In this special episode, friends of the podcast Ajay and Harsha join Megh to discuss the MIT Tech review, 2024. We discuss major innovations in GenAI, biotech, astronomy, and sustainable technology.

We also consider the impact of the defunding of scientific bodies in the US and the deregulation of BigTech, and whether the innovations of 2024 will have a chance to scale.

Recommendations and References:

• Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web: https://www.theverge.com/24158374/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-ai-search-gemini-future-of-the-internet-web-openai-decoder-interview

• MIT Technology Review- 10 Breakthrough Technologies: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/03/1109178/10-breakthrough-technologies-2025/

• Hugging Face  Pleias 1.0 models:  https://huggingface.co/blog/Pclanglais/common-models

• AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/28/ai-empathy-humans

• Can LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas? A Large-Scale Human Study with 100+ NLP Researchers: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.04109 

• All That Glitters is Not Novel: Plagiarism in AI Generated Research: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.16487 

• Patal Lok S2