Tomorrow’s technologies are being developed today. And every year, we recognize young people from around the world who are leading the way through their research and entrepreneurship.
This year’s 35 young innovators are driving progress toward better health, a more stable climate, and greater equality. Each was selected from hundreds of nominees by expert judges. Keep an eye out for these innovators in the years to come—they’re already making an impact.
Today, we’re excited to unveil our latest cohort of Innovators. Read the full list of this year’s honorees making a difference in robotics, computing, biotech, climate and energy, and AI.
This year’s list is available exclusively to MIT Technology Review subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber already, sign up here to save 25%.
Innovator of the Year: Shawn Shan builds tools to help artists fight back against exploitative AI
When image-generating models kick-started the generative AI boom in early 2022, artists started noticing odd similarities between AI-generated images and those they’d created themselves. Many found that their work had been scraped into massive data sets and used to train AI models, which then produced knockoffs in their creative style.
Now artists are fighting back. And some of the most powerful tools they have were built by Shawn Shan, 26, a PhD student in computer science at the University of Chicago, and MIT Technology Review’s 2024 Innovator of the Year.
Shan created the algorithm behind Glaze, a tool that lets artists mask their personal style from AI mimicry, and another tool called Nightshade. Both algorithms work by adding invisible changes to the pixels of images that disrupt the way machine-learning models interpret them—allowing artists to be creative online again. Read the full story.
