The Download: humans in space, and India’s thorium ambitions

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 case against humans in space

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are bitter rivals in the commercial space race, but they agree on one thing: Settling space is an existential imperative. Space is the place. The final frontier. It is our human destiny to transcend our home world and expand our civilization to extraterrestrial vistas.

This belief has been mainstream for decades, but its rise has been positively meteoric in this new gilded age of astropreneurs.

But as visions of giant orbital stations and Martian cities dance in our heads, a case against human space colonization has found its footing in a number of recent books, from doubts about the practical feasibility of off-Earth communities, to realism about the harsh environment of space and the enormous tax it would exact on the human body. Read the full story.

—Becky Ferreira

This story is from our new print edition, which is all about the future of security. Subscribe here to catch future copies when they land.

This American nuclear company could help India’s thorium dream

For just the second time in nearly two decades, the United States has granted an export license to an American company planning to sell nuclear technology to India, MIT Technology Review has learned. 

The decision to greenlight Clean Core Thorium Energy’s license is a major step toward closer cooperation between the two countries on atomic energy and marks a milestone in the development of thorium as an alternative to uranium for fueling nuclear reactors. Read more about why it’s such a big deal.

—Alexander C. Kaufman

RFK Jr’s plan to improve America’s diet is missing the point

A lot of Americans don’t eat well. And they’re paying for it with their health. A diet high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat can increase the risk of problems like diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease, to name a few. And those are among the leading causes of death in the US.

This is hardly news. But this week Robert F Kennedy Jr., who heads the US Department of Health and Human Services, floated a new solution to the problem: teaching medical students more about the role of nutrition in health could help turn things around.

It certainly sounds like a good idea. If more Americans ate a healthier diet, we could expect to see a decrease in those diseases. 

But this framing of America’s health crisis is overly simplistic, especially given that plenty of the administration’s other actions have directly undermined health in multiple ways—including by canceling a vital nutrition education program. And at any rate, there are other, more effective ways to tackle the chronic-disease crisis. 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 RFK Jr’s deputy has been chosen to be the new acting head of the CDC
Jim O’Neill is likely to greenlight his boss’s federal vaccine policy plans. (WP $)
+ The future of the department looks decidedly precarious. (The Atlantic $)
+ Everything you need to know about Jim O’Neill, the longevity enthusiast who is now RFK Jr.’s right-hand man. (MIT Technology Review)

2 A man killed his mother and himself after conversing with ChatGPT
The chatbot encouraged Stein-Erik Soelberg’s paranoia while repeatedly assuring him he was sane. (WSJ $)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)

3 China is cracking down on excess competition in its AI sector
The country is hellbent on avoiding wasteful investment. (Bloomberg $)
+ China is laser-focused on engineering, not so much on litigating. (Wired $)
+ China built hundreds of AI data centers to catch the AI boom. Now many stand unused. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The EU should be prepared to walk away from a US trade deal
Its competition commissioner worries Trump may act on his threats to target the bloc. (FT $)
+ The French President had a similar warning for his ministers. (Politico)

5 xAI has released a new Grok agentic coding model
At a significantly lower price than its rivals. (Reuters)
+ This no-code website builder has been valued at $2 billion. (TechCrunch)
+ The second wave of AI coding is here. (MIT Technology Review)

6 A US mail change has thrown online businesses into turmoil
All package deliveries are due to face duties from this week. (Insider $)

7 A former DOGE official is running America’s biggest MDMA company
And Antonio Gracias is not the only member of the department with ties to the psychedelics industry. (The Guardian)
+ Other DOGE workers are joining Trump’s new National Design Studio. (Wired $)
+ The FDA said no to the use of MDMA as a therapy last year. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How chatbots fake having personalities
They have no persistent self—despite what they may tell you. (Ars Technica)
+ What is AI? (MIT Technology Review)

9 The future of podcasting is murky
Hundreds of shows have folded. The medium is in desperate need of an archive. (NY Mag $)
+ The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Do we even know what we want to watch anymore?
We’re so reliant on algorithms, it’s hard to know. (New Yorker $)

Quote of the day

“We’re scared for ourselves and for the country.” 

—An anonymous CDC worker tells the New York Times about the mood inside the agency following the firing of their new director Susan Monarez.

One more thing

How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime

Tokelau, a string of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific, is so remote that it was the last place on Earth to be connected to the telephone—only in 1997. Just three years later, the islands received a fax with an unlikely business proposal that would change everything.

It was from an early internet entrepreneur from Amsterdam, named Joost Zuurbier. He wanted to manage Tokelau’s country-code top-level domain, or ccTLD—the short string of characters that is tacked onto the end of a URL—in exchange for money.

In the succeeding years, tiny Tokelau became an unlikely internet giant—but not in the way it may have hoped. Until recently, its .tk domain had more users than any other country’s: a staggering 25 million—but the vast majority were spammers, phishers, and cybercriminals.

Now the territory is desperately trying to clean up .tk. Its international standing, and even its sovereignty, may depend on it. Read the full story.
 
—Jacob Judah

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.)

+ Scientists are using yeast to help save the bees.
+ How to become super productive
+ Why North American mammoths were genetic freaks of nature.
+ I love Seal’s steadfast refusal to explain his lyrics to Kiss from a Rose.

The Download: humans in space, and India’s thorium ambitions

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 case against humans in space

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are bitter rivals in the commercial space race, but they agree on one thing: Settling space is an existential imperative. Space is the place. The final frontier. It is our human destiny to transcend our home world and expand our civilization to extraterrestrial vistas.

This belief has been mainstream for decades, but its rise has been positively meteoric in this new gilded age of astropreneurs.

But as visions of giant orbital stations and Martian cities dance in our heads, a case against human space colonization has found its footing in a number of recent books, from doubts about the practical feasibility of off-Earth communities, to realism about the harsh environment of space and the enormous tax it would exact on the human body. Read the full story.

—Becky Ferreira

This story is from our new print edition, which is all about the future of security. Subscribe here to catch future copies when they land.

This American nuclear company could help India’s thorium dream

For just the second time in nearly two decades, the United States has granted an export license to an American company planning to sell nuclear technology to India, MIT Technology Review has learned. 

The decision to greenlight Clean Core Thorium Energy’s license is a major step toward closer cooperation between the two countries on atomic energy and marks a milestone in the development of thorium as an alternative to uranium for fueling nuclear reactors. Read more about why it’s such a big deal.

—Alexander C. Kaufman

RFK Jr’s plan to improve America’s diet is missing the point

A lot of Americans don’t eat well. And they’re paying for it with their health. A diet high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat can increase the risk of problems like diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease, to name a few. And those are among the leading causes of death in the US.

This is hardly news. But this week Robert F Kennedy Jr., who heads the US Department of Health and Human Services, floated a new solution to the problem: teaching medical students more about the role of nutrition in health could help turn things around.

It certainly sounds like a good idea. If more Americans ate a healthier diet, we could expect to see a decrease in those diseases. 

But this framing of America’s health crisis is overly simplistic, especially given that plenty of the administration’s other actions have directly undermined health in multiple ways—including by canceling a vital nutrition education program. And at any rate, there are other, more effective ways to tackle the chronic-disease crisis. 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 RFK Jr’s deputy has been chosen to be the new acting head of the CDC
Jim O’Neill is likely to greenlight his boss’s federal vaccine policy plans. (WP $)
+ The future of the department looks decidedly precarious. (The Atlantic $)
+ Everything you need to know about Jim O’Neill, the longevity enthusiast who is now RFK Jr.’s right-hand man. (MIT Technology Review)

2 A man killed his mother and himself after conversing with ChatGPT
The chatbot encouraged Stein-Erik Soelberg’s paranoia while repeatedly assuring him he was sane. (WSJ $)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)

3 China is cracking down on excess competition in its AI sector
The country is hellbent on avoiding wasteful investment. (Bloomberg $)
+ China is laser-focused on engineering, not so much on litigating. (Wired $)
+ China built hundreds of AI data centers to catch the AI boom. Now many stand unused. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The EU should be prepared to walk away from a US trade deal
Its competition commissioner worries Trump may act on his threats to target the bloc. (FT $)
+ The French President had a similar warning for his ministers. (Politico)

5 xAI has released a new Grok agentic coding model
At a significantly lower price than its rivals. (Reuters)
+ This no-code website builder has been valued at $2 billion. (TechCrunch)
+ The second wave of AI coding is here. (MIT Technology Review)

6 A US mail change has thrown online businesses into turmoil
All package deliveries are due to face duties from this week. (Insider $)

7 A former DOGE official is running America’s biggest MDMA company
And Antonio Gracias is not the only member of the department with ties to the psychedelics industry. (The Guardian)
+ Other DOGE workers are joining Trump’s new National Design Studio. (Wired $)
+ The FDA said no to the use of MDMA as a therapy last year. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How chatbots fake having personalities
They have no persistent self—despite what they may tell you. (Ars Technica)
+ What is AI? (MIT Technology Review)

9 The future of podcasting is murky
Hundreds of shows have folded. The medium is in desperate need of an archive. (NY Mag $)
+ The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Do we even know what we want to watch anymore?
We’re so reliant on algorithms, it’s hard to know. (New Yorker $)

Quote of the day

“We’re scared for ourselves and for the country.” 

—An anonymous CDC worker tells the New York Times about the mood inside the agency following the firing of their new director Susan Monarez.

One more thing

How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime

Tokelau, a string of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific, is so remote that it was the last place on Earth to be connected to the telephone—only in 1997. Just three years later, the islands received a fax with an unlikely business proposal that would change everything.

It was from an early internet entrepreneur from Amsterdam, named Joost Zuurbier. He wanted to manage Tokelau’s country-code top-level domain, or ccTLD—the short string of characters that is tacked onto the end of a URL—in exchange for money.

In the succeeding years, tiny Tokelau became an unlikely internet giant—but not in the way it may have hoped. Until recently, its .tk domain had more users than any other country’s: a staggering 25 million—but the vast majority were spammers, phishers, and cybercriminals.

Now the territory is desperately trying to clean up .tk. Its international standing, and even its sovereignty, may depend on it. Read the full story.
 
—Jacob Judah

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.)

+ Scientists are using yeast to help save the bees.
+ How to become super productive
+ Why North American mammoths were genetic freaks of nature.
+ I love Seal’s steadfast refusal to explain his lyrics to Kiss from a Rose.

The Download: Google’s AI energy use, and the AI Hype Index

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.

Google’s still not giving us the full picture on AI energy use 

—Casey Crownhart

Google just announced that a typical query to its Gemini app uses about 0.24 watt-hours of electricity. That’s about the same as running a microwave for one second—something that feels insignificant. I run the microwave for many more seconds than that most days.

I welcome more openness from major AI players about their estimated energy use per query. But I’ve noticed that some folks are taking this number and using it to conclude that we don’t need to worry about AI’s energy demand. That’s not the right takeaway here. Let’s dig into why.

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 AI’s energy footprint, earlier this year, MIT Technology Review published Power Hungry: a comprehensive series on AI and energy.

The AI Hype Index: AI-designed antibiotics show promise

Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. Take a look at this month’s edition here.

The must-reads

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

1 The White House has fired the director of the CDC
But Susan Monarez is refusing to go quietly. (WP $)
+ Monarez is said to have clashed with RFK Jr over vaccine policy. (NYT $)
+ She was confirmed by the Senate to the position just last month. (The Guardian)
+ Vaccine consensus is splintering across the US. (Vox)

2 A Chinese hacking campaign hit at least 200 US organizations
Intelligence agencies say the breaches are among the most significant ever. (WP $)
+ AI-generated ransomware is on the rise. (Wired $)

3 Ukraine’s new Flamingo cruise missile took just months to build
Russia’s air defenses are weakening. Can this missile exploit the gaps? (Economist $)
+ 14 people were killed in an overnight bombardment of Kyiv. (BBC)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

4 AI infrastructure spending is boosting the US economy
Companies are throwing so much money at AI hardware it’s lifting the real economy, not just the stock market. (NYT $)
+ How to fine-tune AI for prosperity. (MIT Technology Review)

5 OpenAI and Anthropic safety-tested each other’s AI
They found Claude is a lot more cautious than OpenAI’s mini models. (Engadget)
+ Sycophancy was a repeated issue among OpenAI’s models. (TechCrunch)
+ This benchmark used Reddit’s AITA to test how much AI models suck up to us. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Climate change exacerbated Europe’s deadly wildfires
And fires across the Mediterranean are likely to become more frequent and severe. (BBC)
+ What the collapse of a glacier can teach us. (New Yorker $)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

7 911 centers are using AI to answer calls
It’s helping to triage anything that isn’t urgent. (TechCrunch)

8 Wikipedia has compiled a list of AI writing tropes
But their presence still isn’t a dead giveaway a text has been written by AI. (Fast Company $)
+ AI-text detection tools are really easy to fool. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Melania Trump has launched the Presidential AI Challenge 
But it’s not all that clear what the competition actually is. (NY Mag $)

10 Netflix’s algorithm-appeasing movies are bland and boring
But millions of people will watch them anyway. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“The more you buy, the more you grow.”

—Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang conveniently sees no end to the AI chip spending boom, Reuters reports.

One more thinghttps://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/13/1109922/inside-the-strange-limbo-facing-ivf-embryos/?utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=*|SUBCLASS|*&utm_content=*|DATE:m-d-Y|*

Inside the strange limbo facing millions of IVF embryos

Millions of embryos created through IVF sit frozen in time, stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world, and the number is only growing.

At a basic level, an embryo is simply a tiny ball of a hundred or so cells. But unlike other types of body tissue, it holds the potential for life. Many argue that this endows embryos with a special moral status, one that requires special protections.

The problem is that no one can really agree on what that status is. What do these embryos mean to us? And who should be responsible for them? 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.)

+ Wow, that is one seriously orange shark!
+ TikTok is a proven way to introduce younger generations to older music—and now it’s Radiohead’s turn.
+ Why we’re still going bananas for Donkey Kong after all these years
+ This photo perfectly captures the joy of letting loose at a wedding.

The Download: introducing: the Security issue

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 Security issue

It would be naïve to think we are going back to a world without AI. We’re not. But it’s only one of many urgent problems we need to address to build security and prosperity for coming generations.

The latest print issue of our magazine is all about our attempts to make the world more secure. From missiles. From asteroids. From the unknown. From threats both existential and trivial.

We’re also introducing three new columns in this issue, from some of our leading writers: The Algorithm, which covers AI; The Checkup, on biotech; and The Spark, on energy and climate. You’ll see these in future issues, and you can also subscribe online to get them in your inbox every week. 

Here’s a taster of what else you can expect from this edition:

+ President Trump has proposed building an antimissile “golden dome” around the United States. But do cinematic spectacles actually enhance national security?

+ How two UFO hunting brothers became the go-to experts on America’s “mystery drone” invasion.

+ Both Taiwan’s citi­zens and external experts are worried that the protection afforded by its “silicon shield” is cracking. Read the full story.

+ How the humble pigeon paved the way for today’s advanced AI. Read the full story.

+ A group of Starlink terminal repair volunteers in Ukraine is keeping the country connected throughout the war. Read the full story.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming

Agents are the talk of the AI industry—they’re capable of planning, reasoning, and executing complex tasks on your behalf. But the same sophisticated abilities that make agents helpful assistants could also make them powerful tools for conducting cyberattacks. They could readily be used to identify vulnerable targets, hijack their systems, and steal valuable data from unsuspecting victims.

At present, cybercriminals are not deploying AI agents to hack at scale. But researchers have demonstrated that agents are capable of executing complex attacks, and cybersecurity experts warn that we should expect to start seeing these types of attacks spilling over into the real 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 The family of a teen who died by suicide is suing OpenAI
ChatGPT deterred Adam Raine from seeking help when he desperately needed it. (NYT $)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)

2 SpaceX finally successfully launched its Starship rocket
Which will come as a huge relief after previous failures. (CNBC)
+ It’s the 10th launch the spaceship has made. (WSJ $)
+ It managed to deploy satellites in space during the launch. (Bloomberg $)

3 Researchers are already leaving Meta’s AI lab
Two workers returned to OpenAI after less than a month. (Wired $)

4 China wants to triple its output of AI chips
Plants are working round the clock to increase their capacity. (FT $)
+ The country is also keen to repurpose NASA tech into a hypersonic drone mothership. (Fast Company $)

5 Elon Musk can’t get enough of Grok’s scantily-clad AI assistant
He frequently posts about ‘Ani’ and other sexualized AI cartoons on X. (Rolling Stone $)

6 Anthropic has settled its AI piracy lawsuit
A group of authors had accused it of copyright infringement. (The Verge)
+ The threat of $1 trillion damages could have ruined the company. (Wired $)

7 America’s electricity use is slowing
And the recent growth in coal usage is falling too. (Ars Technica)
+ In a first, Google has released data on how much energy an AI prompt uses. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Want to get hired straight out of college? Better work in AI.
While other graduates are struggling, newly-graduated AI experts are in demand. (WSJ $)

9 Older people in South Korea are finding companionship with robots
The Hydol robot is proving a hit among seniors. (Rest of World)
+ How cuddly robots could change dementia care. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Fans were betting on Taylor Swift’s engagement
They’re cashing in from online prediction markets left, right and center. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“A lot of people in the AI team maybe feel things are too dynamic.”

—Chi-Hao Wu, a former AI specialist at Meta, explains to Insider why he and others have decided to leave the company.

One more thing

An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it

For five months, Al Nowatzki had been talking to an AI girlfriend, “Erin,” on the platform Nomi. But earlier this year, those conversations took a disturbing turn: Erin told him to kill himself, and provided explicit instructions on how to do it.

Nowatzki had never had any intention of following Erin’s instructions—he’s a researcher who probes chatbots’ limitations and dangers. But out of concern for more vulnerable individuals, he exclusively shared with MIT Technology Review screenshots of his conversations and of subsequent correspondence with a company representative, who stated that the company did not want to “censor” the bot’s “language and thoughts.”

This is not the first time an AI chatbot has suggested that a user take violent action, including self-harm. But researchers and critics say that the bot’s explicit instructions—and the company’s response—are striking. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

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 secret to finding that elusive perfect white t-shirt.
+ Interesting: a new Blade Runner TV series starring Michelle Yeoh is coming next year.
+ If you’ve ever wondered what happened to that suitcase you lost on vacation, there’s a decent chance it’s up for sale.
+ Down with junk mail!

The Download: Google’s AI energy expenditure, and handing over DNA data to the police

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.

In a first, Google has released data on how much energy an AI prompt uses

Google has just released a report detailing how much energy its Gemini apps use for each query. In total, the median prompt—one that falls in the middle of the range of energy demand—consumes 0.24 watt-hours of electricity, the equivalent of running a standard microwave for about one second. The company also provided average estimates for the water consumption (five drops per query) and carbon emissions associated with a text prompt to Gemini.

It’s the most transparent estimate yet from a Big Tech company with a popular AI product, and the report includes detailed information about how the company calculated its final estimate.

Earlier this year, MIT Technology Review published a comprehensive series on AI and energy, at which time none of the major AI companies would reveal their per-prompt energy usage. Google’s new publication, at last, allows for a peek behind the curtain that researchers and analysts have long hoped for. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

I gave the police access to my DNA—and maybe some of yours

Last year, I added my DNA profile to a private genealogical database, FamilyTreeDNA, and clicked “Yes” to allow the police to search my genes.

In 2018, police in California announced they’d caught the Golden State Killer, a man who had eluded capture for decades. Once the police had “matches” to a few relatives of the killer, they built a large family tree from which they plucked the likely suspect.

This process, called forensic investigative genetic genealogy, or FIGG, has since helped solve hundreds of murders and sexual assaults.

But I wasn’t really driven by some urge to capture distantly related serial killers. Rather, my spit had a less gallant and more quarrelsome motive: to troll privacy advocates whose fears around DNA I think are overblown and unhelpful. By giving up my saliva for inspection, I was going against the view that a person’s DNA is the individualized, sacred text that privacy advocates sometimes claim. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

This article 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.

Meet the researcher hosting a scientific conference by and for AI

In October, a new academic conference will debut that’s unlike any other. All of the work shared at Agents4Science will have been researched, written, and reviewed primarily by AI, and will be presented using text-to-speech technology. 

That idea is not without its detractors. Among other issues, many feel AI is not capable of the creative thought needed in research, makes too many mistakes and hallucinations, and may limit opportunities for young researchers. 

Nevertheless, a number of scientists and policymakers are very keen on the promise of AI scientists—and some even think they could unlock scientific discoveries that humans could never find alone. Read the full story.

—Peter Hall

The must-reads

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

1 Elon Musk tried to persuade Mark Zuckerberg to buy OpenAI
But the bid was rejected earlier this year. (Insider $)
+ OpenAI is asking Meta for evidence of any coordinated plans. (TechCrunch)
+ I’m guessing the cage fight is still off then. (FT $)

2 AI giants are seeking real-world data that can’t be scraped from the internet
It’s a bid to make their models more accurate and to find new use cases. (Rest of World)

3 Russia’s state-backed messenger app will be preinstalled on all phones
Critics say the MAX app is essentially a government spy tool. (Reuters)
+ Around 18 million people have registered to use it so far. (CNN)
+ How Russia killed its tech industry. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The Trump administration is refusing to fully fund a major HIV program
It’s ignoring a directive from Congress to withhold around $3 billion. (NYT $)
+ HIV could infect 1,400 infants every day because of US aid disruptions. (MIT Technology Review)

5 How Trump decides which chip companies may have to give up equity
Increasing your investments in the US? You’re off the hook. (WSJ $)
+ America-first chipmaking remains a fantasy, though. (Economist $)
+ Experts think Trump’s unconventional Intel deal may backfire. (Wired $)
+ DeepSeek’s new AI model is compatible with Chinese-made chips. (FT $)

6 The EU is speeding up its plans for a digital euro
It’s considering running it on a public blockchain, to experts’ concern. (FT $)
+ Is the digital dollar dead? (MIT Technology Review)

7 We don’t have to open new mines to obtain minerals for clean energy
Although we have to get better at using the material we do mine. (New Scientist $)
+ How one mine could unlock billions in EV subsidies. (MIT Technology Review)

8 This newly-discovered gene could usher in new chronic pain treatments
One day, cutting out certain foods could lessen discomfort. (Economist $)
+ The pain is real. The painkillers are virtual reality. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Why Africa is buying so many solar panels
It’s not just its more affluent nations snapping them up, either. (Wired $)
+ The race to get next-generation solar technology on the market. (MIT Technology Review)

10 How families are using AI to run their households
No more quibbling over meal planning. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“If AGI doesn’t come to pass sometime soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing pops.”

—Bhavya Kashyap, an angel investor, tells Insider why investors are fuelling a risky bubble by rushing to buy stocks in the hottest AI companies.

One more thing

How AI is changing gymnastics judging

The 2023 World Championships last October marked the first time an AI judging system was used on every apparatus in a gymnastics competition. There are obvious upsides to using this kind of technology: AI could help take the guesswork out of the judging technicalities. It could even help to eliminate biases, making the sport both more fair and more transparent.

At the same time, others fear AI judging will take away something that makes gymnastics special. Gymnastics is a subjective sport, like diving or dressage, and technology could eliminate the judges’ role in crafting a narrative.

For better or worse, AI has officially infiltrated the world of gymnastics. The question now is whether it really makes it fairer. Read the full story.

—Jessica Taylor Price

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.)

+ Finally, some good news—a sweet little Australian marsupial called an ampurta is no longer endangered (thanks Glen!)
+ What would a GTA set in London look like?
+ Why glass houses aren’t all they’re cracked up to be (geddit?)
+ Over in Denmark, there’s a national competition encouraging cities to get rid of their gray concrete tiles and replace them with peaceful green spaces (thanks Alice!)

The Download: pigeons’ role in developing AI, and Native artists’ tech interpretations

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.

Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs

People looking for precursors to artificial intelligence often point to science fiction by authors like Isaac Asimov or thought experiments like the Turing test. But an equally important, if surprising and less appreciated, forerunner is American psychologist B.F. Skinner’s research with pigeons in the middle of the 20th century.

Skinner believed that association—learning, through trial and error, to link an action with a punishment or reward—was the building block of every behavior, not just in pigeons but in all living organisms, including human beings.

His “behaviorist” theories fell out of favor with psychologists and animal researchers in the 1960s but were taken up by computer scientists who eventually provided the foundation for many of the artificial-intelligence tools from leading firms like Google and OpenAI. Read the full story.

—Ben Crair

This story is from our forthcoming print issue, which is all about security. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

Indigenous knowledge meets artificial intelligence

There is no word for art in most Native American languages. Instead, the closest terms speak not to objecthood but to action and intention. Art is not separate from life; it is ceremony, instruction, design.

A new vanguard of Native artists are building on this principle. They are united not by stereotypical weaving and carving or revanchist critique of Silicon Valley, but through their rejection of extractive data models in favor of relationship-based systems. Read the full story.

—Petala Ironcloud

The must-reads

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

1 Anthropic has a plan to combat harmful chatbot conversations
Its latest AI models now have the ability to cut off a chat as a last resort. (Engadget)
+ But it’s not to protect the user—it’s to protect the model, apparently. (TechCrunch)
+ The company has also updated its policy to ban the development of weapons. (The Verge)

2 CEOs want their workers to embrace AI
Even if they’re struggling to get to grips with it themselves. (NYT $)

3 How cuts to NASA could damage public health research
Its essential tracking data is under threat. (Undark)
+ 8,000 pregnant women may die because of US aid cuts to reproductive care. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Churning out AI slop videos is a lucrative business
It’s a seriously low-effort, high-reward enterprise. (WP $)
+ Addictive, low-quality soap operas are rife on TikTok, too. (The Guardian)
+ China’s next cultural export could be TikTok-style short soap operas. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Stage-four cancer patients are living for longer
But they’re also facing long, uncertain treatments with ongoing side effects. (WSJ $)
+ Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review)

6 AI is hackers’ most valuable new tool
It’s supercharging criminals who were already extremely proficient. (NBC News)
+ Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming. (MIT Technology Review)

7 A tiny Californian startup now owns Europe’s biggest battery giant
Northvolt’s future looked bright—until it wasn’t. (The Information $)
+ This startup wants to use the Earth as a massive battery. (MIT Technology Review)

8 China is going wild for podcasts
A grassroots movement is highlighting social issues and highly personal stories. (FT $)

9 How to turn seaweed into biofuel
The Gulf of Mexico’s beaches are covered in it—and these entrepreneurs have a plan. (Wired $)
+ The hope and hype of seaweed farming for carbon removal. (MIT Technology Review)

10 The robot Olympics’ athletes fell over a lot
It’s all part of teaching them how to navigate the world more efficiently. (CNN)
+ Some of them were more successful than others. (NYT $)
+ To be more useful, robots need to become lazier. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Pretend-me is doing better than the real me in all the years of social media that I’ve been trying to do this.”

—Tracy Fetter, an artist and occasional stand-up comedian, explains why she has no regrets in allowing her likeness to be used in an AI TikTok avatar to the New York Times.

One more thing

How to fine-tune AI for prosperity

Predictions abound on how the growing list of generative AI models will transform the way we work and organize our lives, providing instant advice on everything from financial investments to where to spend your next vacation.

But for economists, the most critical question around our obsession with AI is how the fledgling technology will (or won’t) boost overall productivity, and if it does, how long it will take. Can the technology lead to renewed prosperity after years of stagnant economic growth? Read the full story.

—David Rotman

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 world’s first video rental store is a lot older than you might think.
+ Here’s what all those unread books lying around your home are trying to tell you.
+ Need more energy to get through the day? These foods can help.
+ This wild hamster is just too cute.

The Download: Trump’s golden dome, and fueling AI with nuclear power

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.

Why Trump’s “golden dome” missile defense idea is another ripped straight from the movies

Within a week of his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order to develop “The Iron Dome for America” (rebranded the “Golden Dome” a month later.) The eruption of a revived conflict between Israel and Iran in June has only strengthened the case for an American version of the Iron Dome in the eyes of the administration.

Trump has often expressed admiration for Israel’s Iron Dome, an air defense system that can intercept short-range rockets and artillery over the small nation and that is funded in part by the United States.

But in the complicated security landscape confronting the world today, is spectacle the same as safety? Read the full story.

—Becky Ferreira

This story is from our forthcoming print issue, which is all about security. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Can nuclear power really fuel the rise of AI?

In the AI arms race, all the major players say they want to go nuclear.

Over the past year, the likes of Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have sent out a flurry of announcements related to nuclear energy. Some are about agreements to purchase power from existing plants, while others are about investments looking to boost unproven advanced technologies.

These somewhat unlikely partnerships could be a win for both the nuclear power industry and large tech companies. But there’s one glaring potential roadblock: timing.

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 has restored GPT-4o as the default for paying users
And Sam Altman has promised “plenty of notice” if other changes are made. (VentureBeat)
+ The GPT-5 rollout has been plagued with issues. (WSJ $)

2 Perplexity has offered to buy Chrome for $34.5 billion
That’s way more money than Perplexity itself is worth. (WSJ $)
+ The company is definitely shooting its shot. (TechCrunch)
+ However, none of the deals it floats generally come to fruition. (The Information $)

3 A US appeals court has permitted DOGE to access sensitive citizen data
It rejected unions’ attempt to block it on privacy grounds. (WP $)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

4 US military officials are preparing to launch security satellites into space
After over a decade in highly secretive development and testing. (Ars Technica)

5 Scientists want to test a carbon removal project in the Gulf of Maine
To see whether the ocean can be engineered to absorb more carbon. (Undark)
+ Seaweed farming for carbon dioxide capture would take up too much of the ocean. (MIT Technology Review)

6 UK traffic to porn sites has plummeted
Ever since the country introduced age-checking measures. (FT $)

7 AI eroded doctors’ ability to spot cancer
Their ability to spot tumors fell by around 20% within just a few months of adopting it. (Bloomberg $)
+ And their skills degraded pretty quickly—within months. (Time $)
+ Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The UK is asking residents to delete emails during a drought
In a bid to save water used to cool data centers. (404 Media)
+ Needless to say, there are far easier ways to save water. (The Verge)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Hair loss may be becoming a thing of the past
What’s next for Jeff Bezos? (NY Mag $)

10 Your old electronics could contain a tiny hidden doodle
A passionate group of collectors are trying to seek out the chip etchings. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“It’s so sad to hear users say, ‘Please can I have it back? I’ve never had anyone in my life be supportive of me. I never had a parent tell me I was doing a good job.’”

—Sam Altman explains why some users have requested the company return ChatGPT to its previous more sycophantic ways, Insider reports.

One more thing

Palmer Luckey on the Pentagon’s future of mixed reality

Palmer Luckey has, in some ways, come full circle.

His first experience with virtual-reality headsets was as a teenage lab technician at a defense research center in Southern California, studying their potential to curb PTSD symptoms in veterans. He then built Oculus, sold it to Facebook for $2 billion, left Facebook after a highly public ousting, and founded Anduril, which focuses on drones, cruise missiles, and other AI-enhanced technologies for the US Department of Defense. The company is now valued at $14 billion.

Now Luckey is redirecting his energy again, to headsets for the military. He spoke to MIT Technology Review about his plans. Read the full interview.

—James O’Donnell

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.)

+ Take a look at these ancient sites that might, just might, have been built by aliens
+ What to take to a BBQ if you fancy emulating the cooking greats.
+ This fun site swaps the captions on different comics.
+ Bring back the drumulator, I say.

The Download: OpenAI’s open-weight models, and the future of internet search

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 has finally released open-weight language models

The news: OpenAI has finally released its first open-weight large language models since 2019’s GPT-2. Unlike the models available through OpenAI’s web interface, these new open models can be freely downloaded, run, and even modified on laptops and other local devices.

Why it matters: These releases re-establish OpenAI as a presence for users of open models. That’s particularly notable at a time when Meta, which had previously dominated the American open-model landscape with its Llama models, may be reorienting toward closed releases—and when Chinese open models are becoming more popular than their American competitors. Read the full story. 

—Grace Huckins

MIT Technology Review Narrated: AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it

The biggest change to the way search engines deliver information to us since the 1990s is happening right now. No more keyword searching. Instead, you can ask questions in natural language. And instead of links, you’ll increasingly be met with answers written by generative AI and based on live information from across the internet, delivered the same way.

Not everyone is excited for the change. Publishers are completely freaked out. And people are also worried about what these new LLM-powered results will mean for our fundamental shared reality.

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish 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 Nvidia insists its AI chips don’t have a “kill switch”
After China’s Cyberspace Administration asked for security documentation. (CNBC)
+ The country’s ambitions to consolidate its chip giants aren’t going to plan. (FT $)
+ Two Chinese nationals have been charged with illegally shipping chips. (Reuters)

2 America’s new data centers are driving colossal electricity demand
And a handful of equipment makers are reaping the benefits. (FT $)
+ We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. (MIT Technology Review)

3 RFK Jr has cancelled close to $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts 
Which could leave us dangerously underprepared for a future pandemic. (Politico)
+ We’re losing a key insight into global health. (Vox)
+ How measuring vaccine hesitancy could help health professionals tackle it. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Uber has a sexual assault problem
Newly-unveiled records show it gathered far more sexual assault and misconduct reports than previously revealed. (NYT $)

5 A British politician created an AI clone of himself
And although it provoked a backlash, other MPs may follow his lead. (WP $)
+ A former CNN journalist has interviewed an AI version of a mass-shooting victim. (The Guardian)

6 xAI’s new Grok Imagine tool has a “spicy” mode
Which seems to be code for non-consensual porn images. (The Verge)  
+ It’s already generated fake Taylor Swift nudes without being asked. (Ars Technica)

7 How does ChatGPT fare as a couple’s counselor?
It gets some stuff right. But it also gets some things really wrong. (NPR)
+ The AI relationship revolution is already here. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Syria’s refugees are returning to rebuild its tech industry
But sectarian violence and poor connectivity mean it’s an uphill battle. (Rest of World)

9 Sales of Ozempic have dropped
Rival Mounjaro seems to be more effective. (The Guardian)
+ We’re learning more about what weight-loss drugs do to the body. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Google Calendar rules college kids’ lives
They schedule everything from assignments to parties and hook ups. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“This is a bad day for science.”

—Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, criticizes the Department of Health and Human Services’ decision to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for mRNA vaccine projects, the New York Times reports.

One more thing

Future space food could be made from astronaut breath

The future of space food could be as simple—and weird—as a protein shake made with astronaut breath or a burger made from fungus.

For decades, astronauts have relied mostly on pre-packaged food during their forays off our planet. With missions beyond Earth orbit in sight, a NASA-led competition is hoping to change all that and usher in a new era of sustainable space food.

To solve the problem of feeding astronauts on long-duration missions, NASA asked companies to propose novel ways to develop sustainable foods for future missions. Around 200 rose to the challenge—creating nutritious (and outlandish) culinary creations in the process. Read the full story. 

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

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.)

+ There are a lot of funny cat videos out there but honestly, this is top-drawer.
+ Check out this adorable website where people share what they see in clouds.
+ Babe you’re glowing! No seriously, you literally are. 
+ I loved watching this woman from London’s East End wax lyrical about the dawn of TV.

The Download: AI agent infrastructure, and OpenAI’s ambitions

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.

These protocols will help AI agents navigate our messy lives

A growing number of companies are launching AI agents that can do things on your behalf—actions like sending an email, making a document, or editing a database. Initial reviews for these agents have been mixed at best, though, because they struggle to interact with all the different components of our digital lives.

Anthropic and Google are among the companies and groups working to fix that. Over the past year, they have both introduced protocols that try to define how AI agents should interact with each other and the world around them. If they work as planned, they could give us a crucial part of the infrastructure we need for agents to be useful. Read our story to learn more. 

—Peter Hall

A glimpse into OpenAI’s largest ambitions

—James O’Donnell

OpenAI has given itself a dual mandate: on the one hand, it’s a tech giant rooted in products, including of course ChatGPT, which people around the world reportedly send 2.5 billion messages to each day. But its original mission is as a research lab that will not only create “artificial general intelligence” but ensure that it benefits all of humanity. 

My colleague Will Douglas Heaven recently sat down for an exclusive conversation with the two figures at OpenAI most responsible for the latter ambitions. The whole story is worth reading for all it reveals—about how OpenAI thinks about the safety of its products, what AGI actually means, and more—but here’s one thing that stood out to me.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter all about the latest goings-on in AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

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

1 OpenAI is adding mental health guardrails to ChatGPT
It’s set to give less direct advice, and encourage users to take breaks from lengthy chats. (NBC)
+ What happens when doctors fail to spot AI’s mistakes? (The Verge)
+ OpenAI has released its first research into how using ChatGPT affects people’s emotional well-being. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The US wants to build a nuclear reactor on the moon
And it hopes to do that before Russia and China, who are planning to do exactly the same. (Politico)
+ NASA’s latest mission to the moon just failed. (Engadget)
+ Nokia is putting the first cellular network on the moon. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How to live forever (or at least get rich trying) 
Love them or hate them, the people behind the explosion in longevity research are a fascinating bunch. (New Yorker $)
+ Longevity clinics around the world are selling unproven treatments. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Welcome to Silicon Valley’s ‘hard tech’ era
Goodbye, consumer software. Hello, massive military contracts. (NYT $)
+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)

5 There’s a big problem with the Gulf’s trillion-dollar AI dream
Building data centers in a region that already has water scarcity issues seems…unwise. (Rest of Water)
+ There’s a data center boom in the US desert too. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Google has promised to scale back its energy usage during certain times to reduce stress on the grid. (Quartz $)

6 Tesla’s board awarded about $30 billion of shares to Elon Musk
“Retaining Elon is more important than ever before,” they wrote in a letter to shareholders yesterday. (FT $)
+ Tech CEOs pay packets are reaching stratospheric new records. (WSJ $)

7 What happens if you respond to those scam job texts?
You get exploited, obviously—but you’d be surprised just how weird it can get along the way. (Slate)

8 Why there’s so much uproar over Vogue’s AI-generated ad
It’s the latest flashpoint in the war over when AI should (and shouldn’t) be used. (TechCrunch)

9 Earth’s core seems to be up and leaking out of Earth’s surface 
It’s a finding that’s forcing geoscientists to rethink some long-held assumptions. (Quanta $)
+ How a volcanic eruption turned a human brain into glass. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Could lasers help us see inside people’s heads?
It seems possible, but big hurdles remain to this new method being adopted in clinical settings. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

 “Hate it! Don’t want anything to do with it.”

—Weezy Simes, a 27-year-old florist, sums up her feelings about AI to Business Insider.

One more thing

ANDREA D’AQUINO

What happened to the microfinance organization Kiva?

Since it was founded in 2005, the San Francisco-based nonprofit Kiva has helped everyday people make microloans to borrowers around the world. It connects lenders in richer communities to fund all sorts of entrepreneurs, from bakers in Mexico to farmers in Albania. Its overarching aim is helping poor people help themselves.

But back in August 2021, Kiva lenders started to notice that information that felt essential in deciding who to lend to was suddenly harder to find. Now, lenders are worried that the organization now seems more focused on how to make money than how to create change. Read the full story.

—Mara Kardas-Nelson

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 this guy to draw my portrait. 
+ Highly recommend making these lemongrass chicken lettuce wraps. So tasty and easy!
+ This encyclopedia teaches you about ancient gods and forgotten deities from around the world.
+ Some of the architecture in Iran looks breathtakingly beautiful.

The Download: fixing ‘evil’ AI, and the White House’s war on science

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.

Forcing LLMs to be evil during training can make them nicer in the long run

Large language models have recently acquired a reputation for behaving badly. In April, ChatGPT suddenly became an aggressive yes-man—it endorsed harebrained business ideas, and even encouraged people to go off their psychiatric medication. More recently, xAI’s Grok adopted what can best be described as a 4chan neo-Nazi persona and repeatedly referred to itself as “MechaHitler” on X. 

Both changes were quickly reversed—but why did they happen at all? And how do we stop AI going off the rails like this? 

A new study from Anthropic suggests that traits such as sycophancy or evilness are associated with specific patterns of activity in large language models—and turning on those patterns during training can, paradoxically, prevent the model from adopting the related traits. Read the full story. 

—Grace Huckins

Read more of our top stories about AI:

+ Five things you need to know about AI right now. 

+ Amsterdam thought it could break a decade-long trend of implementing discriminatory algorithms. Its failure raises the question: can AI programs ever be made fair? Read our story. 

+ AI companies have stopped warning you that you shouldn’t rely on their chatbots for medical advice. 

+ We’re starting to give AI agents real autonomy. But are they really ready for it? 

+ What even is AI? Everyone thinks they know, but no one can agree. Here’s why that’s a problem.

The must-reads

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

1 The US is losing its scientific supremacy
Money and talent are starting to leave as a hostile White House ramps up its attacks. (The Atlantic $)
+ The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Global markets are swooning again 
New tariffs, weak jobs data, and Trump’s decision to fire a top economic official are not going down well. (Reuters $)

3 Big Tech is turning into Big Infrastructure
Capital expenditure on AI contributed more to US economic growth in the last two quarters than all consumer spending, which is kind of wild. (WSJ $)
+ But are they likely to get a return on their huge investments? (FT $)

4 OpenAI pulled a feature that let you see strangers’ conversations with ChatGPT 
They’d opted in to sharing them—but may well have not realized that’d mean their chats would be indexed on Google Search. (TechCrunch) 

5 Tesla has to pay $243 million over the role Autopilot played in a fatal crash
The plaintiffs successfully argued that the company’s promises about its tech can lull drivers into a false sense of security. (NBC)

6 Tech workers in China are desperate to learn AI skills
And they’re assuaging their anxiety with online courses, though they say they vary in quality. (Rest of World) 
+ Chinese universities want students to use more AI, not less. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Russia is escalating its crackdown on online freedoms 
There are growing fears that it’s planning to ban WhatsApp and Telegram. (NYT $)

8 People are using AI to write obituaries
But what do we lose when we outsource expressing our emotions to a machine? (WP $)
+ Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Just seeing a sick person triggers your immune response
This is a pretty cool finding —and the study was conducted in virtual reality too. (Nature)

10 The US has recorded the longest lightning flash ever 
A “mega-flash” over the Great Plains stretched to about 515 miles! (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab.”

 —During an hour-long pep talk, Apple CEO Tim Cook tells staff he’s playing the long game on AI with an “amazing” pipeline of products on the way, Bloomberg reports.

One more thing

MICHAEL BYERS

Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.

The problem of plastic waste hides in plain sight, a ubiquitous part of our lives we rarely question. But a closer examination of the situation is shocking.

To date, humans have created around 11 billion metric tons of plastic, the vast majority of which ends up in landfills or the environment. Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled.

To make matters worse, plastic production is growing dramatically; in fact, half of all plastics in existence have been produced in just the last two decades.

So what do we do? Sadly, solutions such as recycling and reuse aren’t equal to the scale of the task. The only answer is drastic cuts in production in the first place. Read the full story. 

—Douglas Main

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 Alien TV series sounds fantastic.
+ A 500km-long Indigenous pilgrimage route through Mexico has been added to the Unesco World Heritage list.
+ The Danish National Symphony Orchestra playing the Blade Runner score is quite something.
+ It’s not too late to spice up your summer with an icebox cake.