The Download: carbon removal factories’ funding cuts, and AI toys

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 Trump administration may cut funding for two major direct-air capture plants

The US Department of Energy appears poised to terminate funding for a pair of large carbon-sucking factories that were originally set to receive more than $1 billion in government grants, according to a department-issued list of projects obtained by MIT Technology Review and circulating among federal agencies.

One of the projects is the South Texas Direct Air Capture Hub, a facility that Occidental Petroleum’s 1PointFive subsidiary planned to develop in Kleberg County, Texas. The other is Project Cypress in Louisiana, a collaboration between Battelle, Climeworks, and Heirloom. Read the full story.

—James Temple

AI toys are all the rage in China—and now they’re appearing on shelves in the US too

Kids have always played with and talked to stuffed animals. But now their toys can talk back, thanks to a wave of companies that are fitting children’s playthings with chatbots and voice assistants.
 
It’s a trend that has particularly taken off in China: A recent report by the Shenzhen Toy Industry Association and JD.com predicts that the sector will surpass ¥100 billion ($14 billion) by 2030, growing faster than almost any other branch of consumer AI. But Chinese AI toy companies have their sights set beyond the nation’s borders. Read the full story.

—Caiwei Chen

2025 climate tech companies to watch: Pairwise and its climate-adapted crops

Climate change will make it increasingly difficult to grow crops across many parts of the world. Startup Pairwise is using CRISPR gene editing to develop plants that can better withstand adverse conditions.

The company uses cutting-edge gene editing to produce crops that can withstand increasingly harsh climate conditions, helping to feed a growing population even as the world warms. Last year, it delivered its first food to the US market: a less-bitter–tasting mustard green. It’s now working to produce crops with climate-resilient traits, through partnerships with two of the world’s largest plant biotech companies. Read the full story.

—James Temple

Pairwise is one of our 10 climate tech companies to watch—our annual list of some of the most promising climate tech firms on the planet. Check out the rest of the list here.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: 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.

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 How OpenAI and Nvidia are fueling the AI bubble 
Experts fear their circular deals could be artificially inflating the market. (Bloomberg $)
+ OpenAI will pay for AMD’s chips using, err, AMD’s own stock. (TechCrunch)
+ The Bank of England is concerned about AI inflating tech stocks. (FT $)
+ What comes next, that’s the big question. (NBC News)

2 Around 15% of the world’s working population is using AI
And countries in Europe are among the most enthusiastic adopters. (FT $)
+ The EU is keen to get even more of its citizens using it, too. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, America’s public opinion towards AI is souring. (WP $)

3 Three quantum mechanics scientists have won the Nobel Prize for Physics
Two of whom were instrumental in building Google’s working quantum machines. (Bloomberg $)
+ Their work shone a light on behaviors of the subatomic realm. (NYT $)
+ Quantum particles behave in notoriously strange ways. (New Scientist $)

4 The CDC has finally signed off on covid vaccine recommendations
Despite the delay, access looks largely similar to last years’. (Ars Technica)
+ The Supreme Court isn’t sold on medical expertise these days. (Vox)

5 What makes TikTok so ‘sticky’ 
Even its hardcore users can be persuaded to keep scrolling for hours. (WP $)

6 ICE bought fake cell towers to spy on nearby phones
It’s used cell-site simulators in the past to track down alleged criminals. (TechCrunch)
+ Meet the volunteers tracking ICE officers in LA. (New Yorker $)

7 Watermark removers for Sora 2 videos are already readily available
No permission? No problem. (404 Media)
+ What about copyright for AI-generated art? (The Information $)
+ And what comes next for AI copyright lawsuits? (MIT Technology Review)

8 How diamonds can help to cool down chips
They’re remarkably good at transferring heat. (NYT $)

9 Amazon Pharmacy is launching electronic prescription kiosks
For drugs including antibiotics, asthma inhalers and treatments for high blood pressure. (Reuters)

10 Should you limit your smartphone use to two hours a day?
Japan thinks so. (The Guardian)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“OpenAI is building the future of AI on infrastructure it doesn’t own, power it doesn’t control, and capital it doesn’t have.”

—Andrey Sidorenko, head of research at data firm Mostly AI, critiques what he calls the consolidation of the AI ecosystem in a post on LinkedIn.

One more thing

How AI can help make cities work better

In recent decades, cities have become increasingly adept at amassing all sorts of data. But that data can have limited impact when government officials are unable to communicate, let alone analyze or put to use, all the information they have access to.

This dynamic has always bothered Sarah Williams, a professor of urban planning and technology at MIT. Shortly after joining MIT in 2012, Williams created the Civic Data Design Lab to bridge that divide. Over the years, she and her colleagues have made urban planning data more vivid and accessible through human stories and striking graphics. Read the full story.

—Ben Schneider

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.)

+ Life lessons from the one and only Ozzy Osbourne—what’s not to like?
+ Did you know that most countries have their own camouflage? Check the patterns out here.
+ These hamsters getting an MRI scan is the cutest thing you’ll see today.
+ Pumpkin chili sounds like a fantastic way to warm up.

The Download: extracting lithium, and what we still don’t know about Sora

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 company is planning a lithium empire from the shores of the Great Salt Lake

On a bright afternoon in August, the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake looks like something out of a science fiction film set in a scorching alien world.

This otherworldly scene is the test site for a company called Lilac Solutions, which is developing a technology it says will shake up the United States’ efforts to pry control over the global supply of lithium, the so-called “white gold” needed for electric vehicles and batteries, away from China.

The startup is in a race to commercialize a new, less environmentally-damaging way to extract lithium from rocks. If everything pans out, it could significantly increase domestic supply at a crucial moment for the nation’s lithium extraction industry. Read the full story.

—Alexander C. Kaufman

The three big unanswered questions about Sora

Last week OpenAI released Sora, a TikTok-style app that presents an endless feed of exclusively AI-generated videos, each up to 10 seconds long. The app allows you to create a “cameo” of yourself—a hyperrealistic avatar that mimics your appearance and voice—and insert other peoples’ cameos into your own videos (depending on what permissions they set). 

In the days since, it soared to the top spot on Apple’s US App Store. But its explosive growth raises a bunch of questions: can its popularity last? Can OpenAI afford it? And how soon until we start seeing lawsuits over its use of copyrighted content? Here’s what we’ve learned so far.

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

—James O’Donnell

2025 climate tech companies to watch: HiNa Battery Technology and its effort to commercialize salt cells

Over the next few decades the world will need a lot more batteries to power electric cars and keep grids stable. Today most battery cells are made with lithium, so the mineral is expected to be in hyper demand. But a new technology has come on the scene, potentially disrupting the global battery industry.

For decades, research of sodium-ion cell technology was abandoned due to the huge commercial success of lithium-ion cells. Now, HiNa Battery Technology is working to bring sodium back to the limelight—and to the mass market. Read the full story.

—You Xiaoying

HiNa Battery Technology is one of our 10 climate tech companies to watch—our annual list of some of the most promising climate tech firms on the planet. Check out the rest of the list here.

The must-reads

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

1 OpenAI has signed a major chip deal
It will collaborate with AMD in a challenge to Nvidia’s dominance. (WSJ $)
+ The multi-billion dollar deal will play out over five years. (FT $)
+ Just two weeks ago, OpenAI agreed a deal with Nvidia. (CNN)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Google lost a US Supreme Court bid
The justices denied Google’s bid to pause changes to its app store. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’s part of the lawsuit Epic Games brought against the tech giant. (Reuters)
+ The dispute remains unsolved, so it may be handed back to the justices. (NYT $)

3 You can now use some apps directly within ChatGPT
It’s all part of OpenAI’s ambitions to make it a one-stop-shop for all your needs. (The Verge)
+ Sam Altman wants it to become your primary digital portal. (The Information $)

4 Deloitte used AI to generate a report for the Australian government
Unfortunately, it was littered with hallucinated mistakes. (Ars Technica)

5 The Nobel prize for medicine has been awarded to three immunity researchers
The trio discovered an immune cell that helps stop the immune system attacking itself. (New Scientist $)

6 Russians are using AI to create video memorials of their war dead
A burgeoning industry has sprung up, and practitioners will generate clips for $30. (WP $)
+ Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The dream of greener air travel is starting to die
Hydrogen-powered planes are years away. So what now? (FT $)
+ How new technologies could clean up air travel. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How job hunters are trying to trick AI résumé-checkers
Inserting sneaky hidden prompts is becoming commonplace. (NYT $)

9 The creator of the Friend AI pendant doesn’t care if you hate it
The backlash to its provocative ads is all part of the plan, apparently. (The Atlantic $)

10 Taylor Swift’s fans really don’t like AI
They’ve accused the singer’s new videos, which appear to be AI-generated, of looking cheap and sloppy. (NY Mag $)
+ AI text is out, moving pictures are in. (Economist $)

Quote of the day

“When AI videos are just as good as normal videos, I wonder what that will do to YouTube and how it will impact the millions of creators currently making content for a living… scary times.”

—YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, reflects on AI videos infiltrating the internet, TechCrunch reports.

One more thing

The case against humans in space

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

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

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

—Becky Ferreira

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)+ Wow: scientists have successfully reconstructed a million-year old skull
+ Take a trip back in time with this fun compilation of music from the very first Sims game.
+ RIP ‘stomp clap hey’—music’s most misunderstood and simultaneously annoying genre.
+ How to live a good life in a tough world.

The Download: introducing the 10 climate tech companies to watch for 2025

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

Introducing: 10 climate tech companies to watch

Every year, the MIT Technology Review newsroom produces a list of some of the most promising climate tech firms on the planet. It’s an exercise that we hope brings positive attention to companies working to decarbonize major sectors of the economy, whether by spinning up new, cleaner sources of energy or reinventing how we produce foods and distribute goods.

Though the political and funding landscape has shifted dramatically in the US since last year, nothing has altered the urgency of the climate dangers the world now faces—we need to rapidly curb greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. This project highlights the firms making progress toward that end.

Check out the third annual edition of the list, and learn more about why we selected these companies.

Our best weapon against climate change is ingenuity

—Bill Gates is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist.

It’s a foregone conclusion that the world will not meet the goals for limiting emissions and global warming laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Many people want to blame politicians and corporations for this failure, but there’s an even more fundamental reason: We don’t have all the technological tools we need to do it, and many of the ones we do have are too expensive.

But I don’t think this is a reason to be pessimistic. I see it as cause for optimism, because humans are very good at inventing things. In fact, we’ve already created many tools that are reducing emissions. And I am confident that more positive changes are coming. Read the full story.

Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline

People over Papers, a crowd-sourcing project that maps sightings of immigration agents, was taken offline yesterday by Padlet, the collaborative bulletin board platform on which it was built. 

It’s just the latest ICE-tracking initiative to be pulled by tech platforms in the past few days, including the ICEBlock app that was removed from app stores last week and the Stop ICE Raids Alert Network. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

The must-reads

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

1 ICE wants to build a social media surveillance squad 
Contractors will sift through social content searching for information to aid arrests and deportations. (Wired $)
+ A US citizen with stage four cancer has been deported. (The Guardian)

2 xAI is building massive data centers in Memphis
Which isn’t great news for disgruntled locals. (WSJ $)
+ Data centers are big business in Europe right now. (Bloomberg $)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Ukraine’s front lines are fighting deadly infections
Bacteria that are resistant to multiple antibiotics are infiltrating the country. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Why tiny viruses could be our best bet against antimicrobial resistance. (MIT Technology Review)

4 A Silicon Valley school asked its students to draft an AI policy
Mountain View High School thinks involving kids is the best way forward. (WP $)
+ Elsewhere, a school in Texas is letting AI guide its entire curriculum. (CBS News)
+ AI’s giants want to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)

5 These countries hope to benefit from the US visa crackdown
Skilled engineers from overseas are looking beyond America for new opportunities. (FT $)
+ India hopes its skilled workers living abroad will return home. (BBC)

6 How an empty Chinese city became a self-driving testbed
Ordos has everything that self-driving cars need—except humans. (Rest of World)
+ Why China’s self-driving industry is pushing into Europe. (Reuters)

7 How to talk to cows
A wave of high-tech AI-powered collars is the closest we’ve got. (NYT $)
+ Scientists are trying to get cows pregnant with synthetic embryos. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Technology is full of fascinating records
Strongest robotic arm, anyone? (IEEE Spectrum)

9 Posting a simple Instagram photo is no longer enough
The app keeps pushing us to ‘contentify’ everything. (The Verge)

10 Japanese beer brand Asahi has resumed production 
After a huge cyber attack forced its breweries offline. (BBC)
+ But we don’t know when its plants will return to full capacity. (Reuters)

Quote of the day

“You’ll never have a human trafficked AI girl.”

—Steve Jones, who runs an AI porn site, explains how he sees the ethics of his endeavor to the Guardian.

One more thing

The race to fix space-weather forecasting before next big solar storm hits

As the number of satellites in space grows, and as we rely on them for increasing numbers of vital tasks on Earth, the need to better predict stormy space weather is becoming more and more urgent.

Scientists have long known that solar activity can change the density of the upper atmosphere. But it’s incredibly difficult to precisely predict the sorts of density changes that a given amount of solar activity would produce.

Now, experts are working on a model of the upper atmosphere to help scientists to improve their models of how solar activity affects the environment in low Earth orbit. If they succeed, they’ll be able to keep satellites safe even amid turbulent space weather, reducing the risk of potentially catastrophic orbital collisions. Read the full story.

—Tereza Pultarova

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 love this website showcasing madcap music genres (thanks Rachel!)
+ It’s not just you—world records really are getting harder to beat.
+ If you’ve ever wanted to play Snake in a url bar, now’s your chance (warning, it’s hard!)
+ Fall is here, and the photos are already breathtaking ($)

The Download: using AI to discover “zero day” vulnerabilities, and Apple’s ICE app removal

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.

Microsoft says AI can create “zero day” threats in biology

A team at Microsoft says it used artificial intelligence to discover a “zero day” vulnerability in the biosecurity systems used to prevent the misuse of DNA.

These screening systems are designed to stop people from purchasing genetic sequences that could be used to create deadly toxins or pathogens. But now researchers say they have figured out how to bypass the protections in a way previously unknown to defenders. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

If you’re interested in learning more about AI and biology, check out:

+ AI-designed viruses are here and already killing bacteria. Read the full story.

+ OpenAI is making a foray into longevity science with an AI built to help manufacture stem cells.

+ AI is dreaming up drugs that no one has ever seen. Now we’ve got to see if they work.

The must-reads

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

1 Apple removed an app for reporting ICE officer sightings
The US Attorney General requested it take down ICEBlock—and Apple complied. (Insider $)
+ Apple says the removal was down to the safety risk it posed. (Bloomberg $)
+ The company had a similar explanation for removing a Hong Kong map app back in 2019. (The Verge)

2 OpenAI’s parental controls are easily circumvented 
Its alerts about teenagers’ concerning conversations also took hours to deliver. (WP $)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

3 VCs have sunk a record amount into AI startups this year 
To the tune of $192.7 billion so far. (Bloomberg $)
+ The AI bubble is looking increasingly precarious, though. (FT $)
+ How to fine-tune AI for prosperity. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The US federal vaccination schedule is still waiting for an update
Officials are yet to sign off on recommendations for this year’s updated Covid shots. (Ars Technica)
+ Many people have been left unable to get vaccinated. (NPR)

5 The US Department of Energy has canceled yet more clean energy projects
In mostly blue states. (TechCrunch)
+ More than 300 funding awards have been axed. (CNBC)
+ How to make clean energy progress under Trump in the states. (MIT Technology Review)

6 TikTok recommends pornography to children’s accounts
Despite activating its “restricted mode” to prevent sexualized content. (BBC)

7 China has launched a new skilled worker visa program
In the wake of the US H-1B visa clampdown. (Wired $)
+ The initiative hasn’t gone down well with locals. (BBC)

8 Flights were grounded in Germany after several drone sightings
NATO members are worried about suspected Russian incursions in their skies. (WSJ $)
+ It’s the latest in a string of airspace sightings. (FT $)

9 How YouTube is shaking up Hollywood
Its powerful creators are starting to worry the entertainment establishment—and Netflix. (FT $)

10 Anti-robocall tools are getting better
Call screening features are a useful first line of defense. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move.”

—Joshua Aaron, the developer of ICEBlock, the app that crowdsources sightings of ICE officials, hits back at Apple’s decision to remove it from the App Store, 404 Media reports.

One more thing

How AI can help supercharge creativity

Existing generative tools can automate a striking range of creative tasks and offer near-instant gratification—but at what cost? Some artists and researchers fear that such technology could turn us into passive consumers of yet more AI slop.

And so they are looking for ways to inject human creativity back into the process: working on what’s known as co-­creativity or more-than-human creativity. The aim is to develop AI tools that augment our creativity rather than strip it from us. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

We can still have nice things

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

+ Congratulations to Fizz, the very handsome UK cat of the year!
+ What it took to transform actor Jeremy Allan White into the one and only Boss in his new film, Deliver Me from Nowhere.
+ Divers have salvaged more than 1,000 gold and silver coins from a 1715 shipwreck off the east coast of Florida.
+ The internet is obsessed with crabs. But why?

The Download: RIP EV tax credits, and OpenAI’s new valuation

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.

EV tax credits are dead in the US. Now what?

Federal EV tax credits in the US officially came to an end yesterday.

Those credits, expanded and extended in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, gave drivers up to $7,500 toward the purchase of a new electric vehicle. They’ve been a major force in cutting the up-front costs of EVs, pushing more people toward purchasing them and giving automakers confidence that demand would be strong.

The tax credits’ demise comes at a time when battery-electric vehicles still make up a small percentage of new vehicle sales in the country. So what’s next for the US EV market?

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

If you’re interested in reading more about EVs and clean energy, take a look at:

+ The US could really use an affordable electric truck. Ford recently announced plans for a $30,000 electric pickup, which could be the shot in the arm that the slowing US EV market needs. Read the full story.

+ What role should oil and gas companies play in climate tech, really?

+ China is an EV-building powerhouse. These three charts explain its energy dominance. Read the full story.

+ Supporting new technologies like EVs can be expensive, but deciding when to wean the public off incentives can be a difficult balancing act. Read the full story.

The must-reads

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

1 OpenAI has become the world’s most valuable startup
Move aside, SpaceX. (Bloomberg $)
+ OpenAI is now valued at an eye-watering $500 billion. (FT $)
+ The valuation came after workers sold around $6.6 billion in shares. (Reuters)

2 Music labels are close to striking AI licensing deals
Universal and Warner are trying their best to avoid the mis-steps of the internet era. (FT $)
+ AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Facebook’s political ads are full of spam and scams
And deepfake technology is making them more convincing than ever. (NYT $)
+ Meta will start using conversations with its chatbots to personalize ads. (WSJ $)

4 China is forging ahead with integrating AI tools into children’s lives
But educators worry they’ll harm youngsters’ learning and social skills. (Rest of World)
+ Chinese universities want students to use more AI, not less. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The batteries of the future could be created by AI 
Researchers including Microsoft are experimenting with materials suggested by models. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ This startup wants to use the Earth as a massive battery. (MIT Technology Review)

6 A historian claims to have used AI to identify an anonymous Nazi
Digital tools helped Jürgen Matthäus to pinpoint the person photographed beside a mass grave. (The Guardian)

7 The Pentagon is interested in AI-powered machine guns that shoot drones
Steven Simoni’s Allen Control Systems is part of Silicon Valley’s new military pivot. (Reuters)
+ We saw a demo of the new AI system powering Anduril’s vision for war. (MIT Technology Review)

8 One of Saturn’s moons may have once hosted life
Enceladus has all the necessary keystones to support life, and future missions could uncover it. (Scientific American $)
+ Meanwhile, Blue Origin has won a NASA rover contract. (Wired $)
+ The case against humans in space. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Chatbots exercise all sorts of tricks to keep you talking
They don’t want the conversation to end, a new study has found. (Wired $)

10 What it’s like to become a viral meme
Drew Scanlon, aka “Blinking Guy,” is leveraging his fame for a good cause. (SF Gate)

Quote of the day

“I cannot overstate how disgusting I find this kind of ‘AI’ dog shit in the first place, never mind under these circumstances.”

—Writer Luke O’Neil tells 404 Media his feelings about an AI-generated “biography” of journalist Kaleb Horton, who recently died.

One more thing

A day in the life of a Chinese robotaxi driver

When Liu Yang started his current job, he found it hard to go back to driving his own car: “I instinctively went for the passenger seat. Or when I was driving, I would expect the car to brake by itself,” says the 33-year-old Beijing native, who joined the Chinese tech giant Baidu in January 2021 as a robotaxi driver.

Liu is one of the hundreds of safety operators employed by Baidu, “driving” five days a week in Shougang Park. But despite having only worked for the company for 19 months, he already has to think about his next career move, as his job will likely be eliminated within a few years. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

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.)

+ Congratulations are in order for 32 Chunk, winner of this year’s highly prestigious Fat Bear Week competition
+ Here’s how 10 women artists got their days off to the best start possible.
+ This Instagram account documenting the worldly travels of a cassette player is fab.
+ Brb, I’m off to listen to Arctic Outpost Radio, spinning records from the very top of the world.

The Download: OpenAI’s caste bias problem, and how AI videos are made

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 is huge in India. Its models are steeped in caste bias.

Caste bias is rampant in OpenAI’s products, including ChatGPT, according to an MIT Technology Review investigation. Though CEO Sam Altman boasted about India being its second-largest market during the launch of GPT-5 in August, we found that both this new model, which now powers ChatGPT, as well as Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video generator, exhibit caste bias. This risks entrenching discriminatory views in ways that are currently going unaddressed. 

Mitigating caste bias in AI models is more pressing than ever. In contemporary India, many caste-oppressed Dalit people have escaped poverty and have become doctors, civil service officers, and scholars; some have even risen to become the president of India. But AI models continue to reproduce socioeconomic and occupational stereotypes that render Dalits as dirty, poor, and performing only menial jobs. Read the full story.

—Nilesh Christopher

MIT Technology Review Narrated: how do AI models generate videos?

It’s been a big year for video generation. The downside is that creators are competing with AI slop, and social media feeds are filling up with faked news footage. Video generation also uses up a huge amount of energy, many times more than text or image generation.

With AI-generated videos everywhere, let’s take a moment to talk about the tech that makes them work.

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 Taiwan has rejected America’s chip demand
It’s pushed back on a US request to move 50% of chip production to the States. (Bloomberg $)
+ Taiwan said it never agreed to the commitment. (CNN)
+ Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Chatbots may not be eliminating jobs after all
A new labor market study has found little evidence they’re putting humans out of work. (FT $)
+ People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before. (MIT Technology Review)

3 OpenAI has released a new Sora video app
It’s the latest in a long line of attempts to make AI a social experience. (Axios)
+ Copyright holders will have to request the removal of their property. (WSJ $)

4 Scientists have made embryos from human skin cells for the first time
It could allow people experiencing infertility and same-sex couples to have children. (BBC)
+ How robots are changing the face of fertility science. (WP $)

5 Elon Musk claims to be building a Wikipedia rival
Which I’m sure will be entirely accurate and impartial. (Gizmodo)
+ How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral. (MIT Technology Review)

6 America’s chips resurgence has been thrown into chaos
After funding was yanked from the multi-billion dollar initiative designed to revive the industry. (Politico)

7 ICE wants to buy a phone location-tracking tool
Even though it doesn’t have a warrant to do so. (404 Media)

8 The trouble with scaling up EV manufacturing
Solid-state batteries are the holy grail—but is full commercialization feasible? (Knowable Magazine)
+ Why bigger EVs aren’t always better. (MIT Technology Review)

9 DoorDash’s food delivery robot is coming to Arizona’s roads
Others before it have failed. Can Dot succeed? (TechCrunch)

10 What it’s like to give ChatGPT therapy
It’s very good at telling you what it thinks you want to hear. (New Yorker $)
+ Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Please treat adults like adults.”

—An X user reacts angrily to OpenAI’s moves to restrict the topics ChatGPT will discuss, Ars Technica reports.

One more thing

Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past

After falling steadily for decades, the prevalence of global hunger is now on the rise—nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa, thanks to conflicts, economic fallout from the covid-19 pandemic, and extreme weather events.

Africa’s indigenous crops are often more nutritious and better suited to the hot and dry conditions that are becoming more prevalent, yet many have been neglected by science, which means they tend to be more vulnerable to diseases and pests and yield well below their theoretical potential.

Now the question is whether researchers, governments, and farmers can work together in a way that gets these crops onto plates and provides Africans from all walks of life with the energy and nutrition that they need to thrive, whatever climate change throws their way. Read the full story.

—Jonathan W. Rosen

We can still have nice things

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

+ The mighty Stonehenge is still keeping us guessing after all these years (4,600 of them).
+ Björk’s VR experience looks typically bonkers.
+ We may finally have an explanation for the will-o’-the-wisp phenomenon.
+ How to build your very own Commodore 64 Cartridge.

The Download: our thawing permafrost, and a drone-filled 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.

Scientists can see Earth’s permafrost thawing from space

Something is rotten in the city of Nunapitchuk. In recent years, sewage has leached into the earth. The ground can feel squishy, sodden.

This small town in northern Alaska is experiencing a sometimes overlooked consequence of climate change: thawing permafrost. And Nunapitchuk is far from the only Arctic town to find itself in such a predicament. 

Now scientists think they may be able to use satellite data to delve deep beneath the ground’s surface and get a better understanding of how the permafrost thaws, and which areas might be most severely affected. Read the full story.

—Sarah Scoles

The US may be heading toward a drone-filled future

—James O’Donnell

Last week, I published a story about the police-tech giant Flock Safety selling its drones to the private sector to track shoplifters. Keith Kauffman, a former police chief who now leads Flock’s drone efforts, described the ideal scenario: A security team at a Home Depot, say, launches a drone from the roof that follows shoplifting suspects to their car. The drone tracks their car through the streets, transmitting its live video feed directly to the police.

It’s a vision that, unsurprisingly, alarms civil liberties advocates. But the fate of drones in the US pretty much comes down to one rule. It’s a Federal Aviation Administration regulation that stipulates where and how drones can be flown—and it is about to change. Read the full story.

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

Trump’s impact on the next generation of innovators

Every year, MIT Technology Review recognizes dozens of young researchers on our Innovators Under 35 list. This year Amy Nordrum, our executive editor, and our senior investigative reporter Eileen Guo checked back in with recent honorees to see how they’re faring amid sweeping changes to science and technology policy within the US.

Join us tomorrow at 1.30pm ET for an exclusive Roundtables conversation with Amy and Eileen to learn about the complex realities of what life has been like for those aiming to build their labs and companies in today’s political climate. Register here!

The must-reads

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

1 California’s governor has signed America’s first AI law 
It’ll require AI developers to publicly disclose their safety and security protocols. (Politico)
+ The landmark bill has received a mixed reception from the AI industry. (TechCrunch)

2 The Trump administration is pressuring Taiwan
It’s pushing officials to move 50% of chip production to the US—or else. (Ars Technica)
+ The US argues it’s the best way to counter invasion threats from China. (Bloomberg $)
+ Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening. (MIT Technology Review)

3 US ChatGPT users can now buy stuff without leaving the chatbot
It’s laying the groundwork for AI agent-based shopping. (WSJ $)
+ Etsy is among the first retailers to sign up for the service. (CNBC)
+ It’s a direct challenge to Google’s business model. (Fortune $)
+ Your most important customer may be AI. (MIT Technology Review)

4 YouTube has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump 
It’s handing over $24.5 million after his account was suspended in the wake of the US Capitol riot in 2021. (WSJ $)
+ It’s the third giant tech platform to bend to the President’s will. (The Verge)

5 Meta is expanding use of its facial recognition tools
In a bid to combat account impersonation in Europe, the UK, and South Korea. (Engadget)

6 The US Energy Department has banned the term “climate change”
See also: “green” and “decarbonization.” (Politico)
+ Even “emissions” isn’t safe. (TechCrunch)
+ How to make clean energy progress under Trump in the States. (MIT Technology Review)

7 AI data centers are sending the cost of electricity skyrocketing
And it’s regular citizens who are left paying the price. (Bloomberg $)
+ Sam Altman wants a staggering amount of energy. (The Information $)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Elon Musk’s senior staff are leaving in their droves
They’re burnt out and tired of their leader’s erratic strategies. (FT $)

9 Do black holes actually exist?
The evidence says yes, but proving it is a different matter. (New Scientist $)

10 California police tried to ticket a driverless car 
But who’s to blame for its illegal U-turn if there’s no driver? (The Guardian)
+ It turns out officers don’t currently have any way to issue tickets to robots. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“There are certainly people in [the] tech world who would like to see no regulation of anything in any respect whatsoever, but that’s not tenable.”

—US Senator Scott Wiener, who proposed the original AI Safety Bill last year, explains why he believes the revised version that’s been passed into law is a reasonable approach to the New York Times.

One more thing

How mobile money supercharged Kenya’s sports betting addiction

Mobile money has mostly been hugely beneficial for Kenyans. But it has also turbo-charged the country’s sports betting sector.

Since the middle of the last decade, experts and public figures across the African continent have been sounding the alarm over the rising popularity of sports betting. The practice has produced tales of riches, but it has also broken families, consumed college tuitions, and even driven some to suicide.

Nowhere, though, is the craze as acute as it is in Kenya, the country often dubbed Africa’s “Silicon Savannah” for its status as a regional tech powerhouse. But while Kenya’s mobile money revolution has played a well-documented role in encouraging savings and democratizing access to finance, today, it’s easier than ever for those in fragile economic circumstances to squander everything. Read the full story.

—Jonathan W. Rosen

We can still have nice things

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

+ It took one man 16 years to type the numbers from one to a million—using words and just one finger.
+ Furnishing your home with books you have no interest in reading is certainly a choice.
+ What it’s like to play SimCity 2000 as a responsible adult.
+ It’s almost pumpkin season!

The Download: AI to detect child abuse images, and what to expect from our 2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch list

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.

US investigators are using AI to detect child abuse images made by AI

Generative AI has enabled the production of child sexual abuse images to skyrocket. Now the leading investigator of child exploitation in the US is experimenting with using AI to distinguish AI-generated images from material depicting real victims, according to a new government filing.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Crimes Center, which investigates child exploitation across international borders, has awarded a $150,000 contract to San Francisco–based Hive AI for its software, which can identify whether a piece of content was AI-generated. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

Coming soon: our 2025 list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch

The need to cut emissions and adapt to our warming world is growing more urgent. This year, we’ve seen temperatures reach record highs, as they have nearly every year for the last decade. Climate-fueled natural disasters are affecting communities around the world, costing billions of dollars. 

That’s why, for the past two years, MIT Technology Review has curated a list of companies with the potential to make a meaningful difference in addressing climate change (you can revisit the 2024 list here). We’re excited to share that we’ll publish our third edition of Climate Tech Companies to Watch on October 6. Here’s what you can expect from this year’s list.

—Casey Crownhart

The must-reads

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

1 ChatGPT’s parental controls are now live
The model can now alert parents and law enforcement when users under 18-years old discuss self harm or suicide. (Wired $)
+ The feature launches as chatbot makers face increasing pressure to improve safety. (Bloomberg $)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Companies’ AI spending is spiralling out of control
And it’s unclear whether they’ll ever get returns on their investments. (WSJ $)
+ Some VCs are convinced AI is the best way to make a quick buck. (TechCrunch)
+ Investors are wondering what to invest in beyond AI. (Reuters)

3 Even oil executives are worried by Trump’s attacks on offshore wind
Cracking down on renewables now is bad news for traditional energy down the line. (NYT $)
+ The scale of the Trump administration’s intervention is wild. (The Guardian)
+ How to make clean energy progress under Trump in the states. (MIT Technology Review)

4 How America is winning the war on city fires
Making homes fire-resistant isn’t glamorous—but it’s essential. (Vox)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Top AI firms are going all-in on world models
They’re powered by videos and robotics data, not just language. (FT $)
+ Experts are convinced they’re vital to creating the next wave of AI. (WSJ $)

6 China is rushing to electrify freight trucks
Not content with dominating the electric car market, it’s eyeing bigger vehicles. (Rest of World)
+ Sales of battery-powered cars are projected to plummet in the US. (NYT $)

7 What we lose when we rely on AI translation
Nuance and cultural context are among the first casualties. (WP $)
+ How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The tricky ethics of gene-editing the natural world
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. (Aeon)
+ The short, strange history of gene de-extinction. (MIT Technology Review)

9 This robotics firm uses AI to clean the underside of giant ships
Neptune Robotics has the lofty goal of becoming Uber for hull-cleaning. (Bloomberg $)

10 Talent agents are desperate to sign this AI actress
We are living in the end times. (Deadline $)
+ Why the Twin Peaks subreddit briefly became an AI slop dumping ground. (404 Media)
+ An AI-powered hologram of Marvel Comics’ creator Stan Lee isn’t very popular. (Ars Technica)

Quote of the day

“There’s so much pressure to be the company that went from zero to $100 million in X days.”

—An anonymous VC tells Fortune about the intense pressure on startups in the age of AI hype.

One more thing

How DeepSeek became a fortune teller for China’s youth

As DeepSeek has emerged as a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, young people across China have started using AI to revive fortune-telling practices that have deep roots in Chinese culture.

People are sharing AI-generated readings, experimenting with fortune-telling prompt engineering, and revisiting ancient spiritual texts—all with the help of DeepSeek.

The surge in AI fortune-telling comes during a time of pervasive anxiety and pessimism in Chinese society. And as spiritual practices remain hidden underground thanks to the country’s regime, computers and phone screens are helping younger people to gain a sense of control over their lives. Read the full story.

—Caiwen Chen

We can still have nice things

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

+ This site lets you find out what was happening in the news on the day you were born. 
+ This blistering track by South Korean band Silica Gel confirms rock is alive and well.
+  Spend a few minutes exploring Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.
+ Play around with this map that allows you to explore movie settings around the world.

The Download: shoplifter-chasing drones, and Trump’s TikTok deal

Shoplifters in the US could soon be chased down by drones

The news: Flock Safety, whose drones were once reserved for police departments, is now offering them for private-sector security, the company has announced. Potential customers include businesses trying to curb shoplifting. 

How it works: If the security team at a store sees shoplifters leave, they can activate a camera-equipped drone. “The drone follows the people. The people get in a car. You click a button and you track the vehicle with the drone, and the drone just follows the car,” says Keith Kauffman, a former police chief who now directs Flock’s drone program. The video feed of that drone might go to the company’s security team, but it could also be automatically transmitted directly to police departments. 

The response: Flock’s expansion into private-sector security is “a logical step, but in the wrong direction,” says Rebecca Williams, senior strategist for the ACLU’s privacy and data governance unit. Read the full story. 

—James O’Donnell 

Read more of our stories about the latest in drone tech:

+ Why you’re about to see a lot more drones over America’s skies.

+ Meet Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. His work could help to determine the future of Ukraine, and wars far beyond it.

+ We examined four big trends that show what’s next for drone technology.

+ The defense tech startup Epirus has developed a cutting-edge, cost-efficient drone zapper that’s sparking the interest of the US military. Read our story about how it could change the future of war.

The must-reads

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

1 TikTok US is being valued at $14 billion by Trump’s deal
That’s shockingly low for a fast-growing social media company. (FT $) 
+ The deal is basically just Trump giving TikTok to his friends. (Vox $)
+ Here’s what the sale means for you. (WP $)

2 Microsoft has stopped letting Israel use its technology for surveillance
The system was used to collect millions of Palestinian civilians’ phone calls every day. (The Guardian)

3 There are more robots working in China than the rest of the world combined
It’s a trend that’ll further cement its status as the world’s leading manufacturer. (NYT $)
+ China’s EV giants are betting big on humanoid robots. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The inside story of what happened when DOGE came to town
If anything, this is even more grim and chaotic than you might imagine. (Wired $)

5 Instagram’s teen safety features are flawed
Researchers tested 47 of these features, and found that only 8 were fully effective. (Reuters $)
+ There’s growing concern among lawmakers about the risks of kids forming bonds with chatbots. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Brazil’s judicial system is adopting AI with gusto
The trouble is that rather than reducing the amount of work for judges and lawyers, AI seems to be increasing it. (Rest of World)
+ Meet the early-adopter judges using AI. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Amazon is refunding $1.5 billion to Prime subscribers
The deal with the FTC lets it avoid a trial over claims it tricked consumers into signing up. (WP $)

8 These women are in love with AI 
Like it or not, these sorts of romances are becoming more common. (Slate $)
+ It’s surprisingly easy to stumble into a relationship with an AI chatbot. (MIT Technology Review) 

9 Scientists are improving how we measure nothing
Researchers are developing a vacuum-measurement tool that could unlock exciting new possibilities for science. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ This quantum radar could image buried objects. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Why does everything online feel so icky? 
Most of us will go to extreme lengths to avoid awkwardness IRL. On social media, it’s another matter entirely… (Vox $)
+ China’s government has had enough of everyone being negative on its internet. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“AI machines—in quite a literal sense—appear to be saving the US economy right now. In the absence of tech-related spending, the US would be close to, or in, recession this year.”

—George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, warns that the AI boom is unsustainable in a note to clients, Fortune reports.

One more thing

COURTESY OF OPENAI

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, and what happened to OpenAI’s superalignment team. Read the full story.

We can still have nice things

+ Wherever you are, this website helps you discover the most interesting bars nearby. 
+ Take a tour of Norway’s lighthouses.
+ Inside London’s flourishing underground rave scene.
+ Meaningful changes rarely occur instantly. Here’s how they do happen.

The Download: growing threats to vulnerable languages, and fact-checking Trump’s medical claims

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 AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral

Wikipedia is the most ambitious multilingual project after the Bible: There are editions in over 340 languages, and a further 400 even more obscure ones are being developed. But many of these smaller editions are being swamped with AI-translated content. Volunteers working on four African languages, for instance, estimated to MIT Technology Review that between 40% and 60% of articles in their Wikipedia editions were uncorrected machine translations.

This is beginning to cause a wicked problem. AI systems learn new languages by scraping huge quantities of text from the internet. Wikipedia is sometimes the largest source of online linguistic data for languages with few speakers—so any errors on those pages can poison the wells that AI is expected to draw from. Volunteers are being forced to go to extreme lengths to fix the issue, even deleting certain languages from Wikipedia entirely. Read the full story. 

—Jacob Judah 

This story is part of our Big Story series: MIT Technology Review’s most important, ambitious reporting. These stories take a deep look at the technologies that are coming next and what they will mean for us and the world we live in. Check out the rest of the series here.

Trump is pushing leucovorin as a new treatment for autism. What is it? 

On Monday, President Trump claimed that childhood vaccines and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, are to blame for the increasing prevalence of autism. He advised pregnant women against taking the medicine. 

The administration also announced that the FDA would work to make a medication called leucovorin available as a treatment for children with autism. The president’s assertions left many dismayed. “The data cited do not support the claim that Tylenol causes autism and leucovorin is a cure, and only stoke fear and falsely suggest hope when there is no simple answer,” said the Coalition for Autism Researchers, a group of more than 250 scientists, in a statement. So what does the evidence say? Read our story to find out. 

—Cassandra Willyard 

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

Fusion power plants don’t exist yet, but they’re making money anyway

This week, Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced it has another customer for its first commercial fusion power plant, in Virginia. Eni, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, signed a billion-dollar deal to buy electricity from the facility.

One small detail? That reactor doesn’t exist yet. This is a weird moment in fusion. Investors are pouring billions into the field to build power plants, and companies are even signing huge agreements to purchase power from those still-nonexistent plants. 

But all this comes before companies have actually completed a working reactor that can produce electricity. It takes money to develop a new technology, but all this funding could lead to some twisted expectations. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart 

This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about the latest in climate change and clean tech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The AI Hype Index: Cracking the chatbot code

Millions of us use chatbots every day, even though we don’t really know how they work or how using them affects us. In a bid to address this, the FTC recently launched an inquiry into how chatbots affect children and teenagers. Elsewhere, OpenAI has started to shed more light on what people are actually using ChatGPT for, and why it thinks its LLMs are so prone to making stuff up.

There’s still plenty we don’t know—but that isn’t stopping governments from forging ahead with AI projects. In the US, RFK Jr. is pushing his staffers to use ChatGPT, while Albania is using a chatbot for public contract procurement. Check out the latest edition of our AI Hype Index to help you sort AI reality from hyped-up fiction. 

The must-reads

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

1 Huntington’s disease has been treated successfully for the first time
Gene therapy managed to slow progress of the disease in patients by 75%. (The Economist $) 
+ Here’s how the gene editing tool CRISPR is changing lives. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Google says 90% of tech workers are using AI
But most of them also say they don’t trust AI models’ outputs. (CNN)
+ Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)

3 A MAGA TikTok takeover is coming
Just as free speech protections in the US start to look worryingly fragile. (The Atlantic $)

4 Chinese tech workers are returning from the US
There’s a whole bunch of complex factors both driving them to leave, and luring them back. (Rest of World)
+ But it’s hard to say what the impact of the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas will be on India’s tech sector. (WP $)
+ Europe is hoping to nab more tech talent too. (The Verge)

5 If AI can diagnose us, what are doctors for?
They need to prepare for the fact chatbot use is becoming more and more widespread among patients. (New Yorker $)
+ This medical startup uses LLMs to run appointments and make diagnoses. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Drones have been spotted at four more airports in Denmark
It looks like a coordinated attack, but officials still haven’t worked out who is behind it. (FT $)

7 TSMC has unveiled AI-designed chips that use less energy
The AI software found better solutions than TSMC’s own human engineers—and did so much faster. (South China Morning Post)
+ These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How to find love on dating apps 
It’s not easy, but it is possible. (The Guardian)

9 AI models can’t cope with Persian social etiquette
It involves a lot of saying ‘no’ when you mean ‘yes’, which simply doesn’t wash with computers. (Ars Technica)

10 VR headsets are better than ever, but no one seems to care
The tech industry keeps overestimating how willing people are to strap computers to their faces. (Gizmodo)

Quote of the day

“We are living through the most destructive arms race in human history.”

—Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells world leaders gathered at the UN that they need to intervene to stop the escalating development of drone technology and AI, The Guardian reports.

One more thing

STUART BRADFORD

The great AI consciousness conundrum

AI consciousness isn’t just a tricky intellectual puzzle; it’s a morally weighty problem. Fail to identify a conscious AI, and you might unintentionally subjugate a being whose interests ought to matter. Mistake an unconscious AI for a conscious one, and you risk compromising human safety and happiness for the sake of an unthinking, unfeeling hunk of silicon and code.

Over the past few decades, a small research community has doggedly attacked the question of what consciousness is and how it works. The effort has yielded real progress. And now, with the rapid advance of AI technology, these insights could offer our only guide to the untested, morally fraught waters of artificial consciousness. 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.)

+ It’s Fat Bear Week! Who gets your vote this year?
+ Learn about Lord Woodbine, the forgotten sixth Beatle. 
+ There are some truly wild and wacky recipes in this Medieval Cookery collection. Venison porridge, anyone? 
+ Pessimism about technology is as old as technology itself, as this archive shows.