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

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

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

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

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

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

—Casey Crownhart

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

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

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

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

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

—Antonio Regalado

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

Meet the researcher hosting a scientific conference by and for AI

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

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

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

—Peter Hall

The must-reads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

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

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

One more thing

How AI is changing gymnastics judging

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

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

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

—Jessica Taylor Price

We can still have nice things

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

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

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

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

Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs

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

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

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

—Ben Crair

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

Indigenous knowledge meets artificial intelligence

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

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

—Petala Ironcloud

The must-reads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

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

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

One more thing

How to fine-tune AI for prosperity

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

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

—David Rotman

We can still have nice things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Becky Ferreira

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

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

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

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

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

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

The must-reads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

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

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

One more thing

Palmer Luckey on the Pentagon’s future of mixed reality

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

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

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

—James O’Donnell

We can still have nice things

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

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

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

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

OpenAI has finally released open-weight language models

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

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

—Grace Huckins

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

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

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

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

The must-reads

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

1 Nvidia insists its AI chips don’t have a “kill switch”
After China’s Cyberspace Administration asked for security documentation. (CNBC)
+ The country’s ambitions to consolidate its chip giants aren’t going to plan. (FT $)
+ Two Chinese nationals have been charged with illegally shipping chips. (Reuters)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

“This is a bad day for science.”

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

One more thing

Future space food could be made from astronaut breath

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

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

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

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

We can still have nice things

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

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

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

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

These protocols will help AI agents navigate our messy lives

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

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

—Peter Hall

A glimpse into OpenAI’s largest ambitions

—James O’Donnell

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

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

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

The must-reads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

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

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

One more thing

ANDREA D’AQUINO

What happened to the microfinance organization Kiva?

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

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

—Mara Kardas-Nelson

We can still have nice things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Grace Huckins

Read more of our top stories about AI:

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

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

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

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

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

The must-reads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

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

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

One more thing

MICHAEL BYERS

Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.

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

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

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

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

—Douglas Main

We can still have nice things

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

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

The Download: how fertility tech is changing families, and Trump’s latest tariffs

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 decades-old frozen embryos are changing the shape of families

This week we welcomed a record-breaking baby to the world. Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, who arrived over the weekend, developed from an embryo that was frozen in storage for 30 and a half years. You could call him the world’s oldest baby.

His parents, Lindsey and Tim Pierce, were themselves only young children when that embryo was created, all the way back in 1994. Linda Archerd, who donated the embryo, described the experience as “surreal.”

Stories like this also highlight how reproductive technologies are shaping families. But while baby Thaddeus is a record-breaker, plenty of other babies have been born from embryos that have been frozen for significant spells of time. 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.

If you’re interested in reading more about fertility tech, why not check out:

+ Earlier this month, researchers announced babies had been born from a trial of three-person IVF. The long-awaited results suggest that the approach can reduce the risk of mitochondrial disease—but not everyone is convinced.

+ Frozen embryos are filling storage banks around the world. It’s a struggle to know what to do with them.

+ Read about how a mobile lab is bringing IVF to rural communities in South Africa.

+ Why family-friendly policies and gender equality might be more helpful than IVF technology when it comes to averting the looming fertility crisis.

+ The first babies conceived with a sperm-injecting robot have been born. Meet the startups trying to engineer a desktop fertility machine.

The must-reads

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

1 Donald Trump has announced new tariffs across the world
They will affect virtually every nation—some more favorably than others. (CNN)
+ The new rates range widely from 10% to 41%. (NYT $)
+ The African country Lesotho had declared a tariff-induced state of emergency. (WSJ $)

2 Palantir has signed a $10 billion deal with the US Army
It’s the latest in a string of lucrative agreements with federal agencies. (WP $)
 
3 Tech giants are raking in cash
But we still don’t know how useful a lot of the AI they’re currently building will prove to be. (FT $)
+ It’s a boon for investors, but not necessarily for employees. (WSJ $)
+ It’s unclear whose approach will result in sustainable profits. (Semafor)

4 Neuralink is planning its first trial in the UK
To join the current five patients using its brain implant. (Reuters)
+ This patient’s Neuralink brain implant gets a boost from generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)

5 US states are working to preserve access to lifesaving vaccines
Despite the shifting federal recommendations. (Wired $)
+ The FDA plans to limit access to covid vaccines. Here’s why that’s not all bad. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Vast online groups in China are sharing explicit photos of women
Non-consensual images are being passed around hundreds of thousands of men. (The Guardian)

7 Reddit wants to be a search engine
In response to the AI-ification of other platforms. (The Verge)
+ AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Why airships could be a viable internet satellite alternative
It could result in less space junk, for one. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Welcome to the big blimp boom. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Trust in AI coding tools is falling
The majority of devs use them, but they aren’t always reliable. (Ars Technica)
+ What is vibe coding, exactly? (MIT Technology Review)

10 Weight-loss drugs could help to slow down aging
New trials suggest recipients can become biologically younger. (New Scientist $)
+ Aging hits us in our 40s and 60s. But well-being doesn’t have to fall off a cliff. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“We look forward to joining Matt on his private island next year.”

—Kiana Ehsani, CEO of AI agent startup Vercept, jokes about the departure of fellow co-founder Matt Deitke to join Meta’s superintelligence team for a cool $250 million, the New York Times reports.

One more thing

How ChatGPT will revolutionize the economy

There’s a gold rush underway to make money from generative AI models like ChatGPT. You can practically hear the shrieks from corner offices around the world: “What is our ChatGPT play? How do we make money off this?”

But while companies and executives want to cash in, the likely impact of generative AI on workers and the economy on the whole is far less obvious.

Will ChatGPT make the already troubling income and wealth inequality in the US and many other countries even worse, or could it in fact provide a much-needed boost to productivity? Read the full story.

—David Rotman

We can still have nice things

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

+ Yikes—a gigantic stick insect has been discovered in (where else?) Australia.
+ This X account shares random, mundane objects each day
+ If you love a good skyscraper, these are the cities where you’re most likely to encounter them.
+ Yum, ancient Pompeii honey

The Download: OpenAI’s future research, and US climate regulation is under threat

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 two people shaping the future of OpenAI’s research

—Will Douglas Heaven

For the past couple of years, OpenAI has felt like a one-man brand. With his showbiz style and fundraising glitz, CEO Sam Altman overshadows all other big names on the firm’s roster.

But Altman is not the one building the technology on which its reputation rests. That responsibility falls to OpenAI’s twin heads of research—chief research officer Mark Chen and chief scientist Jakub Pachocki. Between them, they share the role of making sure OpenAI stays one step ahead of powerhouse rivals like Google.

I recently sat down with Chen and Pachocki for an exclusive conversation which covered everything from how they manage the inherent tension between research and product, to what they really mean when they talk about AGI, to what happened to OpenAI’s superalignment team. 

I also wanted to get a sense of where their heads are at in the run-up to OpenAI’s biggest product release in months: GPT-5. Read the full story.

An EPA rule change threatens to gut US climate regulations

The mechanism that allows the US federal government to regulate climate change is on the chopping block.

On Tuesday, US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency is taking aim at the endangerment finding, a 2009 rule that’s essentially the tentpole supporting federal greenhouse-gas regulations.

This might sound like an obscure legal situation, but it’s a really big deal for climate policy in the US. So let’s look at what this rule says now, what the proposed change looks like, and what it all means. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is part of MIT Technology Review’s “America Undone” series, examining how the foundations of US success in science and innovation are currently under threat. You can read the rest here.

It appeared first in The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

The AI Hype Index: The White House’s war on “woke AI”

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 of the index here.

The must-reads

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

1 Trump has announced a new US health care records system 
Experts warn the initiative could leave patients’ medical records open to abuse. (NYT $)
+ Big Tech has pledged to work with providers and health systems. (The Hill)

2 China says it’s worried Nvidia’s chips have serious security issues
Just as the company sought to resume sales in the country. (Reuters)
+Experts reportedly found the chips featured location tracking tech. (FT $)

3 Mark Zuckerberg believes superintelligence “is now in sight”
Although he didn’t illuminate what it even means. (The Guardian)
+ Zuckerberg has taken a leaf out of the Altman playbook. (NY Mag $)
+ Don’t expect Meta to open source any of those superintelligent models. (TechCrunch)
+ Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future. (MIT Technology Review)

4 NASA is in turmoil
Without a permanent leader, workers are leaving in their thousands. (WP $)

5 Google removed negative articles about a tech CEO from search results
After someone made fraudulent requests using its Refresh Outdated Content Tool. (404 Media)
+ They exploited a bug in the tool to get pages removed. (Ars Technica)

6 How AI has transformed data center design
They need to accommodate a lot more heat and power than they used to. (FT $)
+ A proposed Wyoming data center would use more electricity than its homes. (Ars Technica)
+ Apple manufacturer Foxconn wants to get involved in building data centers. (CNBC)
+ Should we be moving data centers to space? (MIT Technology Review)

7 AI agents can probe websites for security weaknesses
Especially shoddily-constructed vibe-coded ones. (Wired $)
+ Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming. (MIT Technology Review)

8 New forms of life have been filmed at the ocean’s deepest points
The abundance of life was amazing, the Chinese-led research team says. (BBC)
+ Meet the divers trying to figure out how deep humans can go. (MIT Technology Review)

9 TikTok is adding Footnotes to its clips
As AI-generated videos become even harder to spot. (The Verge)
+ This fake viral clip of rabbits on a trampoline is a great example. (404 Media)

10 What it’s like to attend an Elon Musk fan fest
X Takeover promised to unite Tesla and SpaceX-heads alike. (Insider $)
+ Some people who definitely aren’t fans: neighbors of Tesla’s diner. (404 Media)

Quote of the day

“Patients across America should be very worried that their medical records are going to be used in ways that harm them and their families.”

—Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor specializing in public health, warns of the potential repercussions of the Trump administration’s new health data tracking system, the Associated Press reports.

One more thing

The cost of building the perfect wave

For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave.

While this hunt has taken surfers from tropical coastlines to icebergs, these days that search may take place closer to home. That is, at least, the vision presented by developers and boosters in the growing industry of surf pools, spurred by advances in wave-­generating technology that have finally created artificial waves surfers actually want to ride.

But there’s a problem: some of these pools are in drought-ridden areas, and face fierce local opposition. At the core of these fights is a question that’s also at the heart of the sport: What is the cost of finding, or now creating, the perfect wave—and who will have to bear it? 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.)

+ Maybe airplane food isn’t so bad after all.
+ An unwitting metal detectorist uncovered some ancient armor in the Czech Republic that may have been worn during the Trojan war.
+ Talking of the siege of Troy, tickets for Christopher Nolan’s retelling of The Odyssey are already selling out a year before it’s released.
+ This fun website refreshes every few seconds with a new picture of someone pointing at your mouse pointer.

The Download: a 30-year old baby, and OpenAI’s push into colleges

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.

Exclusive: A record-breaking baby has been born from an embryo that’s over 30 years old

A baby boy has just won the new record for the “oldest baby.” Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, who arrived on July 26, developed from an embryo that had been in storage for 30 and a half years.

Lindsey and her husband, Tim Pierce, who live in London, Ohio, “adopted” the embryo from Linda Archerd, who had it created in 1994. The couple, aged 35 and 34, respectively, had been trying for a baby for seven years. Read more about their remarkable story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

OpenAI is launching a version of ChatGPT for college students

OpenAI is launching Study Mode, a version of ChatGPT for college students that it promises will act less like a lookup tool and more like a friendly, always-available tutor. 

The chatbot begins by asking what the student wants to know and then attempts to build an exchange, where the pair work methodically toward the answer together. OpenAI says the tool was built after consulting with pedagogy experts from over 40 institutions.

But there’s an ambitious vision behind Study Mode: It’s part of a wider push by OpenAI to get AI more deeply embedded into classrooms when the new academic year starts in September. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys?

In recent months, a new class of agents has arrived on the scene: ones built using large language models. Any action that can be captured by text—from playing a video game using written commands to running a social media account—is potentially within the purview of this type of system.

LLM agents don’t have much of a track record yet, but to hear CEOs tell it, they will transform the economy—and soon. Despite that, like chatbot LLMs, agents can be chaotic and unpredictable.

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

The must-reads

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

1 The first tsunami waves have reached the US West Coast
But early damage from the powerful Russian earthquake has been thankfully limited. (WP $)
+ It’ll take some time before we can be confident there’s no danger, though. (WSJ $)
+ These underwater cables can improve tsunami detection. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Google has signed the EU code of practice
Despite criticisms from the US that it stands to stifle growth. (FT $)
+ Europe and America are taking very different paths. (The Register)

3 NASA is launching a new Earth-observing satellite today
It’ll keep a watch over precursors to earthquakes, landslides and volcanoes. (BBC)
+ Its data will be turned into maps to help scientists better respond. (NYT $)

4 US antibiotics research is likely to suffer without federal funding
It plays a critical role in antibiotic discovery. (Undark)
+ How bacteria-fighting viruses could go mainstream. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Russia is building its own new web
And at its heart is VK Co, a social network controlled by its government. (Bloomberg $)
+ How Russia killed its tech industry. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How Anthropic became so good at coding
Everyone else in Silicon Valley is dying to know. (Insider $)
+ The second wave of AI coding is here. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Demand for Vietnam’s chips is booming
It’s reaping the benefits of the world looking for alternatives to China’s products. (Rest of World)
+ Things aren’t looking great for AI chipmaker Groq. (The Information $)

8 Yelp has started making its own AI restaurant videos
And users can’t opt out of having their photos used in them. (The Verge)

9 Are memes the new comics?
If comics didn’t have a plot, that is. (Ars Technica)
+ Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Starbucks is abandoning launching stores that only accept mobile orders
The vibes are off, apparently. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“Any lawyer unaware that using generative AI platforms to do legal research is playing with fire is living in a cloud.”

—Judge Michael Slade criticizes a lawyer who used AI-generated citations in a legal case, PC Gamer reports.

One more thing

The return of pneumatic tubes

Pneumatic tubes were once touted as something that would revolutionize the world. In science fiction, they were envisioned as a fundamental part of the future—even in dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984, where they help to deliver orders for the main character, Winston Smith, in his job rewriting history to fit the ruling party’s changing narrative.

In real life, the tubes were expected to transform several industries in the late 19th century through the mid-20th. For a while, the United States took up the systems with gusto.

But by the mid to late 20th century, use of the technology had largely fallen by the wayside, and pneumatic tube technology became virtually obsolete. Except in hospitals. Read the full story.

—Vanessa Armstrong

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.)

+ This sweet baby pudu fawn is just too cute for words.
+ There’s some great picks in this list of the 100 best podcasts (and some shocking omissions).
+ The infamous gigantic Home Depot skeleton is getting a voice!
+ If you’re never not thinking about the Roman empire, here’s what happened after it all came crashing down.

The Download: how to store energy underground, and what you may not know about Trump’s AI Action Plan

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

This startup wants to use the Earth as a massive battery

Texas-based startup Quidnet Energy just completed a test showing it can store energy for up to six months by pumping water underground.

Using water to store electricity is hardly a new concept—pumped hydropower storage has been around for over a century. But the company hopes its twist on the technology could help bring cheap, long-duration energy storage to new places. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

What you may have missed about Trump’s AI Action Plan

The executive orders and announcements coming from the White House since Donald Trump returned to office have painted an ambitious vision for America’s AI future, but the details have been sparse. 

The White House’s AI Action Plan, released last week, is meant to fix that. Trump wants to boost the buildout of data centers by slashing environmental rules; withhold funding from states that pass “burdensome AI regulations”; and contract only with AI companies whose models are “free from top-down ideological bias.”

But if you dig deeper, certain parts of the plan that didn’t pop up in any headlines reveal more about where the administration’s AI plans are headed. Here are three of the most important issues to watch.

—James O’Donnell

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

The must-reads

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

1 Democrats aren’t happy about Trump’s China chip U-turn
They’re worried about the security implications of approving exporting Nvidia chips. (WP $)
+ They claim the Trump administration is using export controls as a bargaining chip. (The Hill)
+ Meanwhile, both parties are planning new bills targeting China. (Reuters)

2 US tariffs are at their highest level since before WWII
Trump’s tariff wall appears likely to trigger a global reordering of trade. (FT $)
+ But who picks up the bill? (The Guardian)
+ Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Utility companies want Big Tech to pay more for their data centers
Otherwise, rates may end up rising for regular customers. (WSJ $)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Citizen science is on the rise across the US
Platform iNaturalist is playing a key role in helping to identify new species. (NYT $)
+ How nonprofits and academia are stepping up to salvage US climate programs. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Anthropic is cracking down on Claude power users
Some of its customers are running its AI coding tool 24/7. (TechCrunch)
+ That’s seriously bad news for the environment. (Engadget)
+ We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. (MIT Technology Review)

6 MAHA might resurrect psychedelic therapy
Last year, the FDA rejected MDMA therapy. Now, it might get thrown a lifeline. (Wired $)
+ People are using AI to ‘sit’ with them while they trip on psychedelics. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Waymo is launching its robotaxi service in Dallas
In a new partnership with car rental firm Avis, not Uber. (Reuters)
+ It’s expanding steadily, unlike its rival Tesla. (Forbes $)

8 How a promising young coder wound up at DOGE
Luke Farritor has assessed, slashed, and dismantled at least 10 departments. (Bloomberg $)
+ The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled. (MIT Technology Review)

9 This Californian startup’s robot kills fish the Japanese way
The method is considered the most humane way to kill them. (Semafor)

10 AI is making online shopping hyper-personalized
By serving up results for searches like “revenge dress to wear to a party in Sicily.” (CNN)

Quote of the day

“Now I’ll click the ‘Verify you are human’ checkbox…this step is necessary to prove I’m not a bot.”

—OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent explains how it passes a common internet security checkpoint designed to catch bots just like it, Ars Technica reports.

One more thing

How gamification took over the world

It’s a thought that occurs to every video-game player at some point: What if the weird, hyper-focused state I enter when playing in virtual worlds could somehow be applied to the real one?

Often pondered during especially challenging or tedious tasks in meatspace (writing essays, say, or doing your taxes), it’s an eminently reasonable question to ask. Life, after all, is hard. And while video games are too, there’s something almost magical about the way they can promote sustained bouts of superhuman concentration and resolve.

For some, this phenomenon leads to an interest in flow states and immersion. For others, it’s simply a reason to play more games. For a handful of consultants, startup gurus, and game designers in the late 2000s, it became the key to unlocking our true human potential. But instead of liberating us, gamification turned out to be just another tool for coercion, distraction, and control. Read the full story.

—Bryan Gardiner

We can still have nice things

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

+ USPS is taking votes from the public to bring back their favorite stamps (thanks Amy!)
+ Here’s how to make your morning toast that bit more interesting.
+ The long-awaited Madonna biopic is still happening, apparently.
+ Bad news for matcha fans—there’s a global shortage