Recycling plants take in a huge amount of random (and occasionally hazardous) stuff, which they then have to turn into reliable outputs that their customers ...

In 2020, the Financial Times exposed a 2 billion euro fraud at Wirecard, a high-flying German fintech. Many thought that was the end of the story. But for ...

AI might be the most consequential advancement in the world right now. But – astonishingly – no one fully understands what’s going on inside ...

AI is better than humans at a lot of things, but physical tasks – even seemingly simple ones like folding a shirt – routinely stump AI-powered ...

Jacob Glanville is the founder and CEO of Centivax. Jacob’s problem is this: Can you create a vaccine that protects people against almost all strains of ...

Alex Wiltschko got obsessed with perfume when he was 12 years old. He grew up to be an AI researcher at Google. Then he started Osmo, a company that fused his ...

For decades, China’s economic rise has been symbolized by its unstoppable force of low-cost manufacturing. Now, it’s the leading country in ...

Nick Jacobson and his team at Dartmouth medical school spent over 100,000 hours trying to build an AI chatbot that can serve as a safe, effective therapist. ...

This week, Nate and Maria discuss AI 2027, a new report from the AI Futures Project that lays out some pretty doom-y scenarios for our near-term AI future. ...

Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic. Blake’s problem is this: Can you build a commercial airplane that flies faster than the speed of ...

Fiorenzo Omenetto is a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University and the director of Silklab. Fiorenzo’s problem is this: How do you turn a ...

A few years ago, a ransomware gang called LockBit rose from obscurity to extort over $100 million from organizations around the world. A security strategist ...

Christopher Kirchhoff helped launch a Defense Department office that aimed to bring Silicon Valley technology to the US military. Christopher’s problem ...

Jared Baeten is senior vice president in virology at Gilead Sciences. Jared’s problem is this: In a world without a vaccine, how do you make a medicine ...

Carlos Araque is the co-founder and CEO of Quaise Energy. Carlos’ problem is this: How do you make drilling for geothermal energy as routine, widespread, ...

Ben Rapoport is the co-founder and CSO of Precision Neuroscience. Ben’s problem is this: Can you build a device that allows a paralyzed person to use a ...

Jeff Cardenas is the co-founder and CEO of Apptronik. Jeff’s problem is this: Can you make a safe, reliable humanoid robot – for less than $50,000? ...

We need better, cheaper ways to store solar and wind energy when it’s dark out and the wind isn’t blowing. One option: Compressing air in ...

There are moments in history when people make huge technological advances all of a sudden. Think of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, or, more ...

AI works well in the virtual world. That’s partly because the internet provides so much data to train AI models. But there’s no analogous data set ...