MIT Technology Review has dropped an exclusive eBook that's only available to subscribers - because nothing says 'exclusive' like a paywall. The ultimate plan to live forever, apparently, is a brand new body. And who's supplying the spare parts? R3 Bio, a small startup that has pitched a startling and ethically charged vision for 'brainless clones' to serve as backup human bodies. Because why settle for a 401(k) when you can have a clone farm?
Also in this subscriber-only treasure trove: an exclusive conversation with OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, about his firm's new grand challenge and the future of AI - because we clearly haven't had enough existential dread about superintelligence. Niantic's AI spinout is training a new world model using 30 billion images of urban landmarks crowdsourced from players. Yes, the Pokémon Go folks are building a digital twin of Earth, one PokeStop photo at a time.
According to Stanford’s 2026 AI Index, AI is sprinting, and we’re struggling to keep up. In other news, water is wet. The eBook also promises special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more - if you can get the preference-saving feature to work. Otherwise, customer-service@technologyreview.com is standing by.