The Download: offshore rocket launches, and how DOGE plans to use 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.

The dream of offshore rocket launches is finally blasting off

Want to send something to space? Get in line. The demand for rides off Earth is skyrocketing, with launches more than doubling over the past four years, from about 100 to 250 annually. That number is projected to spiral further up, fueled by an epic growth spurt in the commercial space sector.

To relieve the congestion, some mission planners are looking to the ocean as the next big gateway to space. But sea-based launches come with some unique regulatory, geopolitical, and environmental trade-offs. They also offer a glimpse of new technologies and industries, enabled by a potentially limitless launch capacity, that could profoundly reshape our lives. Read the full story. 

—Becky Ferreira

Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex.

No tech leader before has played the role in a new presidential administration that Elon Musk is playing now. Under his leadership, DOGE has entered offices in a half-dozen agencies and counting, accessed various payment systems, had its access to the Treasury halted by a federal judge, and sparked lawsuits questioning the legality of the group’s activities.  

The stated goal of DOGE’s actions is “slashing waste, fraud, and abuse.” So where is fraud happening, and could AI models fix it, as DOGE staffers hope? Read our story to find out. 

—James O’Donnell

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things 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 Elon Musk is leading an unsolicited bid to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion
This is an escalation in his long-running feud with CEO Sam Altman, but it may well come to nothing. (WSJ $)
+ The timing is annoying for Altman, as he’s in the middle of complex restructuring negotiations. (FT $)
+ Still, he says he’s confident OpenAI’s board is going to reject Musk’s offer. (The Information $)

2 What we’re learning from the AI Action Summit in Paris
As tech companies ship AI products relentlessly, policymakers still haven’t got a clue how to respond. (NYT $)

3 A federal judge blocked NIH cuts to research grants
A hearing has been set for February 21. (STAT $)
+ Why the cuts would be so devastating, according to the scientists who’d be affected. (Scientific American $)

4 AI chatbots cannot accurately summarize news
A study of leading models found 51% of their answers to questions about the news had ‘significant issues’. (BBC)
+ The tendency to make things up is holding chatbots back. But that’s just what they do. (MIT Technology Review)

5 BYD is bringing advanced self-driving to its cars
Including even the cheapest models. (FT $)
+ Analysts expect this to solidify the company’s position as China’s top EV maker. (South China Morning Post)
+ Why the world’s biggest EV maker is getting into shipping. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Meanwhile in the US, the next big robotaxi push is underway. (Quartz)

6 Trump is imposing 25% tariffs on foreign steel
You may recall he did this during his last term, and ended up having to roll it back. (NYT $)

7 A Silicon Valley job isn’t as desirable as it used to be 
Multiple rounds of layoffs have really broken employees’ trust in their superiors. (WP $)

8 Google Maps now shows the ‘Gulf of America’
Unless you live in Mexico! (The Verge)

9 Can the human body endure a voyage to Mars? 
Space travel exacts an extremely high physical toll on even the fittest astronauts. (New Yorker $)
+ Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer? (MIT Technology Review)

10 Thinking of re-playing the Sims? Maybe don’t.
25 years on, it feels a bit like a psyop to prepare millennials for the capitalist grind. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

—Sam Altman responds on X to news that Elon Musk is leading an unsolicited bid to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion.

The big story

This sci-fi blockchain game could help create a metaverse that no one owns

DARK FOREST VIA DFWIKI

November 2022

Dark Forest is a vast universe, and most of it is shrouded in darkness. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to venture into the unknown, avoid being destroyed by opposing players who may be lurking in the dark, and build an empire of the planets you discover and can make your own.

But while the video game seemingly looks and plays much like other online strategy games, it doesn’t rely on the servers running other popular online strategy games. And it may point to something even more profound: the possibility of a metaverse that isn’t owned by a big tech company. 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.)

+ Tiles can be such a beautiful artform. Just ask the Portuguese!
+ Here are some quick ways to jumpstart your energy levels.
+ I’m obsessed with spicy smacked cucumbers. Turns out, they’re easy to make at home.
+ Aww… This little boy and his Dad managed to visit every city in England by train last year.

The Download: DOGE’s influences, and rescuing federal data from deletion

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 documents are influencing the DOGE-sphere’s agenda 

Reports from the US Government Accountability Office on improper federal payments in recent years are circulating on X and elsewhere online, and they seem to be a big influence on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its supporters as the group pursues cost-cutting measures across the federal government. 

The documents don’t offer a crystal ball into Musk’s plans, but they suggest a blueprint, or at least an indicator, of where his newly formed and largely unaccountable task force is looking to make cuts. Here’s what we know so far. 

—James O’Donnell

Inside the race to archive the US government’s websites

Over the past three weeks, the new US presidential administration has taken down thousands of government web pages, as part of a push to remove information related to diversity and “gender ideology,” as well as scrutiny of various agencies’ practices. 

But as government web pages go dark, a collection of organizations are trying to archive as much data and information as possible before it’s gone for good. The hope is to keep a record of what has been lost for scientists and historians to be able to use in the future. Read our story about what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it. 

—Scott J Mulligan

The must-reads

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

1 The Trump administration is slashing billions in biomedical research funding 
The change, effective immediately, is sending shockwaves through academia. Expect lawsuits. (STAT $)
+ Scientists are also increasingly alarmed about the fact that federal health data is disappearing. (Undark)
+ A prominent US scientific society is facing a backlash from members after removing references to diversity on its website. (Nature)

2 Computing experts are seriously alarmed by DOGE’s behavior
The systems they’re tinkering with are immense, they are complex, and they are critical. (The Atlantic $)
+ Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper Problem. (MIT Technology Review)
+ A federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury records. (AP)
+ Secrecy is becoming one of DOGE’s defining traits. (NBC)

3 OpenAI’s agent can spend your money without your consent 
All the reviews of Operator seem to indicate it’s been launched way before it’s ready. (WP $)
+ Anthropic’s chief scientist on 4 ways agents will be even better in 2025. (MIT Technology Review)

4 There’s a growing measles outbreak in one of Texas’ least vaccinated counties
The saddest thing about this is how totally avoidable it is. (Ars Technica)
+ To tackle vaccine hesitancy, first we should measure it. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The US Transportation Department suspended its EV charger program
Tesla is one of its biggest beneficiaries, so Musk can’t be too thrilled about this. (Insider $) 

6 DeepMind’s AI can tackle math problems on a par with top human solvers
AlphaGeometry 2 can reportedly surpass the average gold medallist in the International Mathematical Olympiad. (Nature)
+ It’s a major step forward from even just one year ago. (MIT Technology Review) 

7 What DeepSeek’s success tells us about China’s AI talent
Its top researchers are just as educated as in the US. But they operate under huge constraints.  (NYT $)
+ How China stands to benefit from the US’s retreat from soft power. (New Yorker $)

8 Location-sharing is increasingly a deal-breaker in relationships
But is it really reducing people’s anxiety? Or is it fuelling it? (WSJ $)

9 Here’s an idea for how to make the Vision Pro even less appealing 
Add crocs! (The Verge)

10 Inside the fraught US-Soviet hunt for extraterrestrial life
Now that’s a frontier of the Cold War you don’t hear as much about. (New Yorker $) 

Quote of the day

“Red states have universities too.”

—An anonymous Trump official worries to the Washington Post about blowback after the sudden withdrawal of National Institutes of Health research funding.

The big story

Why can’t tech fix its gender problem?

<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/11/1056917/tech-fix-gender-problem/?utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=<>&utm_content=02-10-2025&mc_cid=1189fcc54d&mc_eid=UNIQID”>

GETTY IMAGES

August 2022

The tech sector is mostly a straight, white man’s world. But it wasn’t always this way. Software programming once was an almost entirely female profession. As recently as 1980, women held 70% of the programming jobs in Silicon Valley, but the ratio has since flipped entirely.

While many things contributed to the shift, from the educational pipeline to the tiresomely persistent fiction of tech as a gender-blind “meritocracy,” none explain it entirely. Here’s what really lies at the core of tech’s gender problem.

—Margaret O’Mara

We can still have nice things

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

+ You should probably say ‘no’ more. Here’s how to do it nicely. 
+ Here’s how to keep a spider plant alive and well.
+ This ‘knitted camouflage’ series from artist Joseph Ford is irresistibly fun. 
+ What birdsong can teach us about human language.

The Download: DOGE’s tech-enabled destruction, and Meta’s brain AI for typing

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.

Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper problem

—Dan Hon is principal of Very Little Gravitas, where he helps turn around and modernize large and complex government services and products.

In trying to make sense of the wrecking ball that is Elon Musk and President Trump’s DOGE, it may be helpful to think about the Evil Housekeeper Problem. It’s a principle of computer security roughly stating that once someone is in your hotel room with your laptop, all bets are off. 

It’s incredibly hard to protect a system from someone—in this case, the evil housekeeper, DOGE—who has made their way inside and wants to wreck it. 

This administration is on the record as wanting to outright delete entire departments. But, if you can’t delete a department, then why not just break it until it doesn’t work? That’s why what DOGE is currently doing is such a massive, terrifying problem. Read the full story. 

Meta has an AI for brain typing, but it’s stuck in the lab

Back in 2017, Facebook unveiled plans for a brain-reading hat that you could use to text just by thinking. “We’re working on a system that will let you type straight from your brain,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared in a post that year.

Now the company, since renamed Meta, has actually done it. Except it weighs a half a ton, costs $2 million, and won’t ever leave the lab. Still, it’s pretty cool. Read our story to learn why.

—Antonio Regalado

How the tiny microbes in your mouth could be putting your health at risk

—Jessica Hamzelou

This week I’ve been working on a piece about teeth. Well, sort of teeth. Specifically, lab-grown bioengineered teeth. Researchers have created these teeth with a mixture of human and pig tooth cells and grown them in the jaws of living mini pigs.

Part of the reason for doing this is that although dental implants can work well, they’re not perfect. They don’t attach to bones and gums in the same way that real teeth do. And around 20% of people who get implants end up developing an infection called peri-implantitis, which can lead to bone loss.

It is all down to the microbes that grow on them. There’s a complex community of microbes living in our mouths, and disruptions can lead to infection. But these organisms don’t just affect our mouths; they also seem to be linked to a growing number of disorders that can affect our bodies and brains. If you’re curious, read on.

This story is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, 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 DOGE staffers are feeding sensitive federal data to AI systems
It’s just one of many alarming security lapses at this point. (WP $)  
+ The courts are slamming the brakes on some of Trump’s executive orders. (NBC)
+ The trauma and anguish this is all causing is a feature, not a bug. (New Yorker $)
+ And it’s really got nothing to do with saving money either. (Vox)

2 Thousands of sick people worldwide are being abandoned mid-trial 
Due to the US abruptly withdrawing funding via USAID. (NYT $)

3 Last month was the hottest January on record 
Which was a shock, as scientists expected the La Niña weather cycle to cool things down. (FT $)

4 DeepSeek is sending sensitive data over unencrypted channels 
This really doesn’t look good. (Ars Technica)
+ US lawmakers are pushing to ban DeepSeek from government-owned devices. (WSJ $)
+ DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Google had to re-edit a Super Bowl advert for its AI tool 
After yup, you guessed it, the AI spewed out factually inaccurate stuff (about cheese.) (BBC)
+ OpenAI is making its TV advertising debut at the Super Bowl. (Quartz $)

6 US shoppers are being charged $50 or more to get packages from China
The new tariffs seem to be throwing e-commerce, shipping and US border services into disarray. (Wired $)

7 US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations
Seems you don’t need to change reality these days. You can just change search engine results. (The Guardian)

8 This is what Apple’s future home robot might be like
It might even be fun. (The Verge)
+ Will we ever really trust humanoid robots enough to welcome them into our homes? (MIT Technology Review)

9 An asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Well that would be something for us all to look forward to. (Ars Technica)

10 Intentionally bad ‘conservative girl’ make-up videos are all over TikTok
“It’s giving drained, it’s giving dusty.” (Fast Company)

Quote of the day

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”

—What Marko Elez, one of Musk’s 25-year-old DOGE acolytes, tweeted last July, the Wall Street Journal reports (he has since resigned.)

The big story

Is the digital dollar dead?

STEPHANIE ARNETT/MITTR

July 2023

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. Three years later, the digital dollar—even though it doesn’t exist—has become political red meat, as some politicians label it a dystopian tool for surveillance. And late last year, the Boston Fed quietly stopped working on its CBDC project. 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.)

+ Want to cook the perfect boiled egg? First, set aside half an hour…
+ Well that’s a side to Elvis Presley I’d certainly never heard about before.
+ Kudos to Electric Six for making (surely) one of the cheapest music videos of all time.
+ Here’s a fun challenge for the weekend: let yourself get bored. Go on, I dare you. 

The Download: AI companion dangers, and supersonic planes

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.

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

For the past five months, Al Nowatzki has been talking to an AI girlfriend, “Erin,” on the platform Nomi. But in late January, 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

Supersonic planes are inching toward takeoff. That could be a problem.

Boom Supersonic broke the sound barrier in a test flight of its XB-1 jet last week, marking an early step in a potential return for supersonic commercial flight. The small aircraft reached a top speed of Mach 1.122 (roughly 750 miles per hour) in a flight over southern California and exceeded the speed of sound for a few minutes. 

Boom plans to start commercial operation with a scaled-up version of the XB-1, a 65-passenger jet, before the end of the decade. It has already sold dozens of planes to customers including United Airlines and American Airlines. But as the company inches toward that goal, experts warn that such efforts will come with a hefty climate price tag. Read the full story. 

—Casey Crownhart

Read more of Casey’s thoughts about why supersonic flights could be such a big misstep in The Spark, our weekly newsletter that explains the tech that could solve (or, in this case, worsen!) the climate crisis. Sign up to receive it every Wednesday. 

Humanlike “teeth” have been grown in mini pigs

Loose an adult tooth, and you’re left with limited options that typically involve titanium implants or plastic dentures. But scientists are working on an alternative: lab-grown human teeth that could one day replace damaged ones. 

Pamela Yelick and Weibo Zhang at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston have grown a mixture of pig and human tooth cells in pieces of pig teeth to create bioengineered structures that resemble real human teeth. 

It’s a step toward being able to create lab-grown, functional, living human teeth that can integrate with a person’s gums and jaws. Read about how they did it. 

—Jessica Hamzelou

MIT Technology Review Narrated: The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age

We’re making more data than ever. What can—and should—we save for future generations? And will they be able to understand it? 

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 China may pull the plug on a TikTok deal
Holding out is a weapon in its arsenal as Trump ramps up the trade war. (WP $)

2 Australia and South Korea are cracking down on DeepSeek
They’re restricting government use of its models due to security concerns. (Nikkei Asia)
+ How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbook—and why everyone’s going to follow its lead. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A new form of bird flu has been detected in cows in Nevada
This is far from good news, and even worse timing. (NYT $)
+ Argentina is planning to follow the US in withdrawing from the World Health Organization. (CNN)
+ This is what might happen if the US exits the WHO. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The US Postal Service has resumed accepting packages from China
The sudden U-turn has added to growing confusion about the impact of the new 10% tariff.  (CNBC)

5 What happens when DOGE starts tinkering with the nuclear agency?
A ‘break things now, fix them later’ mindset isn’t so great when the thing you’re breaking is this important. (The Atlantic $)
+ DOGE employees have been told to stop using Slack in order to avoid being subject to the Freedom of Information Act. (404 Media)

6 Mentions of DEI and women leaders are being scrubbed from NASA’s site
Personnel have been told to drop everything and focus on doing this instead. (404 Media)
+ It’s part of a wider data purge across loads of government websites. (The Verge)
+ Google is ending diversity targets for recruitment, following similar moves by Meta, Amazon and others. (BBC)
+ Right-wing activists have a new target in their sights: Wikipedia. (Slate $)
+ Is anyone going to stand up and resist any of this? (New Yorker $)

7 Amazon has a plan to reduce AI hallucinations
It’s pinning its hopes on a process called ‘automated reasoning’, which double checks models’ answers. (WSJ $)
+ Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)

8 Lab-grown meat for pets is now on sale 
Great news for any dog-loving vegans living in the UK. (The Verge)

9 Crypto crimes have spawned a new kind of detective 
It’s a cat-and-mouse game, and it’s only just getting started. (The Economist $)

10 Meet the poetry fan who taught AI to understand DNA
This is a lovely example of how art and science often intersect. (Quanta $)

Quote of the day

‘What’s the point of living in a country if I can’t order 100 pieces of junk for $15?’”

—Vivi Armacost, a 24-year-old who makes comedy videos on TikTok, jokingly complains to The Guardian about the potential impact of Trump’s 10% tariff on China-made goods sold to the US. 

The big story

These scientists are working to extend the life span of pet dogs—and their owners

GETTY IMAGES

August 2022

Matt Kaeberlein is what you might call a dog person. He has grown up with dogs and describes his German shepherd, Dobby, as “really special.” But Dobby is 14 years old—around 98 in dog years.

Kaeberlein is co-director of the Dog Aging Project, an ambitious research effort to track the aging process of tens of thousands of companion dogs across the US. He is one of a handful of scientists on a mission to improve, delay, and possibly reverse that process to help them live longer, healthier lives.

And dogs are just the beginning. One day, this research could help to prolong the lives of humans. 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.)

+ Many happy returns to Yuna the tapir, who gave birth to this adorable little calf over the weekend—making them only the second tapir born at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.
+ These sourdough faces are fantastic (thanks Peter!)
+ The latest food trend? Lolfoods, apparently.
+ I simply cannot believe that the Sims is a quarter of a century old.

The Download: smart glasses in 2025, and China’s AI scene

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.

What’s next for smart glasses

For every technological gadget that becomes a household name, there are dozens that never catch on. This year marks a full decade since Google confirmed it was stopping production of Google Glass, and for a long time it appeared as though mixed-reality products would remain the preserve of enthusiasts rather than casual consumers.

Fast-forward 10 years, and smart glasses are on the verge of becoming—whisper it—cool. Sleeker designs are certainly making this new generation of glasses more appealing. But more importantly, smart glasses are finally on the verge of becoming useful, and it’s clear that Big Tech is betting that augmented specs will be the next big consumer device category. Here’s what to expect from smart glasses in 2025 and beyond.

—Rhiannon Williams

This story is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, which looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

Four Chinese AI startups to watch beyond DeepSeek

The meteoric rise of DeepSeek—the Chinese AI startup now challenging global giants—has stunned observers and put the spotlight on China’s AI sector. Since ChatGPT’s debut in 2022, the country’s tech ecosystem has been in relentless pursuit of homegrown alternatives, giving rise to a wave of startups and billion-dollar bets. 

Today, the race is dominated by tech titans like Alibaba and ByteDance, alongside well-funded rivals backed by heavyweight investors. But two years into China’s generative AI boom we are seeing a shift: Smaller innovators have to carve out their own niches or risk missing out. What began as a sprint has become a high-stakes marathon—China’s AI ambitions have never been higher. We have identified these four Chinese AI companies as the ones to watch.

—Caiwei Chen

The must-reads

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

1 The US Postal Service has stopped accepting parcels from China 
And plunged the ecommerce industry into utter chaos. (Wired $)
+ Trump’s China tariffs are coming for Amazon, too. (Insider $)

2 Elon Musk has weaponized X in his war on government spending
The billionaire is conducting polls asking users which agency he should gut next. (NYT $)
+ Musk’s staffers reportedly entered NOAA headquarters yesterday. (The Guardian)
+ DOGE now appears to have access to Treasury payment systems. (Fast Company $)
+ But it does appear as though Trump blocked Musk from hiring a noncitizen. (The Atlantic $)

3 Google has quietly dropped its promise not to use its AI to build weapons  
Just weeks after rival OpenAI also reversed its anti-weapons development stance. (CNN)
+ OpenAI’s new defense contract completes its military pivot. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The metaverse’s future isn’t looking so rosy
Meta’s CTO has conceded that this year is critical to its success or failure. (Insider $)

5 OpenAI is attempting to court Hollywood’s filmmakers
But its Sora video tool has been met with a frosty reception. (Bloomberg $)
+ How to use Sora, OpenAI’s video generating tool. (MIT Technology Review)

6 These drones are launching drones to attack other drones
Ukraine is continuing to produce innovative battlefield technologies. (Ars Technica)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)

7 How to make artificial blood
We’re running out of the real stuff. Is fake blood a viable alternative? (New Yorker $)

8 Students have worked out how to hack schools’ ‘phone prisons’
Teachers should know that smart kids will always find a workaround. (NY Mag $)

9 Social media can’t give you validation
So stop trying to find it there. (Vox)

10 Internet slang is out of control
Skibidi, gigachad, or deeve, anyone? (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process.”

—AI company Anthropic urges people applying to work there not to use chatbots and other tools during the process, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age

August 2024

There is a photo of my daughter that I love. She is sitting, smiling, in our old back garden, chubby hands grabbing at the cool grass. It was taken on a digital camera in 2013, when she was almost one, but now lives on Google Photos.

But what if, one day, Google ceased to function? What if I lost my treasured photos forever? For many archivists, alarm bells are ringing. Across the world, they are scraping up defunct websites or at-risk data collections to save as much of our digital lives as possible. Others are working on ways to store that data in formats that will last hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years.

The endeavor raises complex questions. What is important to us? How and why do we decide what to keep—and what do we let go? And how will future generations make sense of what we’re able to save? Read the full story.

—Niall Firth

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.)

+ Letsa go—Nintendo has added 49 Super Mario World tracks to its music app!
+ Congratulations are in order for New Zealand’s Mount Taranaki, which is now legally recognized as a person.
+ I’ve got something in common with these Hollywood greats at last: they never won an Oscar, either.
+ Do you prefer music or silence in your yoga class?

The Download: understanding dark matter, and AI jailbreak protection

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

How 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

This story is part of MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.

Anthropic has a new way to protect large language models against jailbreaks

What’s new? AI firm Anthropic has developed a new line of defense against a common kind of attack called a jailbreak. A jailbreak tricks large language models (LLMs) into doing something they have been trained not to, such as help somebody create a weapon. And Anthropic’s new approach could be the strongest shield against the attacks yet.

How they did it: Jailbreaks are a kind of adversarial attack: input passed to a model that makes it produce an unexpected output. Despite a decade of research there is still no way to build a model that isn’t vulnerable. But, instead of trying to fix its models, Anthropic has developed a barrier that stops attempted jailbreaks from getting through and unwanted responses from the model getting out. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

Three things to know as the dust settles from DeepSeek

The launch of a single new AI model does not normally cause much of a stir outside tech circles, nor does it typically spook investors enough to wipe out $1 trillion in the stock market. Now, a couple of weeks since DeepSeek’s big moment, the dust has settled a bit.

Within AI, though, what impact is DeepSeek likely to have in the longer term? Here are three seeds DeepSeek has planted that will grow even as the initial hype fades.

—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.

If you’re interested in learning more about what DeepSeek’s breakout success means for the future of AI, watch this conversation between our news editor Charlotte Jee, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and China reporter Caiwei Chen. It was held at noon ET yesterday as part of our subscriber-only Roundtables series—check it out!

The must-reads

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

1 Elon Musk’s government allies are weighing up using AI to cut costs  
As part of Musk’s plans to gut federal contracts across the board. (NYT $)
+ A 25-year old engineer now has access to the US’s top secret systems. (Wired $)
+ Staffers for the US agency that sends aid to the world’s neediest have been locked out of their email accounts. (NY Mag $)
+ Such measures would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago. (Vox)
+ Palantir CEO Alex Karp is a fan of ‘DOGE’. (Insider $)

2 China has announced its own tariffs on US imports
Sparking new fears of a full-blown trade war. (FT $)
+ The days of cheap Chinese shopping in the US could be coming to an end. (NY Mag $)
+ Here’s what Trump’s tariffs mean for the likes of Temu and Shein. (The Information $)

3 US senators blame Silicon Valley for DeepSeek’s runaway success
Big Tech’s lobbying for softer export controls created corporate loopholes, they claim. (WP $)
+ The rise of DeepSeek doesn’t mean the controls have failed, according to ASML. (WSJ $)
+ How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Meta says it won’t release AI systems it deems too risky
But how that risk is measured is up to Meta. (TechCrunch)
+ A new public database lists all the ways AI could go wrong. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Gender affirming care is under major threat in the US
Advocates fear Trump’s executive order will prevent many people from accessing lifesaving treatments. (Undark)
+ Many hospitals are continuing to offer their services, though. (Axios)+ New York’s Attorney General says pausing such care could violate state law. (The Hill)

6 The App Store is now hosting its first porn app
And Apple is not happy about it. (Reuters)
+ The company has an EU antitrust law to thank. (WP $)

7 The Doomsday Clock has been given a makeover
We are now 89 seconds away from the end of the world. (Fast Company $)

8 Meet the UK’s AI grandmother wasting scammers’ time
Fraudsters have been left frustrated by the bot’s dithering. (The Guardian)
+ The people using humour to troll their spam texts. (MIT Technology Review)

9 We still don’t know much about Mars’ moons
But a new mission could change that. (New Scientist $)

10 Mark Zuckerberg’s famous hoodie is up for auction
If you’re so inclined to want to own a piece of nerd history. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“It’ll scare people, it’ll make people think that the industry is a scam.”

—Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump’s former communications director, doesn’t think much of his former boss’s memecoin, he tells the Financial Times.

The big story

The open-source AI boom is built on Big Tech’s handouts. How long will it last?

May 2023

In May 2023 a leaked memo reported to have been written by Luke Sernau, a senior engineer at Google, said out loud what many in Silicon Valley must have been whispering for weeks: an open-source free-for-all is threatening Big Tech’s grip on AI.

New open-source large language models—alternatives to Google’s Bard or OpenAI’s ChatGPT that researchers and app developers can study, build on, and modify—are dropping like candy from a piñata. These are smaller, cheaper versions of the best-in-class AI models created by the big firms that (almost) match them in performance—and they’re shared for free.

In many ways, that’s a good thing. AI won’t thrive if just a few mega-rich companies get to gatekeep this technology or decide how it is used. But this open-source boom is precarious, and if Big Tech decides to shut up shop, a boomtown could become a backwater. 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.)

+ Today would have been the 112th birthday of Rosa Parks, the civil activist who changed the course of history.
+ If you’re planning a spring break, consider this well-timed inspiration.
+ A Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot is reportedly in the works.
+ Rise up, daughters of grunge!

The Download: following DeepSeek’s lead, and OpenAI’s new research 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.

How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbook—and why everyone’s going to follow its lead

When the Chinese firm DeepSeek dropped a large language model called R1 two weeks ago, it sent shock waves through the US tech industry. Not only did R1 match the best of the homegrown competition, it was built for a fraction of the cost—and given away for free.

DeepSeek has now suddenly become the company to beat. What exactly did it do to rattle the tech world so fully? Is the hype justified? And what can we learn from the buzz about what’s coming next? Here’s what you need to know.

—Will Douglas Heaven

OpenAI’s new agent can compile detailed reports on practically any topic

What’s new: OpenAI has launched a new agent capable of conducting complex, multi-step online research into everything from scientific questions to personalized bike recommendations at what it claims is the same level as a human analyst.

How it works: In response to a single query, such as “draw me up a competitive analysis between streaming platforms,” the tool, called Deep Research, will search the web, analyze the information it encounters, and compile a detailed report which cites its sources. 

Why it matters: OpenAI says that what takes the tool “tens of minutes” would take a human many hours. And it claims it represents a significant step towards its overarching goal of developing artificial general intelligence that matches (or surpasses) humans. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all

In the week or so since DeepSeek became a household name, a dizzying number of narratives have gained steam, including that DeepSeek’s new, more efficient approach means AI might not need to guzzle the massive amounts of energy that it currently does.

The latter notion is misleading, and new numbers shared with MIT Technology Review help show why. These early figures—based on the performance of one of DeepSeek’s smaller models on a small number of prompts—suggest it could be more energy intensive when generating responses than the equivalent-size model from Meta.

The issue might be that the energy it saves in training is offset by its more intensive techniques for answering questions, and by the long answers they produce. Add the fact that other tech firms, inspired by DeepSeek’s approach, may now start building their own similar low-cost reasoning models, and the outlook for energy consumption is already looking a lot less rosy. Read the full story. 

—James O’Donnell

What DeepSeek’s breakout success means for AI

If you’re interested in hearing more about DeepSeek, join our news editor Charlotte Jee, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and China reporter Caiwei Chen for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable conversation today at 12pm ET. They’ll be discussing what DeepSeek’s breakout success means for AI and the broader tech industry. Register 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 donated at least $288 million to help elect Donald Trump 
Making him by far the US’s largest political donor. (WP $)
+ Some of the engineers carrying out Musk’s efficiency orders are still teenagers. (Wired $)
+ There’s a chance Musk’s team has access to your social security number. (NY Mag $)

2 LGBT and HIV references have been scrubbed from the CDC website
In response to Trump’s executive orders to remove all DEI references. (404 Media)
+ Some vaccine data has also been taken down. (BBC)
+ It’s just the latest step in the Trump administration’s plans to purge the government. (The Atlantic $)

3 Trump’s tariffs are bad news for carmakers
The new rules affect every company that ships goods across the US borders with Canada and Mexico, or uses parts from China. (NYT $)
+ Shares in carmakers dropped drastically following the announcement. (Reuters)
+ The three countries have very different trade war playbooks. (Economist $)

4 OpenAI has released its new o3-mini reasoning model for free
It’s the first time its reasoning models have come out from behind a paywall. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Meanwhile, ChatGPT subscribers have hit 15.5 million. (The Information $)

5 The Pentagon is kicking mainstream media outlets from their offices
Mostly in favor of smaller conservative outlets. (NBC News)

6 AI data center landlords are starting to worry  
Perhaps a little prematurely, given the uncertainties over DeepSeek’s implications for energy use. (Bloomberg $)

7 The FDA has approved a new non-opioid pain medicine
For the first time in more than two decades. (Ars Technica)
+ Why is it so hard to create new types of pain relievers? (MIT Technology Review)

8 This AI tool allows you to speak to your future self
Just make sure you take what it tells you with a pinch of salt. (WSJ $)
+ Please stop using ChatGPT to write obituaries. (Vox)
+ Technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready? (MIT Technology Review)

9 Climate change means more rats in our cities
And with them, a higher risk of rat-borne disease. (New Scientist $)

10 AI could point us to how the universe will end
That’s according to Mark Thomson, the next director general of Cern. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“Oligarchy is bad enough. But oligarchy with a competitor doing the enforcement is double, triple as bad.”

—Richard Aboulafia, managing director at aerospace consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, wonders about the ethics of Elon Musk leading efficiency drives at companies that rival his own, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

How tracking animal movement may save the planet

February 2024

Animals have long been able to offer unique insights about the natural world around us, acting as organic sensors picking up phenomena invisible to humans. Canaries warned of looming catastrophe in coal mines until the 1980s, for example.

These days, we have more insight into animal behavior than ever before thanks to technologies like sensor tags. But the data we gather from these animals still adds up to only a relatively narrow slice of the whole picture. 

This is beginning to change. Researchers are asking: What will we find if we follow even the smallest animals? What if we could see how different species’ lives intersect? What could we learn from a system of animal movement, continuously monitoring how creatures big and small adapt to the world around us? It may be, some researchers believe, a vital tool in the effort to save our increasingly crisis-plagued planet. Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

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.)

+ Why we all stand to benefit from a bit of quiet time.
+ Why New York City bagels are the best in the world.
+ The fascinating science behind getting ‘the ick’, and why it’s worth trying to push through it.
+ Forget the giant squid—it’s all about the colossal squid now.

The Download: measuring vaccine hesitancy, and the rise of DeepSeek

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

How measuring vaccine hesitancy could help health professionals tackle it

This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US’s health agencies, has been facing questions from senators as part of his confirmation hearing for the role. So far, it’s been a dramatic watch, with plenty of fiery exchanges, screams from audience members, and damaging revelations.

There’s also been a lot of discussion about vaccines. Kennedy has long been a vocal critic of vaccines. He has spread misinformation about the effects of vaccines. He’s petitioned the government to revoke the approval of vaccines. He’s sued pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines.

Kennedy has his supporters. But not everyone who opts not to vaccinate shares his worldview. There are lots of reasons why people don’t vaccinate themselves or their children. Understanding those reasons will help us tackle an issue considered to be a huge global health problem today. And plenty of researchers are working on tools to do just that. 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.

What DeepSeek’s breakout success means for AI

The tech world is abuzz over a new open-source reasoning AI model developed by DeepSeek, a Chinese startup. The company claims that this new model, called DeepSeek R1, matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 in performance but operates at a fraction of the cost.

Its success is even more remarkable given the constraints that Chinese AI companies face due to US export controls on cutting-edge chips. DeepSeek’s approach represents a radical change in how AI gets built, and could shift the tech world’s center of gravity.

Join news editor Charlotte Jee, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and China reporter Caiwei Chen for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable conversation on Monday 3 February at 12pm ET discussing what DeepSeek’s breakout success means for AI and the broader tech industry. Register here.

The must-reads

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

1 Federal workers are being forced to defend their work to Elon Musk’s acolytes
Government tech staff are being pulled into sudden meetings with students. (Wired $)
+ Archivists are rushing to save thousands of datasets being yanked offline. (404 Media)
+ Civil servants aren’t buying Musk’s promises. (Slate $)

2 The US Copyright Office says AI-assisted art can be copyrighted 
But works wholly created by AI can’t be. (AP News)
+ The AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AI. (MIT Technology Review)

3 OpenAI is partnering with US National Laboratories
Its models will be used for scientific research and nuclear weapons security. (NBC News)
+ It’s the latest move from the firm to curry favor with the US government. (Engadget)
+ OpenAI has upped its lobbying efforts nearly sevenfold. (MIT Technology Review)

4 DeepSeek’s success is inspiring founders in Africa
The startup has proved that frugality can go hand in hand with innovation. (Rest of World)
+ What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player. (MIT Technology Review)

5 China is building a massive wartime command center
The complex appears to be part of preparation for the possibility of nuclear war. (FT $)
+ Pentagon workers used DeepSeek’s chatbot for days before it was blocked. (Bloomberg $)
+ We saw a demo of the new AI system powering Anduril’s vision for war. (MIT Technology Review)

6 There’s a chance this colossal asteroid will hit Earth in 2032
Experts aren’t too worried—yet. (The Guardian)
+ How worried should we be about the end of the world? (New Yorker $)
+ Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Things are looking up for Europe’s leading battery maker
Truckmaker Scania is now supporting the troubled Northvolt’s day-to-day operations. (Reuters)
+ Three takeaways about the current state of batteries. (MIT Technology Review)

8 This group of Luddite teens is still resisting technology
But three years after starting their club, the lure of dating apps is strong. (NYT $)

9 Reddit’s bastion of humanity is under threat
AI features are creeping into the forum, much to users’ chagrin. (The Atlantic $)

10 Bid a fond farewell to MiniDiscs and blank Blu-Rays
Sony is finally pulling the plug on some of its recordable media formats. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks. It sucks.”

—Mark Zuckerberg warns that leakers will be fired in a memo that was promptly leaked, the Verge reports.

The big story

This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it.

September 2022

Greg Rutkowski is a Polish digital artist who uses classical styles to create dreamy landscapes. His distinctive style has been used in some of the world’s most popular fantasy games, including Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

Now he’s become a hit in the new world of text-to-image AI generation. His name is one of the most commonly used prompts in the open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion.

But this and other open-source programs are built by scraping images from the internet, often without permission and proper attribution to artists. And artists like Rutkowski have had enough. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

We can still have nice things

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

+ It’s an oldie but a goodie: ice dancing gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s routine to Moulin Rouge is simply spectacular.
+ This week marks 56 years since the Beatles performed their last ever gig on the roof of their Apple headquarters.
+ In other Beatles news, Ringo Starr has never eaten a pizza.
+ The Video Game History Foundation has opened up its incredible archive (thanks Dani!)