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News articleMIT Technology Review

The Download: a blockchain enigma, and the algorithms governing our lives

View original at technologyreview.com
MIT Technology Review - Ai Research Title: The Download: a blockchain enigma, and the algorithms governing our lives Date: 2026-02-18 13:10 Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/18/1133291/the-download-a-blockchain-enigma-and-the-algorithms-governing-our-lives/ <p><em>This is today’s edition of <a href="http…
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  • The hydrogen-powered train in the insular world of railroading is a Rorschach test: to some it represents the future of rail transportation, to others it looks like a big, shiny distraction

    80% confidence
  • THORChain is helping realize bitcoin's original purpose of enabling anyone to transact freely outside the reach of purportedly corrupt governments

    80% confidence
  • The debate over decarbonizing railroads is partly technological and partly political

    80% confidence
  • Intermittent fasting may not help with weight loss after all

    80% confidence
  • Land previously earmarked for housing is being sold off to data center builders, the highest bidder

    80% confidence
  • Voted for the Trump administration and did not really think about AI until it started to affect her personally

    80% confidence
  • Bots and AI have rendered Grindr virtually unusable for some people

    80% confidence
  • Predictions are ultimately about power and control

    80% confidence
  • AI-powered private schools are failing students by using models to generate faulty lesson plans

    80% confidence
  • Nobody signed up for an omnipresent, algorithmic oracle mediating every aspect of their life

    80% confidence
  • THORChain's problems suggest that an alternative financial system might not be much better than the current one

    80% confidence
  • Advertising can erode trust in AI

    80% confidence
  • An estimated 2.2 billion people still have either limited or no access to the internet, largely because they live in remote places

    80% confidence

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What we're seeing
Vertical AI Agents Attract a Funding Wave Across Fintech-Adjacent Industries
A cluster of AI-native startups applying autonomous agents to narrow, operational problems — hotel front-desk staffing (Dextr AI), identity/fraud risk for financial institutions (Baselayer), insurance distribution (Napo, Connie Health, MGT Insurance) — closed seed-to-Series A rounds within days of each other in September 2026, with CB Insights running a coordinated CEO interview series to spotlight them. The pattern points to agentic AI maturing from generic chat tools into vertical, revenue-generating products, with identity verification for AI agents themselves (Baselayer) emerging as a new fintech infrastructure category responding directly to AI-driven fraud risk.
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Satellite-Terrestrial Network Integration Acceleration
Increased investment and launches in hybrid satellite-cellular networks across telecom industry; competitive responses from other carriers; regulatory activity around satellite spectrum; expansion of emergency/rural connectivity use cases
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ING Group
Both facts record the same metric (shares_outstanding) for ING Group at the identical observation date (2025-12-31). FACT A states 2,902,437,688 shares; FACT B states 2,902 million shares (2,902,000,000). The difference is 437,688 shares (~0.015%). This is a genuine value conflict, though the discrepancy appears to result from FACT B rounding to the nearest million while FACT A provides the precise count.
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