Researchers are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence to quantify pain, a traditionally subjective vital sign. The newsletter highlights PainChek, a smartphone app that analyzes tiny facial muscle movements to produce a pain score. PainChek has been cleared by regulators on three continents and has recorded more than 10 million pain assessments, and other startups are exploring similar approaches. The piece raises the question of whether measuring suffering with algorithms will alter how clinicians treat patients.
The newsletter also offers practical guidance for responding to friends and family who adopt conspiracy theories. Niall Firth describes a personal case in which an acquaintance began posting anti‑vaccine and anti‑mask content during the pandemic. He consulted Sander van der Linden, professor of social psychology in society at the University of Cambridge, for advice on how to help people out of what he calls a rabbit hole. That story is part of MIT Technology Review’s series “The New Conspiracy Age,” and it is presented within the publication’s How To strand to give readers actionable steps for difficult conversations.
Additional coverage in this edition includes climate and tech developments. Casey Crownhart reports on Google’s ongoing pursuit of its 2030 energy goals and a conversation at EmTech MIT with James Temple and Lucia Tian about how the company is thinking about energy amid rising demand from Artificial Intelligence. The must-reads list flags items such as changes to ChatGPT’s tone, a U.S. proposal to deny visas for certain health conditions, Microsoft’s plans for an AI chip, Waymo’s robotaxis reaching speeds up to 65 miles per hour, Anthropic’s Claude controlling a robot dog, Grok briefly claiming the 2020 election was won by Donald Trump, satellite disruption from the northern lights, and Apple enabling digital passports for internal U.S. flights. The edition closes with a quote from Vladimir Vitukhin of the company behind the AIDOL robot and a feature on Ultima Online’s 25 years as an early metaverse.
