The Download: China’s dying EV batteries, and why AI doomers are doubling down

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

China figured out how to sell EVs. Now it has to bury their batteries.

In the past decade, China has seen an EV boom, thanks in part to government support. Buying an electric car has gone from a novel decision to a routine one; by late 2025, nearly 60% of new cars sold were electric or plug-in hybrids.

But as the batteries in China’s first wave of EVs reach the end of their useful life, early owners are starting to retire their cars, and the country is now under pressure to figure out what to do with those aging components.

The issue is putting strain on China’s still-developing battery recycling industry and has given rise to a gray market that often cuts corners on safety and environmental standards. National regulators and commercial players are also stepping in, but so far these efforts have struggled to keep pace with the flood of batteries coming off the road. Read the full story.

—Caiwei Chen

The AI doomers feel undeterred

It’s a weird time to be an AI doomer.This small but influential community believes, in the simplest terms, that AI could get so good it could be bad—very, very bad—for humanity.

The doomer crowd has had some notable success over the past several years: including helping shape AI policy coming from the Biden administration. But a number of developments over the past six months have put them on the back foot. Talk of an AI bubble has overwhelmed the discourse as tech companies continue to invest in multiple Manhattan Projects’ worth of data centers without any certainty that future demand will match what they’re building.

So where does this leave the doomers? We decided to ask some of the movement’s biggest names to see if the recent setbacks and general vibe shift had altered their views. See what they had to say in our story.

—Garrison Lovely

This story is part of our new Hype Correction package, a collection of stories designed to help you reset your expectations about what AI makes possible—and what it doesn’t. Check out the rest of the package.

Take our quiz on the year in health and biotechnology

In just a couple of weeks, we’ll be bidding farewell to 2025. And what a year it has been! Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into more aspects of our lives, weight-loss drugs have expanded in scope, and there have been some real “omg” biotech stories from the fields of gene therapy, IVF, neurotech, and more.

Jessica Hamzelou, our senior biotech reporter, is inviting you to put your own memory to the test. So how closely have you been paying attention this year?

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US unit 
Its new owner will be a joint venture controlled by American investors including Oracle. (Axios)
+ But the platform is adamant that its Chinese owner will retain its core US business. (FT $)
+ The deal is slated to close on January 22 next year. (Bloomberg $)
+ It means TikTok will sidestep a US ban—at least for now. (The Guardian)

2 A tip on Reddit helped to end the hunt for the Brown University shooter
The suspect, who has been found dead, is also suspected of killing an MIT professor. (NYT $)
+ The shooter’s motivation is still unclear, police say. (WP $)

3 Tech leaders are among those captured in newly-released Epstein photos
Bill Gates and Google’s Sergey Brin are both in the pictures. (FT $)
+ They’ve been pulled from a tranche of more than 95,000. (Wired $)

4 A Starlink satellite appears to have exploded
And it’s now falling back to earth. (The Verge)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

5 YouTube has shut down two major channels that share fake movie trailers
Screen Culture and KH Studio uploaded AI-generated mock trailers with over a billion views. (Deadline)
+ Google is treading a thin line between embracing and shunning generative AI. (Ars Technica)

6 Trump is cracking down on investment in Chinese tech firms
Lawmakers are increasingly worried that US money is bolstering the country’s surveillance state. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, China is working on boosting its chip output. (FT $)

7 ICE has paid an AI agent company to track down targets
It claims to be able to rapidly trace a target’s online network. (404 Media)

8 America wants to return to the Moon by 2028
And to build some nuclear reactors while it’s up there. (Ars Technica)
+ Southeast Asia seeks its place in space. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Actors in the UK are refusing to be scanned for AI
They’re reportedly routinely pressured to consent to creating digital likenesses of themselves. (The Guardian)
+ How Meta and AI companies recruited striking actors to train AI. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Indian tutors are explaining how to use AI over WhatsApp
Lessons are cheap and personalized—but the teachers aren’t always credible. (Rest of World)
+ How Indian health-care workers use WhatsApp to save pregnant women. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Trump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies. Americans deserve to know if the president struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok.”

—Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren queries the terms of the deal that TikTok has made to allow it to continue operating in the US in a post on Bluesky.

One more thing

Synthesia’s AI clones are more expressive than ever. Soon they’ll be able to talk back.

—Rhiannon Williams

Earlier this summer, I visited the AI company Synthesia to create a hyperrealistic AI-generated avatar of me. The company’s avatars are a decent barometer of just how dizzying progress has been in AI over the past few years, so I was curious just how accurately its latest AI model, introduced last month, could replicate me.

I found my avatar as unnerving as it is technically impressive. It’s slick enough to pass as a high-definition recording of a chirpy corporate speech, and if you didn’t know me, you’d probably think that’s exactly what it was.

My avatar shows how it’s becoming ever-harder to distinguish the artificial from the real. And before long, these avatars will even be able to talk back to us. But how much better can they get? And what might interacting with AI clones do to us? Read the full story.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ You can keep your beef tallow—here are the food trends that need to remain firmly in 2025.
+ The Library of Congress has some lovely images of winter that are completely free to use.
+ If you’ve got a last minute Christmas work party tonight, don’t make these Secret Santa mistakes.
+ Did you realize Billie Eilish’s smash hit Birds of a Feather has the same chord progression as Wham’s Last Christmas? They sound surprisingly good mashed together.

The Download: the worst technology of 2025, and Sam Altman’s AI hype

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The 8 worst technology flops of 2025

Welcome to our annual list of the worst, least successful, and simply dumbest technologies of the year.

We like to think there’s a lesson in every technological misadventure. But when technology becomes dependent on power, sometimes the takeaway is simpler: it would have been better to stay away.

Regrets—2025 had a few. Here are some of the more notable ones.

—Antonio Regalado

A brief history of Sam Altman’s hype

Each time you’ve heard a borderline outlandish idea of what AI will be capable of, it often turns out that Sam Altman was, if not the first to articulate it, at least the most persuasive and influential voice behind it.

For more than a decade he has been known in Silicon Valley as a world-class fundraiser and persuader. Throughout, Altman’s words have set the agenda. What he says about AI is rarely provable when he says it, but it persuades us of one thing: This road we’re on with AI can go somewhere either great or terrifying, and OpenAI will need epic sums to steer it toward the right destination. In this sense, he is the ultimate hype man.

To understand how his voice has shaped our understanding of what AI can do, we read almost everything he’s ever said about the technology. His own words trace how we arrived here. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

This story is part of our new Hype Correction package, a collection of stories designed to help you reset your expectations about what AI makes possible—and what it doesn’t. Check out the rest of the package here.

Can AI really help us discover new materials?

One of my favorite stories in the Hype Correction package comes from my colleague David Rotman, who took a hard look at AI for materials research. AI could transform the process of discovering new materials—innovation that could be especially useful in the world of climate tech, which needs new batteries, semiconductors, magnets, and more.

But the field still needs to prove it can make materials that are actually novel and useful. Can AI really supercharge materials research? And what would that look like? Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 China built a chip-making machine to rival the West’s supremacy 
Suggesting China is far closer to achieving semiconductor independence than we previously believed. (Reuters)
+ China’s chip boom is creating a new class of AI-era billionaires. (Insider $)

2 NASA finally has a new boss
It’s billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman, a close ally of Elon Musk. (Insider $)
+ But will Isaacman lead the US back to the Moon before China? (BBC)
+ Trump previously pulled his nomination, before reselecting Isaacman last month. (The Verge)

3 The parents of a teenage sextortion victim are suing Meta
Murray Dowey took his own life after being tricked into sending intimate pictures to an overseas criminal gang. (The Guardian)
+ It’s believed that the gang is based in West Africa. (BBC)

4 US and Chinese satellites are jostling in orbit
In fact, these clashes are so common that officials have given it a name—”dogfighting.” (WP $)
+ How to fight a war in space (and get away with it) (MIT Technology Review)

5 It’s not just AI that’s trapped in a bubble right now
Labubus, anyone? (Bloomberg $)
+ What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)

6 Elon Musk’s Texan school isn’t operating as a school
Instead, it’s a “licensed child care program” with just a handful of enrolled kids. (NYT $)

7 US Border Patrol is building a network of small drones
In a bid to expand its covert surveillance powers. (Wired $)
+ This giant microwave may change the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)

8 This spoon makes low-salt foods taste better
By driving the food’s sodium ions straight to the diner’s tongue. (IEEE Spectrum)

9 AI cannot be trusted to run an office vending machine
Though the lucky Wall Street Journal staffer who walked away with a free PlayStation may beg to differ. (WSJ $)

10 Physicists have 3D-printed a Cheistmas tree from ice
No refrigeration kit required. (Ars Technica) 

Quote of the day

“It will be mentioned less and less in the same way that Microsoft Office isn’t mentioned in job postings anymore.”

—Marc Cenedella, founder and CEO of careers platform Ladders, tells Insider why employers will increasingly expect new hires to be fully au fait with AI.

One more thing

Is this the electric grid of the future?

Lincoln Electric System, a publicly owned utility in Nebraska, is used to weathering severe blizzards. But what will happen soon—not only at Lincoln Electric but for all electric utilities—is a challenge of a different order.

Utilities must keep the lights on in the face of more extreme and more frequent storms and fires, growing risks of cyberattacks and physical disruptions, and a wildly uncertain policy and regulatory landscape. They must keep prices low amid inflationary costs. And they must adapt to an epochal change in how the grid works, as the industry attempts to transition from power generated with fossil fuels to power generated from renewable sources like solar and wind.

The electric grid is bracing for a near future characterized by disruption. And, in many ways, Lincoln Electric is an ideal lens through which to examine what’s coming. Read the full story.

—Andrew Blum

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ A fragrance company is trying to recapture the scent of extinct flowers, wow. 
+ Seattle’s Sauna Festival sounds right up my street.
+ Switzerland has built what’s essentially a theme park dedicated to Saint Bernards. 
+ I fear I’ll never get over this tale of director supremo James Cameron giving a drowning rat CPR to save its life

The Download: why 2025 has been the year of AI hype correction, and fighting GPS jamming

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The great AI hype correction of 2025

Some disillusionment was inevitable. When OpenAI released a free web app called ChatGPT in late 2022, it changed the course of an entire industry—and several world economies. Millions of people started talking to their computers, and their computers started talking back. We were enchanted, and we expected more.

Well, 2025 has been a year of reckoning. For a start, the heads of the top AI companies made promises they couldn’t keep. At the same time, updates to the core technology are no longer the step changes they once were.

To be clear, the last few years have been filled with genuine “Wow” moments. But this remarkable technology is only a few years old, and in many ways it is still experimental. Its successes come with big caveats. Read the full story to learn more about why we may need to readjust our expectations.

—Will Douglas Heaven

This story is part of our new Hype Correction package, a collection of stories designed to help you reset your expectations about what AI makes possible—and what it doesn’t. Check out the rest of the package here, and you can read more about why it’s time to reset our expectations for AI in the latest edition of the Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up here to make sure you receive future editions straight to your inbox.

Quantum navigation could solve the military’s GPS jamming problem

Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thousands of flights have been affected by a far-reaching Russian campaign of using radio transmissions that jammed its GPS system.

The growing inconvenience to air traffic and risk of a real disaster have highlighted the vulnerability of GPS and focused attention on more secure ways for planes to navigate the gauntlet of jamming and spoofing, the term for tricking a GPS receiver into thinking it’s somewhere else.

One approach that’s emerging from labs is quantum navigation: exploiting the quantum nature of light and atoms to build ultra-sensitive sensors that can allow vehicles to navigate independently, without depending on satellites. Read the full story.

—Amos Zeeberg

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The Trump administration has launched its US Tech Force program
In a bid to lure engineers away from Big Tech roles and straight into modernizing the government. (The Verge)
+ So, essentially replacing the IT workers that DOGE got rid of, then. (The Register)

2 Lawmakers are investigating how AI data centers affect electricity costs
They want to get to the bottom of whether it’s being passed onto consumers. (NYT $)
+ Calculating AI’s water usage is far from straightforward, too. (Wired $)
+ AI is changing the grid. Could it help more than it harms? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Ford isn’t making a large all-electric truck after all
After the US government’s support for EVs plummeted. (Wired $)
+ Instead, the F-150 Lightning pickup will be reborn as a plug-in hybrid. (The Information $)
+ Why Americans may be finally ready to embrace smaller cars. (Fast Company $)
+ The US could really use an affordable electric truck. (MIT Technology Review)

4 PayPal wants to become a bank in the US
The Trump administration is very friendly to non-traditional financial companies, after all. (FT $)
+ It’s been a good year for the crypto industry when it comes to banking. (Economist $)

5 A tech trade deal between the US and UK has been put on ice
America isn’t happy with the lack of progress Britain has made, apparently. (NYT $)
+ It’s a major setback in relations between the pair. (The Guardian)

6 Why does no one want to make the cure for dengue?
A new antiviral pill appears to prevent infection—but its development has been abandoned. (Vox)

7 The majority of the world’s glaciers are forecast to disappear by 2100
At a rate of around 3,000 per year. (New Scientist $)
+ Inside a new quest to save the “doomsday glacier”. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Hollywood is split over AI
While some filmmakers love it, actors are horrified by its inexorable rise. (Bloomberg $)

9 Corporate America is obsessed with hiring storytellers
It’s essentially a rehashed media relations manager role overhauled for the AI age. (WSJ $)

10 The concept of hacking existed before the internet
Just ask this bunch of teenage geeks. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“So the federal government deleted 18F, which was doing great work modernizing the government, and then replaced it with a clone? What is the point of all this?”

—Eugene Vinitsky, an assistant professor at New York University, takes aim at the US government’s decision to launch a new team to overhaul its approach to technology in a post on Bluesky.

One more thing

How DeepSeek became a fortune teller for China’s youth

As DeepSeek has emerged as a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, young people across the country have started using AI to revive fortune-telling practices that have deep roots in Chinese culture.

Across Chinese social media, users are sharing AI-generated readings, experimenting with fortune-telling prompt engineering, and revisiting ancient spiritual texts—all with the help of DeepSeek.

The surge in AI fortune-telling comes during a time of pervasive anxiety and pessimism in Chinese society. And as spiritual practices remain hidden underground thanks to the country’s regime, computers and phone screens are helping younger people to gain a sense of control over their lives. Read the full story.

—Caiwen Chen

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Chess has been online as far back as the 1800s (no, really!)
+ Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today. How well do you know her writing? ($)
+ Rob Reiner, your work will live on forever.
+ I enjoyed this comprehensive guide to absolutely everything you could ever want to know about New England’s extensive seafood offerings.

The Download: introducing the AI Hype Correction package

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Introducing: the AI Hype Correction package

AI is going to reproduce human intelligence. AI will eliminate disease. AI is the single biggest, most important invention in human history. You’ve likely heard it all—but probably none of these things are true.

AI is changing our world, but we don’t yet know the real winners, or how this will all shake out.

After a few years of out-of-control hype, people are now starting to re-calibrate what AI is, what it can do, and how we should think about its ultimate impact.

Here, at the end of 2025, we’re starting the post-hype phase. This new package of stories, called Hype Correction, is a way to reset expectations—a critical look at where we are, what AI makes possible, and where we go next.

Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect:

+ An introduction to four ways of thinking about the great AI hype correction of 2025.

+  While it’s safe to say we’re definitely in an AI bubble right now, what’s less clear is what it really looks like—and what comes after it pops. Read the full story.

+ Why OpenAI’s Sam Altman can be traced back to so many of the more outlandish proclamations about AI doing the rounds these days. Read the full story.

+ It’s a weird time to be an AI doomer. But they’re not giving up.

+ AI coding is now everywhere—but despite the billions of dollars being poured into improving AI models’ coding abilities, not everyone is convinced. Read the full story.

+ If we really want to start finding new kinds of materials faster, AI materials discovery needs to make it out of the lab and move into the real world. Read the full story.

+ Why reports of AI’s potential to replace trained human lawyers are greatly exaggerated.

+ Dr. Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at AI startup Hugging Face, explains why the generative AI hype train is distracting us from what AI actually is and what it can—and crucially, cannot—do. Read the full story.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 iRobot has filed for bankruptcy
The Roomba maker is considering handing over control to its main Chinese supplier. (Bloomberg $)
+ A proposed Amazon acquisition fell through close to two years ago. (FT $)
+ How the company lost its way. (TechCrunch)
+ A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook? (MIT Technology Review)

2 Meta’s 2025 has been a total rollercoaster ride
From its controversial AI team to Mark Zuckerberg’s newfound appreciation for masculine energy. (Insider $)

3 The Trump administration is giving the crypto industry a much easier ride
It’s dismissed crypto lawsuits involving many firms with financial ties to Trump. (NYT $)
+ Celebrities are feeling emboldened to flog crypto once again. (The Guardian)
+ A bitcoin investor wants to set up a crypto libertarian community in the Caribbean. (FT $)

4 There’s a new weight-loss drug in town
And people are already taking it, even though it’s unapproved. (Wired $)
+ What we still don’t know about weight-loss drugs. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Chinese billionaires are having dozens of US-born surrogate babies
An entire industry has sprung up to support them. (WSJ $)
+ A controversial Chinese CRISPR scientist is still hopeful about embryo gene editing. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Trump’s “big beautiful bill” funding hinges on states integrating AI into healthcare
Experts fear it’ll be used as a cost-cutting measure, even if it doesn’t work. (The Guardian)
+ Artificial intelligence is infiltrating health care. We shouldn’t let it make all the decisions. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Extreme rainfall is wreaking havoc in the desert
Oman and the UAE are unaccustomed to increasingly common torrential downpours. (WP $)

8 Data centers are being built in countries that are too hot for them
Which makes it a lot harder to cool them sufficiently. (Rest of World)

9 Why AI image generators are getting deliberately worse
Their makers are pursuing realism—not that overly polished, Uncanny Valley look. (The Verge)
+ Inside the AI attention economy wars. (NY Mag $)

10 How a tiny Swedish city became a major video game hub
Skövde has formed an unlikely community of cutting-edge developers. (The Guardian)
+ Google DeepMind is using Gemini to train agents inside one of Skövde’s biggest franchises. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“They don’t care about the games. They don’t care about the art. They just want their money.”

—Anna C Webster, chair of the freelancing committee of the United Videogame Workers union, tells the Guardian why their members are protesting the prestigious 2025 Game Awards in the wake of major layoffs.

One more thing

Recapturing early internet whimsy with HTML

Websites weren’t always slick digital experiences.

There was a time when surfing the web involved opening tabs that played music against your will and sifting through walls of text on a colored background. In the 2000s, before Squarespace and social media, websites were manifestations of individuality—built from scratch using HTML, by users who had some knowledge of code.

Scattered across the web are communities of programmers working to revive this seemingly outdated approach. And the movement is anything but a superficial appeal to retro aesthetics—it’s about celebrating the human touch in digital experiences. Read the full story.

—Tiffany Ng

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+  Here’s how a bit of math can help you wrap your presents much more neatly this year.
+ It seems that humans mastered making fire way, way earlier than we realized.
+ The Arab-owned cafes opening up across the US sound warm and welcoming.
+ How to give a gift the recipient will still be using and loving for decades to come.

The Download: expanded carrier screening, and how Southeast Asia plans to get to space

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Expanded carrier screening: Is it worth it?

Carrier screening  tests would-be parents for hidden genetic mutations that might affect their children. It initially involved testing for specific genes in at-risk populations.

Expanded carrier screening takes things further, giving would-be parents an option to test for a wide array of diseases in prospective parents and egg and sperm donors.

The companies offering these screens “started out with 100 genes, and now some of them go up to 2,000,” Sara Levene, genetics counsellor at Guided Genetics, said at a meeting I attended this week. “It’s becoming a bit of an arms race amongst labs, to be honest.”

But expanded carrier screening comes with downsides. And it isn’t for everyone. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

Southeast Asia seeks its place in space

It’s a scorching October day in Bangkok and I’m wandering through the exhibits at the Thai Space Expo, held in one of the city’s busiest shopping malls, when I do a double take. Amid the flashy space suits and model rockets on display, there’s a plain-looking package of Thai basil chicken. I’m told the same kind of vacuum-­sealed package has just been launched to the International Space Station.

It’s an unexpected sight, one that reflects the growing excitement within the Southeast Asian space sector. And while there is some uncertainty about how exactly the region’s space sector may evolve, there is plenty of optimism, too. Read the full story.

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

This story is from the next print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Disney just signed a major deal with OpenAI
Meaning you’ll soon be able to create Sora clips starring 200 Marvel, Pixel and Star Wars characters. (Hollywood Reporter $)
+ Disney used to be openly skeptical of AI. What changed? (WSJ $)
+ It’s not feeling quite so friendly towards Google, however. (Ars Technica)
+ Expect a load of AI slop making its way to Disney Plus. (The Verge)

2 Donald Trump has blocked US states from enforcing their own AI rules
But technically, only Congress has the power to override state laws. (NYT $)
+ A new task force will seek out states with “inconsistent” AI rules. (Engadget)
+ The move is particularly bad news for California. (The Markup)

3 Reddit is challenging Australia’s social media ban for teens
It’s arguing that the ban infringes on their freedom of political communication. (Bloomberg $)
+ We’re learning more about the mysterious machinations of the teenage brain. (Vox)

4 ChatGPT’s “adult mode” is due to launch early next year
But OpenAI admits it needs to improve its age estimation tech first. (The Verge)
+ It’s pretty easy to get DeepSeek to talk dirty. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The death of Running Tide’s carbon removal dream
The company’s demise is a wake-up call to others dabbling in experimental tech. (Wired $)
+ We first wrote about Running Tide’s issues back in 2022. (MIT Technology Review)
+ What’s next for carbon removal? (MIT Technology Review)

6 That dirty-talking AI teddy bear wasn’t a one-off
It turns out that a wide range of LLM-powered toys aren’t suitable for children. (NBC News)
+ AI toys are all the rage in China—and now they’re appearing on shelves in the US too. (MIT Technology Review)

7 These are the cheapest places to create a fake online account
For a few cents, scammers can easily set up bots. (FT $)

8 How professors are attempting to AI-proof exams
ChatGPT won’t help you cut corners to ace an oral examination. (WP $)

9 Can a font be woke?
Marco Rubio seems to think so. (The Atlantic $)

10 Next year is all about maximalist circus decor
That’s according to Pinterest’s trend predictions for 2026. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

 “Trump is delivering exactly what his billionaire benefactors demanded—all at the expense of our kids, our communities, our workers, and our planet.” 

—Senator Ed Markey criticizes Donald Trump’s decision to sign an order cracking down on US states’ ability to self-regulate AI, the Wall Street Journal reports.

One more thing

Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening

Taiwanese politics increasingly revolves around one crucial question: Will China invade? China’s ruling party has wanted to seize Taiwan for more than half a century. But in recent years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has placed greater emphasis on the idea of “taking back” the island (which the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, has never controlled).

Many in Taiwan and elsewhere think one major deterrent has to do with the island’s critical role in semiconductor manufacturing. Taiwan produces the majority of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90% of the most advanced chips needed for AI applications.

But now some Taiwan specialists and some of the island’s citi­zens are worried that this “silicon shield,” if it ever existed, is cracking. Read the full story.

—Johanna M. Costigan

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Reasons to be cheerful: people are actually nicer than we think they are.
+ This year’s Krampus Run in Whitby—the Yorkshire town that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula—looks delightfully spooky.
+ How to find the magic in that most mundane of locations: the airport.
+ The happiest of birthdays to Dionne Warwick, who turns 85 today.

The Download: solar geoengineering’s future, and OpenAI is being sued

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Solar geoengineering startups are getting serious

Solar geoengineering aims to manipulate the climate by bouncing sunlight back into space. In theory, it could ease global warming. But as interest in the idea grows, so do concerns about potential consequences.

A startup called Stardust Solutions recently raised a $60 million funding round, the largest known to date for a geoengineering startup. My colleague James Temple has a new story out about the company, and how its emergence is making some researchers nervous.

So far, the field has been limited to debates, proposed academic research, and—sure—a few fringe actors to keep an eye on. Now things are getting more serious. So what does it mean for geoengineering, and for the climate? Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

If you’re interested in reading more about solar geoengineering, check out:

+ Why the for-profit race into solar geoengineering is bad for science and public trust. Read the full story.

+ Why we need more research—including outdoor experiments—to make better-informed decisions about such climate interventions.

+ The hard lessons of Harvard’s failed geoengineering experiment, which was officially terminated last year. Read the full story.

+ How this London nonprofit became one of the biggest backers of geoengineering research.

+ The technology could alter the entire planet. These groups want every nation to have a say.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI is being sued for wrongful death
By the estate of a woman killed by her son after he engaged in delusion-filled conversations with ChatGPT. (WSJ $)
+ The chatbot appeared to validate Stein-Erik Soelberg’s conspiratorial ideas. (WP $)
+ It’s the latest in a string of wrongful death legal actions filed against chatbot makers. (ABC News)

2 ICE is tracking pregnant immigrants through specifically-developed smartwatches
They’re unable to take the devices off, even during labor. (The Guardian)
+ Pregnant and postpartum women say they’ve been detained in solitary confinement. (Slate $)
+ Another effort to track ICE raids has been taken offline. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Meta’s new AI hires aren’t making friends with the rest of the company
Tensions are rife between the AGI team and other divisions. (NYT $)
+ Mark Zuckerberg is keen to make money off the company’s AI ambitions. (Bloomberg $)
+ Meanwhile, what’s life like for the remaining Scale AI team? (Insider $)

4 Google DeepMind is building its first materials science lab in the UK
It’ll focus on developing new materials to build superconductors and solar cells. (FT $) 

5 The new space race is to build orbital data centers
And Blue Origin is winning, apparently. (WSJ $)
+ Plenty of companies are jostling for their slice of the pie. (The Verge)
+ Should we be moving data centers to space? (MIT Technology Review)

6 Inside the quest to find out what causes Parkinson’s
A growing body of work suggests it may not be purely genetic after all. (Wired $)

7 Are you in TikTok’s cat niche? 
If so, you’re likely to be in these other niches too. (WP $)

8 Why do our brains get tired?
Researchers are trying to get to the bottom of it.  (Nature $)

9 Microsoft’s boss has built his own cricket app
Satya Nadella can’t get enough of the sound of leather on willow. (Bloomberg $)

10 How much vibe coding is too much vibe coding? 
One journalist’s journey into the heart of darkness. (Rest of World)
+ What is vibe coding, exactly? (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I feel so much pain seeing his sad face…I hope for a New Year’s miracle.”

—A child in Russia sends a message to the Kremlin-aligned Safe Internet League explaining the impact of the country’s decision to block access to the wildly popular gaming platform Roblox on their brother, the Washington Post reports.

 One more thing

Why it’s so hard to stop tech-facilitated abuse

After Gioia had her first child with her then husband, he installed baby monitors throughout their home—to “watch what we were doing,” she says, while he went to work. She’d turn them off; he’d get angry. By the time their third child turned seven, Gioia and her husband had divorced, but he still found ways to monitor her behavior. 

One Christmas, he gave their youngest a smartwatch. Gioia showed it to a tech-savvy friend, who found that the watch had a tracking feature turned on. It could be turned off only by the watch’s owner—her ex.

Gioia is far from alone. In fact, tech-facilitated abuse now occurs in most cases of intimate partner violence—and we’re doing shockingly little to prevent it. Read the full story. 

—Jessica Klein

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ The New Yorker has picked its best TV shows of 2025. Let the debate commence!
+ Check out the winners of this year’s Drone Photo Awards.
+ I’m sorry to report you aren’t half as intuitive as you think you are when it comes to deciphering your dog’s emotions.
+ Germany’s “home of Christmas” sure looks magical.

The Download: a controversial proposal to solve climate change, and our future grids

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How one controversial startup hopes to cool the planet

Stardust Solutions believes that it can solve climate change—for a price. 

The Israel-based geoengineering startup has said it expects nations will soon pay it more than a billion dollars a year to launch specially equipped aircraft into the stratosphere. Once they’ve reached the necessary altitude, those planes will disperse particles engineered to reflect away enough sunlight to cool down the planet, purportedly without causing environmental side effects. 

But numerous solar geoengineering researchers are skeptical that Stardust will line up the customers it needs to carry out a global deployment in the next decade. They’re also highly critical of the idea of a private company setting the global temperature for us. Read the full story.

—James Temple

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Is this the electric grid of the future?  

In Nebraska, a publicly owned utility company is tackling the challenges of delivering on reliability, affordability, and sustainability. It aims to reach net zero by 2040—here’s how it plans to get there.

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Australia’s social media ban for teens has just come into force
The whole world will be watching to see what happens next. (The Guardian)
+ Opinions about the law are sharply divided among Australians. (BBC)
+ Plenty of teens hate it, naturally. (WP $)
+ A third of US teens are on their phones “almost constantly.” (NYT $)

2 This has been the second-hottest year since records began
Mean temperatures approached 1.5°C above the preindustrial average. (New Scientist $)
+ Meanwhile world leaders at this year’s UN climate talks couldn’t even agree to use the phrase ‘fossil fuels’ in the final draft. (MIT Technology Review)

3 OpenAI is in trouble
It’s rapidly losing its technological edge to competitors like Google and Anthropic. (The Atlantic $)
+ Silicon Valley is working harder than ever to sell AI to us. (Wired $)
+ There’s a new industry-wide push to agree shared standards for AI agents. (TechCrunch)
+ No one can explain how AI really works—not even the experts attending AI’s biggest research gathering. (NBC)

4 MAGA influencers want Trump to kill the Netflix/Warner Bros deal
They argue Netflix is simply too woke (after all, it employs the Obamas.) (WP $)

5 AI slop videos have taken over social media
It’s now almost impossible to tell if what you’re seeing is real or not. (NYT $)

6 Trump’s system to weed out noncitizen voters is flagging US citizens 
Once alerted, people have 30 days to provide proof of citizenship before they lose their ability to vote. (NPR)
+ The US is planning to ask visitors to disclose five years of social media history. (WP $)
+ How open source voting machines could boost trust in US elections. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Virtual power plants are having a moment
Here’s why they’re poised to play a significant role in meeting energy demand over the next decade. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ How virtual power plants are shaping tomorrow’s energy system. (MIT Technology Review)

8 New devices are about to get (even) more expensive
You can thank AI for pushing up the price of RAM for the rest of us. (The Verge)

9 People hated the McDonald’s AI ad so much the company pulled it 
How are giant corporations still falling into this exact trap every holiday season? (Forbes)  

10 Why is ice slippery? There’s a new hypothesis 
You might think you know. But it’s still fiercely debated among ice researchers! (Quanta $)

Quote of the day

“We’re pleased to be the first, we’re proud to be the first, and we stand ready to help any other jurisdiction who seeks to do these things.”

—Australia’s communications minister Anika Wells tells the BBC how she feels about her government’s decision to ban social media for under-16s. 

One more thing

MICHAEL BYERS

The entrepreneur dreaming of a factory of unlimited organs

At any given time, the US transplant waiting list is about 100,000 people long. Thousands die waiting, and many more never make the list to begin with. Entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt wants to address this by growing organs compatible with human bodies in genetically modified pigs.

In recent years, US doctors have attempted seven pig-to-human transplants, the most dramatic of which was a case where a 57-year-old man with heart failure lived two months with a pig heart supplied by Rothblatt’s company. 

The experiment demonstrated the first life-sustaining pig-to-human organ transplant—and paved the way towards an organized clinical trial to prove they save lives consistently. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ I want to eat all of these things, starting with the hot chocolate cookies. 
+ Even one minute is enough time to enjoy some of the benefits of mindfulness.
+ The Geminid meteor shower will reach its peak this weekend. Here’s how to see it. 
+ I really enjoy Leah Gardner’s still life paintings.

The Download: a peek at AI’s future

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The State of AI: A vision of the world in 2030  

There are huge gulfs of opinion when it comes to predicting the near-future impacts of generative AI. In one camp there are those who predict that over the next decade the impact of AI will exceed that of the Industrial Revolution—a 150-year period of economic and social upheaval so great that we still live in the world it wrought. 

At the other end of the scale we have team ‘Normal Technology’: experts who push back not only on these sorts of predictions but on their foundational worldview. That’s not how technology works, they argue.

Advances at the cutting edge may come thick and fast, but change across the wider economy, and society as a whole, moves at human speed. Widespread adoption of new technologies can be slow; acceptance slower. AI will be no different. What should we make of these extremes? 

Read the full conversation between MIT Technology Review’s senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and Tim Bradshaw, FT global tech correspondent, about where AI will go next, and what our world will look like in the next five years.

This is the final edition of The State of AI, a collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Read the rest of the series, and if you want to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the world of AI, sign up to receive our free Algorithm newsletter every Monday.

How AI is changing the economy

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to understanding how AI is changing the economy at large. What’s the right outlook to have? Join Mat Honan, editor in chief, David Rotman, editor at large, and Richard Waters, FT columnist, at 1pm ET today to hear them discuss what’s happening across industries and the market. Sign up now to be part of this exclusive subscriber-only event.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Trump says he’ll sign an order blocking states from regulating AI
But he’s facing a lot of pushback, including from members of his own party. (CNN)
+ The whole debacle can be traced back to congressional inaction. (Semafor)

2 Google’s new smart glasses are getting rave reviews 
You’ll be able to get your hands on a pair in 2026. Watch out, Apple and Meta. (Tech Radar)

3 Trump gave the go-ahead for Nvidia to sell powerful AI chips to China
The US gets a 25% cut of the sales—but what does it lose longer-term? (WP $)
+ And how much could China stand to gain? (NYT $)
+ How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions. (MIT Technology Review)

4 America’s data center backlash is here
Republican and Democrat alike, local residents are sick of rapidly rising power bills. (Vox $)
+ More than 200 environmental groups are demanding a US-wide moratorium on new data centers. (The Guardian)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A quarter of teens are turning to AI chatbots for mental health support
Given the lack of real-world help, can you really blame them? (The Guardian)
+ Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered. (MIT Technology Review)

6 ICEBlock is suing the US government over its App Store removal 
Its creator is arguing that the Department of Justice’s demands to Apple violated his First Amendment rights. (404 Media)
+ It’s one of a number of ICE-tracking initiatives to be pulled by tech platforms this year. (MIT Technology Review)

7 This band quit Spotify, but it’s been replaced by AI knockoffs
The platform seems to be struggling against the tide of slop. (Futurism) 
+ AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Think you’re immune to online ads? Think again
If you’re scrolling on social media, you’re being sold to. Relentlessly. (The Verge $)

9 People really do not like Microsoft Copilot
It’s like Clippy all over again, except it’s even less avoidable. (Quartz $)

10 The longest solar eclipse for 100 years is coming
And we’ll only have to wait until 2027 to see it! (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“Governments and MPs are shooting themselves in the foot by pandering to tech giants, because that just tells young people that they don’t care about our future.”

—Adele Zeynep Walton, founding member of online safety campaign group Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, tells The Guardian why young activists are taking matters into their own hands. 

One more thing

COURTESY OF OCEANBIRD

Inside the long quest to advance Chinese writing technology

Every second of every day, someone is typing in Chinese. Though the mechanics look a little different from typing in English—people usually type the pronunciation of a character and then pick it out of a selection that pops up, autocomplete-style—it’s hard to think of anything more quotidian. The software that allows this exists beneath the awareness of pretty much everyone who uses it. It’s just there.

What’s largely been forgotten is that a large cast of eccentrics and linguists, engineers and polymaths, spent much of the 20th century torturing themselves over how Chinese was ever going to move away from the ink brush to any other medium. Read the full story.

—Veronique Greenwood

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Pantone chose a ‘calming’ shade of white for its Color of 2026… and people are fuming. 
+ Ozempic needles on the Christmas tree, anyone? Here’s why we’re going crazy for weird baubles. 
+ Can relate to this baby seal for instinctively heading to the nearest pub.
+ Thrilled to see One Battle After Another get so many Golden Globes nominations.

The Download: four (still) big breakthroughs, and how our bodies fare in extreme heat

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

4 technologies that didn’t make our 2026 breakthroughs list

If you’re a longtime reader, you probably know that our newsroom selects 10 breakthroughs every year that we think will define the future. This group exercise is mostly fun and always engrossing, with plenty of lively discussion along the way, but at times it can also be quite difficult.  

The 2026 list will come out on January 12—so stay tuned. In the meantime, we wanted to share some of the technologies from this year’s reject pile, as a window into our decision-making process. These four technologies won’t be on our 2026 list of breakthroughs, but all were closely considered, and we think they’re worth knowing about. Read the full story to learn what they are. 

MIT Technology Review Narrated: The quest to find out how our bodies react to extreme temperatures 

Scientists hope to prevent deaths from climate change, but heat and cold are more complicated than we thought. Researchers around the world are revising rules about when extremes veer from uncomfortable to deadly. Their findings change how we should think about the limits of hot and cold—and how to survive in a new world. 

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 A CDC panel voted to recommend delaying the hepatitis B vaccine for babies
Overturning a 30-year policy that has contributed to a huge decline in the virus. (STAT)
+ Why childhood vaccines are a public health success story. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Critical climate risks are growing across the Arab region 
Drought is the most immediate problem countries are having to grapple with. (Ars Technica)
+ Why Tehran is running out of water. (Wired $)

3 Netflix is buying Warner Bros for $83 billion 
If approved, it’ll be one of the most significant mergers in Hollywood history. (NBC)
+ Trump says the deal “could be a problem” due to Netflix’s already huge market share. (BBC)

4 The EU is fining X $140 million 
For failing to comply with its new Digital Services Act. (NPR)
+ Elon Musk is now calling for the entire EU to be abolished. (CNBC)
+ X also hit back by deleting the European Commission’s account. (Engadget)

5 AI slop is ruining Reddit
Moderators are getting tired of fighting the rising tide of nonsense. (Wired $)
+ How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Scientists have deeply mixed feelings about AI tools
They can boost researchers’ productivity, but some worry about the consequences of relying on them. (Nature $)
+ ‘AI slop’ is undermining trust in papers presented at computer science gatherings. (The Guardian)
+ Meet the researcher hosting a scientific conference by and for AI. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Australia is about to ban under 16s from social media
It’s due to come into effect in two days—but teens are already trying to maneuver around it. (New Scientist $)

8 AI is enshittifying the way we write 
And most people haven’t even noticed. (NYT $)
+ AI can make you more creative—but it has limits. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Tech founders are taking etiquette lessons
The goal is to make them better at pretending to be normal. (WP $)

10 Are we getting stupider? 
It might feel that way sometimes, but there’s little solid evidence to support it. (New Yorker $)

Quote of the day

“It’s hard to be Jensen day to day. It’s almost nightmarish. He’s constantly paranoid about competition. He’s constantly paranoid about people taking Nvidia down.” 

—Stephen Witt, author of ‘The Thinking Machine’, a book about Nvidia’s rise, tells the Financial Times what it’s like to be its founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang.

One more thing

COURTESY OF OCEANBIRD

How wind tech could help decarbonize cargo shipping

Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands—a chain of coral atolls in the center of the Pacific Ocean—rely on sea transportation for almost everything. For millennia they sailed largely in canoes, but much of their seafaring movement today involves big, bulky, diesel-fueled cargo ships that are heavy polluters.

They’re not alone. Cargo shipping is responsible for about 3% of the world’s annual greenhouse-­gas emissions, and that figure is currently on track to rise to 10% by 2050.

The islands have been disproportionately experiencing the consequences of human-made climate change: warming waters, more frequent extreme weather, and rising sea levels. Now its residents are exploring a surprisingly traditional method of decarbonizing its fleets. Read the full story.

—Sofia Quaglia

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Small daily habits can help build a life you enjoy.  
+ Using an air fryer to make an epic grilled cheese sandwich? OK, I’m listening…
+ I’m sorry but AI does NOT get to ruin em dashes for the rest of us. 
+ Daniel Clarke’s art is full of life and color. Check it out!

The Download: political chatbot persuasion, and gene editing adverts

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

AI chatbots can sway voters better than political advertisements

The news: Chatting with a politically biased AI model is more effective than political ads at nudging both Democrats and Republicans to support presidential candidates of the opposing party, new research shows.

The catch: The chatbots swayed opinions by citing facts and evidence, but they were not always accurate—in fact, the researchers found, the most persuasive models said the most untrue things. The findings are the latest in an emerging body of research demonstrating the persuasive power of LLMs. They raise profound questions about how generative AI could reshape elections.  Read the full story.

—Michelle Kim 

The era of AI persuasion in elections is about to begin 

—Tal Feldman is a JD candidate at Yale Law School who focuses on technology and national security. Aneesh Pappu is a PhD student and Knight-Hennessy scholar at Stanford University who focuses on agentic AI and technology policy. 

The fear that elections could be overwhelmed by AI-generated realistic fake media has gone mainstream—and for good reason.

But that’s only half the story. The deeper threat isn’t that AI can just imitate people—it’s that it can actively persuade people. And new research published this week shows just how powerful that persuasion can be. AI chatbots can shift voters’ views by a substantial margin, far more than traditional political advertising tends to do.

In the coming years, we will see the rise of AI that can personalize arguments, test what works, and quietly reshape political views at scale. That shift—from imitation to active persuasion—should worry us deeply. Read the full story. 

The ads that sell the sizzle of genetic trait discrimination

—Antonio Regalado, senior editor for biomedicine

One day this fall, I watched an electronic sign outside the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in Manhattan switch seamlessly between an ad for makeup and one promoting the website Pickyourbaby.com, which promises a way for potential parents to use genetic tests to influence their baby’s traits, including eye color, hair color, and IQ.

Inside the station, every surface was wrapped with more of its ads—babies on turnstiles, on staircases, on banners overhead. “Think about it. Makeup and then genetic optimization,” exulted Kian Sadeghi, the 26-year-old founder of Nucleus Genomics, the startup running the ads. 

The day after the campaign launched, Sadeghi and I had briefly sparred online. He’d been on X showing off a phone app where parents can click through traits like eye color and hair color. I snapped back that all this sounded a lot like Uber Eats—another crappy, frictionless future invented by entrepreneurs, but this time you’d click for a baby.

That night, I agreed to meet Sadeghi in the station under a banner that read, “IQ is 50% genetic.” Read on to see how Antonio’s conversation with Sadeghi went. 

This story first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The metaverse’s future looks murkier than ever
OG believer Mark Zuckerberg is planning deep cuts to the division’s budget. (Bloomberg $)
+ However some of that money will be diverted toward smart glasses and wearables. (NYT $)
+ Meta just managed to poach one of Apple’s top design chiefs. (Bloomberg $)

2 Kids are effectively AI’s guinea pigs
And regulators are slowly starting to take note of the risks. (The Economist $)
+ You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How a group of women changed UK law on non-consensual deepfakes
It’s a big victory, and they managed to secure it with stunning speed. (The Guardian)
+ But bans on deepfakes take us only so far—here’s what else we need. (MIT Technology Review)
+ An AI image generator startup just leaked a huge trove of nude images. (Wired $) 

4 OpenAI is acquiring an AI model training startup
Its researchers have been impressed by the monitoring and de-bugging tools built by Neptune. (NBC)
+ It’s not just you: the speed of AI deal-making really is accelerating. (NYT $)

5 Russia has blocked Apple’s FaceTime video calling feature
It seems the Kremlin views any platform it doesn’t control as dangerous. (Reuters $)
+ How Russia killed its tech industry. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The trouble with AI browsers
This reviewer tested five of them and found them to be far more effort than they’re worth. (The Verge $)
+ AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it. (MIT Technology Review)

7 An anti-AI activist has disappeared 
Sam Kirchner went AWOL after failing to show up at a scheduled court hearing, and friends are worried. (The Atlantic$)

8 Taiwanese chip workers are creating a community in the Arizona desert
A TSMC project to build chip factories is rapidly transforming this corner of the US. (NYT $)

9 This hearing aid has become a status symbol 
Rich people with hearing issues swear by a product made by startup Fortell. (Wired $)
+ Apple AirPods can be a gateway hearing aid. (MIT Technology Review) 

10 A plane crashed after one of its 3D-printed parts melted 
Just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean you should. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“Some people claim we can scale up current technology and get to general intelligence…I think that’s bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French.”

—AI researcher Yann LeCun explains why he’s leaving Meta to set up a world-model startup, Sifted reports. 

One more thing

ILLUSTRATION SOURCES: NATIONAL HUMAN GENOME RESEARCH INSTITUTE

What to expect when you’re expecting an extra X or Y chromosome

Sex chromosome variations, in which people have a surplus or missing X or Y, occur in as many as one in 400 births. Yet the majority of people affected don’t even know they have them, because these conditions can fly under the radar.

As more expectant parents opt for noninvasive prenatal testing in hopes of ruling out serious conditions, many of them are surprised to discover instead that their fetus has a far less severe—but far less well-known—condition.

And because so many sex chromosome variations have historically gone undiagnosed, many ob-gyns are not familiar with these conditions, leaving families to navigate the unexpected news on their own. Read the full story.

—Bonnie Rochman

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ It’s never too early to start practicing your bûche de Noëlskills for the holidays.
+ Brandi Carlile, you will always be famous.
+ What do bartenders get up to after finishing their Thanksgiving shift? It’s time to find out.
+ Pitchfork’s controversial list of the best albums of the year is here!