The 2022 Good Tech Awards

The yr 2022, within the tech world, was certainly one of huge leaps and even larger pratfalls.

The falls included among the business’s most recognizable names. Sam Bankman-Fried started the yr as the most important movie star in crypto, with a internet price of greater than $20 billion, and ends it as a disgraced pariah who’s dealing with felony fraud fees. Elon Musk started 2022 because the world’s richest man, with a thriving electrical automotive firm and a reputation synonymous with success; he ends it greater than $100 billion poorer, because the bitter and beleaguered proprietor of a social media firm that appears to be ruining his life.

The tech business struggled, too, with harsh macroeconomic circumstances, together with excessive inflation and rising rates of interest. Because the sector’s decade of hypergrowth got here to an finish, start-ups died, tech giants lower perks and laid off employees, and buyers’ desires of a brand new, crypto-fied web often known as “web3” light into oblivion.

However focusing completely on what went incorrect dangers lacking the numerous noble, intelligent and socially helpful tech initiatives that made progress this yr.

For a number of years now, I’ve highlighted these sorts of initiatives in my annual Good Tech Awards column. These aren’t essentially applied sciences that I’m certain will enhance the world, whereas inflicting no issues in any respect. They’re instruments that I consider may enhance the world, or assist handle thorny societal challenges. A few of them may additionally go fairly badly, in the event that they’re mismanaged or co-opted in dangerous methods.

There have been many to select from this yr. Right here’s what made the ultimate lower.

To OpenAI and the makers of Midjourney and Steady Diffusion, for proving that A.I. can create

The splashiest tech breakthrough of the yr, by a major margin, was the increase in “generative A.I.” — a time period for the brand new kind of synthetic intelligence apps, educated on huge quantities of information, that may create new media objects out of skinny air.

This yr, A.I. picture mills like DALL-E 2, Steady Diffusion and Midjourney dazzled customers (together with me) with their creations and set off a Cambrian explosion of latest, ultracapable A.I. instruments. In current weeks, ChatGPT, a text-generating A.I. constructed by OpenAI, turned a viral sensation (and each instructor’s worst nightmare) when it began cranking out time period papers, authentic poetry and dealing snippets of code.

Some credit score for the generative A.I. increase ought to go to Google, which created a lot of the foundational know-how. However this yr, Google (which has saved most of its A.I. experiments non-public, to its current chagrin) bought one-upped by OpenAI, in addition to the makers of Midjourney and Steady Diffusion, all of which launched public-facing merchandise that allowed thousands and thousands of individuals to expertise generative A.I. for themselves.

The last word results of generative A.I. are nonetheless unknown. Some individuals argue that these apps will destroy thousands and thousands of jobs, whereas others argue that they’ll be a boon to human creativity. However whether or not you’re an A.I. optimist or pessimist, this yr’s advances imply that we’re not debating theoretical prices and advantages — the instruments have arrived, and we now get to resolve find out how to use them.

To Ethereum builders, for pulling off the merge

I do know, I do know. Placing a crypto mission in a “good tech” listing in 2022 appears like placing credit score default swaps in a “cool monetary improvements” listing in 2008.

However whereas the crypto business took a nosedive this yr — wiping out trillions of {dollars} in worth and leaving many buyers empty-handed — there was no less than one shiny spot. In September, Ethereum, the community behind the second most dear cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, accomplished what was often known as “the merge” — a hulking, years-in-the-making mission to modify Ethereum from an energy-guzzling type of blockchain often known as “proof of labor” to a a lot greener type of blockchain often known as “proof of stake.”

The swap, which crypto builders in comparison with making an attempt to swap a airplane’s engine in midair, was a smashing success, and lower the vitality required to energy Ethereum by greater than 99 p.c. (It didn’t, nevertheless, increase the value of the cryptocurrency, Ether, which ended the yr down practically 70 p.c.)

To Residing Carbon, Twelve and BeeHero, for turning tech on the local weather disaster

Whereas 2022 was a horrible yr for start-up fund-raising basically, it was an awesome yr for local weather tech start-ups, which raised billions of {dollars} to deliver climate-friendly applied sciences to market.

There are too many promising local weather tech start-ups to call — and, to be sincere, I don’t know sufficient about local weather science to inform which of them stand one of the best probability of succeeding — however just a few that caught my eye this yr had been Residing Carbon, Twelve and BeeHero.

Residing Carbon, a three-year-old California start-up, is genetically engineering bushes and different vegetation to seize and retailer extra carbon from the environment. These G.M.O. supertrees, the corporate claims, develop larger and quicker than regular bushes and may survive in soil with metallic concentrations that may be poisonous to different vegetation.

Twelve, which relies in Berkeley, Calif., is utilizing a novel electrochemical course of to show carbon dioxide into industrial merchandise as diverse as sun shades and jet gas. The corporate raised a $130 million funding spherical this yr and struck offers with corporations like Mercedes-Benz and Procter & Gamble.

BeeHero, which was began in Israel in 2017, is utilizing new know-how to deal with issues dealing with probably the most vital elements of our international meals provide: bees. Bees pollinate greater than one-third of all crops, however they’re dying off at alarming charges, setting off fears of a meals scarcity. To deal with this, BeeHero developed a “precision pollination platform” — principally, a bee-tracking sensor system that permits for industrial beekeepers to watch the well being and productiveness of their hives in actual time. The corporate raised a $42 million Collection B (Collection Bee?) spherical this yr from buyers together with Normal Mills.

To the Nationwide Ignition Facility, Commonwealth Fusion Methods and Helion, for holding the fusion dream alive

Nuclear fusion, an emissions-free type of vitality technology that has lengthy been considered because the “holy grail of vitality,” took just a few vital steps towards actuality this yr.

The most important fusion information of the yr got here just some weeks in the past when scientists on the Nationwide Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Nationwide Laboratory in California crossed a significant threshold often known as “ignition,” making a fusion response that generated extra vitality than it took to supply. That breakthrough was hailed by officers together with Jennifer M. Granholm, the secretary of vitality, who known as it a “landmark achievement.”

Many start-ups have additionally been plugging away on fusion. One, Helion Vitality, has raised a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} from well-known buyers together with Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz and Peter Thiel to create reasonably priced, mass-market fusion know-how. Helion says it plans to create vitality with its subsequent fusion reactor, Polaris, by 2024. One other firm, Commonwealth Fusion Methods, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise in 2018, is utilizing an array of highly effective magnets to energy its prototype fusion machine outdoors Boston, and plans to have it up and working by 2025.

Specialists have cautioned that regardless of the newest breakthroughs, reasonably priced fusion energy will not be extensively out there for years. However this yr, each the private and non-private sectors provided a glimpse of a fusion-powered future.

To Locket, for making photo-sharing enjoyable once more

If 2022 was the yr when social media died, it was additionally the yr when start-ups started making an attempt to recapture what had made social media enjoyable within the first place.

One app I’ve beloved utilizing this yr is Locket. It’s a quite simple premise — a widget that’s put in in your smartphone’s house display screen, making a sort of digital photograph body that your closest pals and family members can add images to.

Locket was created by Matt Moss, a younger developer who needed a solution to ship images to his long-distance girlfriend; this yr, the app rapidly grew to thousands and thousands of customers, raised a significant funding spherical and received an Apple cultural impression award. There are not any filters, preening influencers, data-harvesting schemes or algorithmic feeds on Locket — it’s simply a straightforward, no-frills solution to share images together with your family members.

My spouse and I began utilizing Locket this yr to share images of our child, in a method that wouldn’t require us digging by means of textual content chains or large photograph albums to search out them afterward. It’s not the tech product I’ve used most frequently, or the one I feel will create probably the most internet good for society. Nevertheless it’s enjoyable, uncomplicated and respectful of its customers — three qualities to which extra tech merchandise ought to aspire.