Three-quarters of everything in the average American diet passes through the cold chain—the network of warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, display cases, and domestic fridges that keep meat, milk, and more chilled on the journey from farm to fork.
As consumers, we put a lot of faith in terms like “fresh” and “natural,” but artificial refrigeration has created a blind spot. We’ve gotten so good at preserving (and storing) food, that we know more about how to lengthen an apple’s life span than a human’s, and most of us don’t give that extraordinary process much thought at all.
We have used refrigeration to solve problems but haven’t done a true accounting of the environmental, nutritional, and even sociocultural costs, author Nicola Twilley argues in her new book Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. And all that convenience has come at the expense of diversity and deliciousness. Read the full story.
—Allison Arieff
This story is from the next print issue of MIT Technology Review, which comes out tomorrow and delves into the weird and wonderful world of food. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive a copy once it lands.
Would you trust AI to mediate an argument?
—Melissa Heikkilä
I’ve recently been feeling heartbroken. A close friend recently cut off contact with me. I don’t really understand why, and my attempts at fixing the situation have backfired. Situations like this are hurtful and confusing. So it’s no wonder that people are increasingly turning to AI chatbots to help solve them. And there’s good news: AI might actually be able to help.
Researchers from Google DeepMind recently trained a system of large language models to help people come to agreement over social or political issues. The AI model was trained to identify and present areas where people’s ideas overlapped. With the help of this AI mediator, small groups of study participants became less divided in their positions on various issues.
One of the best uses for AI chatbots is for brainstorming, but this latest research suggests they could help us to see things from other people’s perspectives too. So why not use AI to patch things up with my friend? Read the full story.