. “Let’s do some Googling,” she says. and NonBinary, and “go through the portal threat was not carried out. “Let’s look at your high school’s admin. to reach the promised land.” TikTok has had to release more infor Oh, it looks like there is a districtwide Karpelman started doing makeup vid mation about how its algorithms work, psychologist. I will help you put together eos after teens on TikTok tried to correct partially in response to security concerns an email. You send it to me, I’ll proofread it her about an aesthetic that she lived at its about its ownership, and competitors like and send it back to you, and then you send peak. “They were trying to school me Instagram, Snapchat, and Triller have sped it to these people. Give it a try.” about being hardcore and, you know, being up attempts to copy what it is that makes But Karpelman has found another way alternative. And I was like, ‘Oh, honey child, their rival’s recommendations so good. to connect with her young audience: by you did not invent sin,’” she told me when At the same time, the platform has been talking about what they have in common. we spoke on Zoom in December. forced to reckon with its increasing role In one video, she demonstrates how she Now her videos appear a lot in com in amplifying misinformation, and many pretends to be on the phone in order to munities devoted to LGBTQ+ and mental Black creators have said that racism and dodge a particularly aggressive salesper health issues and recently gained an harassment are disturbingly prevalent on it. son in a mall. “There were a lot of kids that audience of women around college age, For Karpelman, TikTok has allowed her commented in there that said, ‘I had no idea she says. Followers say she has “grandma to connect with strangers during a difficult that grownups had these social anxieties,’ energy,” a distinction she has alternately and lonely time, but the fame it bestowed and that kind of blew my mind,” she says. leaned into and dodged. on her has brought its own worries. Fans “Kids just have no idea that older people have reached out to ask her for help with are human.” SPEED BUMPS serious mentalhealth issues and interper Abby Ohlheiser is MIT Technology Last year was an interesting one for TikTok: sonal conflicts. Sometimes they want more Review's senior editor for digital just as its cultural relevance exploded, from her than she feels she can give. culture.

MA21_TR10_TikTok.indd 53 2/2/21 11:34 AM 54

ydrogen is an appealing fuel. A H kilogram of hydrogen has about WHY IT MATTERS: three times as much energy as a Green hydrogen can replace the comparable amount of diesel or gasoline. natural gas, If it can be made cleanly and cheaply, it diesel, and gasoline used in could be the key to cleaning up an array of ships, trucks, tricky vital sectors. buses, and cars. Today, most manufactured hydrogen KEY PLAYERS: is made by combining natural gas with • ThyssenKrupp steam at high temperatures. It’s an energy • Get H2 Nukleus Nowega intensive process that emits considerable • Nel Hydrogen amounts of carbon dioxide, the main green • Siemens

house gas driving climate change. But a AVAILABILITY: small and growing percentage is made by Now solar farm splitting water into its constituent elements by zapping it with electricity, a process known as electrolysis. This also takes a lot of energy, but if the electricity comes from a renewable source like wind or solar power,

it produces minimal harmful emissions. HYDROGEN This so called “green” hydrogen is today about three times more expensive to pro duce than hydrogen derived from natural power lines gas which is mostly methane, whose mol By ecules are composed of one carbon atom Peter bonded to four hydrogen atoms. But that is Fairley half of what it cost 10 years ago. And as the cost of wind and solar power continues to Illustration drop, and economies of scale around green by wind farm hydrogen production kick in, it could get a Franziska lot cheaper. If that happens, green hydrogen Barczyk has the potential to become a core fuel for a decarbonized future. In parallel, as car bon capture techniques improve, hydrogen can be extracted from natural gas without releasing as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Hydrogen is valuable in part because of its versatility. It can be burned as a substi tute for fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. These fuels all produce carbon dioxide when combusted, whereas ALKALINE burning pure hydrogen in a turbine pro ELECTROLYZERS duces just water vapor. It does, however, GREEN Cathode (-) Anode (+)

H 2 OH ½ O2

H2O IF MADE USING RENEWABLE POWER, HYDROGEN COULD PROVIDE A CLEAN AND CARBONNEUTRAL SOURCE OF ENERGY. Diaphragm EUROPE IS LEADING THE WAY.

MA21_TR10-hydrogen.indd 54 2/4/21 3:04 PM 10 Breakthrough Technologies 55

Hydrogen valleys reduce costs by making it possible to share materials and waste products, including excess heat.

Pumping stations Steel tanks and engi- rapidly ﬁ ll hydrogen- neered underground vehicle tanks in less caverns store multiple time than it takes to months of hydrogen recharge batteries. supply at low cost. hydrogen hydrogen fueling storage station tanks

O2 hydrogen- to-power electrolyzer generating station

Gas-turbine or H2 fuel-cell power stations use

CO2 chemical CO2 hydrogen to gen- steel cement plants & erate electricity, plant plant refineries backing up the power grid when wind and solar power run short.

Burning hydrogen and Hydrogen can be combined Like steel plants, cement oxygen at high tem- with carbon and nitrogen cap- plants burn hydrogen and peratures creates the tured from the atmosphere to oxygen to make the large heat necessary to make synthetic fuels, fertiliz- amounts of heat needed PEM make steel out of iron. ers, and other chemicals. to ﬁ re kilns. ELECTROLYZERS

Cathode (-) Anode (+)

H 2 H+ ½ O2 H O 2 Two types of electrolyzers make most green hydrogen. Alkaline electrolyzers submerge electrodes in water doped with lye or potash; Membrane PEM electrolyzers use a solid membrane through which hydrogen nuclei can ﬂ ow.

MA21_TR10-hydrogen.indd 55 2/2/21 12:24 PM 56 The progress issue

also catalyze the production of harmful 2020. It is unbelievable the number of THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT nitrogen oxides because of the high tem big and realistic projects coming,” says If hydrogen is to live up to its potential, peratures involved. Another way to use Christoph Noeres, who heads the green public policy will be crucial. For starters, hydrogen is in fuel cells, which combine hydrogen business for Uhde Chlorine regulators or legislators will need to insti hydrogen with oxygen to create water and Engineers, a subsidiary of German con tute policies to enable existing natural gas electricitythe reverse of electrolysis glomerate ThyssenKrupp. pipelines to carry hydrogen tooknown as without producing nitrogen oxides. “blending”and mandate cuts in carbon Hydrogen can power vehicles includ HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY emissions to generate demand for hydrogen. ing cars, buses, trains, and aircraft, either Hydrogen valleysregional projects that Some of this is already happening. through fuel cells or by burning it directly. situate electrolysis plants where they can Germany made an important change late Burning hydrogen can also deliver zero serve multiple industrial purposesare last year, freeing green hydrogen producers carbon heat for use in steel mills, cement forming across Europe. Near Hamburg from paying certain surcharges on electricity. plants, and other industries. And green in northern Germany, ThyssenKrupp This was, in effect, a recognition by the gov hydrogen can replace the hydrogen already is part of an €89 million $107 million ernment that green hydrogen is an extension used as a feedstock in everything from green hydrogen consortium supported of renewable wind and solar power. Other refineries to fertilizer plants, reducing their by a €30 million grant from the German regulations under discussion in Germany, carbon dioxide emissions. Some indus government. The planned project includes and across Europe, would require carbon trial sites, such as steel mills and chemical a refinery, a cement plant, power genera reductions at refineries and steel mills, and in plants, can also use the oxygen produced tors, and an offshore wind farm. other heavy industries, under the European as a by product. Initially its green hydrogen will replace Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive. Regardless of how it is manufactured, some gray hydrogenas natural gas Jack Brouwer, associate director of the safely and affordably storing and transport derived hydrogen is sometimes called Advanced Power and Energy program at ing hydrogen remains difficult, especially used at the refinery. The German group the University of California, Irvine, says for some promising applications like avia then plans to react hydrogen with carbon similar policies are needed to get green tion. Remember the Hindenburg? That’s dioxide captured from the cement plant hydrogen going in the US, but discussions why another option is to combine hydro to produce both methanol, a chemical have barely begun. gen with carbonwhich can be captured feedstock, and synthetic jet fuel. Whereas European governments man from the atmosphere in a process called air Some 240 kilometers 150 miles to the date that natural gas pipelines accept green capture or from smokestacksto produce southwest, another green hydrogen con hydrogenin amounts as high as 12% by liquid synthetic hydrocarbon fuels that sortium will repurpose decommissioned volume in the NetherlandsUS gas oper are easier to handle than hydrogen. These gas pipelines to carry hydrogen gas. The ators often oppose blending. liquid fuels can be a cleaner, like for like consortium plans to build a 100 megawatt Blocking hydrogen blending is a serious replacement for gasoline or diesel. electrolyzer. From there, it hopes to pipe obstacle, according to Brouwer. California Hydrogen can also be used to store hydrogen through a 130 kilometer network already has a rule mandating that a third energy from renewable power plants, which in the industrial Ruhr region. of the hydrogen pumped at filling stations can then be converted back into electricity If this pipeline repurposing works, elec for fuel cell vehicles come from renewable and fed into the grid if wind dies down, trolyzers connected to old pipes could ulti sources. But currently it’s tough to get green clouds come in, or demand rises. mately serve green hydrogen to nearly all hydrogen. Brouwer says that if producers With so many possible uses, the Germany’s major industries. That will ease could use existing natural gas pipelines International Energy Agency IEA pre pressure on Germany’s congested power as a distribution network, they could prof dicts that by 2050, hydrogen could provide grid and also provide a ready supply of itably build more electrolyzers in remote over 10% of global energy needs, produc backup energy for dark, windless periods. areas that are particularly windy or sunny. ing more than 11 million gigawatt hours Other large projects are starting in There are also still plenty of technical hur of energy per year. That will require the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, France, dles to be overcome. The scale of wind and more than $4 trillion in infrastructure Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan, and solar power needed to run a global network for producing, storing, and transporting China. Initially, the hydrogen these proj of electrolysis plants is enormous. Brouwer hydrogen. ects produce will be expensive. However, makes the case that a sustainable future is Europe alone is targeting 40 gigawatts the consultancy McKinsey estimates that simply impossible without relying heavily of electrolysis capacity by 2030. That by 2030 green hydrogen will be as cheap as on hydrogen. He just might be right. would go about 2% of the way to the IEA’s gray hydrogen, thanks to cheaper electrol Peter Fairley is a journalist who 2050 prediction. “There’s a tsunami wave ysis and renewable electricity generation covers energy, technology, and of opportunity since the beginning of as well as to rising carbon costs. climate change.

MA21_TR10-hydrogen.indd 56 2/2/21 2:56 PM Share your opinion about today’s top tech trends. Join our Global Panel.

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MA21 Global Panel Ad D1.indd 1 1/20/21 12:56 PM 58

WHERE PROGRESS STOPPED

MA21_Wealth_inequality.indd 58 2/3/21 5:13 PM alerie Moreno laughed out59 V loud when I asked if her family received regular medical check By ups. “Oh my gosh, no!” she said. Brian Alexander “We have to be dying before we see a doctor.” The reason why wasn’t a mystery. Valerie, Photography by who was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, Nick Hagen her dark hair showing a few grays, pulled her checkbook out of a small bag and riffled through the ledger. “I have $65 in the check ing account,” she said. Valerie and I first spoke early in the winter of 2018 as we sat in the basement of the First Lutheran Church in the small town of Bryan, in northwestern Ohio’s Williams County. The church’s pews had once been filled with wor shippers. But people had drifted away, either because they’d stopped going to church or because they’d shifted their allegiance to one of the newer, fancier evangelical outfits. The room, sealed tight against the coming winter, marinated in a cloud of mustiness. Later that evening, Valerie would start her third shift factory job at Sauder, a manufac turer of institutional furniture. She made $14 an hour there. When the sun rose the next morning, she’d drive to her second job, as a Bryan school bus monitor. Then she’d go home for a few hours of sleep before rising to work her third job, as a home aide to the retired pastor of First Lutheran. She reckoned she managed about four hours of sleep a day. Her husband worked full time at a metal fastener plant. Altogether, she said, after health insur ance premiums but before taxes, she figured she and her husband made about $45,000 a year. They still had a junior high school age daughter at home. They were living, but it was far from easy. Valerie was 46. She’d worked all her life. The story of her working life is also the story of Bryan. The town is broken in some of the same ways that much of the rest of the country is broken. Understanding what broke Bryan is crucial to understanding how it might be fixed. For decades, America’s political and busi ness leaders acted as if places like Bryan didn’t matter. Palo Alto and Greenwich, Connecticut, did fine. These centers of high tech and finan cial services create vast wealth in the country’s so called innovation economy. But hundreds of places like Bryan, both urban and rural, were allowed to erode economically and socially. The ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, SMALL TOWNS innovation economy has largely passed them by. HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND BY THE COUNTRY’S Not everything is gloomy in Bryan, of BOOMING INNOVATION ECONOMY. course. If you were to drive through town, WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO TURN THINGS AROUND? you would see some nice old homes, and parks, and a town square with a beautiful county courthouse. You might not notice the empty storefronts or realize that increased levels of

MA21_Wealth_inequality.indd 59 2/4/21 9:12 AM poverty, mental stress, and poor health have goal of business, and the globalization of led to desperation behind closed doors. supply chains. The hardest blow came in Some people think that when a town the merger mad 1980s, when ARO was hits hard times, it’s time to pack up and bought by a failing company called Todd move on to shinier places. Tim Bartik, a Shipyards. Todd wanted to acquire ARO’s labor economist with the W.E. Upjohn pension fund to stave off bankruptcy. Institute for Employment Research Todd failed anyway, and in 1989 ARO in Kalamazoo, Michigan, disagrees. wound up in the hands of Ingersoll Rand, “Encouraging people to move does not a large maker of industrial compressors, help those left behind,” he says. “People power tools, and lifting gear. Ingersoll have left Flint, but it didn’t help Flint. Flint shut down the Bryan factory and moved is still there.” Instead, Bartik and others the work to North Carolina, where union argue for a new regionalism, hoping to protections were weaker, and to plants in restore the vibrancy of places like Flint and India and China. Bryan through locally focused investment Three early Bryan companies still oper and education initiatives. ate: Spangler Candy, the Dum Dum lol Developing a cogent regional devel lipops people; Bard, a maker of heating opment policy is one of the most vital and cooling equipment; and Ohio Art, the public policy challenges facing America. company that put the Etch A Sketch in the President Joe Biden campaigned in part hands of millions of children in the 1960s. on the promise of creating “technology Each one is over a century old. But they hubs” in 50 forgotten cities. But the diverg are all diminished. Bard grew, but instead ing fates of places like Bryan and places of expanding in Bryan, where it remains like Palo Alto is clearly driving a loss of headquartered, it built new factories in political faith. “It’s scary for democracy,” Georgia, another state with weak labor says Shannon Monnat, a rural demogra laws, and in Mexico. Spangler also grew pher and sociologist who is the director but now manufactures many of its candy of Syracuse University’s Lerner Center canes in Mexico though it also expanded Valerie Moreno, 48, ices a cake for her granddaughter’s for Public Health Promotion. It “means operations in Bryan after acquiring the first birthday. She grew up deterioration of democracy and all the Necco Wafer, Sweethearts, and Bit O near a small village east of Bryan and has lived in the institutions that undergird democracy,” she Honey brands. Ohio Art sold off its toys, area her entire life. says. “And I am worried it is getting worse.” sharply cut its staff, and focused on metal lithography. THE SLOWMOTION WRECK Valerie worked at Bryan Metal Systems, For decades after World War II ended, Bryan making suspensions for Chrysler. She made was a prosperous town of manufacturers, good money there, but that company was household income in Williams County in surrounded by farms and tiny villages that taken over in 2005 by Global Automotive constant dollars has gone from $62,000 to spread over the rest of Williams County. Its Systems. In 2010, Global shut down the $49,500. Defined benefits pensions have intracounty rival, Montpelier, was a minor Bryan plant and sent the work to Michigan given way to less generous retirement sav railroad hubthe Montpelier school sports as part of a “global optimization strategy.” ings accounts. Health insurance premiums teams are still the Locomotiveswith some Valerie traveled to Michigan to help train have gone up. So have deductibles. manufacturing of its own. her replacements. After that, she bounced As the employment landscape changed, During the middle years of the 20th around, sometimes working temp factory so did the county’s demographics. Young century, small metal stamping and jobs, until she landed at the Sauder fur people, especially college educated young injection molded plastics makers set up niture plant. people, left and didn’t come back. I asked shop to supply parts to the auto industry; By 2019, unemployment was below 4% Les McCaslin, the retiring chief of the Four Detroit is a two hour drive away. ARO in Williams County, but higher paying County Board of Alcohol, Drug Abuse, Equipment was Bryan’s biggest employer jobs had been replaced by work with low and Mental Health Services and a native by far. Founded during the depths of wages and “temporary” status that employ of the area, how he thought they might the Great Depression, ARO first made ers maintainedin name onlyso they be persuaded to return. He remembered air powered pumps for things like gas wouldn’t have to pay benefits. Menards, a recent economic development meeting: station grease guns. By the late 1970s it a big Midwestern home improvement “We were talking about the town. And I had diversified. NASA used its pumps retailer, became the largest employer in the simply said, ‘Why would you come here? in space. Corporate jets flew out of the county. Menards wrangled a rich package Why would I bring my two kids?’ And county airport; executives spent the week of tax incentives and infrastructure out there was silence in the room. You had end playing golf at the local country club. of local and state government in return commissioners there and they couldn’t Things were different by the time Valerie for putting a distribution center about 15 come up with one reason.” started her working life in the 1990s. Lots of minutes northeast of Bryan. By late 2019 changes hit Bryan hard: Reagan era finan people were starting at about $14 an hour, THE MENARDS EFFECT cial deregulation and anti unionism, the or about $28,000 per year, for full time Bryan’s hospital, Community Hospitals creed of shareholder value as the highest work. In the last 20 years, the median and Wellness Centers CHWC, caught the

MA21_Wealth_inequality.indd 60 2/4/21 9:12 AM 61

ECONOMIC DECLINE AND POVERTY INDUCE STRESS AND TRAUMA THAT IN TURN LEAD TO POOR HEALTH. THE NEW AMERICAN ECONOMY HAS BEEN KILLING PEOPLE.

From 1960 to 1980 life expectancy in the United States steadily increased. There were many reasons for this: vaccines against childhood diseases, improved com munity infrastructure, better antibiotics, and more advanced treatments for diseases like cancer. It was no coincidence that during this period, economic inequality in America decreased. That started to change in 1981, when

Williams Ronald Reagan became president. He ush County health ered in an era of union busting, financial commissioner deregulation, leveraged buyouts, and the Jim Watkins, 61, works in his financialization of the American economy. office. “It’s For a while, life expectancy continued to been a horrible month,” he says. grow, but ever more slowlyuntil finally, in 2014, it began to decline. That decline The Ohio Art has been concentrated among poor and Company made Etch A Sketch working class people. toys in Bryan When Valerie was growing up near a until 2001, when manufacturing small village east of Bryan, her family used moved to China. to shop at a locally owned grocery store that carried fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat. Now the shell of that store is sinking into a crumbling parking lot. A few yards down the road, a Dollar General welcomes fallout from these changes. As was true in Scout cookie money with her daughter shoppers. Dollar stores have become ubiq many such communities, CHWC, an inde and a friend. She still worked three jobs. uitous in rural and distressed urban land pendent community hospital, became the Her back ached from an old injury during scapes as Wall Street investors have used largest employer in town. But it struggled her days at Bryan Metal Systems. And she their financial power to build thousands to stay open and independent. Because the was coughing from a bug she thought she’d of the stores across the country, driving county’s population was getting poorer and caught from a coworker at Sauder. Valerie small independent grocers out of business. older, many patients qualified for either wound up with bronchitis, an inner ear But dollar stores don’t carry many healthy Medicaid or Medicare, both of which pay infection, and a sinus infection, but she foods. As a result, almost half of Williams lower reimbursement rates than private didn’t miss any work, because she had no County residents live in census tracts with insurance. The two government programs paid sick leave. “No! I went to work every nowhere to buy nutritious groceries. account for two thirds of CHWC’s reve day,” she said, laughing, which called forth nue. So although, say, an MRI machine a brief coughing fit. “WE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO” costs CHWC just as much as it would “The prospect of paying for a colo Bryan’s mayor, Carrie Schlade, grew up another hospital in a richer area, CHWC noscopy is a huge expense,” Mike Liu, a nearby. In her 41 years of living in the gets paid at a lower rate when it is used. surgeon who practiced in Bryan, told me. area, she has seen disturbing changes. Former hospital CEO Phil Ennen calls “A single medical problem or medical bill Bryan doesn’t have as bad a drug problem this “the Menards effect.” The company was could destroy their entire month’s bud as other parts of Ohio, but it does have “a real problem for us,” he says. “Seventy getmaybe their entire year’s budget.” onemostly meth, heroin, and fentanyl. five percent of Menards employee This meant that treatable cancers went The number of kids in foster care because accounts with us are Medicaid, charity, undetected until they were advanced. their parents used drugs has grown “expo or some sort of self pay. From a health care But it isn’t just that people didn’t have nentially” since the recession, she says. perspective, they are a horrible employer.” enough money while medical care cost Schlade believes something has gone Many people were like Valerie: they just too much. Economic decline and poverty wrong with the culture of the place. People didn’t go to doctors. The spring after we induce stress and trauma that in turn lead are angry, or sad and angry, or resigned. sat in the basement of the church, Valerie to poor health. The new American econ Or something. She worries about mental was back there, this time counting Girl omy has been killing people. health. She worries that too many people

MA21_Wealth_inequality.indd 61 2/3/21 5:14 PM 62

SHE WORRIES THAT TOO MANY PEOPLE CAN’T SEEM TO COPE WITH EVEN SIMPLE THINGS, LIKE GETTING UP AND GOING TO WORK.

Vacant storefronts like this one are a common sight in Bryan.

The Williams County courthouse on the south side of the town square, built in 1891, has a 160- foot clock tower, testimony to the grand ambition of the time.

can’t seem to cope with even simple things, to shut down ARO. Outside forces had In November of last year, Bartik pro like getting up and going to work, and she mined such communities for assets, push posed an $18.8 billion package of federal worries about the state of Bryan’s housing ing them into decay, and outside forces are aid that would cover 30% of the US pop stock, much of which is old and shabby on required to help them back. ulation in distressed and near distressed the east side of town, and she worries about labor markets. The plan would finance block the resentment she has encountered there. PLOTTING THE ROAD BACK grants so local areas could adapt the pro Not that Schlade, the town’s first female In early 2020, Jim Watkins, the chief of the grams. Rather than simply trying to bribe mayor, is giving up. She and city lead Williams County health department, began businesses with tax incentives, he proposes ers have managed to have the entire east a project with a group from Bowling Green more targeted programs. For instance, wage side designated by the state as an area in State University and the Federal Reserve subsidies would enable employers to take which prospective employers could get Bank of Cleveland to see what might be on the risk of hiring apprentices, a practice tax breaks for opening a facility. She has done to improve the county’s housing and that used to be common but is now rare in been trying to support local churches that living conditions. The plan, which had just the United States. Neighborhood based were doing good work running food pan taken its first steps when the covid 19 pan job training and placement services would tries and teaching people how to manage demic stalled it, aimed to develop policies help people living in distressed areas. Low money. She is always looking for state or and financing so people could maintain their or no interest loans to buy or repair cars federal grants to improve the community. homes, the community could develop bet would help people get to work. Subsidized Sometimes Schlade despairs at such ter building codes and enforce them, blight child care would cut down on absences efforts. “We just don’t know what to do,” could be removed from business districts, and ease the minds of workers. she once told me. “We know we’re fly and community features could be created Jobs have to pay more. Ohio’s minimum over country,” she saidso she reckoned or improved to attract the public. wage is only $8.80 an hour. The national rejuvenation was up to Bryan itself: “It’s Bartik, the labor economist, is a skep minimum wage is just $7.25 and hasn’t like, ‘All right, we’ve been asleep long tic of tax incentives like the ones given risen since 2009. President Biden has enough. It’s time to wake up. It is our job to Menards. He says that the cost per job proposed raising it to $15 per hour, which as a community to make our community is too high, and starves governments of would be better, though still a low bar. good or bad. It is our choice.’” money needed to fund education and other About 10% percent of Americans live in It wasn’t their choice, though, not public goods. So he’s come up with a series areas without access to broadband internet. reallyno more than it was their choice of plans he calls “place based job policies.” Many who do have access can’t afford to

MA21_Wealth_inequality.indd 62 2/3/21 5:14 PM 63

The hospital in Bryan is now the largest employer in town.

Dennis Foust, 44, tattoos a patron at his shop, Testament Tattoo. He’s been based in Bryan for the past six years.

The marquee of the Bryan Theater, a three-screen cinema on the west side of the town square.

pay for it. Expanding access and afford just government, but also science and to picture themselves in places like Bryan. ability could encourage entrepreneurs to academia. The countervailing forces that Unless there is deep and lasting invest think about starting businesses in places can combat misinformationliterature, ment in education sufficient to renew a like Bryan, with its low cost of living. art, logic, critical thinking, civics, and faith in the possibility of rational progress, This type of regional development could historyhave meanwhile been deempha such areas can look forward to a future of give towns like Bryan a draw they would sized in education in favor of “workforce low paying, insecure jobs in warehouses not otherwise enjoy. Bartik cites the big development.” In February 2020, Ohio’s and distribution centers, along with a gest regional development project in US state superintendent of schools, Paolo handful of legacy manufacturers. history, the Tennessee Valley Authority, DeMaria, changed the requirements for That means times will remain hard for as an example. If such aid were effective, high school graduation: students would no people like Valerie Moreno, who recently younger people would move to places like longer have to achieve a proficient rating wound up underemployed, again. She gave Bryan, says Brian Dabson, a research fel in either math or English. DeMaria set the up her two part time jobs and finally got low at the University of North Carolina. standard in consultation with industry. some sleep, but then, two days before “When you interview young people,” he The pandemic has only exacerbated dis Christmas, she was laid off by Sauder. She says, “it’s surprising the portion of them trust that has been building for years. Some quickly took a new part time job with a who say, ‘We would come back if there was in Williams County denied the seriousness home health agency while she spent the something we could do here.’” of covid 19. One village mayor insisted that better part of a month fighting Ohio’s No initiative, no program, no develop masks actually spread the disease. Watkins, unemployment system. She still hadn’t ment aid will, by itself, solve the deepest the public health chief, found himself bat received anything as of mid January. Now problem of all: distrust of American insti tling covid 19 doubters. Amy Acton, Ohio’s Valerie struggles to maintain her own faith. tutions. Reagan told Americans that gov state health director, was driven from office “I take one day at a time,” she told me. “I ernment was not the solution, it was the in 2020 by threats. County health chiefs don’t look too far in advance. I count my problem. That notion has since become around the state have needed police protec blessings every day.” a religion to many people in places like tion. On January 24, 2021, shots were fired

Bryan, their faith buoyed by failures they at a state health official’s home. Brian Alexander is a journalist see around them. The internet’s capacity The distrust and denial of truth and and the author of The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small to spread mistrust, hate, division, and common sense only make it tougher for American Town, from which parts of misinformation has helped discredit not science and technology based businesses this article were adapted.

MA21_Wealth_inequality.indd 63 2/3/21 5:15 PM 64

MA21_Education.indd 64 2/3/21 10:02 AM 65

EDUCATORS ARE MAKING IT THEIR

Broadband boosters

MISSION TO CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE.

ack before the days of schoolbyZoom, firstgrade teacher Andy Granados and her colleagues devoted a lot of effort to planning their time in the classroom. “If you take 10 minutes passing out your materials, that’s 10 minutes of teaching time that you miss,” she says. Those careful plans seem like a lux B ury now. These days Granados teaches remotely, watching six and sevenyearolds try, in their small video boxes, to sound out sh words like “shop.” Her students By attend class for just two and a half hours each school day, but Chelsea Sheasley what’s worse is how frequently kids drop out of the call, typically knocked off by poor internet connections. Illustration by “It’s really hard. They come back in and don’t know where we Julia Schwarz are or what page we’re on,” says Granados. She teaches in the Franklin Pierce School District in Tacoma, Washington, where 80% of students come from lowincome families. The district gave tablets or laptops to every student and hot spots to their families, but the connection problems persist. Meanwhile, Granados trudges on. She’s covered about as much of the curriculum as she had by this point in the term when she taught in person, but she doubts her students under stand the material as well. “I don’t know what the fix is. It’s really painful,” she says.

MA21_Education.indd 65 2/4/21 3:15 PM 66 The progress issue

It’s clear that US students have had any live contact with Other high school seniors would be in a far worse position their teacher in the past week. have been blown further off if Zoom, Google Classroom, So while white students course. Applications for FAFSA, and other tech platforms may finish the current school the Free Application for Federal weren’t keeping education year between four and eight Student Aid, were down 10% as afloat during the pandemic. months behind in math, stu of late January 2021. And enroll But it isn’t working well for dents of color may be six to 12 ment in college was nearly 22% everyone, and the heavy reli months behind, according to lower in 2020 than the year ance on technology is creat McKinsey’s analysis. before. Students who delay col ing greater inequalities across Dorn says these disparities lege attendance are less likely an already uneven playing stem in part from the lingering to complete a degree, studies field. Poor or rural students digital divide and in part from have shown. and those who have a learn the fact that students of color The big question, of course, ing disability face the biggest are more likely to be learning is how the pandemic will affect barriers with virtual and hybrid remotely, according to surveys. students’ educational progress learning. Educators are wor Among other reasons, their par and the broader economy in ried that these students, who ents may be keeping them in the long run. The answer is STUDENTS WHO were most vulnerable before ALWAYS OR USUALLY remote school because of high still unclear and will depend the pandemic, have been dealt HAVE ACCESS covid19 rates in their commu in large part on what happens TO DEVICES FOR LEARNING, a crippling blow. % nities and distrust in authorities next. But preliminary reports The silver lining: the crisis 95 who say it’s safe to go back. paint a bleak picture. is spurring action to close some Jayda Williams, a high Dorn and her colleagues of these gaps once and for all. school senior in Providence, have estimated that setbacks in 90 Rhode Island, has her own education could cost the aver The price of the pandemic laptop, a schoolissued age American student $61,000 Many school districts made Chromebook, and a stable to $82,000 in lifetime earnings.

tremendous efforts over the 85 home internet connection. Again, those averages conceal spring and summer to distrib She’s involved with a student a stark racial divide: white stu ute tablets and Chromebooks to activist group and an art group, dents’ income could fall by 1.6%, students. That closed the digi which give her purpose. But while Hispanic students lose 3% 80 tal divide somewhat, but Black she’s still struggled more this and Black students 3.3% over WHITE and Hispanic households were HISPANIC year than she ever has with their working lifetimes. And US still less likely than white ones BLACK school, which she was attend GDP could take a 0.8% to 1.3% 75 to have reliable internet con MAY 2020 OCTOBER 2020 ing in person for about three annual hit by 2040, when most nections and access to devices, days each week as of January. of the current school cohort will according to October 2020 US STUDENTS WHO During her days spent learn be in the workforce. ALWAYS OR USUALLY HAVE Census Bureau data analyzed in ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, ing from home, Williams has a a report by the consulting firm % hard time focusing. She picks Laying the groundwork McKinsey see chart at right. 95 up her phone to text friends One conclusion is clear: all stu That means a large share much more often and misses dents need reliable, highspeed of the children who lack the her social life. “I’m absolutely internet at home, and will even basic tools necessary for online 90 not learning as much,” she when most are back in school. learning are children of color. admits. “I don’t think I retain School administrators now see “And when they do have access, anything.” it as their job to make sure stu the devices are probably of 85 Williams’s grades dropped dents have laptops or tablets a lower quality,” says Emma a little during the first quarter, and solid broadband connec Dorn, global education practice but she still plans to apply to tions to use them on.

manager at McKinsey and a 80 colleges. She’s narrowed her “You can discuss differ

coauthor of the report. Perhaps WHITE search to schools close to home ences between remote and as a result of these discrepan HISPANIC because she worries college inperson learning, but remote BLACK cies, those kids were also half campuses will become coro without the benefit of internet 75

as likely as white students to MAY 2020 OCTOBER 2020 navirus hot spots once again. access simply isn’t feasible,” MCKINSEY VIA SURVEY PULSE HOUSEHOLD BUREAU CENSUS US

MA21_Education.indd 66 2/3/21 10:02 AM “ I’m 67 absolutely not learning as the Internet and Television They’re starting to make plans much,” Association, USTelecom, and for how to reboot traditional others to identify students with education while preserving the no broadband internet at home benefits of remote learning. she admits. and to help states and school Gordon, of the Cleveland districts buy it for them. school district, says his staff is “ I don’t To close the gap for good, considering ways to help stu though, efforts like his will dents catch up when schools need stable funding. In the reopen, such as by organizing think I latest covid19 pandemic weekend boot camps, offering relief bill, Congress provided evening classes, or grouping retain $3.2 billion for a temporary students at similar learning lev Emergency Broadband Benefit els in mixedage classrooms. anything.” Program, which will give a Researchers also hope to $50amonth discount to qual see support for academic inter ifying lowincome households. ventions such as highintensity Lawmakers could choose to tutoring and summer accelera make that benefit permanent. tion academies, with students says Phillip DiBartolo, chief Eric Gordon, CEO of the Another solution could participating either remotely information officer for Chicago Cleveland Metropolitan School come from the federal ERate or in person. The United Public Schools. District in Ohio, is developing program, which has been fund Kingdom launched a national Some school districts are a program that allows the dis ing broadband in schools. It had inschool tutoring program to trying to close the digital divide trict to pay for students’ inter about $1.5 billion in unused address learning setbacks due once and for all. The Chicago net access as long as they’re funds last year. Using that to covid19, and many educa school system partnered with in school. money for students’ home tion researchers suggest the the city and philanthropic The Chicago model also internet access would require US do the same. Studies show groups to launch Chicago inspired Evan Marwell, the Federal Communications that frequent, sustained tutor Connected in June 2020. The founder and CEO of Commission to make rule ing on top of a student’s reg program will provide free high EducationSuperHighway. changes, which it refused ular classes can make a real speed internet for four years The nonprofit and its partners to grant under the Trump difference. to approximately 100,000 had just achieved their goal administration. DiBartolo, of the Chicago students and their families. of establishing broadband in Marwell says that with schools, says the pandemic is More than 50,000 families had nearly every classroom build enough funding, the US could also opening educators’ minds signed up by January. ing in America. In 2013, only close the home digital divide in to new ways of integrating Key to Chicago Connected 30% of schools in the US had half the time it took to close the technology into the classroom, is its partnership with internet strong internet connections. By divide in America’s classrooms but he cautions that this can’t service providers RCN and 2020, 99.3% of classrooms were because so many companies replace human instruction in Comcast. The school district connected to highspeed band and schools are now focused learning. “At the end of the day signed a datasharing agree width, and Marwell was about on this problem. it always takes a talented teacher ment that provides students’ to dissolve the organization. to make it happen,” he says. addresses¦with no other But when covid19 hit, his A holistic approach Granados, the firstgrade identifying information¦to phone started ringing. People On its own, expanding inter teacher, is eager to return to her the local ISPs, which run a he’d met, in state capitals and net access won’t make remote school once it’s safe. “To be in service eligibility check. If an in Washington, asked for advice learning work for everyone person building a connection address can be connected to on getting internet service to or do much to remedy the with a student is the best thing, wired broadband, families are students learning at home. After learning loss that’s already and to lose that has been really given a code to activate the hearing of the Chicago model, occurred. tough,” she says. “I think a lot service. If it can’t, the district he contacted cable and telecom With the pandemic’s end in of people are saying, ‘I can’t gives them a wireless hot spot. associations to sound them out sight, educators are discussing wait to go back.’” ■ Several other cities have about replicating it elsewhere. how to help the country’s 53.1 Chelsea Sheasley is an launched similar efforts, such as So far, Marwell and his team million kindergarten and school education reporter based

COURTESY PHOTO COURTESY Philadelphia’s PHLConnectED. have formed agreements with students make up for lost time. near Boston.

MA21_Education.indd 67 2/3/21 10:02 AM MA21_hood.indd 68 Lee Hood 2/2/21 3:24PM

GUTTER CREDIT HERE MA21_hood.indd 69

GUTTER CREDIT HERE PROSELYTIST PROSELYTIST THE THE Portraits byIan Allen By AdamPiore — medicine for all. precisionpersonalized, enable hisvisionof the pandemicmayfinally one scientistbelieves fruitless advocacy, decades oflargely After nearlythree PANDEMIC THE AND get much more personalized more much get covid19 pandemic. could really have used it in the we off.waybecause Toobad, long a seems still data alized person on based care health ing with.” “instantly know what he’s deal and computer a into card the nician, who could simply insert cli theya to it presentwould office,doctor’s or hospital a in vast detail. Upon arriving at genomes and medical histories recording their personal card Americans would carry a data all suggested, he 2016, By prediction. bold a made the automated DNA sequencer, famousogist for co inventing immunol and technologist a Hood’s vision of precision of vision Hood’s BACK IN THE Infectious diseases don’t diseases Infectious later,Twentyfiveyears s , LEE HOOD, are rightnow,” hesays. we where than along further much we’dthinkbe data.“I health of full cards medical Hood’swith hospital the at first covid patients had arrived the if mysteries these solved never show symptoms atall? some do Whyrecoverfully? ing problems, yet other people linger with left longhaulers socalled are Why third? a of system nervous the and another,of heart the patient, one of lungs the attack virus up on a ventilator? How can the ofsniffles,the othersand end case geta ofus Whysome do exactlypathogen.to same the viduals respond so differently indi similarseemingly why certaintyany with explain can one covid19.No than whether we’d already havealreadywe’d whether It’s hard not to wonderto not hard It’s 2/2/21 3:24PM 69 70 The progress issue

But Hood, who is 83, has never been The first results from this vast effort destroy it with the specificity of a one to dwell on what could have been. appeared in the journal Cell last fall, and guided missile. Known for his scientific ambition and they contained some surprising insights. Despite his early success, Hood impatiencehe left a safe, tenured uni Most notable was that as some patients recognized from the start that with versity job at 61 to cofound the Institute progress from mild to moderate stages of out major advances in technology, for Systems Biology ISB , a nonprofit the disease, they undergo a shift: a drop in he would never answer the most biomedical research center in Seattlehe the availability of key metabolites needed intriguing biological questions that sees the pandemic as a onceinalifetime to power an effective immune response. remained about the immune sys opportunity to show the power of data to In short, the body seems to just run out tem: those revealing how it coor help us understand disease. He hopes it will of the raw materials needed to fight back. dinates its remarkably complex reinvigorate his threedecadelong cam That means something as simple as dietary collection of cell types and pro paign for a transformation of health care. changes or nutritional supplements might teins. If immunologists were ever Hood, like the many other researchers help gird up weak immune systems. to understand how all these parts who have long advocated for such a shift, “There’s nothing more personal than worked together, Hood realized, argues that our approach to medicine is your immune system,” says Mark Davis, a they would first need to recognize, too cookiecutter. By and large, people with Stanford immunologist and a collaborator characterize, and measure them. the same illness get the same treatment. on the study. Davis notes that our immune Hood’s Caltech lab played a key This fails to account for big differences system is highly plastic and responsive role in developing a wide range of between different people’s genomes and to past experiencesso much so that tools, including instruments that immune systems. But the dream of true 70% of its measurable components differ would enable biologists to read precision medicine has been mired in the between identical twins just a couple of and write sequences of amino sluggish and recalcitrant healthcare sys years after birth. acids, and machines that could tem, where patient data is often seen as Davis believes the key to understanding string together DNA nucleotides more of a nuisance than a benefit. why covid affects people in such varied the letters of the genetic code . Could the covid crisis finally shake ways is to identify the differences between Perhaps most famously, in 1986 he things loose? the immune systems of those who suc helped invent the auto cessfully fight the disease and those who mated DNA sequencer, The covid data deluge succumb. Those differences could range a machine able to quickly Last March, Hood and ISB’s president, from the simple, such as whether some read the nucleotides in Jim Heath, launched an ambitious effort to one has been exposed to other coronavi the genome and deter answer the question of why people respond ruses in the past, to factors as complex as mine their order; it paved so differently to covid19. Their study is genetically determined variations in how the way for the Human shaping up to be one of the world’s most certain cells display viral protein fragments Genome Project, the $3 Jim Heath, comprehensive analyses of the human on their surfaces for inspection by circu billion, 13year effort to president of the immune response to the virus. lating immune cells. These proteins can produce the first draft of a Institute The ISB team collected multiple blood influence how likely the immune cell is complete human genome. for Systems Biology samples from each of several hundred hos to recognize the presence of a dangerous In the years that fol pitalized covid patients as they progressed pathogen, sound the alarm, and mobilize lowed, Hood advocated through the various stages of the disease. an army of antibodies to go on the attack. for a reinvention of mod Then the researchers tracked each patient’s “Now there is a flood of data, and it’s ern health care that relied immune response down to the molecular the highest quality that we’ve ever had, and on the new tools of molec level, analyzing a total of 120,000 variables. also the most we’ve ever had,” Davis says. ular biology to collect data They looked at different types of immune A boon for the science, to be sure. But from individual patients: cells, determined whether the cells were will the ISB study change how patients genome sequences, and activated, exhausted, or quiescent, and are treated and help prepare us for future complete inventories of examined the distinct characteristics of pandemics? Hood is optimistic. “This proteins circulating in the the proteins on those cells’ surfaces that absolutely validates everything I have been bloodstream. This data allow them to bind to and attack the virus. arguing for the past 20 years,” he says. could then be analyzed, The team at ISB also sequenced the using early systems of patients’ genomes, pulled electronic med The needed tools machine learning and ical histories, analyzed their complete pro Hood made a major contribution to immu pattern recognition to tein profiles and “metabolomes” the set nology early in his career, after attending pull out interesting pat of various molecules other than proteins medical school and getting his PhD from terns and correlations. in the samples , and applied the latest Caltech. He helped solve the mystery of Insights could be har patternrecognition and machinelearning how the body can produce roughly 10 bil nessed to maximize a per techniques to compare the patients with lion varieties of antibodies, Yshaped pro son’s health and head off each other and with healthy people of teins that can bind to the outer surface of diseases far earlier than similar ages. a distinctly shaped invading pathogen and previously possible.

MA21_hood.indd 70 2/2/21 5:34 PM 71

Pandemic lessons molecular level analysis that might explain These days, Hood is still covid’s remarkable variability? pushing hard, and despite “I don’t ordinarily say, when somebody the years of frustration, he calls me up, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ve got my check is characteristically opti bookhere we are, let’s do it,’” Perlmutter mistic. One reason for his recalls. “But I said we would be prepared renewed hope is that he to underwrite it on that call. We needed finally has ready access to the data. And I didn’t want to see them patients and the money struggling to raise money when we needed to begin his next grand the data.” experiment. At Providence, which was filling up with In 2016, ISB merged covid patients, the urgency was similarly with Providence Health palpable. The team at ISB began collecting & Services in Seattle, a data to characterize the patients’ immune massive network with 51 responses with unprecedented specificity. hospitals, billions of dol As it happened, Heath and his team already lars in cash, and a hunger had a powerful array of instruments for to develop a more robust the purpose: they were studying ovarian research program. and colorectal cancer patients in danger of Soon after the merger, recurrence, in hopes of developing better Hood was talking up an immunotherapies to treat them. impossibly ambitious “Ordinarily,” says Hood, “a trial like sounding campaign to that would take six months at least to start what he calls the put in place, but in two to three weeks, Million Person Project. It it was actively ongoing. We were recruit would apply phenotyp ing patients, and drawing the blood, and ing and genetic analysis beginning to test them.” to, yes, a million people. Though Hood’s Million Person Project In January 2020, Hood was shut down temporarily when covid hit, kicked off a pilot project, he has kept his focus on the long game. having recruited 5,000 “What covid has made possible is it’s patients, and began to allowed me to go out and raise really close It all made perfect scientific sense. sequence their genomes. to $20 million to carry out these studies,” But nearly two decades after the Human Then the first covid cases began arriving he says. “Part of it was used to build com Genome Project’s completion in 2003, and in the hospital. putational platforms and bring in key data despite much progress in genomic sciences Hood and Jim Heath had a video call scientists. All of these people will be able, as well as in data science, Hood’s predicted with Roger Perlmutter, an ISB board mem once covid’s over, to apply directly to the revolution in health care has still not arrived. ber who oversaw the $10 billion research Million Person Project.” He goes on, “We’ll Hood says one reason is that the tools budget of the pharmaceutical behemoth probably be setting up clinical trials using used to be expensive. Now, however, a Merck. They discussed what was known deep phenotyping for a whole series of genome can be sequenced for $300 or less. about the mysterious new diseaseand, diseases in the future.” And, he says, researchers have gained access more important, what scientific questions Such a prediction is pure Hood, shaped to computational tools “that can really inte most urgently remained to be answered. both by his ambition and his endless enthu grate the data, and turn data into knowledge.” It did not take long for the trio of scien siasm, even after almost 30 years of advo But the biggest roadblock is that the tists to home in on the challenge. cating for personalized medicine with health care system is inefficient and resis “The immediate question thenit’s still seemingly little progress. tant to change. There’s a “lack of under the question now, franklywas why is it that Even if his grand vision is realized, it standing about how important it is to get there are many people infected, but only a will be too late to save us from the worst diverse types of data and integrate them,” few become very, very ill?” Perlmutter says. effects of covid 19. But Hood clearly rel Hood says. “Most physicians went to medical “And what is the nature of the transition ishes the opportunity the pandemic has school five or 10 or 20 years ago, and they from … what is often an asymptomatic or created. “Covid¡ showed, clearly, that never learned anything about any of this.” mildly symptomatic infection to a cata you can really get things done at lightning “Everybody is really busy, and changing strophic illness? What does it look like? And speed if there’s urgency behind them,” he takes time, so you have to persuade lead how can we understand it from a molecular says. “Usually it takes forever to get things ership as well as physicians this is in their cell biology perspective?” done. But in a crisis you just push aside all interest,” he says. “That all turned out to On the call that day, Hood and Heath the bureaucracy.”

be far more difficult than I ever thought it had a big ask: would Perlmutter finance Adam Piore is a freelance science and would be.” them to conduct the kind of comprehensive medical writer.

MA21_hood.indd 71 2/2/21 5:29 PM 7272

THIS PAGE: We’ve all had times when we could’ve used a third hand. Cybernetics researcher Kevin Warwick is one of the few people who know what it’s like. A chip connected to the nerves in his wrist allows Warwick to control a robot arm and feel what it’s feeling.

OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: When Aisen Caro Chacin puts on her echolocation head- phones, she’s blind as a bat. And that’s the point—as the rig’s name suggests, it focuses sound in a way that’s meant to help the wearer navigate just by listening.

Artist Moon Ribas (see main text) has implants in her feet that allow her to feel earth- and moonquakes.

After losing his leg and arm in an accident, James Young enlisted the help of a pros- thetics designer and the gam- ing company Konami to build a bionic arm in the style of Young’s favorite video game series, Metal Gear Solid.

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Implanted in your hand, this RFID/NFC chip (actual size) can be used to open locks or pay for things.

HUMAN+ The human body is a marvel of evolutionary a way of interpreting the vibrations she engineering. When it goes wrong, either feels when the signals from earthquakes from illness or from trauma, powerful and moonquakes, registering on far off technologies that we’ve developed can seismographs, are beamed into implants replace lost limbs, or restore the ability in her feet. She and Neil Harbisson page to walk. Occasionally, the repair can even 74, who cofounded the advocacy group go beyond a restoration, enhancing one’s Cyborg Foundation, both identify as art natural abilities. ists rather than technology researchers. Photographer David Vintiner became But while many cyborg projects are bet fascinated with these and other sorts of body ter described as curios than practical break modifications carried out by proponents of throughs, they are nonetheless difficult transhumanism. Generally speaking, trans to ignore. Modern consumer technology humanists believe that technology can be has, after all, already changed us in many used as a tool to tweak and enhance the strange and fascinating ways. Many people human body. In some cases, the impetus walk around with implants that regulate for such modification comes from an acci their heartbeat or insulin levels. And many dent James Young right, and page 76 more stare into the mirror each morning replaced his lost arm with a robotic one that’s and carefully apply a thin, wet film to the something of a high tech Swiss army knife. surface of their eye to improve their vision. Other transhumanists simply want to We may not all end up like Harbisson, who see what is possible: to play with percep has a light sensitive antenna sticking out tion, the senses, and their own skin and of his skull. But who’s to say that he and bone in ways that can seem performative, others aren’t simply the first examples and are sometimes deliberately so. Moon of a more advanced form of our species? Photographs Ribas top right, for example, dances as Michael Reilly by David Vintiner

MA21_Vintiner_Photo_essay.indd 73 2/3/21 1:03 PM 74

THIS PAGE: Neil Harbisson has been color-blind since birth. To augment his senses, he had an antenna implanted in his skull that turns the light it picks up into audible vibrations, allowing him to sense colors (and even infrared and ultraviolet light) as sound.

OPPOSITE: If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to detach your eyes and move them around inde- pendently, the Eyesect helmet is for you. Each “eye” camera pipes into your real eye. It may be a profound new sensory experience—or just a good way to break your brain.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Researchers at University College The aim of the NeuroRex exo- London have used stem cells to skeleton is to take a step beyond grow body parts and surgically repair wheelchairs. NeuroRex uses or replace damaged tissue, includ- a wearable electrode cap that ing tear ducts, windpipes, and blood reads a person’s brain waves vessels. More complex parts, like an and turns them into commands ear or nose (pictured), are next. like “Walk forward,” “Turn,” “Step back,” or “Stop.” Its creators The “God helmet” started as an hope that people who’ve lost attempt to explain the roots of mys- the ability to walk will one day tical experience in terms of brain be able to regain much of their activity. Subjects whose brains were mobility, including navigating stimulated using the helmet often stairs and uneven terrain. reported feeling a divine presence (or their dead ancestors, or aliens). James Young’s bionic arm (see Neuro-hackers have co-opted it to page 73) also has a USB charging see if it can help with mental health port, a heart rate monitor, a flash- or improve concentration. light, and a small drone.

MA21_Vintiner_Photo_essay.indd 76 2/3/21 1:03 PM The “ear” is really a surgically implanted, porous ABOVE: scaffold. Filmmaker Rob Spence lost an eye in a childhood accident. In its place, he and a small team created a wearable wireless video camera that records footage from his point of view—complete with furtive glances and eye blinks.

LEFT: The ears on Stelios Arcadiou’s head work just fine. But the artist, who goes by the name Stelarc, endured multiple surgeries, skin necrosis, and a dangerous infection to bring a third ear to life on his forearm. His dream is for it to house a small, internet-connected microphone so people all over the world can listen in to what it’s hearing.

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MA21_misc_ownership.indd 78 2/4/21 3:56 PM “The climate crisis demands government 79 action. It cannot be left to the whims of billionaires.” LEAH STOKES, P. RE VIEW

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JOHN MARKOFF ill the last person leaving SEATTLETurn out “W the lights.” Will the last one out ... It’s been half a century since, in the midst of a severe 1970s downturn plaguing aircraft maker The latest wave of tech companies quitting California Boeing, this billboard greeted travelers on their way to may have mistaken what makes it a center of innovation: SeaTac airport. its ability to capitalize on its luck. But Seattle, in the end, did not go the way of Detroit. Before the end of the decade two of the city’s native sons, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, renamed their software company from its original MicroSoft, moved back home from New Mexico, and set up in a suburb across Lake Washington. ANDREA DAQUINO ANDREA

MA21_Reviews.indd 79 2/3/21 2:50 PM 80 The progress issue

SILICON VALLEY

How would the city have fared if company’s integrated circuit tech new generation of silicon, inno Gates and Allen had instead decided nology. This sparked the explosion vations emerged like clockwork: to build Microsoft in Albuquerque? in transistors and computers, and desktop personal computers, lap We’ll never know. But Seattle’s recov wave after wave of change. tops, digital audio and video, smart ery was more reliant on luck than But despite its near religious phones, and the internet of things. people are usually willing to admit. belief in its own reputation for inno Surprises may be harder to We like to come up with reasons vation, the Valley has been sustained come by now that Moore’s Law, that explain why significant changes by relatively few huge, dramatic the Valley’s principal article of faith, happen, or how great shifts occur: concepts that have spawned whole has been sputtering since 2013. In we hear grand claims of innovative new ways of living and working, fact, in at least one significant way, culture or geographic advantages. like Doug Engelbart’s hypertext it has come to a complete standstill. But the reality is that serendipity and mouse, Alan Kay’s Dynabook The cost per transistorwhich once played a huge role in remaking the a precursor to the laptop, or Marc fell at the same exponential rate that Seattle region’s economic fortunes. Weiser’s ubiquitous computing. transistor density increasedhasn’t The histories of such places are Instead, Silicon Valley has thrived budged for more than three gener driven as much by random personal at product engineering and become ations of chipmaking. decisions about things like where adept at something else: spotting a “We’ve basically had a free ride,” to live, or by “black swan” events profitable new idea. Carver Mead, the physicist who like the 2008 financial crash, as “Whenever there is a new idea, actually coined the term “Moore’s they are by destiny. And while these the Valley swarms it,” Jensen Huang, Law,” told me several years ago. “It’s may offer less satisfying ways to the chief executive of the chipmaker really nuts, but that’s what paid off.” predict the futurethey are cer Nvidia, told me. “You have to wait Now, however, the free ride tainly more a patchwork quilt of for a good idea, and good ideas don’t is over. Significant technology reasons than professional futurists happen every day.” advances will come only in response would have you believethey are That focus has been multiplied to human ingenuity. And that means accurate about not just Seattle, but by the strength of the Valley’s ven it’s time for Silicon Valley to put up Silicon Valley too. ture capital industry, and its effi or shut up. ciency in funding new startups. In here has always been an 2019 the Bay Area’s $50 billion plus erendipity is particularly immense amount of debate in venture funding far exceeded worth keeping in mind as Tover what accounts for the the total in any other region of the Shigh profile companies head uniqueness of Silicon Valley United States. for the exits. Just last December, which, coincidentally, was given All this underlies a transfor Hewlett Packard Enterprise and that name by technology journalist mation that has led the region to Oracle announced they were relo Don Hoefler in 1971, the same year move away from manufacturing to cating their headquarters to Texas, the “Turn out the lights” billboard hardware engineering and software and Tesla gave signs it may follow appeared in Seattle. design. Nvidia itself was founded suit. Their moves have touched off Whatever the reasons the Valley to design graphics processors for a new round of hand wringing and has remained the world’s domi video games, and then turned deci speculation over whether the Valley nant technology innovation center sively toward machine learning has lost its mojo. since then, its roots clearly lie in a applications. But this is not the first time the serendipitous set of events. First, But good ideas are not just rare question has been posed. There William Shockley decided to leave they are also notoriously hard to pre were times in the past when Bell Labs and start his new semi dict. The web, search engines, and progress appeared to be lagging, conductor company in Palo Alto machine learning all took Silicon only for it to roar back with some because he wanted to be close to The High Cost of Valley’s gurus by surprise. breakthrough that seemed to come his aging mother. Then, a couple High Tech To a large degree this was entirely out of left field. of years later, a Justice Department By Lenny Siegel because for decades, the rapidly By 2006, for example, it felt as antitrust lawsuit against American and John Markoff accelerating power and falling cost though innovation was ebbing in

Telephone & Telegraph led to HARPER COLLINS, of computing made new, unex the Valley and mobile hardware mandatory free licensing of the pected things possible. With each advances were happening first in

MA21_Reviews.indd 80 2/4/21 9:46 AM eview 81

Europe, at companies like Nokia bakery in Sunnyvale, full of women significant boost by the success of and Psion. But the following year IT STILL SEEMS in saris and their husbands, who the recent mRNA covid vaccines, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, UNWISE TO were employed as engineers. They after all see page 28. Or maybe reimagining Apple’s two biggest BET AGAINST had come to the Valley as a key intel quantum computing will become failures: the Newton personal digi lectual labor force for the rapidly a commercial reality, drastically tal assistant and the General Magic SERENDIPITY, growing disk drive industry. Ten reducing the cost of Google’s data personal communicator. The Valley OR AGAINST megabytes of hard disk storage was centers. Or consider what it would reemerged almost overnight as the SILICON a big deal! Europeans, Asians, and mean if an Apple car proves to be world’s dominant region for inno Latin Americans came too, bringing as successful as the iPhone. But I vation in information technology. VALLEY. intellectual power and entrepre wouldn’t count on it. Northern California has been PREDICTIONS OF neurial spirit. Within a decade it was It is just as likely, however, that a boomandbust economy as far possible to drive around the Valley there will be a long dry spell and the back as the Gold Rush. As a teen ITS IMMINENT from neighborhood to neighbor Valley will find itself in a predica ager growing up in Palo Alto, I DEMISE hood and see a different language ment similar to that faced by Seattle heard of mass layoffs at the NASA HAVE BEEN on the shop signs and billboards when it overrelied on Boeing. Even Ames research laboratory and in each one. more worrisome is that China may the Lockheed Missiles and Space REGULAR AND Now, however, there are pow prove to be the fierce competitor Company that led waves of engi SHORTSIGHTED. erful antiimmigration forces at Silicon Valley once feared Japan neers to leave town. work in the United States, and it would be. I was reminded of this after the is quite possibleeven under a It is certainly possible that the dotcom collapse, when I saw a Biden administrationthat new real threat to the next technology startup veteran at a conference and barriers to foreign technical workers platform will emerge first from realized I hadn’t seen him for a and entrepreneurs may kill one of Shanghai, or Shenzhen, or Beijing. number of years. the key ingredients of the Valley’s Anyone who has visited the Chinese “Where have you been?” I asked. success. capital’s Zhongguancun district can He had left the state to live with his Another reason for uncertainty not help but recognize its similarity family, but things were picking up is that the next major technology to the Valley in its concentration of and now he was back, he replied. shift is not yet clear. When the pace talent and capital. of Moore’s Law slowed during the That being said, it still seems his is not to say the Valley’s past decade, the Valley made a tran unwise to bet against serendipity, survival is a given. Today, sition between the two most recent or against Silicon Valley. Predictions Tdespite continuing strong generations of innovationfrom of its imminent demise have been investment and venture capital, social media platforms to machine regular and shortsighted. there are fresh reasons for uncer learningbased software and ser I learned this lesson personally tainty besides the stalling of the vices. Venture capital pivoted, and after I helped write The High Cost of semiconductor cycle. funding for social media, which had High Tech, a 1985 book arguing that One has to do with the ability peaked in 2012, fell to almost zero the environmental and labor costs of to import talent. Silicon Valley, in by 2016, as investors rushed into growth would soon limit the expan many ways, owes its very existence machinelearning startups. sion of Silicon Valley. My coauthor to the mystique that first emerged There is little consensus today, was Lenny Siegel, who went on to in the 1970s, creating a magnetic however, about what the “next big become the mayor of Mountain force that has continuously pulled thing” might be or when it might View, the city where Google is now the best and the brightest from all arrive. The futurists point to aug headquartered. over the world. Indeed, that may be mented realitysome optimists Oops. a key to understanding what sets believe the entire Asian flatpanel the region apart from other inno display industry is at riskas a John Markoff is a journalist who covered technology for vation centers. likely candidate for the platform the New York Times from 1988 I first stumbled across this as that will touch off the next invest until 2017. He is the author of several books, including a technical editor at Byte maga ment cycle. Or perhaps software a forthcoming biography of zine in the mid1980s. A local hard and biology will finally merge: Stewart Brand. ware designer took me to an Indian synthetic biology has been given a

MA21_Reviews.indd 81 2/3/21 2:51 PM MA21_Reviews.indd 82 editing means for the future of humanity. Three books explore the He Jiankui affair and what gene C ISP -baby stories Decoding the 82 GENOMICS J. BENJAMINHURLBUT The progress issue THE stories about how science progresses fortheir invention of CRISPR, vir yearlast Prize Nobel the awarded wereCharpentier Emmanuelle and Doudna Jennifer When story.geneediting the of telling is now an obligatory chapter in any dren. The “CRISPR babies” episode chil living became them of three to engineer human embryos. At least named He Jiankui was using CRISPR 2018 that a young Chinese scientist Novemberin revealed Regalado MIT Technology Review’s Antonio That peril became personified when peril. of element an with promise house onhisuniversity’s campus. guest a in authorities Chinese by peared from view: he was being held planned. After the summit, He disap he before public go to him forced had daysRegaladoafter 2018,two in Kong Hong in Editing Genome was at the International Summit on lowed, but the next time I saw him periodically in the months that fol the first time. We exchanged notes forHe met 2017,I January where boy science.” or a couple of scientists … by cow one bydriven are breakthroughs observed,universitymajor“Many Americanelite an from scientist senior a Thereinvited. was He Berkeley, in January 2017, to which California,of University the at Doudna by hosted meeting door closed small, a in came moment and how heroes are made. One such but how thefuture unfolds. remembered, is past the howonly villain. story of heroic science, he plays the tioned He. In this century’s grandest men also story newsevery tually T I too was at that meeting in meeting that at was too I He Jiankui’s plans were shaped by Storytelling matters. It shapes not one of heroic power andpower heroic of one CRISPR genome editing is ofstory conventional he 2/3/21 2:51PM

ANDREA DAQUINO eview 83

A month later, he called me, the enormous competition, conflict, more than it invites reflection and wanting to tell his story. He gave and capital that have surrounded learning. Even the portraits of the me a detailed history of the CRISPR CRISPR’s commercialization. people feel distorted by his flatter babies episode, explaining what However, Davies’s book is heavy ing lens. motivated his project and the net on the business of gene editing, The one exception is He, who work of peoplescientists, entre light on the humanity. The narrative gets a few chapters as an unwel Editing Humanity preneurs, venture capitalists, and emphasizes the arenas of scientific come interloper. Isaacson makes government officialswho sup By Kevin Davies discovery and technological innova little effort to understand his origins ported it. The 2017 Berkeley meet PEGASUS BOOKS, tion as though they alone are where and motivations. He is a nobody with ing turned out to have been pivotal, the future is made. a “smooth personality and a thirst especially the “cowboy science” Humanity first appears as some for fame” who attempts to force his comment. “That strongly influenced thing more than an object of gene way into an elite club where he has me,” he told me. “You need a person editing in the last line of the book: no business being. Disaster ensues. to break the glass.” “CRISPR is moving faster than soci He’s story ends with a “fair trial” After the 2017 meeting, He ety can keep up. To where is up to and a prison sentence. Here Isaacson started reading biographies of scien all of us.” Yet most of us are miss parrots a state media report, unwit tific risktakers who were ultimately ing from the story. Admittedly, the tingly playing propagandist. The hailed as heroes, from Edward The Code book’s focus is the gene editors and official Chinese story was crafted Breaker Jenner, creator of the first vaccine, their tools. But for readers already to conclude the He affair and align to Robert Edwards, pioneer of in By Walter primed to see science as the driver of Chinese science with the responsi Isaacson vitro fertilization IVF. In January progress, and society as recalcitrant ble rather than the rogue. 2019, he wrote to government inves SIMON & and retrograde until it eventually tigators: “I firmly believe that what I SCHUSTER, “catches up,” this telling reinforces Authorizing narratives am doing is to promote the progress that consequential myth. These stories of heroic science take of human civilization. History will Walter Isaacson’s The Code for granted what makes a heroand stand on my side.” Breaker cleaves even more closely a villain. Davies’s account is consid Looking back at my notes from to scientific laboratories, following erably more careful and nuanced, the 2017 meeting, I discovered that the personalities behind the making but it too shifts to casting stones He had remembered only the first of CRISPR. The main protagonist of before seeking to understand the half of that provocative statement. his sprawling book is Doudna, but it sources of failurewhere He’s proj It continued: “What’s going on right The Mutant also profiles the many other figures, ect came from, how a person trained Project now is cowboy science … but that from graduate students to Nobel at elite American universities could By Eben Kirksey doesn’t mean that’s the best way to laureates, whose work intersected have believed he would be valorized,

proceed … we should take a lesson ST. MARTIN’S with hers. In always admiring and not condemned, and how he could from our history and do better the PRESS, sometimes loving detail, Isaacson get so far without realizing how next time around.” narrates the excitement of discov deep a hole he had dug for himself. ery, the heat of competition, and the My overwhelming sense from my Learning from history? rise of scientific celebrityand, in interviews with He is that far from Kevin Davies’s Editing Humanity He’s case, infamy. It is a fascinating “going rogue,” he was trying to win follows a circuitous path through story of rivalry and even pettiness, a race. His failure lay not in refusing the remarkably diverse experiments albeit with huge stakes in the form of to listen to his scientific elders, but and laboratories where the CRISPR prizes, patents, profits, and prestige. in listening too intently, accepting puzzle was pieced together. The Yet for all its detail, the book their encouragement and absorbing story of discovery is gripping, not tells a narrow story. It is a conven things said in the inner spaces of sci least because Davies, a geneticist tional celebration of discovery and ence about where genome editing turned editor and writer, skillfully invention that sometimes slides and humanity are headed. Things weaves together a wealth of detail in into rather breathless celebrity pro like: CRISPR will save humanity a pageturning narrative. The book file and gossip. Apart from some from the burden of disease and gives a textured picture of the inter chapters of Isaacson’s own rather infirmity. Scientific progress will section of academic science with the superficial ruminations on “ethics,” prevail as it has always done when business of biotechnology, exploring his storytelling rehearses clichés creative and courageous pioneers

MA21_Reviews.indd 83 2/3/21 2:51 PM 84 The progress issue

GENOMICS

push boundaries. Genome editing the makers of the future rather than including an HIVpositive med of the germlineembryos, eggs, or SCIENCE- as people confronting the awesome ical professional who became sperm that will pass changes down CENTRIC power of the tools they have created, more deeply committed to He’s to future generationsis inevitable; STORYTELLING attempting and, often, failing to project after he was fired from his the only question is who, when, temper promises of progress with job because his HIV status was and where. IMPLIES THAT the humility to recognize that they discovered. He heardand believed inthe SCIENCE SITS are out of their depth. Kirksey’s attention to human messianic promise of the power to OUTSIDE OF Another cost of sciencecentric beings as more than engineerable edit. As Davies writes, “If fixing storytelling is the way it implies that bodies, and to the desires that drive a single letter in the genetic code SOCIETY, science sits outside of society, that it the imperative to edit, invites us to of a fellow human being isn’t the THAT IT DEALS deals primarily with the pure arenas recognize the extraordinary peril of coveted chalice of salvation, I don’t of nature and knowledge. But that reaching into the geneediting tool know what is.” PRIMARILY is a false narrative. For instance, kit for salvation. Indeed, as even Isaacson notes, WITH PURE the commercial business of IVF is That peril is too often obscured the National Academies had sent ARENAS OF a crucial part of the story, and yet it by hastily spun stories of prog similar signals, leaving the door receives remarkably little attention in ress. On the final morning of the open to germline engineering for NATURE AND Davies’s and Isaacson’s accounts. In genomeediting summit in Hong “serious diseases or conditions.” He KNOWLEDGE. this regard, their books reflect a defi Kong, less than 24 hours after He Jiankui was roundly criticized for BUT THAT cit in the genome editing debates. had presented his CRISPRbabies making an edit that was “medically Scientific authorities have tended experiment, the conference orga unnecessary”a genetic change he IS A FALSE to proceed as though the world is nizing committee issued a state hoped would make babies geneti NARRATIVE. as governable as a laboratory bench, ment simultaneously rebuking cally resistant to HIV. There are, the and as if anyone who thinks ratio him and laying a pathway for those critics argued, easier and safer ways nally thinks like them. who would follow in his footsteps. to avoid transmitting the virus. But Behind the statement was a story: he believed that the terrible stigma Humanity’s stories one in which technology is racing in China against HIVpositive peo These sciencecentric stories side ahead, and society needs to just ple made it a justified target. And line the people in whose name the accept itand affirm it. A mem the Academies left room for that research is done. Eben Kirksey’s ber of that committee told Kirksey call: “It is important to note that The Mutant Project brings those why they had rushed to judgment: such concepts as ‘reasonable alter people into the picture. His book, “The first person who puts it on natives’ and ‘serious disease or con too, is a tour of the actors at the fron paper wins.” dition’ … are necessarily vague. tiers of genome editing, but for him So far, the CRISPR story has Different societies will interpret those actors also include patients, been about racing to be the first to these concepts in the context of activists, artists, and scholars who writenot just scientific papers, their diverse historical, cultural, and engage with disability and disease as but the nucleotides of the genome social characteristics.” lived experiences and not merely as and rules for the human future. The He understood this as an autho DNA molecules. In Kirksey’s book, rush to writeand winthe future rization. These are the true origins issues of justice are entangled with leaves little room for learning from of his grotesque experiment. The the way stories are told about how patterns of the past. Stories of tech picture of He, and the scientific bodies should beand not be. This nological futures, thrilling though community he was embedded in, is a wrests questions of progress from they may be, substitute a thin nar rather more ambiguous one than the the grip of science and technology. rative of progress for the richness virtuous science of Isaacson’s telling. Like Davies, Kirksey uses the He and fragility of the human story. Or, rather, it’s a more human one, affair to frame his story. A skilled We need to listen to more and in which knowledge and technical anthropologist, he is at his best better storytellers. Our common acumen aren’t necessarily accom when drawing out people’s own future depends upon it.

panied by wisdom and may instead stories about what is at stake for J. Benjamin Hurlbut is a be colored by ambition, greed, and them. Some of the most remark historian of science at Arizona myopia. Isaacson does the scientists able interviews in the book are with State University. a disservice by presenting them as the patients from He Jiankui’s trial,

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ANDREA DAQUINO like an attempt to dodge the harder obstacles.political Focusing on technological solutions to climate change feels Climate solutionism atrn, n arclue to agriculture and facturing, ing his way from electricity, manu by the size of their footprintswork He slices this pollution into sectors gases that people create every year. greenhouse of tons billion 51 the the climate crisis. Gates begins with centered approach to understanding CLIMATE CHANGE LEAH C.STOKES IN Gatestakes technologya Bill Disaster , Climate a his new book, How to Avoid other wealthy people launched people wealthyother dozen several and Gates 2015, in ones airplanes. problems cement and the smaller technological bigger the between distinguish to heuristics handy climate challenge, giving the reader complexitythroughthe ting of the cut Throughout,at adept is Gates buildings. and transportation At the Paris climate negotiations eview By Bill Gates We Need Breakthroughs Have and the Solutions We Disaster: The a Climate How to Avoid KNOPF, . pact called Mission Innovation, says it equal sizeinJanuary. fund announced a second round of makerburgers.ofplantbased The successes, like Impossible Foods, a lion first round has had some early like beef. The venture fund’s $1 bil nology to fake meat that tastes more from nextgeneration nuclear tech some of this gap, funding everything innovation. Breakthrough aims to fill sector are underinvesting in energy federal government and the private fellow investors argued that both the his and Gateseffort. research and venture capital fund, lobbying group, Breakthrough Energy, an interlinked that go awry. loops feedbackhave can systems understandhowto ought complex engineers change.And climate on keythe ness,progressis barrierto messi tist.”its all Yetin politics, scien political a than engineer an like “more thinks he that writing less time on the political obstacles, greater decarbonization. He spends achieve to overcome be still must believes he that challenges logical this, his book focuses on the techno now. Though Gates doesn’t dispute done be can much exists; already technologynecessary the of lot a the openingpages. catastrophe,”in climate writes he a avoid can we enough, fast act nology makes me optimistic ... if we I’ve learned about climate and tech optimist’s perspective. “Everything techno a from written book, est research and development. every year since 2015 to cleanenergy billion $4.6 additional an commit to Brazil US,India,and China,the including countries 24 with along utive branch of the European Union has persuaded its members the exec the through line for Gates’s lat Gates’sfor line through the A parallel effort, an international As many others have pointed out, areendeavors various These 2/3/21 2:51PM 85 86 The progress issue

CLIMATE CHANGE

TR: Why Bill Gates is Yes, minister Q+A optimistic about climate Kim Stanley Robinson does think change (to a point) like a political scientist. The begin ning of his latest novel, The Ministry The Microsoft cofounder and clean-energy investor for the Future, is set just a few years answers three questions about his new book, How to Avoid from now, in 2025, when a mas a Climate Disaster sive heat wave hits India, killing millions. The book’s protagonist, By James Temple Mary Murphy, runs a UN agency tasked with representing the inter Q: In the past, you seemed to poll young voters, millennials, ests of future generations and distance yourself from the both who identify as Republican trying to align the world’s govern policy side of climate change. and Democrats, the interest ments behind a climate solution. Was there a shift in your think- in this issue is very high. And Throughout, the book puts intergen ing, or was it a deliberate they’re the ones who will be erational equity and various forms choice to lay out the policy alive when the world either is of distributive politics at its center. side in your book? massively suffering from these If you’ve ever seen the scenar A: In general, if you can do inno- problems or is not, depending ios the Intergovernmental Panel vation without having to get on what gets done. So there is on Climate Change develops for involved in the political issues, I political will. always prefer that. But there’s a lot of interplay the future, Robinson’s book will But the reason I smile when [between politics and innovation]. feel familiar. His story asks about you say it is because, in our If you try and do this with brute the politics necessary to solve the global health work, there’s a force, just paying the current pre- climate crisis, and he has certainly whole decade where I’m recog- miums for clean technology, the done his homework. Though it is nizing that to have the impact economic cost is gigantic and the an exercise in imagination, there we want, we’re going to have to economic displacement is gigan- are moments when the novel feels work with both the donor gov- tic. And so I don’t believe that more like a graduate seminar in the ernments in a very deep way even a rich country will do this by social sciences than a work of escap and the recipient governments brute force. ist fiction. The climate refugees who that actually create these pri- But in the near term, you may are central to the story illustrate the mary health-care systems. be able to get tens of billions of Here, there’s no doubt you dollars for the innovation agenda. way pollution’s consequences hit the need to get government pol- Republicans often like innovation. global poor the hardest. But wealthy The Ministry for people emit far more carbon. icy in a huge way. Take things I’m asking for something the Future: A like clean steel; it doesn’t have that’s like the size of the National Novel Reading Gates next to Robinson other benefits, there’s no market Institutes of Health budget. Even By Kim Stanley underlines the inextricable link demand for clean steel. So to without 60 Democratic [Senate] Robinson between inequality and climate get that sector going, you need votes, I feel [it’s feasible] because ORBIT, . change. Gates’s efforts on climate to do some basic R&D spending, it creates high-paying jobs. are laudable. But when he tells us and you need to actually start that the combined wealth of the having purchase requirements Q: Do you think we can realistically people backing his venture fund is or funds set aside to pay that hold warming to or below a 2 ˚C $170 billion, we may be puzzled that premium, both from government increase at this point? and perhaps companies and A: That would require us to get they have dedicated only $2 billion individuals as well. the policy right, get many, many to climate solutionsless than 2% countries involved, and be lucky of their assets. This fact alone is an Q: How do you feel about our on quite a few of the technologi- argument for wealth taxes: the cli Under a White chances of making real political cal advances. That’s pretty much Sky: The mate crisis demands government progress, particularly in the US? a best case. Anything better than Nature of the action. It cannot be left to the whims A: I am optimistic. Biden being that is not at all realistic, and Future of billionaires. elected is a good thing. Even there are days when even that By Elizabeth As billionaires go, Gates is argu more encouraging is that if you doesn’t seem realistic. Kolbert ably one of the good ones. He chron CROWN, . icles how he uses his wealth to help

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the poor and the planet. The irony One thing Gates and Robinson advocated importing nonnative of his writing a book on climate BY FOCUSING do have in common, though, is the species as an alternative to using change when he flies in a private ON INNOVATION, view that geoengineeringmassive pesticides. The year after her 1962 jet and owns a 66,000squarefoot GATES interventions to treat the symptoms book Silent Spring was published, mansion is not lost on the reader rather than the causes of climate the US Fish and Wildlife Service nor on Gates, who calls himself an UNDERPLAYS changemay be inevitable. In The brought Asian carp to America for “imperfect messenger on climate THE FOSSIL- Ministry for the Future, solar geoen the first time, to control aquatic change.” Still, he is unquestionably FUEL INTERESTS gineering, or spraying fine particles weeds. The approach solved one an ally to the climate movement. into the atmosphere to reflect more problem but created another: the But by focusing on technolog OBSTRUCTING of the sun’s heat back into space, spread of this invasive species ical innovation, Gates underplays PROGRESS. is used after the deadly heat wave threatened local ones and caused the material fossilfuel interests with which the novel opens. And environmental damage. obstructing progress. Climate CLIMATE- later, some scientists take to the As Kolbert puts it, her book is change denial is strangely not CHANGE DENIAL poles and devise elaborate methods about “people trying to solve prob mentioned in the book. Throwing IS STRANGELY for removing melted water from lems created by people trying to up his hands at political polarization, underneath glaciers to prevent it solve problems.” Her reporting cov Gates never makes the connection NOT MENTIONED from flowing into the sea. Despite ers examples including the illfated to his fellow billionaires Charles and IN THE BOOK. some setbacks, they hold back sea efforts to stop the spread of Asian David Koch, who made their fortune level rise by several feet. We might carp, the pumping stations in New in petrochemicals and have played imagine Gates showing up in the Orleans that accelerate that city’s a key role in manufacturing denial. novel as an early financial backer sinking, and attempts to selectively For example, Gates marvels that of these efforts. As he notes in his breed coral so that it can withstand for the vast majority of Americans, own book, he has been funding solar hotter temperatures and ocean acidi electric heaters are actually cheaper geoengineering research for years. fication. Kolbert has a keen awareness than continuing to use fossil gas. He of unintended consequences, and presents people’s failure to adopt The Thick of It she’s funny. If you like your apocalit these costsaving, climatefriendly The title for Elizabeth Kolbert’s new with a side of humor, she will have options as a puzzle. It isn’t. As jour book, Under a White Sky, is a ref you laughing while Rome burns. nalists Rebecca Leber and Sammy erence to this nascent technology, By contrast, though Gates is Roth have reported in Mother Jones since implementing it on a large aware of the potential pitfalls of and the Los Angeles Times, the gas scale could turn the sky from blue technological solutions, he still industry is funding front groups and to white. praises plastics and fertilizers as marketing campaigns to oppose Kolbert notes that the first lifegiving inventions. Tell that to electrification and keep people report on climate change landed the sea turtles swallowing plastic hooked on fossil fuels. on President Lyndon Johnson’s desk garbage, or the fertilizerdriven algal These forces of opposition are way back in 1965. This report did blooms destroying the ecosystem in more clearly seen in Robinson’s not argue that we should cut carbon the Gulf of Mexico. novel than in Gates’s nonfic emissions by moving away from fos With dangerous levels of carbon tion. Gates would have done well sil fuels. It advocated changing the dioxide in the atmosphere, geoengi to draw on the work that Naomi climate through solar geoengineer neering might indeed prove neces Oreskes, Eric Conway, and Geoffrey ing instead, though that term had not sary, but we shouldn’t be naïve about Supranamong othershave done yet been invented. It is disturbing the risks. Gates’s book has many to document the persistent efforts that some would jump immediately good ideas and is worth reading. But of fossilfuel companies to sow to such risky solutions rather than for a fuller picture of the crises we public doubt on climate science. I addressing the root causes of cli face, make sure to read Robinson also tackled this subject in my own mate change. and Kolbert too. book, Short Circuiting Policy, which In reading Under a White Sky, Leah C. Stokes (@leahstokes) explains how fossilfuel companies we are reminded of the ways is an assistant professor at UC and electric utilities have resisted that interventions like this could Santa Barbara and the author of cleanenergy laws in a number of go wrong. For example, the sci Short Circuiting Policy. American states. entist and writer Rachel Carson

MA21_Reviews.indd 87 2/3/21 2:51 PM 88 The back page

Through the decades the development of a vaccine has Speedy delivery always been a major milestone, making it all the more remarkable that we invented multiple covid-19 vaccines in less than a year.

December 1961 January 1992 May 2002

From “The Potential of Nations”: The From “The New Vaccines”: The major chal From “Should the Government Make national potential of a country includes lenge to developing an AIDS vaccine may Vaccines?”: Fear of a looming health cri more than its ability to produce raw mate well be that HIV infects the very cells, the sis is prompting policymakers to take a rials and consumer goods, to provide and helper T lymphocytes, that control much look at the nation’s vaccine needs. One maintain public safety, and to protect its of the immune response. HIV also intro solution: supplement private vaccine pro population from internal and external ene duces its own genetic blueprint into that duction with a National Vaccine Authority mies. A nation also has a cultural potential of the T lymphocyte, making the infection that would oversee development and dis when promotion of the sciences and the of that cell permanent. tribution of vaccines that are too risky or arts is a part of the national mission. And unlike the way infected cells typi unprofitable for industry to make. In Western nations the discovery of cally respond to most invaders, a fraction The idea has been proposed before, a new subatomic particle is considered of cells carrying HIV may not produce the only to be overwhelmed by industry objec a national accomplishment. The discov viral proteins that alert the immune sys tions. But September 11 has changed the ery of polio vaccine has been celebrated tem. Moreover, HIV can baffle the immune debate. “The anthrax terrorism event as a national accomplishment even more system by rapidly changing portions of its clearly exposed the weaknesses we have than any discovery in physics or chemis enveloping protein. in the development and production of try. When an anthropologist, in the years Despite these problems, we have sub vaccines that are important for fighting to come, studies “the American way of stantial reason to expect that a human terrorism, and at the same time dramatized life,” he will probably find that the social vaccine can be developed. After all, the that we have significant problems with prestige of the medical research worker immune system makes a strong effort to vaccines that are important for the civilian exceeds that of any other research worker, destroy the virus through the action of sectors,” says Kenneth Shine, president of entertainer, or sports hero. antibodies and lymphocytes. the Institute of Medicine.

MIT Technology Review (ISSN 1099-274X), March/April 2021 issue, Reg. US Patent Office, is published bimonthly by MIT Technology Review, 1 Main St. Suite 13, Cambridge, MA 02142-1517. Entire contents ©2021. The editors seek diverse views, and authors’ opinions do not represent the official policies of their institutions or those of MIT. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to MIT Tech- nology Review, Subscriber Services, MIT Technology Review, PO Box 1518, Lincolnshire, IL. 60069, or via the internet at www.technologyreview.com/customerservice. Basic subscription rates: $80 per year within the United States; in all other countries, US$100. Publication Mail Agreement Number 40621028. Send undeliverable Canadian copies to PO Box 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Printed in USA. Audited by the Alliance for Audited Media.

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