The Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise

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.

Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models    

Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in the tech world. He believes that the industry’s current obsession with large language models is wrong-headed and will ultimately fail to solve many pressing problems.  

Instead, he thinks we should be betting on world models—a different type of AI that accurately reflects the dynamics of the real world. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that he recently left Meta, where he had served as chief scientist for FAIR (Fundamental AI Research), the company’s influential research lab that he founded. 

LeCun sat down with MIT Technology Review in an exclusive online interview from his Paris apartment to discuss his new venture, life after Meta, the future of artificial intelligence, and why he thinks the industry is chasing the wrong ideas. Read the full interview. 

—Caiwei Chen

Why 2026 is a hot year for lithium

—Casey Crownhart

In 2026, I’m going to be closely watching the price of lithium.

If you’re not in the habit of obsessively tracking commodity markets, I certainly don’t blame you. (Though the news lately definitely makes the case that minerals can have major implications for global politics and the economy.)

But lithium is worthy of a close look right now. The metal is crucial for lithium-ion batteries used in phones and laptops, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage arrays on the grid. 

Prices have been on quite the roller coaster over the last few years, and they’re ticking up again. What happens next could have big implications for mining and battery technology. Read the full story. This story first appeared in The Spark, our newsletter all about the tech we can use to combat the climate crisis. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.  

The must-reads

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

1 Trump has climbed down from his plan for the US to take Greenland 
To the relief of many across Europe. (BBC)
+ Trump says he’s agreed a deal to access Greenland’s rare earths. Experts say that’s ‘bonkers.’ (CNN)
+ European leaders are feeling flummoxed about what’s going on. (FT $)

2 Apple is reportedly developing a wearable AI pin
It’s still in the very early stages—but this could be a huge deal if it makes it to launch. (The Information $)
+ It’s also planning to revamp Siri and turn it into an AI chatbot. (Bloomberg $)
+ Are we ready to trust AI with our bodies? (MIT Technology Review)

3 CEOs say AI saves people time. Their employees disagree.
Many even say that it’s currently dragging down their productivity. (WSJ $)
+ The AI boom will increase US carbon emissions—but it doesn’t have to. (Wired $)
+ Let’s also not forget that large language models remain a security nightmare. (IEEE Spectrum)

4 This chart shows how measles cases are exploding in America
They’ve hit a 30-year high, with the US on track to lose its ‘elimination status.’ (Axios $)
+ Things are poised to get even worse this year. (Wired $)

5 Your first humanoid robot coworker will almost definitely be Chinese
But will it be truly useful? That’s the even bigger question. (Wired $)
+ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says Europe could do more to compete in robotics and AI. (CNBC)

6 Bezos’ Blue Origin is about to compete with Starlink
It plans to send the first ‘TeraWave’ satellites into space next year. (Reuters $)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Trump’s family made $1.4 billion off crypto last year 
Move along, no conflicts of interest to see here. (Bloomberg $)

8 Comic-Con has banned AI art
After an artist-led backlash last week. (404 Media)
+ Hundreds of creatives are warning against an AI future built on ‘theft on a grand scale’. (The Verge $)

9 What it’s like living without a smartphone for a month
Potentially blissful for you, but probably a bit annoying for everyone else. (The Guardian)
+ Why teens with ADHD are particularly vulnerable to the perils of social media. (Nature) 

10 Elon Musk is feuding with a budget airline 
The airline is winning, in case you wondered. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“I wouldn’t edit anything about Donald Trump, because the man makes me insane.”

—Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tells Wired why he’s steering clear of the US President’s page.   

One more thing

BOB O’CONNOR

How electricity could help tackle a surprising climate villain

Cement hides in plain sight—it’s used to build everything from roads and buildings to dams and basement floors. But it’s also a climate threat. Cement production accounts for more than 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions—more than sectors like aviation, shipping, or landfills.

One solution to this climate catastrophe might be coursing through the pipes at Sublime Systems. The startup is developing an entirely new way to make cement. Instead of heating crushed-up rocks in lava-hot kilns, Sublime’s technology zaps them in water with electricity, kicking off chemical reactions that form the main ingredients in its cement.

But it faces huge challenges: competing with established industry players, and persuading builders to use its materials in the first place. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

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.)

+ Earth may be a garbage fire, but space is beautiful. 
+ Do you know how to tie your shoelaces up properly? Are you sure?!
+ I defy British readers not to feel a pang of nostalgia at these crisp packets.
+ Going to bed around the same time every night seems to be a habit worth adopting. ($)

The Download: Trump at Davos, and AI scientists

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.

All anyone wants to talk about at Davos is AI and Donald Trump

—Mat Honan, MIT Technology Review’s editor in chief 

At Davos this year Trump is dominating all the side conversations. There are lots of little jokes. Nervous laughter. Outright anger. Fear in the eyes. It’s wild. The US president is due to speak here today, amid threats of seizing Greenland and fears that he’s about to permanently fracture the NATO alliance.

But Trump isn’t the only game in town—everyone’s also talking about AI. Read Mat’s story to find out more. 

This subscriber-only story appeared first in The Debrief, Mat’s weekly newsletter about the biggest stories in tech. Sign up here to get the next one in your inbox, and subscribe if you haven’t already!

The UK government is backing AI that can run its own lab experiments

A number of startups and university teams that are building “AI scientists” to design and run experiments in the lab, including robot biologists and chemists, have just won extra funding from the UK government agency that funds moonshot R&D.  

The competition, set up by ARIA (the Advanced Research and Invention Agency), gives a clear sense of how fast this technology is moving: The agency received 245 proposals from research teams that are already building tools capable of automating increasing amounts of lab work. Read the full story to learn more. 

—Will Douglas Heaven 

Everyone wants AI sovereignty. No one can truly have it.

—Cathy Li is head of the Centre for AI Excellence at the World Economic Forum

Governments plan to pour $1.3 trillion into AI infrastructure by 2030 to invest in “sovereign AI,” with the premise being that countries should be in control of their own AI capabilities. The funds include financing for domestic data centers, locally trained models, independent supply chains, and national talent pipelines. 

This is a response to real shocks: covid-era supply chain breakdowns, rising geopolitical tensions, and the war in Ukraine. But the pursuit of absolute autonomy is running into reality: AI supply chains are irreducibly global. If sovereignty is to remain meaningful, it must shift from defensive self-reliance to a vision that balances national autonomy with strategic partnership. Read the full story.

Here’s how extinct DNA could help us in the present—and the future

Thanks to genetic science, gene editing, and techniques like cloning, it’s now possible to move DNA through time, studying genetic information in ancient remains and then re-creating it in the bodies of modern beings. And that, scientists say, offers new ways to try to help endangered species, engineer new plants that resist climate change, or even create new human medicines.  

Read more about why genetic resurrection is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year, and check out the rest of the list.

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 wants Americans to embrace AI
It faces an uphill battle—the US public is mostly pretty gloomy about AI’s impact. (WP $) 
+ What’s next for AI in 2026. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The UN says we’re entering an “era of water bankruptcy” 
And it’s set to affect the vast majority of us on the planet. (Reuters $)
+ Water shortages are fueling the protests in Iran. (Undark) 
+ This Nobel Prize–winning chemist dreams of making water from thin air. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How is US science faring after a year of Trump?
Not that well, after proposed budget cuts amounting to $32 billion. (Nature $)
+ The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled. (MIT Technology Review) 

4 We need to talk about the early career AI jobs crisis 
Young people are graduating and finding there simply aren’t any roles for them to do. (NY Mag $)
+ AI companies are fighting to win over teachers. (Axios $)
+ Chinese universities want students to use more AI, not less. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The AI boyfriend business is booming in China
And it’s mostly geared towards Gen Z women. (Wired $)
+ It’s surprisingly easy to stumble into a relationship with an AI chatbot. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 Snap has settled a social media addiction lawsuit ahead of a trial 
However the other defendants, including Meta, TikTok and YouTube, are still fighting it. (BBC)
+ A new study is going to examine the effects of restricting social media for children. (The Guardian)

7 Here are some of the best ideas of this century so far
From smartphones to HIV drugs, the pace of progress has been dizzying. (New Scientist $)

8 Robots may be on the cusp of becoming very capable
Until now, their role in the world of work has been limited. AI could radically change that. (FT $)
+ Why the humanoid workforce is running late. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Scientists are racing to put a radio telescope on the moon 
If they succeed, it will be able to ‘hear’ all the way back to over 13 billion years ago, just 380,000 years after the big bang. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Inside the quest to map the universe with mysterious bursts of radio energy. (MIT Technology Review) 

10 It turns out cows can use tools
What will we discover next? Flying pigs?! (Futurism)

Quote of the day

“We’re still staggering along, but I don’t know for how much longer. I don’t have the energy any more.”

—A researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tells Nature they and their colleagues are exhausted by the Trump administration’s attacks on science.  

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.)

+ I want to skip around every single one of these beautiful gardens.
+ Your friends help you live longer. Isn’t that nice of them?!
+ Brb, just buying a pharaoh headdress for my cat.
+ Consider this your annual reminder that you don’t need a gym membership or fancy equipment to get fitter.

The Download: digitizing India, and scoring embryos

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 man who made India digital isn’t done yet

Nandan Nilekani can’t stop trying to push India into the future. He started nearly 30 years ago, masterminding an ongoing experiment in technological state capacity that started with Aadhaar—the world’s largest digital identity system. 

Using Aadhaar as the bedrock, Nilekani and people working with him went on to build a sprawling collection of free, interoperating online tools that add up to nothing less than a digital infrastructure for society, covering government services, banking, and health care. They offer convenience and access that would be eye-popping in wealthy countries a tenth of India’s size. 

At 70 years old, Nilekani should be retired. But he has a few more ideas. Read our profile to learn about what he’s set his sights on next.

—Edd Gent

Embryo scoring is slowly becoming more mainstream

Many Americans agree that it’s acceptable to screen embryos for severe genetic diseases. Far fewer say it’s okay to test for characteristics related to a future child’s appearance, behavior, or intelligence. But a few startups are now advertising what they claim is a way to do just that.

This new kind of testing—which can cost up to $50,000—is incredibly controversial. Nevertheless, the practice has grown popular in Silicon Valley, and it’s becoming more widely available to everyone. Read the full story. 

—Julia Black
Embryo scoring is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Check out what else made the list, and scroll down to vote for the technology you think deserves the 11th slot.

Five AI predictions for 2026

What will surprise us most about AI in 2026?

Tune in at 12.30pm today to hear me, our senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and senior AI reporter James O’Donnell discuss our “5 AI Predictions for 2026”. This special LinkedIn Live event will explore the trends that are poised to transform the next twelve months of AI. The conversation will also offer a first glimpse at EmTech AI 2026, MIT Technology Review’s longest running AI event for business leadership. Sign up to join us later today! 

The must-reads

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

1 Europe is trying to build its own DeepSeek
That’s been a goal for a while, but US hostility is making those efforts newly urgent. (Wired $)
+ Plenty of Europeans want to wean off US technology. That’s easier said than done. (New Scientist $)
+ DeepSeek may have found a new way to improve AI’s ability to remember. (MIT Technology Review $)

2 Ship-tracking data shows China is creating massive floating barriers
The maneuvers show that Beijing can now rapidly muster large numbers of the boats in disputed seas. (NYT $)
+ Quantum navigation could solve the military’s GPS jamming problem. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The AI bubble risks disrupting the global economy, says the IMF
But it’s hard to see anyone pumping the brakes any time soon. (FT $)
+ British politicians say the UK is being exposed to ‘serious harm’ by AI risks. (The Guardian)
+ What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Cryptocurrencies are dying in record numbers
In an era of one-off joke coins and pump and dump scams, that’s surely a good thing. (Gizmodo)
+ President Trump has pardoned a lot of people who’ve committed financial crimes. (NBC)

5 Threads has more global daily mobile users than X now
And once-popular alternative Bluesky barely even makes the charts. (Forbes)

6 The UK is considering banning under 16s from social media 
Just weeks after a similar ban took effect in Australia. (BBC)

7 You can burn yourself out with AI coding agents 
They could be set to make experienced programmers busier than ever before. (Ars Technica)
+ Why Anthropic’s Claude Code is taking the AI world by storm. (WSJ $)
+ AI coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Some tech billionaires are leaving California 
Not all though—the founders of Nvidia and Airbnb say they’ll stay and pay the 5% wealth tax. (WP $)
+ Tech bosses’ support for Trump is paying off for them big time. (FT $)

9 Matt Damon says Netflix tells directors to repeat movie plots
To accommodate all the people using their phones. (NME)

10 Why more people are going analog in 2026 
Crafting, reading, and other screen-free hobbies are on the rise. (CNN)
+ Dumbphones are becoming popular too—but it’s worth thinking hard before you switch. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

‘It may sound like American chauvinism…and it is. We’re done apologising about that.”

—Thomas Dans, a Trump appointee who heads the US Arctic Research Commission, tells the FT his boss is deadly serious about acquiring Greenland. 

One more thing

BRUCE PETERSON

Inside the fierce, messy fight over “healthy” sugar tech

On the outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia, a new kind of sugar factory is taking shape. The facility is being developed by a startup called Bonumose. It uses a processed corn product called maltodextrin that is found in many junk foods and is calorically similar to table sugar (sucrose). 

But for Bonumose, maltodextrin isn’t an ingredient—it’s a raw material. When it’s poured into the company’s bioreactors, what emerges is tagatose. Found naturally in small concentrations in fruit, some grains, and milk, it is nearly as sweet as sucrose but apparently with only around half the calories, and wider health benefits.

Bonumose’s process originated in a company spun out of the Virginia Tech lab of Yi-Heng “Percival” Zhang. When MIT Technology Review spoke to Zhang, he was sitting alone in an empty lab in Tianjin, China, after serving a two-year sentence of supervised release in Virginia for conspiracy to defraud the US government, making false statements, and obstruction of justice. If sugar is the new oil, the global battle to control it has already begun. Read the full story. 

—Mark Harris

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.)

+ Paul Mescal just keeps getting cooler.
+ Make this year calmer with these evidence-backed tips. ($)
+ I can confirm that Lumie wake-up lamps really are worth it (and no one paid me to say so!)
+ There are some real gems in Green Day’s bassist Mike Dirnt’s favorite albums list.

The Download: the US digital rights crackdown, and AI companionship

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

What it’s like to be banned from the US for fighting online hate  

Just before Christmas the Trump administration dramatically escalated its war on digital rights by banning five people from entering the US. One of them, Josephine Ballon, is a director of HateAid, a small German nonprofit founded to support the victims of online harassment and violence. The organization is a strong advocate of EU tech regulations, and so finds itself attacked in campaigns from right-wing politicians and provocateurs who claim that it engages in censorship. 

EU officials, freedom of speech experts, and the five people targeted all flatly reject these accusations. Ballon told us that their work is fundamentally about making people feel safer online. But their experiences over the past few weeks show just how politicized and besieged their work in online safety has become. Read the full story. 

—Eileen Guo

TR10: AI companions

Chatbots are skilled at crafting sophisticated dialogue and mimicking empathetic behavior. They never get tired of chatting. It’s no wonder, then, that so many people now use them for companionship—forging friendships or even romantic relationships. 

72% of US teenagers have used AI for companionship, according to a study from the nonprofit Common Sense Media. But while chatbots can provide much-needed emotional support and guidance for some people, they can exacerbate underlying problems in others—especially vulnerable people or those with mental health issues. 

Although some early attempts to regulate this space are underway, AI companionship is going nowhere. Read why we made it one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year, and check out the rest of the list.

And, if you want to learn more about what we predict for AI this year, sign up to join me for our free LinkedIn Live event tomorrow at 12.30pm ET.

Why inventing new emotions feels so good  

Have you ever felt “velvetmist”?  

It’s a “complex and subtle emotion that elicits feelings of comfort, serenity, and a gentle sense of floating.” It’s peaceful, but more ephemeral and intangible than contentment. It might be evoked by the sight of a sunset or a moody, low-key album.  

If you haven’t ever felt this sensation—or even heard of it—that’s not surprising. A Reddit user generated it with ChatGPT, along with advice on how to evoke the feeling. Don’t scoff: Researchers say more and more terms for these “neo-­emotions” are showing up online, describing new dimensions and aspects of feeling. Read our story to learn more about why. 

—Anya Kamenetz

This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive the next edition as soon as it lands (and benefit from some hefty seasonal discounts too!)

The must-reads

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

1 Ads are coming to ChatGPT 
For American users initially, with plans to expand soon. (CNN)
+ Here’s how they’ll work. (Wired $)

2 What will we be able to salvage after the AI bubble bursts? 
It will be ugly, but there are plenty of good uses for AI that we’ll want to keep. (The Guardian) 
+ What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)

3 It’s almost impossible to mine Greenland’s natural resources 
It has vast supplies of rare earth elements, but its harsh climate and environment make them very hard to access. (The Week)

4 Iran is now 10 days into its internet shutdown
It’s one of the longest and most extreme we’ve ever witnessed. (BBC)
+  Starlink isn’t proving as helpful as hoped as the regime finds ways to jam it. (Reuters $)
+ Battles are raging online about what’s really going on inside Iran. (NYT $)

5 America is heading for a polymarket disaster 
Prediction markets are getting out of control, and some people are losing a lot of money. (The Atlantic $)
+ They were first embraced by political junkies, but now they’re everywhere. (NYT $)

6 How to fireproof a city 
Californians are starting to fight fires before they can even start. (The Verge $)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Stoking ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories can be dangerous 
Especially if you’re then given the task of helping run one of those state institutions, as Dan Bongino is now learning. (WP $)
+ Why everything is a conspiracy now. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Why we’re suddenly all having a ‘Very Chinese Time’ 
It’s a fun, flippant trend—but it also shows how China’s soft power is growing around the globe. (Wired $) 

9 Why there’s no one best way to store information
Each one involves trade-offs between space and time. (Quanta $)

10 Meat may play a surprising role in helping people reach 100
Perhaps because it can assist with building stronger muscles and bones. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“That’s the level of anxiety now – people watching the skies and the seas themselves because they don’t know what else to do.”

—A Greenlander tells The Guardian just how seriously she and her fellow compatriots are taking Trump’s threat to invade their country. 

One more thing

KATHERINE LAM

Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there

Gavesh’s journey started, seemingly innocently, with a job ad on Facebook promising work he desperately needed.

Instead, he found himself trafficked into a business commonly known as “pig butchering”—a form of fraud in which scammers form close relationships with targets online and extract money from them. The Chinese crime syndicates behind the scams have netted billions of dollars, and they have used violence and coercion to force their workers, many of them trafficked like Gavesh, to carry out the frauds from large compounds, several of which operate openly in the quasi-lawless borderlands of Myanmar.

Big Tech may hold the key to breaking up the scam syndicates—if these companies can be persuaded or compelled to act. Read the full story.

—Peter Guest & Emily Fishbein

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.)

+ Blue Monday isn’t real (but it is an absolute banger of a track.) 
+ Some great advice here about how to be productive during the working day.
+ Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s most fun plays—as these top actors can attest. 
+ If the cold and dark gets to you, try making yourself a delicious bowl of soup. 

The Download: cut through AI coding hype, and biotech trends to watch

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.

AI coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced.  

Depending who you ask, AI-powered coding is either giving software developers an unprecedented productivity boost or churning out masses of poorly designed code that saps their attention and sets software projects up for serious long term-maintenance problems. 

The problem is right now, it’s not easy to know which is true. 

As tech giants pour billions into large language models (LLMs), coding has been touted as the technology’s killer app. Executives enamored with the potential are pushing engineers to lean into an AI-powered future. But after speaking to more than 30 developers, technology executives, analysts, and researchers, MIT Technology Review found that the picture is not as straightforward as it might seem. Read the full story. 

—Edd Gent

Generative coding is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Learn more about why that is, and check out the rest of the list! 

This story was also part of our Hype Correction package. You can read the rest of the stories here.

The biotech trends to watch for in 2026

Earlier this week, MIT Technology Review published our annual list of Ten Breakthrough Technologies. 

This year’s list includes tech that’s set to transform the energy industry, artificial intelligence, space travel—and of course biotech and health. Our breakthrough biotechnologies for 2026 involve editing a baby’s genes and, separately, resurrecting genes from ancient species. We also included a controversial technology that offers parents the chance to screen their embryos for characteristics like height and intelligence. Here’s the story behind our biotech choices.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter all about the latest in health and biotech. Sign upto receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: What’s next for AI in 2026

Our AI writers have made some big bets for the coming year—read our story about the five hot trends to watch, or listen to it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The must-reads

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

1 Minnesota shows how governing and content creation have merged
In another era, we’d have just called this propaganda. (NPR)
+ MAGA influencers are just straight up lying about what is happening there. (Vox) 
+ Activists are trying to identify individual ICE officers while protecting their own identities. (WP $)
+ A backlash against ICE is growing in Silicon Valley. (Wired $)
 
2 There’s probably more child abuse material online now than ever before
Of all Big Tech’s failures, this is surely the most appalling. (The Atlantic $)
+ US investigators are using AI to detect child abuse images made by AI. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Grok is still being used to undress images of real people. (Quartz)
 
3 ChatGPT wrote a suicide lullaby for a man who later killed himself
This shows it’s “still an unsafe product,” a lawyer representing a family in a tragically similar case said. (Ars Technica)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)
 
4 Videos emerging from Iran show how bloody the crackdown has become
Iranians are finding ways around the internet blackout to show the rest of the world how many of them have been killed. (NBC) 
+ Here’s how they’re getting around the blackout. (NPR) 
 
5 China dominates the global humanoid robot market 
A new report by analysts found its companies account for over 80% of all deployments. (South China Morning Post) 
+ Just how useful are the latest humanoids, though? (Nature)
+ Why humanoid robots need their own safety rules. (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 How is Australia’s social media ban for kids going? 
It’s mixed—some teens welcome it, but others are finding workarounds. (CNBC)
 
7 Scientists are finding more objective ways to spot mental illness 
Biomarkers like voice cadence and heart rate proving pretty reliable for diagnosing conditions like depression. (New Scientist $)
 
8 The Pebble smartwatch be making a comeback
This could be the thing that tempts me back into buying wearables… (Gizmodo)
 
9 A new video game traps you in an online scam center
Can’t see the appeal myself, but… each to their own I guess? (NYT $)
 
10 Smoke detectors are poised to get a high-tech upgrade 
And one of the technologies boosting their capabilities is, of course, AI. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“I am very annoyed. I’m very disappointed. I’m seriously frustrated.” 

—Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla tells attendees at a healthcare conference this week his feelings about the anti-vaccine agenda Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been implementing, Bloomberg reports.

One more thing

ARIEL DAVIS

How close are we to genuine “mind reading?”

Technically speaking, neuroscientists have been able to read your mind for decades. It’s not easy, mind you. First, you must lie motionless within a fMRI scanner, perhaps for hours, while you watch films or listen to audiobooks. 

If you do elect to endure claustrophobic hours in the scanner, the software will learn to generate a bespoke reconstruction of what you were seeing or listening to, just by analyzing how blood moves through your brain.

More recently, researchers have deployed generative AI tools, like Stable Diffusion and GPT, to create far more realistic, if not entirely accurate, reconstructions of films and podcasts based on neural activity. So how close are we to genuine “mind reading?” Read the full story.

—Grace Huckins

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.)

+ Still keen to do a bit of reflecting on the year behind and the one ahead? This free guide might help!
+ Turns out British comedian Rik Mayall had some pretty solid life advice.
+ I want to stay in this house in São Paolo.  
+ If you want to stop doomscrolling, it’s worth looking at your sleep habits. ($)

The Download: spying on the spies, and promising climate tech

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

Meet the man hunting the spies in your smartphone

In April 2025, Ronald Deibert left all electronic devices at home in Toronto and boarded a plane. When he landed in Illinois, he bought a new laptop and iPhone. He wanted to reduce the risk of having his personal devices confiscated, because he knew his work made him a prime target for surveillance. “I’m traveling under the assumption that I am being watched, right down to exactly where I am at any moment,” Deibert says. 

Deibert directs the Citizen Lab, a research center he founded in 2001 to serve as “counterintelligence for civil society.” Housed at the University of Toronto, it’s one of the few institutions that investigate cyberthreats exclusively in the public interest, and in doing so, it has exposed some of the most egregious digital abuses of the past two decades.

For many years, Deibert and his colleagues have held up the US as the standard for liberal democracy. But that’s changing. Read the full story.

—Finian Hazen

This story is from the latest issue of our print magazine. If you subscribe now to receive future copies when they land you’ll benefit from some big discounts, and get a free tote bag! 

Three climate technologies breaking through in 2026  

—Casey Crownhart 

Happy New Year! I know it’s a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out. 

For 25 years, MIT Technology Review has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year’s version has a bunch of climate and energy picks including sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers. Let’s take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech. 

This story ran in The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about the technologies we can use to combat climate change. Sign up to get it in your inbox first every Wednesday. 

And, if you’re keen to learn more about why AI companies are betting big on next-gen nuclear, join us for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable event on Wednesday January 28 at 2pm ET. 

The must-reads

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

1 AI companies are now deeply entwined with the US military
And it looks like they’re only set to get closer. (Wired $)
+ Three open questions about the Pentagon’s push for generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Grok will comply with local laws, X has said
A global backlash over users creating ‘undressing’ images of real people seems to have forced its hand. (BBC)
+ So far there’s no evidence it’s actually following through on that promise though. (The Verge)
+ Elon Musk could stop it all instantly if he                         wanted to. (Engadget)

3 The risks of using AI in schools outweigh the benefits
According to a sweeping new study by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education. (NPR)
+ AI’s giants are trying to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)  

4 Trump is imposing new tariffs on high-end chips
They’re pretty narrow though, and leave plenty of room for exports to China. (WP $)
+ Zhipu AI says it’s trained its first major model entirely on Chinese chips. (South China Morning Post)

5 A UK police force blamed Microsoft Copilot for an intelligence error 
After spending weeks denying it was using AI tools at all. (Ars Technica)
+ Worried about police and lawyers using AI? Well, judges are at it too. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 Inside the compounds where the fraud industry makes its billions
The details are grim—for example the fact workers struck a gong every time they scammed someone out of $5,000. (NYT $)
+ Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Bandcamp has banned purely AI-generated music from its platform 
It’s the first online music platform to take this step. (Billboard)
+ Can AI generate new ideas? (NYT $)

8 Remember Havana Syndrome? The US may have found the device that causes it
It was acquired for millions of dollars under the last administration, and it’s still being studied. (CNN)

9 This study failed to prove social media time causes teens’ mental health issues
It’s a common assumption, but there’s still remarkably little evidence to back it up. (The Guardian)

10 The UK is planning to build a record-breaking number of wind farms
Its government is pushing for the vast majority of the country’s electricity to come from clean sources by 2030. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“Women and girls are far more reluctant to use AI. This should be no surprise to any of us. Women don’t see this as exciting new technology, but as simply new ways to harass and abuse us and try and push us offline.”

—Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, tells The Guardian she fears that the use of AI to harm women and girls is only going to grow. 

One more thing

DANIEL STOLLE

Inside the little-known group setting the corporate climate agenda

As thousands of companies trumpet their plans to cut carbon pollution, a small group of sustainability consultants has emerged as the go-to arbiter of corporate climate action.

The Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, helps businesses develop a timetable for action to shrink their climate footprint through some combination of cutting greenhouse-gas pollution and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After years of small-scale sustainability work, SBTi is growing rapidly, and governments are paying attention. 

But while the group has earned praise for reeling the private sector into constructive conversations about climate emissions, its rising influence has also attracted scrutiny and raised questions about why a single organization is setting the standards for many of the world’s largest companies. Read the full story.

—Ian Morse

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 leaders of Japan and South Korea drummed up a viral moment with a jam session this week. 
+ Struggle during the cold, dark winter months? Here’s how to make things easier for yourself. 
+ If you like getting lost in the depths of Wikipedia, Freakpages is for you. 
+ From Pluribus to Stranger Things, we really can’t get enough of hive mindsin stories lately. ($)

The Download: next-gen nuclear, and the data center backlash

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 next-generation nuclear reactors break out of the 20th-century blueprint  

The popularity of commercial nuclear reactors has surged in recent years as worries about climate change and energy independence drowned out concerns about meltdowns and radioactive waste. The problem is, building nuclear power plants is expensive and slow.  

A new generation of nuclear power technology could reinvent what a reactor looks like—and how it works. Advocates hope that new tech can refresh the industry and help replace fossil fuels without emitting greenhouse gases.  Here’s what that might look like.

—Casey Crownhart

Next-gen nuclear is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. If you want to learn more about why it made the list, sign up to receive The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about energy and climate change, tomorrow. You can also check out the rest of the technologies on the list here.

Data centers are amazing. Everyone hates them.

The hyperscale datacenter is a marvel of our age. A masterstroke of engineering across multiple disciplines. They are nothing short of a technological wonder. People hate them.  

People hate them in Virginia, which leads the nation in their construction. They hate them in Nevada, where they slurp up the state’s precious water. They hate them in Michigan, and Arizona, and South Dakota. They hate them all around the world, it’s true. But they really hate them in Georgia. Read our story about why they’re provoking so much fury. 

—Mat Honan

This story first featured in The Debrief with Mat Honan, a weekly newsletter about the biggest stories in tech from our editor in chief. Sign up here to get the next one in your inbox on Friday.

The must-reads

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

1 Iran is systematically crippling Starlink
The satellite internet service is meant to be impossible to jam—but the Iranian authorities are doing just that. (Rest of World)  
+ Messages getting around Iran’s internet block suggest that thousands of people have been killed. (NYT $)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Studies claiming microplastics harm us are being called into question
Some scientists say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. (The Guardian) 

3 Trump is trying to temper the data center backlash 
He hopes cajoling tech companies to pay more and thus reduce people’s energy bills will do the trick. (WP $) 
+ Microsoft has just become the first tech company to promise it will do just that. (NYT $)
+ We know AI is power hungry. But just how big is the scale of the problem? (MIT Technology Review) 

4 US emissions jumped last year
Thanks to a combination of rising electricity demand, and more coal being burned to meet it. (NYT $)
+ But it’s not all bad news: coal power generation in India and China finally started to decline. (The Guardian)
+ Four bright spots in climate news in 2025. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Elon Musk needs to face consequences for his actions
If we tolerate him unleashing a flood of harassment of women and children, what will come next? (The Atlantic $) 
+ The US Senate has passed a bill that could give non-consensual deepfake victims a new way to fight back. (The Verge $)

6 Why the US is set to lose the race back to the moon 
Cuts to NASA aren’t helping, but they’re not the only problem. (Wired $)

7 Google’s Veo AI model can now turn portrait images into vertical videos
Really slick ones, too. (The Verge $)
+ AI-generated influencers are sharing fake images of them in bed with celebrities on Instagram. (404 Media $)

8 Former NYC mayor Eric Adams has been accused of a crypto ‘pump and dump’ 
He promoted a token that saw its market cap briefly soar to $580 million before plummeting. (Coindesk)

9 Are you a middle manager? Here’s some good news for you
Your skills are not being replaced by AI any time soon. (Quartz) 

10 Even miniscule lifestyle tweaks can extend your lifespan
A study of 60,000 adults found just a little bit more sleep and exercise makes a huge difference. (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

“What I’m hopeful for in ’26 is for more people speaking up. Speaking truth to power is the point of freedom of speech, is the point of American society.”

—LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman tells Wired he wants more people in Silicon Valley to start pushing back against the Trump administration this year. 

One more thing

DEEP LEARNING INDABA 2024

What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player

Africa is still early in the process of adopting AI technologies. But researchers say the continent is uniquely hospitable to it for several reasons, including a relatively young and increasingly well-educated population, a rapidly growing ecosystem of AI startups, and lots of potential consumers.  

However, ambitious efforts to develop AI tools that answer the needs of Africans face numerous hurdles. Taken together, researchers worry, they could hold Africa’s AI sector back and hamper its efforts to pave its own pathway in the global AI race. Read the full story.

—Abdullahi Tsanni

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.)

+ Still keen to do a bit of reflecting on the year behind and the one ahead? This free guide might help!
+ Turns out British comedian Rik Mayall had some pretty solid life advice.
+ I want to stay in this house in São Paolo.  
+ If you want to stop doomscrolling, it’s worth looking at your sleep habits. ($)

The Download: sodium-ion batteries and China’s bright tech future

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.

Sodium-ion batteries are making their way into cars—and the grid

For decades, lithium-ion batteries have powered our phones, laptops, and electric vehicles. But lithium’s limited supply and volatile price have led the industry to seek more resilient alternatives. Enter: sodium-ion batteries. 

They work much like lithium-ion ones: they store and release energy by shuttling ions between two electrodes. But unlike lithium, a somewhat rare element that is currently mined in only a handful of countries, sodium is cheap and found everywhere. Read why it’s poised to become more important to our energy future.

—Caiwei Chen

Sodium-ion batteries are one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Take a look at what else made the list. 

CES showed me why Chinese tech companies feel so optimistic

—Caiwei Chen

I decided to go to CES kind of at the last minute. Over the holiday break, contacts from China kept messaging me about their travel plans. After the umpteenth “See you in Vegas?” I caved. As a China tech writer based in the US, I have one week a year when my entire beat seems to come to me—no 20-hour flights required.

CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, is the world’s biggest tech show, where companies launch new gadgets and announce new developments, and it happens every January. China has long had a presence at CES, but this year it showed up in a big way. Chinese companies showcased everything from AI gadgets to household appliances to robots, and the overall mood among them was upbeat. Here’s why.

This story was first featured in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside story of what’s going on in AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

This company is developing gene therapies for muscle growth, erectile dysfunction, and “radical longevity”  

At some point this month, a handful of volunteers will be injected with experimental gene therapies as part of an unusual clinical trial. The drugs are potential longevity therapies, says Ivan Morgunov, the CEO of Unlimited Bio, the company behind the trial.  

The volunteers—who are covering their own travel and treatment costs—will receive a series of injections in their arms and legs. One of the therapies is designed to increase the blood supply to those muscles. The other is designed to support muscle growth. The company hopes to see improvements in strength, endurance, and recovery. It also plans to eventually trial similar therapies in the scalp (for baldness) and penis (for erectile dysfunction). 

However, some experts warn the trial is too small, and likely won’t reveal anything useful. Read the full story. 

—Jessica Hamzelou

The must-reads

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

1 Apple is teaming up with Google to give Siri an AI revamp 
That’s a giant win for Google, and a blow for OpenAI. (CNBC)

2 Trump wants Elon Musk to help break Iran’s internet blackout
He’s appealing to Musk to let Iranians circumvent it with Starlink. (WP $)
+ Smuggled tech is Iran’s last link to the outside world. (The Guardian)

3 Right-wing influencers have flocked to Minneapolis 
Their goal is to paint it as a lawless city, and justify ICE’s shooting of Renee Nicole Good. (Wired $)

4 The Pentagon is adopting Musk’s Grok AI chatbot 
Just as it faces a backlash across the world for making non-consensual deepfakes. (NPR)
+ The UK is launching a formal probe into X. (The Guardian)
+ It’s also bringing in a new law which will make it illegal to make these sorts of images. (BBC)

5 The push to power AI is devastating coastal villages in Taiwan
A rapid expansion of wind energy is hurting farmers and fishers. (Rest of World)
+ Stop worrying about your AI footprint. Look at the big picture instead. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Don’t hold your breath for robots’ ChatGPT moment
AI has unlocked impressive advances in robotics, but we’re a very long way from human-level capabilities. (FT $)
+ Will we ever trust humanoid robots in our homes? (MIT Technology Review)

7 Meta is about to lay off hundreds of metaverse employees
Reality Labs is yesterday’s news—now it’s all about AI. (NYT $)

8 We could eradicate flu 
A “universal” flu vaccine could be far better at protecting us than any existing option. (Vox $)

9 You can now reserve a hotel room on the moon
It’s all yours, for just $250,000. (Ars Technica)
+ This astronaut is training tourists to fly in the world’s first commercial space station. (MIT Technology Review)

10 AI images are complicating efforts to find some monkeys in Missouri 
For real. (AP) 

Quote of the day

“In big cities, everyone is an isolated, atomized individual. People live in soundproof apartments, not knowing the surname of their neighbors.”

—A user on social media platform RedNote explains why a new app called ‘Are you dead’ has become popular in China, Business Insider reports. 

One more thing

STUART BRADFORD

AI is coming for music, too

While large language models that generate text have exploded in the last three years, a different type of AI, based on what are called diffusion models, is having an unprecedented impact on creative domains. 

By transforming random noise into coherent patterns, diffusion models can generate new images, videos, or speech, guided by text prompts or other input data. The best ones can create outputs indistinguishable from the work of people.

Now these models are marching into a creative field that is arguably more vulnerable to disruption than any other: music. And their output encapsulates how difficult it’s becoming to define authorship and originality in the age of AI. Read the full story.

—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.)

+ Bricking your phone is the new Dry January. 
+ If you’re hankering for an adventure this year, check out this National Geographic list.
+ There are few people more furiously punk than women going through the menopause, as this new TV show demonstrates ($).
+ Aww, look how Pallas cats keep their paws warm in winter.

The Download: introducing this year’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies

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 this year’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies 

It’s easy to be cynical about technology these days. Many of the “disruptions” of the last 15 years were more about coddling a certain set of young, moneyed San Franciscans than improving the world. Yet you can be sympathetic to the techlash and still fully buy into the idea that technology can be good.

We really can build tools that make this planet healthier, more livable, more equitable, and just all-around better. And some people are doing just that, pushing progress forward across a number of fundamental, potentially world-changing technologies.  

These are exactly the technologies we aim to spotlight in our annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies list. These are 10 technologies that we believe are poised to fundamentally alter the world, and they’re a matter of hot debate across the newsroom for months before being unveiled. So, without further ado… Here’s the full list.

Do you think we’ve missed something? You have until April to cast your vote for the 11th breakthrough!

Why some “breakthrough” technologies don’t work out 

—Fabio Duarte is associate director and principal research scientist at the MIT Senseable City Lab.

Today marks the 25th year the MIT Technology Review newsroom has compiled its annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies list, which means its journalists and editors have now identified 250 technologies as breakthroughs. 

A few years ago, editor at large David Rotman revisited the publication’s original list, finding that while all the technologies were still relevant, each had evolved and progressed in often unpredictable ways. I lead students through a similar exercise in a graduate class I teach with James Scott for MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, asking them what we can learn from the failures. 

Although it’s less glamorous than envisioning which advances will change our future, analyzing failed technologies is equally important. Read about why that is.

The must-reads

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

1 Iran has almost completely shut its internet down 
Which makes it very hard for the world to witness its government killing people. (AP)
+ The shutdown is chillingly effective, and likely to last. (The Guardian)
+ President Trump is considering military strikes against Iran. (NYT $)

2 ICE is gaining powerful new surveillance capabilities
It’s purchased tools that give it the ability to track individuals across entire neighborhoods. (404 Media $)
+ The ICE shooting shows why reality still matters. (The Verge $)
+ It’s time for Apple to reinstate ICEBlock. (Engadget) 

3 Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked access to Grok 
They are the first in the world to ban the AI tool, which is being used to make explicit non-consensual deepfakes. (BBC)
+ How Elon Musk’s platform unleashed a torrent of abuse upon women and girls. (The Guardian)

4 Silicon Valley’s billionaires are panicking over a proposed 5% wealth tax
Poor dears. (Wired $)

5 Meta signed a deal with three nuclear companies
It’s becoming a favored power source for tech companies as their AI ambitions grow. (TechCrunch)
+ Can nuclear power really fuel the rise of AI? (MIT Technology Review)

6 AI has a memorization problem 
The fact it reproduces copyrighted work shows it might not work the way its makers claim. (The Atlantic $)
+ DeepSeek is poised to release a new flagship AI model. (The Information $)

7 Here’s the stuff from CES you might actually consider buying 
It’s always a bit of a gimmick fest—but these items made their way onto reporters’ wishlists. (The Verge $)
+ On the flipside, you absolutely should not purchase anything on the ‘worst in show’ list. (The Register)

8 How WhatsApp took over the world 
It’s used by more than three billion people every month—nearly half the global population. (New Yorker $)

9 AI music is here to stay
Love it or hate it, it’s only going to play a bigger role going forward. (Vox)
+ It’s complicating our definitions of authorship and creativity in the process. (MIT Technology Review)

10 We’re crying out for better experiences online
The question is: who will give them to us? (WP $)

Quote of the day

“Things here are very, very bad. A lot of our friends have been killed. They were firing live rounds. It’s like a war zone, the streets are full of blood. They’re taking away bodies in trucks.”

—An anonymous source in Iran’s capital Tehran tells the BBC how the government is cracking down on protests. 

One more thing

This startup is about to conduct the biggest real-world test of aluminum as a zero-carbon fuel

Found Energy aims to harness the energy in scraps of aluminum metal to power industrial processes without fossil fuels. Since 2022, the company has worked to develop ways to rapidly release energy from aluminum on a small scale. 

Now it’s just switched on a much larger version of its aluminum-powered engine, which it claims is the largest aluminum-water reactor ever built. Soon, it will be installed to supply heat and hydrogen to a tool manufacturing facility in the southeastern US, using the aluminum waste produced by the plant itself as fuel.

If everything works as planned, this technology, which uses a catalyst to unlock the energy stored within aluminum metal, could transform a growing share of aluminum scrap into a zero-carbon fuel. Read the full story.

—James Dinneen

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 enjoyed this heartwarming story of love across the generational divide  
+ It turns out you can cook an egg in an air fryer. The big question is—should you?
+ Of course Japan has a real-life Pokémon Fossil Museum.
+ If you haven’t already, make 2026 the year you get a hobby. Your life will be all the richer for it.

The Download: the case for AI slop, and helping CRISPR fulfill its promise

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 I learned to stop worrying and love AI slop

—Caiwei Chen

If I were to locate the moment AI slop broke through into popular consciousness, I’d pick the video of rabbits bouncing on a trampoline that went viral last summer. For many savvy internet users, myself included, it was the first time we were fooled by an AI video, and it ended up spawning a wave of almost identical generated clips.

My first reaction was that, broadly speaking, all of this sucked. That’s become a familiar refrain, in think pieces and at dinner parties. Everything online is slop now—the internet “enshittified,” with AI taking much of the blame. Initially, I largely agreed. But then friends started sharing AI clips in group chats that were compellingly weird, or funny. Some even had a grain of brilliance. 

I had to admit I didn’t fully understand what I was rejecting—what I found so objectionable. To try to get to the bottom of how I felt (and why), I spoke to the people making the videos, a company creating bespoke tools for creators, and experts who study how new media becomes culture. What I found convinced me that maybe generative AI will not end up ruining everything after all. Read the full story.

A new CRISPR startup is betting regulators will ease up on gene-editing

Here at MIT Technology Review we’ve been writing about the gene-editing technology CRISPR since 2013, calling it the biggest biotech breakthrough of the century. Yet so far, there’s been only one gene-editing drug approved, and it’s been used commercially on only about 40 patients, all with sickle-cell disease.

It’s becoming clear that the impact of CRISPR isn’t as big as we all hoped. In fact, there’s a pall of discouragement over the entire field—with some journalists saying the gene-editing revolution has “lost its mojo.”

So what will it take for CRISPR to help more people? A new startup says the answer could be an “umbrella approach” to testing and commercializing treatments which could avoid costly new trials or approvals for every new version. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

America’s new dietary guidelines ignore decades of scientific research

The first days of 2026 have brought big news for health. On Wednesday, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his colleagues at the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture unveiled new dietary guidelines for Americans. And they are causing a bit of a stir.

That’s partly because they recommend products like red meat, butter, and beef tallow—foods that have been linked to cardiovascular disease, and that nutrition experts have been recommending people limit in their diets.

These guidelines are a big deal—they influence food assistance programs and school lunches, for example. Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly advice being dished up to Americans by their government.

—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 Grok has switched off its image-generating function for most users
Following a global backlash to its sexualized pictures of women and children. (The Guardian)
+ Elon Musk has previously lamented the “guardrails” around the chatbot. (CNN)
+ XAI has been burning through cash lately. (Bloomberg $)

2 Online sleuths tried to use AI to unmask the ICE agent who killed a woman
The problem is, its results are far from reliable. (WP $)
+ The Trump administration is pushing videos of the incident filmed from a specific angle. (The Verge)
+ Minneapolis is struggling to make sense of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good. (WSJ $)

3 Smartphones and PCs are about to get more expensive
You can thank the memory chip shortage sparked by the AI data center boom. (FT $)
+ Expect delays alongside those price rises, too. (Economist $)

4 NASA is bringing four of the seven ISS crew members back to Earth
It’s not clear exactly why, but it said one of them experienced a “medical situation” earlier this week. (Ars Technica)

5 The vast majority of humanoid robots shipped last year were from China
The country is dominating early supply for the bipedal machines. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why a Chinese robot vacuum firm is moving into EVs. (Wired $)
+ China’s EV giants are betting big on humanoid robots. (MIT Technology Review)

6 New Jersey has banned students’ phones in schools
It’s the latest in a long line of states to restrict devices during school hours. (NYT $)

7 Are AI coding assistants getting worse?
This data scientist certainly seems to think so. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ AI coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How to save wine from wildfires
Smoke leaves the alcohol with an ashy taste, but a group of scientists are working on a solution. (New Yorker $)

9 Celebrity Letterboxd accounts are good fun
Unsurprisingly, a subset of web users have chosen to hound them. (NY Mag $)

10 Craigslist refuses to die
The old-school classifieds corner of the web still has a legion of diehard fans. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“Tools like Grok now risk bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream. The harms are rippling out.”

—Ngaire Alexander, head of the Internet Watch Foundation’s reporting hotline, explains the dangers around low-moderation AI tools like Grok to the Wall Street Journal.

One more thing

How to measure the returns on R&D spending

Given the draconian cuts to US federal funding for science, it’s worth asking some hard-nosed money questions: How much should we be spending on R&D? How much value do we get out of such investments, anyway?

To answer that, in several recent papers, economists have approached this issue in clever new ways.  And, though they ask slightly different questions, their conclusions share a bottom line: R&D is, in fact, one of the better long-term investments that the government can make. 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.)

+ Bruno Mars is back, baby!
+ Hmm, interesting: Apple’s new Widow’s Bay show is inspired by both Stephen King and Donald Glover, which is an intriguing combination.
+ Give this man control of the new Lego AI bricks!
+ An iron age war trumpet recently uncovered in Britain is the most complete example discovered anywhere in the world.