The Download: introducing our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2025

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: our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2025

The world is full of extraordinary young people brimming with ideas for how to crack tough problems. Every year, we recognize 35 such individuals from around the world—all of whom are under the age of 35.

These scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs are working to help mitigate climate change, accelerate scientific progress, and alleviate human suffering from disease. Some are launching companies while others are hard at work in academic labs. They were selected from hundreds of nominees by expert judges and our newsroom staff. 

Get to know them all—including our 2025 Innovator of the Year—in these profiles.

Why basic science deserves our boldest investment

—Julia R. Greer is a materials scientist at the California Institute of Technology, a judge for MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 and a former honoree (in 2008).

A modern chip the size of a human fingernail contains tens of billions of silicon transistors, each measured in nanometers—smaller than many viruses. These tiny switches form the infrastructure behind nearly every digital device in use today.

Much of the fundamental understanding that moved transistor technology forward came from federally funded university research. But that funding is under increasing pressure, thanks to deep budget cuts proposed by the White House.

These losses have forced some universities to freeze graduate student admissions, cancel internships, and scale back summer research opportunities—making it harder for young people to pursue scientific and engineering careers. 

In an age dominated by short-term metrics and rapid returns, it can be difficult to justify research whose applications may not materialize for decades. But those are precisely the kinds of efforts we must support if we want to secure our technological future. Read the full story.

The must-reads

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

1 The US is considering annual chip supply permits in China
For South Korean companies Samsung and SK Hynix, specifically. (Bloomberg $)
+ US lawmakers still hold power over chips in China. (CNN)

2 America has recorded its first case of screwworm in over 50 years
And the warming climate is making it easier for the flies to thrive. (Vox)
+ Experts fear an approaching public health emergency. (The Guardian)

3 Drone warfare is dominating Ukraine’s frontline
Amid relentless assaults, overhead and land drones are being put to work. (The Guardian)
+ How cutting-edge drones forced land-locked tanks to evolve. (NYT $)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

4 OpenAI is working out why chatbots hallucinate so much
Examining a model’s incentives provides some clues. (Insider $)
+ Models’ tendency to confidently present falsehoods as fact is a big problem. (TechCrunch)
+ Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)

5 How one man is connecting Silicon Valley to the Middle East’s AI boom
If you want to build a data center, Zachary Cefaratti is your man. (FT $)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The first OpenAI-backed movie is coming to theaters next year
The animated Critterz is hoping for a Cannes Film Festival debut. (WSJ $)
+ A Disney director tried—and failed—to use an AI Hans Zimmer to create a soundtrack. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Who wants to live forever?
These billionaires are confident their cash will pave the way to longer lives. (WSJ $)
+ Putin says organ transplants could grant immortality. Not quite. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Tesla isn’t focused on selling cars any more
The company’s latest Master Plan is all about humanoid robots. (The Atlantic $)
+ The board is willing to offer Musk a $1 trillion pay package if he delivers. (Wired $)
+ Uber is gearing up to test driverless cars in Germany. (The Verge)
+ China’s EV giants are betting big on humanoid robots. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Do aliens go on holiday?
Scientists wonder whether tourism could be a potential drive for them to visit us. (New Yorker $)
+ How these two UFO hunters became go-to experts on America’s “mystery drone” invasion. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Vodafone’s new TikTok influencer isn’t real
It’s yet another example of AI avatars being used in ads. (The Verge)
+ Synthesia’s AI clones are more expressive than ever. Soon they’ll be able to talk back. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Silicon Valley totally effed up in overhyping LLMs.”

—Palantir CEO Alex Karp criticizes those who fueled the AI hype around large language models, Semafor reports.

One more thing

Puerto Rico’s power struggles

On the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico lies the country’s only coal-fired power station, flanked by a mountain of toxic ash. The plant, owned by the utility giant AES, has long plagued this part of Puerto Rico with air and water pollution.

Before the coal plant opened Guayama had on average just over 103 cancer cases per year. In 2003, the year after the plant opened, the number of cancer cases in the municipality surged by 50%, to 167. 

In 2022, the most recent year with available data, cases hit a new high of 209. The question is: How did it get this bad? Read the full story.

—Alexander C. Kaufman

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.)

+ What’s up with tennis players’ strange serving rituals?
+ If constant scrolling is turning your hands into gnarled claws, this stretch should help.
+ How to land a genuine bargain on Facebook Marketplace.
+ This photographer tracks down people who featured in pictures decades before, and persuades them to recreate their poses. Heartwarming stuff

The Download: longevity myths, and sewer-cleaning robots

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.

Putin says organ transplants could grant immortality. Not quite.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Earlier this week, my editor forwarded me a video of the leaders of Russia and China talking about immortality. “These days at 70 years old you are still a child,” China’s Xi Jinping, 72, was translated as saying.

“With the developments of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” Russia’s Vladimir Putin, also 72, is reported to have replied.

In reality, rounds of organ transplantation surgery aren’t likely to help anyone radically extend their lifespan anytime soon. And it’s a simplistic way to think about aging—a process so complicated that researchers can’t agree on what causes it, why it occurs, or even how to define it, let alone “treat” it. Read the full story.

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

India is using robots to clean sewer pipes so humans no longer have to

When Jitender was a child in New Delhi, both his parents worked as manual scavengers—a job that involved clearing the city’s sewers by hand. Now, he is among almost 200 contractors involved in the Delhi government’s effort to shift from this manual process to safer mechanical methods.

Although it has been outlawed since 1993, manual scavenging—the practice of extracting human excreta from toilets, sewers, or septic tanks—is still practiced widely in India. And not only is the job undignified, but it can be extremely dangerous.

Now, several companies have emerged to offer alternatives at a wide range of technical complexity. Read the full story.

—Hamaad Habibullah

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.

The must-reads

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

1 RFK Jr buried a major study linking alcohol and cancer
Clearly, the alcohol industry’s intense lobbying of the Trump administration is working. (Vox)
+ RFK Jr repeated health untruths during a marathon Senate hearing yesterday. (Mother Jones)
+ His anti-vaccine stance alarmed Democrats and Republicans alike. (The Atlantic $)

2 US tech giants want to embed AI in education
They’re backing a vaguely worded initiative to that effect launched by Melania Trump. (Rolling Stone $)
+ Tech leaders took it in turns to praise Trump during dinner. (WSJ $)
+ Elon Musk was nowhere to be seen. (The Guardian)
+ AI’s giants want to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The FTC will probe AI companies over their impact on children 
In a bid to evaluate whether chatbots are harming their mental health. (WSJ $)
+ An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Podcasting giant Joe Rogan has been spreading climate misinformation
He’s grossly misinterpreted scientists’ research—and they’re exasperated. (The Guardian)
+ Rogan claims the Earth’s temperature is plummeting. It isn’t.  (Forbes)
+ Why climate researchers are taking the temperature of mountain snow. (MIT Technology Review)

5 DeepSeek is working on its own advanced AI agent
Watch out, OpenAI. (Bloomberg $)

6 OpenAI will start making its own AI chips next year
In a bid to lessen its reliance on Nvidia. (FT $)

7 Warner Bros is suing Midjourney
The AI startup used the likenesses of characters including Superman without permission, it alleges. (Bloomberg $)
+ What comes next for AI copyright lawsuits? (MIT Technology Review)

8 Rivers and lakes are being used to cool down buildings
But networks in Paris, Toronto, the US are facing a looming problem. (Wired $)
+ The future of urban housing is energy-efficient refrigerators. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How high school reunions survive in the age of social media
Curiosity is a powerful driving force, it seems. (The Atlantic $)

10 Facebook’s poke feature is back
If I still used Facebook, I’d be thrilled. (TechCrunch)

Quote of the day

“Even if it doesn’t turn you into the alien if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you’ll grow an extra ear.”

—Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, warns of dire consequences if Americans eat shrimp from countries other than the US, Gizmodo reports.

One more thing

Why one developer won’t quit fighting to connect the US’s grids

Michael Skelly hasn’t learned to take no for an answer. For much of the last 15 years, the energy entrepreneur has worked to develop long-haul transmission lines to carry wind power across the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southwest. But so far, he has little to show for the effort.

Skelly has long argued that building such lines and linking together the nation’s grids would accelerate the shift from coal- and natural-gas-fueled power plants to the renewables needed to cut the pollution driving climate change. But his previous business shut down in 2019, after halting two of its projects and selling off interests in three more.

Skelly contends he was early, not wrong. And he has a point: market and policymakers are increasingly coming around to his perspective. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

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

+ The Paper, the new mockumentary from the makers of the American Office, looks interesting.
+ Giorgio Armani was a true maestro of menswear.
+ The phases of the moon are pretty fascinating
+ The Damien Hirst-directed video for Blur’s classic Country House has been given a 4K makeover.

The Download: unnerving AI avatars, and Trump’s climate gift to China

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.

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

—Rhiannon Williams

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

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

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

How Trump is helping China extend its massive lead in clean energy 

On a spring day in 1954, Bell Labs researchers showed off the first practical solar panels at a press conference in New Jersey, using sunlight to spin a toy Ferris wheel before a stunned crowd.

The solar future looked bright. But in the race to commercialize the technology it invented, the US would lose resoundingly. Last year, China exported $40 billion worth of solar panels and modules, while America shipped just $69 million, according to the New York Times. It was a stunning forfeit of a huge technological lead. 

Now, thanks to its policies propping up aging fossil-fuel industries, the US seems determined to repeat the mistake. Read the full story.

—James Temple

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter all about the latest in climate and energy tech. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

The must-reads

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

1 AI chatbots of celebrities sent risqué messages to teenagers
Virtual versions of Timothée Chalamet and Chappell Roan discussed sex and drugs. (WP $)
+ An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Trump can’t make up his mind about US tech giants
While defending them against EU regulation, he’s also pushing to break them up. (FT $)
+ He’s hosting tech leaders at the White House later today. (Reuters)
+ Elon Musk doesn’t appear to have made the guest list. (CNBC)

3 Trump’s cuts have led to babies born with HIV
Clinics in East Africa are closing, and people are being forced to skip vital drug doses. (The Guardian)
+ Artificial blood could save many lives. Why aren’t we using it? (Slate)

4 Germany has already met its 2028 goal for reducing coal-fired power
For the second year running, it won’t have to shut any more plants as a result. (Bloomberg $)
+ The UK is done with coal. How’s the rest of the world doing? (MIT Technology Review)

5 The risk of all-out nuclear war is growing
But we’ve normalized nuclear competition so much, the risks aren’t always clear. (New Yorker $)
+ Maybe it’s time to start burying nuclear reactors’ cores. (Economist $)

6 xAI is hemorrhaging executives
The CFO has left just months after joining. (WSJ $)

7 India’s chip industry is gaining momentum
Years of investment are starting to pay off. But can it strike deals with overseas chip giants too? (Bloomberg $)
+ Meanwhile, Taiwan’s chip hub is home to a baby boom. (Rest of World)
+ Inside India’s scramble for AI independence. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot only needs one AI model to work
It’s all it requires to master humanlike movements successfully. (Wired $)
+ How ‘robot ballet’ could shake up factory production lines. (FT $)
+ Humanoid robots still aren’t living up to their lofty promises. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Will we ever trust robots? (MIT Technology Review)

9 How studying astronauts could improve health on Earth
There’s still a huge amount we don’t know about space’s effects on humans. (Vox)
+ Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer? (MIT Technology Review)

10 The Caribbean island of Anguilla has hit upon an AI cash cow
By selling its .ai domain. (Semafor)
+ How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“If you are not being scammed yet, it’s because you haven’t encountered a scam designed just for you and only for you.”

—Jeff Kuo, chief executive of Taiwanese fraud prevention company Gogolook, warns the Financial Times about the endless possibilities generative AI presents to scammers.

One more thing

China built hundreds of AI data centers to catch the AI boom. Now many stand unused.

Last year, China’s boom in data center construction was at its height, fueled by both government and private investors. Renting out GPUs to companies that need them for training AI models was seen as a sure bet.

But with the rise of DeepSeek and a sudden change in the economics around AI, the industry is faltering. Prices for GPUs are falling and many newly built facilities are now sitting empty. Read the full story to find out why.

—Caiwei Chen

We can still have nice things

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

+ The trailer for the forthcoming Wuthering Heights film is here and it looks…interesting.
+ This fall’s crop of video games is outstanding.
+ Textured walls are a surefire way to make your home look dated. Here’s some other faux pas to avoid.
+The dogs of this year’s US Open are too cute ($)

The Download: sustainable architecture, and DeepSeek’s success

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.

Material Cultures looks to the past to build the future

Despite decades of green certifications, better material sourcing, and the use of more sustainable materials, the built environment is still responsible for a third of global emissions worldwide. According to a 2024 UN report, the building sector has fallen “significantly behind on progress” toward becoming more sustainable. Changing the way we erect and operate buildings remains key to tackling climate change.

London-based design and research nonprofit Material Cultures is exploring how tradition can be harnessed in new ways to repair the contemporary building system. As many other practitioners look to artificial intelligence and other high-tech approaches, Material Cultures is focusing on sustainability, and finding creative ways to turn local materials into new buildings. Read the full story.

—Patrick Sisson

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.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions

Earlier this year, the AI community was abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model. The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which claims that R1 matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 on multiple key benchmarks but operates at a fraction of the cost.

DeepSeek’s success is even more remarkable given the constraints facing Chinese AI companies in the form of increasing US export controls on cutting-edge chips. Read the full story.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 Google won’t be forced to sell Chrome after all
A federal judge has instead ruled it has to share search data with its rivals. (Politico)
+ He also barred Google from making deals to make Chrome the default search engine on people’s phones. (The Register)
+ The company’s critics feel the ruling doesn’t go far enough. (The Verge)

2 OpenAI is adding emotional guardrails to ChatGPT
The new rules are designed to better protect teens and vulnerable people. (Axios)
+ Families of dead teenagers say AI companies aren’t doing enough. (FT $)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)

3 China’s military has showed off its robotic wolves
Alongside underwater torpedoes and hypersonic cruise missiles. (BBC)
+ Xi Jinping has pushed to modernize the world’s largest standing army. (CNN)
+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)

4 ICE has resumed working with a previously banned spyware vendor
Paragon Solutions’ software was found on the devices of journalists earlier this year. (WP $)
+ The tool can manipulate a phone’s recorder to become a covert listening device. (The Guardian)

5 An identical twin has been convicted of a crime based on DNA analysis 
It’s the first time the technology has been successfully used in the US, and solves a 38-year old cold case. (The Guardian)

6 People who understand AI the least are the most likely to use it 
Those with a better grasp of how AI works know more about its limitations. (WSJ $)
+ What is AI? (MIT Technology Review)

7 BMW is preparing to unveil a super-smart EV
Its new iX3 sport utility vehicle will have 20 times more computing power. (FT $)

8 Sick and lonely people are turning to AI “doctors”
Physicians are too busy to spend much time with patients. Chatbots are filling the void. (Rest of World)
+ AI companies have stopped warning you that their chatbots aren’t doctors. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Around 90% of life on Earth is still unknown
But shedding light on these mysterious organisms is essential to our future survival. (Vox)

10 Wax worms could help tackle our plastic pollution problem
The plastic-hungry pests can eat a polythene bag in a matter of hours. (Wired $)
+ Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“It’s a nothingburger.”

—Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of search engine DuckDuckGo, reacts to the judge’s decision in the Google Chrome monopoly case, the New York Times reports.

 One more thing

Why we can no longer afford to ignore the case for climate adaptation

Back in the 1990s, anyone suggesting that we’d need to adapt to climate change while also cutting emissions was met with suspicion. Most climate change researchers felt adaptation studies would distract from the vital work of keeping pollution out of the atmosphere to begin with.

Despite this hostile environment, a handful of experts were already sowing the seeds for a new field of research called “climate change adaptation”: study and policy on how the world could prepare for and adapt to the new disasters and dangers brought forth on a warming planet. Today, their research is more important than ever. Read the full story. 

—Madeline Ostrander

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. 

+ How to have a happier life, even when you’re living through bleak times (maybe skip the raisins on ice cream, though.)
+ If you’re loving Alien: Earth right now, why not dive back into the tremendously terrifying Alien: Isolation game?
+ The first freaky images of the second part of zombie flick 28 Years Later have landed.
+ Anthony Gormley, you will always be cool.

The Download: therapists secretly using AI, and Apple AirPods’ hearing aid potential

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.

Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered.

Declan would never have found out his therapist was using ChatGPT had it not been for a technical mishap. The connection was patchy during one of their online sessions, so Declan suggested they turn off their video feeds. Instead, his therapist began inadvertently sharing his screen.

For the rest of the session, Declan was privy to a real-time stream of ChatGPT analysis rippling across his therapist’s screen, who was taking what Declan was saying, putting it into ChatGPT, and then parroting its answers.

But Declan is not alone. In fact, a growing number of people are reporting receiving AI-generated communiqués from their therapists. Clients’ trust and privacy are being abandoned in the process. Read the full story.

—Laurie Clarke

Apple AirPods: a gateway hearing aid

—Ashley Shew

When the US Food and Drug Administration approved hearing-aid software for Apple’s AirPods Pro in September 2024, with a device price point around $200, I was excited.

I have hearing loss and tinnitus, and my everyday hearing aids cost just over $2,000. Ninety percent of the hearing-aid market is concentrated in the hands of a few companies, and there’s little competitive pricing. So I was thrilled that a major tech company has entered this field with the AirPods Pro 2. Here’s what I made of them.

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.

The must-reads

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

1 MAHA is in chaos
RFK Jr’s movement is tearing itself apart over what it wants to achieve. (WSJ $)
+ Trying to pressure food companies to alter their products is unlikely to work. (The Atlantic $)
+ Ultra-processed food makes up a sizable proportion of the American diet. (Axios)
+ RFK Jr’s plan to improve America’s diet is missing the point. (MIT Technology Review)

2 DOGE is using AI to target SEC rules to ditch
Experts fear its decisions won’t be checked by qualified humans. (The Information $)
+ Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Salesforce has replaced around 4,000 jobs with AI agents
It’s slashed its support staff team nearly in half. (SF Chronicle $)
+ Workers are trying to weather the AI-induced storm. (Vox)
+ AI is coming for the job market, security, and prosperity. (MIT Technology Review)

4 What’s up with China’s EV industry?
Its cutthroat competitive practices are starting to grate on the government. (NYT $)
+ The country’s robotmakers are on the rise. (FT $)
+ China’s EV giants are betting big on humanoid robots. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A “nearly naked” black hole has been spotted
The never-before-seen black hole may have been created moments after the big bang. (The Guardian)

6 How to make quantum computers useful
Researchers have turned their attention towards making software for the machines. (FT $)
+ Why AI could eat quantum computing’s lunch. (MIT Technology Review)

7 OnlyFans has a piracy problem
Adult creators’ content isn’t staying behind the paywall. (404 Media)

8 These humans are paid to fix AI slop
Anyone can prompt AI, but the results aren’t always good. (NBC News)

9 The hottest gadget for kids is a landline phone 
And they’re learning phone etiquette for the first time. (Insider $)

10 Meet iTunes’ diehard fans
They’re eschewing streaming platforms in favor of their digital libraries. (WP $)
+ How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“The calculator doesn’t construct facts about world knowledge and give them to you.”

—Elisha Roberts, assistant director at the nonprofit Colorado Education Initiative, tells Bloomberg she doesn’t buy the idea that AI is comparable to other classroom tools like the calculator.

One more thing

Supershoes are reshaping distance running

Since 2016, when Nike introduced the Vaporfly, a paradigm-­shifting shoe that helped athletes run more efficiently (and therefore faster), the elite running world has muddled through a period of soul-searching over the impact of high-tech footwear on the sport.

“Supershoes” —which combine a lightweight, energy-­returning foam with a carbon-fiber plate for stiffness—have been behind every broken world record in distances from 5,000 meters to the marathon since 2020.

To some, this is a sign of progress. In much of the world, elite running lacks a widespread following. Record-breaking adds a layer of excitement. And the shoes have benefits beyond the clock: most important, they help minimize wear on the body and enable faster recovery from hard workouts and races.

Still, some argue that they’ve changed the sport too quickly. Read the full story. 

—Jonathan W. Rosen

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.)

+ Happy birthday to Keanu Reeves, who turns 61 today! Here’s a compilation of his hilariously bad acting in Bram Stroker’s Dracula.
+ Why do some cats hate water, yet others love it?
+ If you fancy setting a Guinness World Record, there’s a few still up for grabs.
+ To mark world coconut day (what do you mean, you forgot?), check out these delicious-looking recipes

The Download: AI doppelgängers in the workplace, and using lidar to measure climate disasters

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.

 Can an AI doppelgänger help me do my job?

—James O’Donnell

Digital clones—AI models that replicate a specific person—package together a few technologies that have been around for a while now: hyperrealistic video models to match your appearance, lifelike voices based on just a couple of minutes of speech recordings, and conversational chatbots increasingly capable of holding our attention. 

But they’re also offering something the ChatGPTs of the world cannot: an AI that’s not smart in the general sense, but that ‘thinks’ like you do.

Could well-crafted clones serve as our stand-ins? I certainly feel stretched thin at work sometimes, wishing I could be in two places at once, and I bet you do too. To find out, I tried making a clone of myself. Read the full story to find out how it got on.

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.

How lidar measures the cost of climate disasters

The wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County this January left an indelible mark on the Southern California landscape. The Eaton and Palisades fires raged for 24 days, killing 29 people and destroying 16,000 structures, with losses estimated at $60 billion. More than 55,000 acres were consumed, and the landscape itself was physically transformed.

Now, researchers are using lidar (light detection and ranging) technology to precisely measure these changes in the landscape’s geometry—helping them understand and track the cascading effects of climate disasters. Read the full story.

—Jon Keegan

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.

Here’s how we picked this year’s Innovators Under 35

Next Monday we’ll publish our 2025 list of Innovators Under 35. The list highlights smart and talented people working across many areas of emerging technology. This new class features 35 accomplished founders, hardware engineers, roboticists, materials scientists, and others who are already tackling tough problems and making big moves in their careers. 

MIT Technology Review first published a list of Innovators Under 35 in 1999. It’s a grand tradition for us, and we often follow the work of various featured innovators for years, even decades, after they appear on the list. So before the big announcement, we’d like to take a moment to explain how we select the people we recognize each year. Read the full story.

—Amy Nordrum

The must-reads

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

1 Meta created flirty chatbots of celebrities without their permission
To make matters worse, the bots generated risqué pictures on demand. (Reuters)
+ Meta’s relationship with Scale AI appears to be under pressure. (TechCrunch)
+ An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The FTC has warned Big Tech not to comply with EU laws
If they jeopardize the freedom of expression or safety of US citizens, at least. (Wired $)

3 Ukraine is using drones to drop supplies to its troops in trenches
They’re delivering everything from cigarettes to roasted chicken. (WP $)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)

4 What the collapse of this AI company says about the wider industry
Builder.ai was an early industry darling. Its downfall is a dire warning. (NYT $)

5 US shoppers are racing to land an EV bargain
Federal tax credits on the vehicles expire at the end of the month. (WSJ $)
+ The US could really use an affordable electric truck. (MIT Technology Review)

6 A major new project will use AI to research vaccines
The Oxford Vaccine Group hopes the jabs will protect against deadly pathogens. (FT $)
+ Why US federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA vaccines. (MIT Technology Review)

7 A lot of people stop taking weight-loss drugs within one year
How should doctors encourage the ones who need to stay on them? (Undark)
+ We’re learning more about what weight-loss drugs do to the body. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Chatbots can be manipulated into breaking their own rules
It turns out they’re susceptible to both flattery and peer pressure. (The Verge)
+ Forcing LLMs to be evil during training can make them nicer in the long run. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Tennis is trying to reach a new generation of fans
Through…the metaverse? (The Information $)

10 The age of cheap online shopping is ending
And consumers are the ones paying the price. (The Atlantic $)
+ AI is starting to shake up the digital shopping experience, too. (FT $)
+ Your most important customer may be AI. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Stop being a clanker!”

—How Jay Pinkert, a marketing manager, scolds ChatGPT when it isn’t fulfilling his requests, he tells the New York Times.

One more thing

The algorithms around us

A metronome ticks. A record spins. And as a feel-good pop track plays, a giant compactor slowly crushes a Jenga tower of material creations. Paint cans burst. Chess pieces topple. Camera lenses shatter. An alarm clock shrills and then goes silent. A guitar neck snaps. But wait! The jaunty tune starts up again, and the jaws open to reveal … an iPad.

Watching Apple’s now-infamous “Crush!” ad, it’s hard not to feel uneasy about the ways in which digitization is remaking human life. Sure, we’re happy for computers to take over tasks we don’t want to do or aren’t particularly good at, like shopping or navigating. But what does it mean when the things we hold dear and thought were uniquely ours—our friendships, our art, even our language and creativity—can be reduced to software? Read the full story.

—Ariel Bleicher

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.)

+ Minnesota’s Llama-Alpaca Costume Contest looks an utter delight  (thanks Amy!)
+ In fascinating collab news, David Byrne and Paramore’s Hayley Williams are working on a song for a Netflix adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Twits.
+ Happy birthday to Gloria Estefan, 68 years old today!
+ M. Night Shyamalan’s oeuvre is a decidedly mixed bag. Check out this list of his movies to see where your favorites (and least-favorites) rank.

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!