The year 2022, in the tech world, was one of big leaps and even bigger pitfalls.
The falls feature some of the most recognizable names in the industry. Sam Bankman-Fried started the year as the biggest celebrity in crypto, with a net worth of over $20 billion, and ends the year as a disgraced pariah facing criminal charges. Elon Musk started 2022 as the world’s richest man, with a thriving electric car business and a name synonymous with success; he makes it more than $100 billion poorer, as the embittered and beleaguered owner of a social media company that seems to be ruining his life.
The technology industry also struggled with harsh macroeconomic conditions, including high inflation and rising interest rates. As the industry’s decade of hypergrowth drew to a close, startups died, tech giants cut fringe benefits and laid off workers, and investors’ dreams of a new, crypto-approved internet known as “web3” faded into obscurity .
But if you focus solely on what went wrong, you risk missing out on the many noble, smart, and socially valuable technology projects that made progress this year.
For several years now, I have highlighted these types of projects in my annual Good Tech Awards column. These are not necessarily technologies that I’m sure will improve the world, while not causing any problems. They are tools I believe could improve the world or tackle thorny societal challenges. Some of them can also go pretty bad if mismanaged or co-opted in harmful ways.
There was a lot of choice this year. This is what made the final cut.
To OpenAI and the creators of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, for proving that AI can create
The most high-profile tech breakthrough of the year, by a significant margin, was the emergence of “generative AI” — a term for the new breed of artificial intelligence apps, trained on massive amounts of data, that can create new media objects out of thin air .
This year, AI imagers such as DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney stunned users (myself included) with their creations and sparked a Cambrian explosion of new, ultra-capable AI tools. In recent weeks, ChatGPT, a text-generating AI built by OpenAI, became a viral sensation (and every teacher’s worst nightmare) when it started releasing term papers, original poetry, and working code snippets.
Some credit for the generative AI boom should go to Google, which created much of the foundational technology. But this year, Google (which kept most of its AI experiments private, much to his recent chagrin) got a head start from OpenAI, as well as the makers of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, all releasing public products that allow millions of people to create generative AI for themselves. to experience.
The ultimate effects of generative AI are still unknown. Some people argue that these apps will destroy millions of jobs, while others argue that they will be a boon to human creativity. But whether you’re an AI optimist or pessimist, this year’s progress means we’re no longer debating theoretical costs and benefits – the tools are there and we now get to decide how to use them.
To Ethereum developers, for pushing through the merger
I know. Putting a crypto project on a list of “good technology” in 2022 feels like putting credit default swaps on a list of “cool financial innovations” in 2008.
But while the crypto industry took a nosedive this year — wiping out trillions of dollars in value and leaving many investors empty-handed — there was at least one bright spot. In September, Ethereum, the network behind the second most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, completed what was known as “the merge” – a colossal, years-in-the-making project to turn Ethereum from a power-hungry form of blockchain known as “proof of work” to a much greener form of blockchain known as “proof of stake”.
The rise of OpenAI
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The switch, which crypto developers likened to trying to change an airplane’s engine in mid-air, was a resounding success and reduced the energy needed to power Ethereum by more than 99 percent. (However, it didn’t raise the price of the cryptocurrency, Ether, which ended the year by nearly 70 percent.)
To Living Carbon, Twelve and BeeHero, for using technology for the climate crisis
While 2022 was a terrible year for fundraising for startups in general, it was a great year for climate technology startups, raising billions of dollars to bring climate-friendly technologies to market.
Kevin Roose and Casey Newton are the hosts of Hard Fork, a podcast that provides insight into the rapidly changing world of technology. Subscribe and listen.
There are too many promising climate technology start-ups to list – and to be honest I don’t know enough about climate science to say which ones are most likely to succeed – but a few that caught my eye this year, were Living Carbon, Twelve and BeeHero.
Living Carbon, a three-year-old California start-up, is genetically engineering trees and other plants to capture and store more carbon from the atmosphere. These GMO supertrees, the company claims, grow taller and faster than normal trees and can survive in soil with metal concentrations that would be toxic to other plants.
Based in Berkeley, California, Twelve uses a new electrochemical process to convert carbon dioxide into industrial products as varied as sunglasses and jet fuel. The company raised a $130 million round of funding this year and closed deals with companies like Mercedes-Benz and Procter & Gamble.
BeeHero, which started in Israel in 2017, is using new technology to address issues facing one of the most important components of our global food supply: bees. Bees pollinate more than a third of all crops, but they are dying out at an alarming rate, raising fears of a food shortage. To address this, BeeHero developed a “precision pollination platform” – essentially a bee tracking sensor system that allows industrial beekeepers to monitor the health and productivity of their hives in real time. The company raised a $42 million Series B round this year (Series Bee?) from investors including General Mills.
To the National Ignition Facility, Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion, for keeping the fusion dream alive
Nuclear fusion, a zero-emission form of power generation that has long been viewed as the “holy grail of energy,” has taken some major steps toward becoming a reality this year.
The biggest fusion news of the year came just a few weeks ago when scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California crossed a major threshold known as “ignition,” triggering a fusion reaction that generated more energy than needed. to produce . That breakthrough was applauded by officials, including Jennifer M. Granholm, the secretary of energy, who called it a “milestone achievement.”
Many start-ups are also merging. One, Helion Energy, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from well-known investors, including Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz and Peter Thiel, to create affordable mass-market fusion technology. Helium says he intends to to generate power by 2024 with its next fusion reactor, Polaris. Another company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which emerged from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018, is using an array of powerful magnets to power its prototype fusion machine outside of Boston, and plans to have it operational by 2025.
Experts have warned that, despite the latest breakthroughs, affordable fusion power won’t be widely available for years to come. But this year, both the public and private sectors offered glimpses of a fusion-driven future.
To Locket, to make photo sharing fun again
If 2022 was the year social media died, it was also the year startups started to recapture what made social media fun in the first place.
One app I love using this year is Locket. It’s a very simple premise – a widget that installs on your smartphone’s home screen and creates a kind of digital photo frame that your closest friends and loved ones can upload photos to.
Locket was created by Matt Moss, a young developer who was looking for a way to send photos to his distant girlfriend; this year, the app quickly grew to millions of users, raised a major round of funding, and won an Apple Cultural Impact Award. There are no filters, smoothing influencers, data collection schemes, or algorithmic feeds on Locket — it’s just an easy, no-nonsense way to share photos with your loved ones.
My wife and I started using Locket this year to share photos of our child, in a way that doesn’t require us to dig through text chains or huge photo albums to find them later. It’s not the tech product I’ve used the most, or the one I think will create the most net good for society. But it’s fun, straightforward, and respectful of its users – three traits more tech products should aspire to.