According to a new report from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), global EV sales will surpass 20 million in 2025, accounting for more than a quarter of cars sold worldwide. In the first three months of 2025, electric car sales worldwide were up 35 percent over the previous year. And, adds the IEA, market…
Xiaomi released its first EV model, the SU7, in early 2024. By the end of the year, foreign diplomats, investors, and guests from other Chinese companies had already started arriving at the company’s factory in Beijing to participate in one-off tours, but the company didn’t create a standardized experience for the public until the start…
Modern large language models (LLMs) might write beautiful sonnets and elegant code, but they lack even a rudimentary ability to learn from experience. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now devised a way for LLMs to keep improving by tweaking their own parameters in response to useful new information. The work is a…
In her new book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, journalist and WIRED alum Megan Greenwell chronicles the devastating impacts of one of the most powerful yet poorly understood forces in modern American capitalism. Flush with cash, largely unregulated, and relentlessly focused on profit, private equity firms have quietly reshaped…
Last month, Suzanne Smith-Darley felt fantastic. She had just bought a used Chanel handbag from a Japanese seller on eBay for $800—a steal compared to the original asking price of $1,400. About a week later an email arrived that crushed her: DHL was demanding a $142 fee for US tariffs before it would deliver the…
On a sunny April afternoon in Seattle, around 40 activists gathered at the Pine Box, a beer and pizza bar in the sometimes scruffy Capitol Hill neighborhood. The group had reserved a side room attached to the outside patio; before remarks began, attendees flowed in and out, enjoying the warm day. Someone set up a…
“What counties [sic] do younger women like older white men,” a public message from a user on Meta’s AI platform says. “I need details, I’m 66 and single. I’m from Iowa and open to moving to a new country if I can find a younger woman.” The chatbot responded enthusiastically: “You’re looking for a fresh…
In a $30 million mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of AI researchers, philosophers, and technologists gathered to discuss the end of humanity. The Sunday afternoon symposium, called “Worthy Successor,” revolved around a provocative idea from entrepreneur Daniel Faggella: The “moral aim” of advanced AI should be to create…
A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected US travelers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by…
My first meeting with Bill Atkinson was unforgettable. It was November 1983, and reporting for Rolling Stone, I had gained access to the team building the Macintosh computer, scheduled to launch early the next year. Everyone kept telling me, “Wait till you meet Bill and Andy,” referring to Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld, two key writers…