The Download: the next anti-drone weapon, and powering AI’s growth

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.

This giant microwave may change the future of war

Imagine: China deploys hundreds of thousands of autonomous drones in the air, on the sea, and under the water—all armed with explosive warheads or small missiles. These machines descend in a swarm toward military installations on Taiwan and nearby US bases, and over the course of a few hours, a single robotic blitzkrieg overwhelms the US Pacific force before it can even begin to fight back.

The proliferation of cheap drones means just about any group with the wherewithal to assemble and launch a swarm could wreak havoc, no expensive jets or massive missile installations required.

The US armed forces are now hunting for a solution—and they want it fast. Every branch of the service and a host of defense tech startups are testing out new weapons that promise to disable drones en masse. 

And one of these is microwaves: high-powered electronic devices that push out kilowatts of power to zap the circuits of a drone as if it were the tinfoil you forgot to take off your leftovers when you heated them up. Read the full story.

—Sam Dean

This article is part of the Big Story series: MIT Technology Review’s most important, ambitious reporting that takes a deep look at the technologies that are coming next and what they will mean for us and the world we live in. Check out the rest of them here.

What will power AI’s growth?

Last week we published Power Hungry, a series that takes a hard look at the expected energy demands of AI. Last week in this newsletter, I broke down its centerpiece, an analysis I did with my colleague James O’Donnell.

But this week, I want to talk about another story that I also wrote for that package, which focused on nuclear energy. As I discovered, building new nuclear plants isn’t so simple or so fast. And as my colleague David Rotman lays out in his story, the AI boom could wind up relying on another energy source: fossil fuels. So what’s going to power AI? 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 Elon Musk is leaving his role in the Trump administration 
To focus on rebuilding the damaged brand reputations of Tesla and SpaceX. (Axios)
+ Musk has complained that DOGE has become a government scapegoat. (WP $)
+ Tesla shareholders have asked its board to lay out a succession plan. (CNN)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The US will start revoking the visas of Chinese students
Including those studying in what the US government deems “critical fields.” (Politico)
+ It’s also ordered US chip software suppliers to stop selling to China. (FT $)

3 The US is storing the DNA of migrant children
It’s been uploaded into a criminal database to track them as they age. (Wired $)
+ The US wants to use facial recognition to identify migrant children as they age. (MIT Technology Review)

4 RFK Jr is threatening to ban federal scientists from top journals
Instead, they may be forced to publish in state-run alternatives. (The Hill)
+ He accused major medical journals of being funded by Big Pharma. (Stat)

5 India and Pakistan are locked in disinformation warfare
False reports and doctored images are circulating online. (The Guardian)
+ Fact checkers are working around the clock to debunk fake news. (Reuters)

6 How North Korea is infiltrating remote jobs in the US
With the help of regular Americans. (WSJ $)

7 This Discord community is creating its own hair-growth drugs
Men are going to extreme lengths to reverse their hair loss. (404 Media)

8 Inside YouTube’s quest to dominate your living room
It wants to move away from controversial clips and into prestige TV. (Bloomberg $)

9 Sergey Brin threatens AI models with physical violence
The Google co-founder insists that it produces better results. (The Register)

10 It must be nice to be a moving day influencer
They reap all of the benefits, with none of the stress. (NY Mag $)

Quote of the day

“I studied in the US because I loved what America is about: it’s open, inclusive and diverse. Now my students and I feel slapped in the face by Trump’s policy.”

—Cathy Tu, a Chinese AI researcher, tells the Washington Post why many of her students are already applying to universities outside the US after the Trump administration announced a crackdown on visas for Chinese students.

One more thing

The second wave of AI coding is here

Ask people building generative AI what generative AI is good for right now—what they’re really fired up about—and many will tell you: coding.

Everyone from established AI giants to buzzy startups is promising to take coding assistants to the next level. Instead of providing developers with a kind of supercharged autocomplete, this next generation can prototype, test, and debug code for you. The upshot is that developers could essentially turn into managers, who may spend more time reviewing and correcting code written by a model than writing it from scratch themselves.

But there’s more. Many of the people building generative coding assistants think that they could be a fast track to artificial general intelligence, the hypothetical superhuman technology that a number of top firms claim to have in their sights. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

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.)

+ If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a piece of cinematic history, more than 400 of David Lynch’s personal items are going up for auction.
+ How accurate are those Hollywood films based on true stories? Let’s find out.
+ Rest in peace Chicago Mike: the legendary hype man to Kool & the Gang.
+ How to fully trust in one another.

The Download: the story of OpenAI, and making magnesium

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.

OpenAI: The power and the pride

OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT 3.5 set in motion an AI arms race that has changed the world.

How that turns out for humanity is something we are still reckoning with and may be for quite some time. But a pair of recent books both attempt to get their arms around it.

In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, Karen Hao tells the story of the company’s rise to power and its far-reaching impact all over the world. Meanwhile, The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future, by the Wall Street Journal’s Keach Hagey, homes in more on Altman’s personal life, from his childhood through the present day, in order to tell the story of OpenAI. 

Both paint complex pictures and show Altman in particular as a brilliantly effective yet deeply flawed creature of Silicon Valley—someone capable of always getting what he wants, but often by manipulating others. Read the full review.

—Mat Honan

This startup wants to make more climate-friendly metal in the US

The news: A California-based company called Magrathea just turned on a new electrolyzer that can make magnesium metal from seawater. The technology has the potential to produce the material, which is used in vehicles and defense applications, with net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions.

Why it matters: Today, China dominates production of magnesium, and the most common method generates a lot of the emissions that cause climate change. If Magrathea can scale up its process, it could help provide an alternative source of the metal and clean up industries that rely on it, including automotive manufacturing. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

A new sodium metal fuel cell could help clean up transportation

A new type of fuel cell that runs on sodium metal could one day help clean up sectors where it’s difficult to replace fossil fuels, like rail, regional aviation, and short-distance shipping. The device represents a departure from technologies like lithium-based batteries and is more similar conceptually to hydrogen fuel cell systems.
 
The sodium-air fuel cell has a higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries and doesn’t require the super-cold temperatures or high pressures that hydrogen does, making it potentially more practical for transport. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

The must-reads

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

1 The US state department is considering vetting foreign students’ social media
After ordering US embassies to suspend international students’ visa appointments. (Politico)
+ Applicants’ posts, shares and comments could be assessed. (The Guardian)
+ The Trump administration also wants to cut off Harvard’s funding. (NYT $)

2 SpaceX’s rocket exploded during its test flight 
It’s the third consecutive explosion the company has suffered this year. (CNBC)
+ It was the first significant attempt to reuse Starship hardware. (Space)
+ Elon Musk is fairly confident the problem with the engine bay has been resolved. (Ars Technica)

3 The age of AI layoffs is here
And it’s taking place in conference rooms, not on factory floors. (Quartz)
+ People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Thousands of IVF embryos in Gaza were destroyed by Israeli strikes
An attack destroyed the fertility clinic where they were housed. (BBC)
+ Inside the strange limbo facing millions of IVF embryos. (MIT Technology Review)

5 China’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have fallen for the first time
Even as energy demand has risen. (Vox)
+ China’s complicated role in climate change. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The sun is damaging Starlink’s satellites
Its eruptions are reducing the satellite’s lifespans. (New Scientist $)
+ Apple’s satellite connectivity dreams are being thwarted by Musk. (The Information $)

7 European companies are struggling to do business in China
Even the ones that have operated there for decades. (NYT $)
+ The country’s economic slowdown is making things tough. (Bloomberg $)

8 US hospitals are embracing helpful robots
They’re delivering medications and supplies so nurses don’t have to. (FT $)
+ Will we ever trust robots? (MIT Technology Review)

9 Meet the people who write the text messages on your favorite show
They try to make messages as realistic, and intriguing, as possible. (The Guardian)

10 Robot dogs are delivering parcels in Austin
Well, over 100 yard distances at least. (TechCrunch)

Quote of the day

“I wouldn’t say there’s hope. I wouldn’t bet on that.”

—Michael Roll, a partner at law firm Roll & Harris, explains to Wired why businesses shouldn’t get their hopes up over obtaining refunds for Donald Trump’s tariff price hikes.

One more thing

Is the digital dollar dead?

In 2020, digital currencies were one of the hottest topics in town. China was well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and many other countries launched CBDC research projects, including the US.

How things change. The digital dollar—even though it doesn’t exist—has now become political red meat, as some politicians label it a dystopian tool for surveillance. So is the dream of the digital dollar dead? Read the full story.

—Mike Orcutt

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.)

+ Recently returned from vacation? Here’s how to cope with coming back to reality.
+ Reconnecting with friends is one of life’s great joys.
+ A new Parisian cocktail bar has done away with ice entirely in a bid to be more sustainable.
+ Why being bored is good for you—no, really.

The Download: meet Cathy Tie, and Anthropic’s new AI models

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.

Meet Cathy Tie, Bride of “China’s Frankenstein”

Since the Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui was released from prison in 2022, he has sought to make a scientific comeback and to repair his reputation after a three-year incarceration for illegally creating the world’s first gene-edited children.

One area of visible success on his come-back trail has been his X.com account. Over the past few years, his account has evolved from sharing mundane images of his daily life to spreading outrageous, antagonistic messages. This has left observers unsure what to take seriously.

Last month, in reply to MIT Technology Review’s questions about who was responsible for the account’s transformation into a font of clever memes, He emailed us back: “It’s thanks to Cathy Tie.”

Tie is no stranger to the public spotlight. A former Thiel fellow, she is a partner in a project which promised to create glow-in-the-dark pets. Over the past several weeks, though, the Canadian entrepreneur has started to get more and more attention as the new wife to He Jiankui. Read the full story.

—Caiwei Chen & Antonio Regalado

Anthropic’s new hybrid AI model can work on tasks autonomously for hours at a time

Anthropic has announced two new AI models that it claims represent a major step toward making AI agents truly useful.

AI agents trained on Claude Opus 4, the company’s most powerful model to date, raise the bar for what such systems are capable of by tackling difficult tasks over extended periods of time and responding more usefully to user instructions, the company says.

They’ve achieved some impressive results: Opus 4 created a guide for the video game Pokémon Red while playing it for more than 24 hours straight. The company’s previously most powerful model was capable of playing for just 45 minutes. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

The FDA plans to limit access to covid vaccines. Here’s why that’s not all bad.

This week, two new leaders at the US Food and Drug Administration announced plans to limit access to covid vaccines, arguing that there is not much evidence to support the value of annual shots in healthy people. New vaccines will be made available only to the people who are most vulnerable—namely, those over 65 and others with conditions that make them more susceptible to severe disease.

The plans have been met with fear and anger in some quarters. But they weren’t all that shocking to me. In the UK, where I live, covid boosters have been offered only to vulnerable groups for a while now. And the immunologists I spoke to agree: The plans make sense. 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.

The must-reads

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

1 Thousands of Americans are facing extreme weather
But help from the federal government may never arrive. (Slate $)
+ States struck by tornadoes and floods are begging the Trump administration for aid. (Scientific American $)

2 Spain’s grid operator has accused power plants of not doing their job
It claims they failed to control the system’s voltage shortly before the blackout. (FT $)
+ Did solar power cause Spain’s blackout? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Google is facing a DoJ probe over its AI chatbot deal
It will probe whether Google’s deal with Character.AI gives it an unfair advantage. (Bloomberg $)
+ It may not lead to enforcement action, though. (Reuters)

4 DOGE isn’t bad news for everyone
These smaller US government IT contractors say it’s good for business—for now. (WSJ $)
+ It appears that DOGE used a Meta AI model to review staff emails, not Grok. (Wired $)
+ Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Google’s new shopping tool adds breasts to minors
Try it On distorts uploaded photos to clothing models’ proportions, even when they’re children. (The Atlantic $)
+ It feels like this could have easily been avoided. (Axios)
+ An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Apple is reportedly planning a smart glasses product launch
By the end of next year. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’s playing catchup with Meta and Google, among others. (Engadget)
+ What’s next for smart glasses. (MIT Technology Review)

7 What it’s like to live in Elon Musk’s corner of Texas
Complete with an ugly bust and furious locals. (The Guardian)
+ West Lake Hills residents are pushing back against his giant fences. (Architectural Digest $)

8 Our solar system may contain a hidden ninth planet
A possible dwarf planet has been spotted orbiting beyond Neptune. (New Scientist $)

9 Wikipedia does swag now
How else will you let everyone know you love the open web? (Fast Company $)

10 One of the last good apps is shutting down
Mozilla is closing Pocket, its article-saving app, and the internet is worse for it. (404 Media)
+ Parent company Mozilla said the way people use the web has changed. (The Verge)

Quote of the day

“This is like the Mount Everest of corruption.”

—Senator Jeff Merkley protests outside Donald Trump’s exclusive dinner for the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, the New York Times reports.

One more thing

The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened?

On April 3, 2010, Steve Jobs debuted the iPad. What for most people was basically a more convenient form factor was something far more consequential for non-speakers: a life-­changing revolution in access to a portable, powerful communication device for just a few hundred dollars.

But a piece of hardware, however impressively designed and engineered, is only as valuable as what a person can do with it. After the iPad’s release, the flood of new, easy-to-use augmentative and alternative communication apps that users were in desperate need of never came.

Today, there are only around half a dozen apps, each retailing for $200 to $300, that ask users to select from menus of crudely drawn icons to produce text and synthesized speech. It’s a depressingly slow pace of development for such an essential human function. Read the full story.

—Julie Kim

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.)

+ Dive into the physics behind the delicate frills of Tête de Moine cheese shavings.
+ Our capacity to feel moved by music is at least partly inherited, apparently.
+ Kermit the frog has delivered a moving commencement address at the University of Maryland.
+ It’s a question as old as time: are clowns sexy?

The Download: the desert data center boom, and how to measure Earth’s elevations

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 data center boom in the desert

In the high desert east of Reno, Nevada, construction crews are flattening the golden foothills of the Virginia Range, laying the foundations of a data center city.

Google, Tract, Switch, EdgeCore, Novva, Vantage, and PowerHouse are all operating, building, or expanding huge facilities nearby. Meanwhile, Microsoft has acquired more than 225 acres of undeveloped property, and Apple is expanding its existing data center just across the Truckee River from the industrial park.

The corporate race to amass computing resources to train and run artificial intelligence models and store information in the cloud has sparked a data center boom in the desert—and it’s just far enough away from Nevada’s communities to elude wide notice and, some fear, adequate scrutiny. Read the full story.

—James Temple

This story is part of Power Hungry: AI and our energy future—our new series shining a light on the energy demands and carbon costs of the artificial intelligence revolution. Check out the rest of the package here.

A new atomic clock in space could help us measure elevations on Earth

In 2003, engineers from Germany and Switzerland began building a bridge across the Rhine River simultaneously from both sides. Months into construction, they found that the two sides did not meet. The German side hovered 54 centimeters above the Swiss one.

The misalignment happened because they measured elevation from sea level differently. To prevent such costly construction errors, in 2015 scientists in the International Association of Geodesy voted to adopt the International Height Reference Frame, or IHRF, a worldwide standard for elevation.

Now, a decade after its adoption, scientists are looking to update the standard—by using the most precise clock ever to fly in space. Read the full story.

—Sophia Chen

Three takeaways about AI’s energy use and climate impacts

—Casey Crownhart

This week, we published Power Hungry, a package all about AI and energy. At the center of this package is the most comprehensive look yet at AI’s growing power demand, if I do say so myself.

This data-heavy story is the result of over six months of reporting by me and my colleague James O’Donnell (and the work of many others on our team). Over that time, with the help of leading researchers, we quantified the energy and emissions impacts of individual queries to AI models and tallied what it all adds up to, both right now and for the years ahead.

There’s a lot of data to dig through, and I hope you’ll take the time to explore the whole story. But in the meantime, here are three of my biggest takeaways from working on this project. Read the full story.

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

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Congress used to evaluate emerging technologies. Let’s do it again.

Artificial intelligence comes with a shimmer and a sheen of magical thinking. And if we’re not careful, politicians, employers, and other decision-makers may accept at face value the idea that machines can and should replace human judgment and discretion.

One way to combat that might be resurrecting the Office of Technology Assessment, a Congressional think tank that detected lies and tested tech until it was shuttered in 1995.

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 OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI startup
The former Apple design guru will work with Sam Altman to design an entirely new range of devices. (NYT $)
+ The deal is worth a whopping $6.5 billion. (Bloomberg $)
+ Altman gave OpenAI staff a preview of its AI ‘companion’ devices. (WSJ $)
+ AI products to date have failed to set the world alight. (The Atlantic $)

2 Microsoft has blocked employee emails containing ‘Gaza’ or ‘Palestine’
Although the term ‘Israel’ does not trigger such a block. (The Verge)
+ Protest group No Azure for Apartheid has accused the company of censorship. (Fortune $)

3 DOGE needs to do its work in secret
That’s what the Trump administration is claiming to the Supreme Court, at least. (Ars Technica)
+ It’s trying to avoid being forced to hand over internal documents. (NYT $)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

4 US banks are racing to embrace cryptocurrency
Ahead of new stablecoin legislation. (The Information $)
+ Attendees at Trump’s crypto dinner paid over $1 million for the privilege. (NBC News)
+ Bitcoin has surged to an all-time peak yet again. (Reuters)

5 China is making huge technological leaps
Thanks to the billions it’s poured into narrowing the gap between it and the US. (WSJ $)
+ Nvidia’s CEO has branded America’s chip curbs on China ‘a failure.’ (FT $)
+ There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Disordered eating content is rife on TikTok
But a pocket of creators are dedicated to debunking the worst of it. (Wired $)

7 The US military is interested in the world’s largest aircraft
The gigantic WindRunner plane will have an 80-metre wingspan. (New Scientist $)
+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How AI is shaking up animation
New tools are slashing the costs of creating episodes by up to 90%. (NYT $)
+ Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Tesla’s Cybertruck is a flop
Sorry, Elon. (Fast Company $)
+ The vehicles’ resale value is plummeting. (The Daily Beast)

10 Google’s new AI video generator loves this terrible joke
Which appears to originate from a Reddit post. (404 Media)
+ What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“It feels like we are marching off a cliff.”

—An unnamed software engineering vice president jokes that future developers conferences will be attended by the AI agents companies like Microsoft are racing to deploy, Semafor reports.

One more thing

What does GPT-3 “know” about me?

One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it.

These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.

Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s former AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found.

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.)

+ Don’t shoot the messenger, but it seems like there’s a new pizza king in town ($)
+ Ranked: every Final Destination film, from worst to best.
+ Who knew that jelly could help to preserve coral reefs? Not I.
+ A new generation of space archaeologists are beavering away to document our journeys to the stars.

The Download: Google’s AI mission, and America’s reliance on natural gas

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.

By putting AI into everything, Google wants to make it invisible

If you want to know where AI is headed, this year’s Google I/O has you covered. The company’s annual showcase of next-gen products, which kicked off yesterday, has all of the pomp and pizzazz, the sizzle reels and celebrity walk-ons, that you’d expect from a multimillion dollar marketing event.

But it also shows us just how fast this still-experimental technology is being subsumed into a line-up designed to sell phones and subscription tiers. Never before have I seen this thing we call artificial intelligence appear so normal. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

AI could keep us dependent on natural gas for decades to come

Last December, Meta announced plans to build a massive $10 billion data center for training its artificial intelligence models in rural northeast Louisiana. Stretching for more than a mile, it will be Meta’s largest in the world, and it will have an enormous appetite for electricity.

To power the data center, a Meta contractor called Entergy will build three large natural-gas power plants with a total capacity of 2.3 gigawatts. It’ll also upgrade the grid to accommodate the huge jump in anticipated demand.

The choice of natural gas as the go-to solution to meet the growing demand for power from AI is not unique to Louisiana. The fossil fuel is already the country’s chief source of electricity generation, and large natural-gas plants are being built around the country to feed electricity to new and planned AI data centers. That’s all but wiping out any prospect that the US will wean itself off natural gas anytime soon. Read the full story.

—David Rotman

This story is part of Power Hungry: AI and our energy future—our new series shining a light on AI’s energy usage. Check out the rest of the package here.

Take a new look at AI’s energy use

Big Tech’s appetite for energy is growing rapidly as adoption of AI accelerates. But just how much energy does a single AI query use? And what does it mean for the climate?
 
Join editor in chief Mat Honan, senior climate reporter Casey Crownhart, and AI reporter James O’Donnell at 1.30pm ET today for a subscriber-only Roundtables conversation digging into our new package of stories about AI’s energy demands now and in the future. Register here.

The must-reads

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

1 Democrats are on the hunt for a digital thought leader
They’re (finally) realizing how far they’re lagging behind their opponents’ online efforts these days. (NYT $) 
+ AI’s impact on elections is being overblown. (MIT Technology Review)

2 At least two newspapers printed an AI-generated summer reading list
The only problem is, some of the books don’t actually exist. (404 Media)
+ It’s a useful reminder to never take anything chatbots produce as fact. (Axios)
+ Even regional newspapers aren’t safe from AI slop. (The Atlantic $)
+ Why AI hallucinates, and why we can’t stop it. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The Earth may already be too hot to maintain polar ice sheets
Even if it stays at current temperature levels. (WP $)
+ Why climate researchers are taking the temperature of mountain snow. (MIT Technology Review)

4 How New York City’s child abuse algorithm flags families for investigation
Critics believe it’s open to racial bias. (The Markup)

5 Here’s what it’s like to interview for a job at DOGE  
The hiring process is remarkably fast, for a government entity. (Wired $)
+ The department reportedly tried to enter the US government’s publishing operation. (Politico)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Fortnite has finally returned to Apple’s App Store
After five years and a lengthy legal battle. (NYT $)
+ The recent ruling has major implications for the iOS economy. (Reuters)

7 Most chatbots can be tricked into dispensing dangerous information
From hacking advice, to describing how to make drugs. (The Guardian)
+ Anthropic has a new way to protect large language models against jailbreaks. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Young Indonesians are being trafficked to scam farms
Fraudulent job ads on Telegram and Facebook lure them into a life of crime. (Rest of World)
+ Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there. (MIT Technology Review)

9  Inside the building in China where stolen western iPhones are stripped and sold
You’ll find a buyer for every single component inside the Feiyang Times. (FT $)

10 Amazon has started randomly refunding customers for old purchases
Some orders were placed as far back as 2018. (Bloomberg $)

Quote of the day

“Anybody who’s a computer scientist should not be retired right now. They should be working on AI.”

—Google cofounder Sergey Brin says people with the right technical skills should copy him and quit being retired, TechCrunch reports.

One more thing

This fuel plant will use agricultural waste to combat climate change

A startup called Mote plans to build a new type of fuel-producing plant in California’s fertile Central Valley that would, if it works as hoped, continually capture and bury carbon dioxide.

It’s among a growing number of efforts to commercialize a concept first proposed two decades ago as a means of combating climate change, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, or BECCS.

It’s an ambitious plan. However, there are serious challenges to doing BECCS affordably and in ways that reliably suck down significant levels of carbon dioxide. Read the full story.

—James Temple

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.)

+ These creepy little Labubu toys are everywhere. But why?
+ Happy 25th birthday to one of London’s finest institutions, the Tate Modern gallery.
+ Why the Mission Impossible film franchise just won’t die.
+ Hummingbirds can fly backwards!? Wow.

The Download: introducing the AI energy 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.

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

It’s well documented that AI is a power-hungry technology. But there has been far less reporting on the extent of that hunger, how much its appetite is set to grow in the coming years, where that power will come from, and who will pay for it. 

For the past six months, MIT Technology Review’s team of reporters and editors have worked to answer those questions. The result is an unprecedented look at the state of AI’s energy and resource usage, where it is now, where it is headed in the years to come, and why we have to get it right. 

At the centerpiece of this package is an entirely novel line of reporting into the demands of inference—the way human beings interact with AI when we make text queries or ask AI to come up with new images or create videos. Experts say inference is set to eclipse the already massive amount of energy required to train new AI models. Here’s everything we found out.

Here’s what you can expect from the rest of the package, including:

+ We were so startled by what we learned reporting this story that we also put together a brief on everything you need to know about estimating AI’s energy and emissions burden. 

+ We went out into the world to see the effects of this energy hunger—from the deserts of Nevada, where data centers in an industrial park the size of Detroit demand ever more water to keep their processors cool and running. 

+ In Louisiana, where Meta plans its largest-ever data center, we expose the dirty secret that will fuel its AI ambitions—along with those of many others. 

+ Why the clean energy promise of powering AI data centers with nuclear energy will long remain elusive. 

+ But it’s not all doom and gloom. Check out the reasons to be optimistic, and examine why future AI systems could be far less energy intensive than today’s.

AI can do a better job of persuading people than we do

The news: Millions of people argue with each other online every day, but remarkably few of them change someone’s mind. New research suggests that large language models (LLMs) might do a better job, especially when they’re given the ability to adapt their arguments using personal information about individuals. The finding suggests that AI could become a powerful tool for persuading people, for better or worse.

The big picture: The findings are the latest in a growing body of research demonstrating LLMs’ powers of persuasion. The authors warn they show how AI tools can craft sophisticated, persuasive arguments if they have even minimal information about the humans they’re interacting with. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

How AI is introducing errors into courtrooms

It’s been quite a couple weeks for stories about AI in the courtroom. You might have heard about the deceased victim of a road rage incident whose family created an AI avatar of him to show as an impact statement (possibly the first time this has been done in the US).

But there’s a bigger, far more consequential controversy brewing, legal experts say. AI hallucinations are cropping up more and more in legal filings. And it’s starting to infuriate judges. Just consider these three cases, each of which gives a glimpse into what we can expect to see more of as lawyers embrace AI. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox 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 Donald Trump has signed the Take It Down Act into US law
It criminalizes the distribution of non-consensual intimate images, including deepfakes. (The Verge)
+ Tech platforms will be forced to remove such material within 48 hours of being notified. (CNN)
+ It’s only the sixth bill he’s signed into law during his second term. (NBC News)

2 There’s now a buyer for 23andMe 
Pharma firm Regeneron has swooped in and offered to help it keep operating. (WSJ $)
+ The worth of your genetic data? $17. (404 Media)
+ Regeneron promised to prioritize security and ethical use of that data. (TechCrunch)

3 Microsoft is adding Elon Musk’s AI models to its cloud platform
Err, is that a good idea? (Bloomberg $)
+ Musk wants to sell Grok to other businesses. (The Information $)

4 Autonomous cars trained to react like humans cause fewer road injuries
A study found they were more cautious around cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. (FT $)
+ Waymo is expanding its robotaxi operations out of San Francisco. (Reuters)
+ How Wayve’s driverless cars will meet one of their biggest challenges yet. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Hurricane season is on its way
DOGE cuts means we’re less prepared. (The Atlantic $)
+ COP30 may be in crisis before it’s even begun. (New Scientist $)

6 Telegram handed over data from more than 20,000 users 
In the first three months of 2025 alone. (404 Media)

7 GM has stopped exporting cars to China
Trump’s tariffs have put an end to its export plans. (NYT $)

8 Blended meats are on the rise
Plants account for up to 70% of these new meats—and consumers love them. (WP $)
+ Alternative meat could help the climate. Will anyone eat it? (MIT Technology Review)

9 SAG-AFTRA isn’t happy about Fornite’s AI-voiced Darth Vader
It’s slapped Fortnite’s creators with an unfair labor practice charge. (Ars Technica)
+ How Meta and AI companies recruited striking actors to train AI. (MIT Technology Review)

10 This AI model can swiftly build Lego structures
Thanks to nothing more than a prompt. (Fast Company $)

Quote of the day

“Platforms have no incentive or requirement to make sure what comes through the system is non-consensual intimate imagery.”

—Becca Branum, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, says the new Take It Down Act could fuel censorship, Wired reports.

One more thing

Are friends electric?

Thankfully, the difference between humans and machines in the real world is easy to discern, at least for now. While machines tend to excel at things adults find difficult—playing world-champion-level chess, say, or multiplying really big numbers—they find it hard to accomplish stuff a five-year-old can do with ease, such as catching a ball or walking around a room without bumping into things.

This fundamental tension—what is hard for humans is easy for machines, and what’s hard for machines is easy for humans—is at the heart of three new books delving into our complex and often fraught relationship with robots, AI, and automation. They force us to reimagine the nature of everything from friendship and love to work, health care, and home life. Read the full story.

—Bryan Gardiner

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.)

+ Congratulations to William Goodge, who ran across Australia in just 35 days!
+ A British horticulturist has created a garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show just for dogs.
+ The Netherlands just loves a sidewalk garden.
+ Did you know the T Rex is a north American hero? Me neither

The Download: chaos at OpenAI, and the spa heated by bitcoin mining

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.

Inside the story that enraged OpenAI

—Niall Firth, executive editor, MIT Technology Review

In 2019, Karen Hao, a senior reporter with MIT Technology Review, pitched me a story about a then little-known company, OpenAI. It was her biggest assignment to date. Hao’s feat of reporting took a series of twists and turns over the coming months, eventually revealing how OpenAI’s ambition had taken it far afield from its original mission.

The finished story was a prescient look at a company at a tipping point—or already past it. And OpenAI was not happy with the result. Hao’s new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, is an in-depth exploration of the company that kick-started the AI arms race, and what that race means for all of us. This excerpt is the origin story of that reporting.

This spa’s water is heated by bitcoin mining

At first glance, the Bathhouse spa in Brooklyn looks not so different from other high-end spas. What sets it apart is out of sight: a closet full of cryptocurrency-­mining computers that not only generate bitcoins but also heat the spa’s pools, marble hammams, and showers. 

When cofounder Jason Goodman opened Bathhouse’s first location in Williamsburg in 2019, he used conventional pool heaters. But after diving deep into the world of bitcoin, he realized he could fit cryptocurrency mining seamlessly into his business. Read the full story.

—Carrie Klein

This story is from the most recent edition of our print magazine, which is all about how technology is changing creativity. Subscribe now to read it and to receive future print copies 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 Nvidia wants to build an AI supercomputer in Taiwan 
As Trump’s tariffs upend existing supply chains. (WSJ $)
+ Jensen Huang has denied that Nvidia’s chips are being diverted into China. (Bloomberg $)

2 xAI’s Grok dabbled in Holocaust denial
The chatbot said it was “skeptical” about points that historians agree are facts. (Rolling Stone $)
+ It blamed the comments on a programming error. (The Guardian)

3 Apple is planning to overhaul Siri entirely
To make it an assistant fit for the AI age. (Bloomberg $)

4 Dentists are worried by RFK Jr’s fluoride ban
Particularly in rural America. (Ars Technica)
+ Florida has become the second state to ban fluoride in public water. (NBC News)

5 Fewer people want to work in America’s factories
That’s a problem when Trump is so hell-bent on kickstarting the manufacturing industry. (WSJ $)
+ Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Meet the crypto investors hoping to bend the President’s ear
They’re treating Trump’s meme coin dinner as an opportunity to push their agendas. (WP $)
+ Many of them are offloading their coins, too. (Wired $)
+ Crypto bigwigs are targets for criminals. (WSJ $)
+ Bodyguards and other forms of security are becoming de rigueur. (Bloomberg $)

7 How the US reversed the overdose epidemic
Naloxone is a major factor. (Vox)
+ How the federal government is tracking changes in the supply of street drugs. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Chatbots really love the heads of the companies that made them 
And are not so fond of the leaders of its rivals. (FT $)
+ What if we could just ask AI to be less biased? (MIT Technology Review)

9 Technology is a double-edged sword
What connects us can simultaneously outrage us. (The Atlantic $)

10 Meet the people hooked on watching nature live streams
They find checking in with animals puts their own troubles in perspective. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“People are just scared. They don’t know where they fit in this new world.”

—Angela Jiang, who is working on a startup exploring the impact of AI on the labor market, tells the Wall Street Journal about the woes of tech job seekers trying to land new jobs in the current economy.

One more thing

How the Rubin Observatory will help us understand dark matter and dark energy

We can put a good figure on how much we know about the universe: 5%. That’s how much of what’s floating about in the cosmos is ordinary matter—planets and stars and galaxies and the dust and gas between them. The other 95% is dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious entities aptly named for our inability to shed light on their true nature.

Previous work has begun pulling apart these dueling forces, but dark matter and dark energy remain shrouded in a blanket of questions—critically, what exactly are they?

Enter the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, one of our 10 breakthrough technologies for 2025. Boasting the largest digital camera ever created, Rubin is expected to study the cosmos in the highest resolution yet once it begins observations later this year. And with a better window on the cosmic battle between dark matter and dark energy, Rubin might narrow down existing theories on what they are made of. Here’s a look at how.

—Jenna Ahart

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.)

+ Archaeologists in Canada are facing a mighty challenge—to solve how thousands of dinosaurs died in what’s now a forest in Alberta.
+ Before Brian Johnson joined AC/DC, he sang on this very distinctive hoover (vacuum cleaner) ad.
+ Wealthy Londoners are adding spas to their gardens, because why not.
+ I must eat the crystal breakfast!

The Download: the first personalized gene-editing drug, and Montana’s Right to Try experiment

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.

This baby boy was treated with the first personalized gene-editing drug

Doctors say they constructed a bespoke gene-editing treatment in less than seven months and used it to treat a baby with a deadly metabolic condition. The rapid-fire attempt to rewrite the child’s DNA marks the first time gene editing has been tailored to treat a single individual.

The baby who was treated, Kyle “KJ” Muldoon Jr., suffers from a rare metabolic condition caused by a particularly unusual gene misspelling. Researchers say their attempt to correct the error demonstrates the high level of precision new types of gene editors offer.

The project also highlights what some experts are calling a growing crisis in gene-editing technology. That’s because even though the technology could cure thousands of genetic conditions, most are so rare that companies could never recoup the costs of developing a treatment for them. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

Access to experimental medical treatments is expanding across the US

—Jessica Hamzelou

A couple of weeks ago I was in Washington, DC, for a gathering of scientists, policymakers, and longevity enthusiasts. They had come together to discuss ways to speed along the development of drugs and other treatments that might extend the human lifespan.

One approach that came up was to simply make experimental drugs more easily accessible. Now, the state of Montana has passed a new bill that sets out exactly how clinics can sell experimental, unproven treatments in the state to anyone who wants them.

The passing of the bill could make Montana something of a US hub for experimental treatments. But it represents a wider trend: the creep of Right to Try across the US. And a potentially dangerous departure from evidence-based medicine. Read the full story.

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.

Take a new look at AI’s energy use

Big Tech’s appetite for energy is growing rapidly as adoption of AI accelerates. But just how much energy does even a single AI query use? And what does it mean for the climate?

Join editor in chief Mat Honan, senior climate reporter Casey Crownhart, and AI reporter James O’Donnell at 1.30pm ET on Wednesday May 21 for a subscriber-only Roundtables conversation exploring AI’s energy demands now and in the future. Register here.

The must-reads

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

1 xAI has blamed Grok’s white genocide fixation on an ‘unauthorized modification’
Made by an unnamed employee at 3.15am. (TechCrunch)
+ The topic is one the far-right comes back to again and again. (The Atlantic $)
+ Memphis residents are struggling to live alongside xAI’s supercomputer. (CNBC)

2 Meta has delayed the launch of its next flagship AI model
Its engineers are struggling to improve its Behemoth LLM enough. (WSJ $) 

3 Elon Musk is tapping up friends and allies for federal jobs
It’s creating an unprecedented web of potential conflicts of interests. (WSJ $)
+ Musk is posting on X less than he used to. (Semafor)

4 The US is slashing funding for scientific research
Such projects produced GPS, LASIK eye surgery, and CAPTCHAs. (NYT $)
+ US tech visa applicants are under seriously heavy scrutiny. (Wired $)
+ The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Big Tech wants its AI agents to remember everything about you
They’re focusing on improving chatbots’ memory—but critics are worried. (FT $)
+ AI agents can spontaneously develop human-like behavior. (The Guardian)
+ Generative AI can turn your most precious memories into photos that never existed. (MIT Technology Review)

6 People keep making anti-DEI modifications for The Sims 4
And the gamemaker EA’s attempts to stamp them out aren’t working. (Wired $)

7 This chatbot promises to help you get over your ex 
Closure creates an AI version of ex-partners for users to vent their frustrations at. (404 Media)
+ The AI relationship revolution is already here. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How this AI song became a viral megahit in Japan
YAJU&U is completely inescapable, and totally nonsensical. (Pitchfork)
+ AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Your future overseas trip could be by zeppelin
If these startups get their way. (WP $)
+ Welcome to the big blimp boom. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Are you a ‘dry texter’?
It’s a conflict-averse teen’s worst nightmare. (Vox)

Quote of the day

“It’s OK to be Chinese overseas.”

—Chris Pereira, the CEO of iMpact, a communications firm advising Chinese companies expanding abroad, tells Rest of World that DeepSeek has given Chinese startups the confidence not to hide their origins.

One more thing

We’ve never understood how hunger works. That might be about to change.

When you’re starving, hunger is like a demon. It awakens the most ancient and primitive parts of the brain, then commandeers other neural machinery to do its bidding until it gets what it wants.

Although scientists have had some success in stimulating hunger in mice, we still don’t really understand how the impulse to eat works. Now, some experts are following known parts of the neural hunger circuits into uncharted parts of the brain to try and find out.

Their work could shed new light on the factors that have caused the number of overweight adults worldwide to skyrocket in recent years. And it could also help solve the mysteries around how and why a new class of weight-loss drugs seems to work so well. Read the full story.

—Adam Piore

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.)+ Who knew—Harvard Law School’s Magna Carta may be the real deal after all.
+ Early relatives of reptiles might have walked the Earth much earlier than we realised.
+ New York University’s MFA Students are a talented bunch.
+ The Raines sandwich sounds unspeakably awful

The Download: Montana’s experimental treatments, and Google DeepMind’s new AI agent

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 first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming

The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients.

Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.

The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can

Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well.

The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data

—Casey Crownhart

Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it.

Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters. 

It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story.

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 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in India
The US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)
+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $)

2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide 
In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)
+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)
+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian)

3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical advice
Which begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)
+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)
+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian)

4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles 
Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)
+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal case
A lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)
+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)
+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review)

6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soon
The technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $)
+ Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missiles
And startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)
+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)

8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket
Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $)

9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial moments
Wow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch)

10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neck
And early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $)
+ Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $)

Quote of the day

“To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.”

—Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports.

One more thing

Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?

There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work.

We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

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.)

+ Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn’t disappoint.
+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.
+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.
+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding

The Download: CRISPR in court, and the police’s ban-skirting AI

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.

A US court just put ownership of CRISPR back in play

The CRISPR patents are back in play.

Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier will get another chance to show they ought to own the key patents on what many consider the defining biotechnology invention of the 21st century.

The pair shared a 2020 Nobel Prize for developing the gene-editing system, which is already being used to treat various disorders.

But when US patent rights were granted in 2014 to Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the decision set off a bitter dispute in which hundreds of millions of dollars—as well as scientific bragging rights—are at stake. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

To read more about CRISPR, why not take a look at:

+ Charpentier and Doudna announced they wanted to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe last year. Read the full story.

+ How CRISPR will help the world cope with climate change. Read the full story.

+ The US has approved CRISPR pigs for food. Pigs whose DNA makes them resistant to a virus could be the first big consumer product using gene editing. Read the full story.

+ CRISPR will get easier and easier to administer. What does that mean for the future of our species?

Police tech can sidestep facial recognition bans now

—James O’Donnell

Six months ago I attended the largest gathering of chiefs of police in the US to see how they’re using AI. I found some big developments, like officers getting AI to write their reports. Now, I’ve published a new story that shows just how far AI for police has developed since then.

It’s about a new method police are using to track people: an AI tool that uses attributes like body size, gender, hair color and style, clothing, and accessories instead of faces. It offers a way around laws curbing the use of facial recognition, which are on the rise.

Here’s what this tells us about the development of police tech and what rules, if any, these departments are subject to in the age of AI. Read the full story.

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox 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 Two Trump officials were denied access to the US Copyright Office 
Their visit came days after the administration fired the office’s head. (Wired $)
+ Shira Perlmutter oversaw a report raising concerns about training AI with copyrighted materials. (WP $)

2 Google knew it couldn’t monitor how Israel might use its cloud technology
But it went ahead with Project Nimbus anyway. (The Intercept)

3 Spain still doesn’t know what caused its massive power blackout
Investigators are examining generators’ cyber defences for weaknesses. (FT $)
+ Could solar power be to blame? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Apple is considering hiking the price of iPhones
The company doesn’t want to blame tariffs, though. (WSJ $)
+ Apple boss Tim Cook had a call with Trump following the tariff rollback news. (CNBC)
+ It’s reportedly developing an AI tool to extend phones’ battery life. (Bloomberg $)

5 Venture capitalists aren’t 100% sure what an AI agent is
That isn’t stopping companies from sinking millions into them. (TechCrunch)
+ Google is working on its own agent ahead of its I/O conference. (The Information $)
+ What AI assistants can—and can’t—do. (Vox)
+ Check out our AI agent explainer. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Scammers are stealing the identities of death row inmates
And prisoners are unlikely to see correspondence alerting them to the fraud. (NBC News)

7 Weight-loss drugs aren’t always enough
You need long-term changes in health, not just weight. (The Atlantic $)
+ How is Trump planning to lower drug costs, exactly? (NY Mag $)
+ Drugs like Ozempic now make up 5% of prescriptions in the US. (MIT Technology Review)

8 China’s e-commerce giants are racing to deliver goods within an hour
As competition has intensified, companies are fighting to be the quickest. (Reuters)

9 This spacecraft will police satellites’ orbits
And hunt them down where necessary. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ The world’s biggest space-based radar will measure Earth’s forests from orbit. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Is your beard trimmer broken? Simply 3D-print a new part.
Philips is experimenting with letting its customers create their own replacements. (The Verge)

Quote of the day

“We usually set it up so that our team doesn’t get to creep in.”

—Angie Saltman, founder and president of tech company Saltmedia, explains how her company helps store Indigenous data securely away from the Trump administration, the Verge reports.

One more thing

Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense

Drones have come to define the brutal conflict in Ukraine that has now dragged on for more than three years. And most rely on radio communications—a technology that Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov has obsessed over since childhood.

While Flash is now a civilian, the former officer has still taken it upon himself to inform his country’s defense in all matters related to radio. Once a month, he studies the skies for Russian radio transmissions and tries to learn about the problems facing troops in the fields and in the trenches.

In this race for survival—as each side constantly tries to best the other, only to start all over again when the other inevitably catches up—Ukrainian soldiers need to develop creative solutions, and fast. As Ukraine’s wartime radio guru, Flash may just be one of their best hopes for doing that. Read the full story.

—Charlie Metcalfe

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.)

+ Tune in at any time to the Coral City Camera, an underwater camera streaming live from an urban coral reef in Miami
+ Inhuman Resources, which mixes gaming, reading, and listening, sounds nuts.
+ This compilation of 331 film clips to recreate Eminem’s Lose Yourself is spectacular.
+ Questions I never thought I’d ask: what if Bigfoot were British?