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.
—Constellations is a short story by Jeff VanderMeer, the author of the critically acclaimed, bestselling Southern Reach series.
A spacecraft has crash-landed on a hostile planet. The only survivors are three members of the exploration team and the ship’s AI mind.
Little exists on the planet except deserts of snow. But alien artifacts lie nearby, in the form of 13 domes, spread across the terrain. Linked by cables threaded through metal posts, the domes form a series of paths—the only hope for life support.
As the team treks across the frozen hellscape, they discover the remains of countless astronauts from unknown species who followed the same route before them. Is their trail a path to salvation, or a cosmic trap?
Read the rest of this short story in full.
This story is from the next issue of our print magazine, packed with stories all about nature. Subscribe now to read the full thing when it lands on Wednesday, April 22.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 OpenAI has joined Anthropic in curbing an AI release over security fears
Only select partners will get its new cybersecurity tool. (Axios)
+ Anthropic said only yesterday that its new AI is too dangerous for the public. (NBC News)
+ Top models may not be so public going forward. (Bloomberg $)
+ The US has summoned bank CEOs to discuss the risks. (FT $)
2 Florida is investigating OpenAI over an alleged role in a shooting
ChatGPT may have helped someone plan a mass shooting in Florida. (WSJ $)
+ OpenAI has backed a bill that would limit AI liability for deaths. (Wired $)
+ The family of a victim plans to sue the company. (Guardian)
+ AI’s role in delusions is dividing opinion. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Volkswagen is ditching EV production for more gasoline models
The carmaker will stop making its top electric vehicle in the US. (NYT $)
+ Instead, it will concentrate on developing a new SUV. (Ars Technica)
+ Western carmakers are retreating from electric vehicles. (Guardian)
4 Elon Musk’s xAI has sued Colorado over an AI anti-discrimination law
It’s the first state bill of its kind. (Bloomberg $)
+ xAI says it will force the firm to “promote the state’s ideological views.” (FT $)
5 A fifth of US employees say AI now does parts of their job
The survey found half of US adults used AI in the past week. (NBC News)
+ Missing data could shed light on AI’s job impact. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Google DeepMind’s CEO wants to automate drug design
He hopes to develop AI capable of curing all diseases. (The Economist)
+ A scientist is using AI to hunt for antibiotics. (MIT Technology Review)
7 China’s Unitree is launching a viral robot on the international market
R1, its cheapest humanoid, will go on sale outside China next week. (SCMP)
+ Gig workers are training humanoids at home. (MIT Technology Review)
8 An experiment on Artemis II astronauts could reshape space medicine
Chips containing their cells will model spaceflight’s effects. (WP $)
9 A pro-Iran meme machine is trolling Trump with AI Lego cartoons
The videos have racked up millions of views. (Wired $)
+ You can learn to love AI slop. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Short breaks could erase 10 years of social media brain damage
Studies show that a two-week detox could have a dramatic benefit. (WP $)
Quote of the day
—Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier explains on X why he’s probing OpenAI.
One More Thing
People have been called “users” for a long time. Often, it’s the right word to describe people who use software. But “users” is also unspecific enough to refer to just about everyone. It can accommodate almost any big idea or long-term vision.
We use—and are used by—computers and platforms and companies. The label “user” suggests these interactions are deeply transactional, but they’re frequently quite personal. Is it time for a more human vocabulary? Read the full story.
—Taylor Majewski
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.)
+ This flawless levitation trick will leave you questioning the laws of physics.
+ The World Press Photo winners expose the beauty (and brutality) of our planet.
+ Over 3 million pink flamingos gathered to create a stunning pink horizon.
+ Behold the galaxy’s enormity in this comparison of its largest known star to Earth
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
In 2001, Americans installed just over 7 million square meters of synthetic turf. By 2024, that number was 79 million square meters—enough to carpet all of Manhattan and then some. The increase worries folks who study microplastics and environmental pollution.
While the plastic-making industry insists that synthetic fields are safe if properly installed, lots of researchers think that isn’t so. Find out why AstroTurf has ignited heated debates.
—Douglas Main
This story is from the next issue of our print magazine, packed with stories all about nature. Subscribe now to read the full thing when it lands on Wednesday, April 22.
—Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI CEO and Google DeepMind co-founder
The skeptics keep predicting that AI compute will soon hit a wall—and keep getting proven wrong. To understand why that is, you need to look at the forces driving the AI explosion.
Three advances are enabling exponential progress: faster basic calculators, high-bandwidth memory, and technologies that turn disparate GPUs into enormous supercomputers. Where does all this get us? Read the full op-ed on the future of AI development to learn more.
—Casey Crownhart
When I started digging into desalination technology for a new story, I couldn’t help but obsess over the numbers.
I knew on some level that desalination—pulling salt out of seawater to produce fresh water—was an increasingly important technology, especially in water-stressed regions including the Middle East. But just how much some countries rely on desalination, and how big a business it is, still surprised me.
Here are the extraordinary numbers behind the crucial water source.
This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter on the tech that could 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 Meta has launched the first AI model from its Superintelligence Labs
Muse Spark is the company’s first model in a year. (Reuters $)
+ The closed model brings reasoning capabilities to the Meta AI app. (Engadget)
+ It’s built by Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, the unit led by Alexandr Wang. (TechCrunch)
2 Anthropic has lost a bid to pause the Pentagon’s blacklisting
An appeals court in Washington, DC denied the request. (CNBC)
+ A California judge had temporarily blocked the blacklisting in March. (NPR)
+ The mixed rulings leave Anthropic in a legal limbo. (Wired $)
+ And open doors for smaller AI rivals. (Reuters $)
3 New evidence suggests Adam Back invented Bitcoin
The British cryptographer may be the real Satoshi Nakamoto. (NYT $)
+ Back denies the claims. (BBC)
+ There’s a dark side to crypto’s permissionless dream. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Gen Z is cooling on AI
The share feeling angry about it has risen from 22% to 31% in a year. (Axios)
+ Anti-AI protests are also growing. (MIT Technology Review)
5 War in the Gulf could tilt the cloud race toward China
Huawei is pitching “multi-cloud” resilience to Gulf clients. (Rest of World)
6 Meta has killed a leaderboard of its AI token users
It showed the top 250 users. (The Information $)
+ Meta blamed data leaks for the shutdown. (Fortune)
+ It encouraged “tokenmaxxing,” a growing phenomenon in Big Tech. (NYT $)
7 Did Artemis II really tell us anything new about space?
Or was it primarily a PR exercise? (Ars Technica)
8 Israeli attacks have brutally exposed Lebanon’s digital infrastructure
It’s managing a modern crisis without modern technology. (Wired $)
9 AI models could offer mathematicians a common language
They hope it will simplify the process of verifying proofs. (Economist)
10 A “self-doxing’ rave is helping trans people stay safe online
It’s among a series of digital self-defenses. (404 Media)
Quote of the day
—Sydney Gill, a freshman at Rice University, tells the New York Times why she’s soured on AI.
One More Thing
In 2012, data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) unearthed a particle called the Higgs boson. The discovery answered a nagging question: where do fundamental particles, such as the ones that make up all the protons and neutrons in our bodies, get their mass?
But now particle physicists have reached an impasse in their quest to discover, produce, and study new particles at colliders. Find out what they’re trying to do about it.
—Dan Garisto
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.)
+ Enjoy this tale of the “joke” sound that accidentally defined 90s rave culture.
+ Take a nostalgic trip through the websites of the early 00s.
+ One for animal lovers: sperm whales have teamed up to support a newborn.
+ Here’s a long overdue answer to a vital question: can the world’s largest mousetrap catch a limousine?
When I started digging into desalination technology for a new story, I couldn’t help but obsess over the numbers.
I’d known on some level that desalination—pulling salt out of seawater to produce fresh water—was an increasingly important technology, especially in water-stressed regions including the Middle East. But just how much some countries rely on desalination, and how big a business it is, still surprised me.
For more on how this crucial water infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable during the war in Iran, check out my latest story. Here, though, let’s look at the state of desalination technology, by the numbers.
Globally, we rely on desalination for just 1% of fresh-water withdrawals. But for some countries in the Middle East, and particularly for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Oman), it’s crucial.
Qatar, home to over 3 million people, is one of the most staggering examples, with nearly all its drinking water supplies coming from desalination. But many major cities in the region couldn’t exist without the technology. There are no permanent rivers on the Arabian Peninsula, and supplies of fresh water are incredibly limited, so countries rely on facilities that can take in seawater and pull out the salt and other impurities.
The region has historically been water-scarce, and that trend is only continuing as climate change pushes temperatures higher and changes rainfall patterns.
Of the 17,910 desalination facilities that are operational globally, 4,897 are located in the Middle East, according to a 2026 study in npj Clean Water. The technology supplies not only municipal water used by homes and businesses, but also industries including agriculture, manufacturing, and increasingly data centers.
The Ras Al-Khair water and power plant in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, is one of a growing number of gigantic plants that output upwards of a million cubic meters of water each day. That amount of water can meet the needs of millions of people in Riyadh City. Producing it takes a lot of power—the attached power plant has a capacity of 2.4 gigawatts.
While this plant is just one of thousands across the region, it’s an example of a growing trend: The average size of a desalination plant is about 10 times what it was 15 years ago, according to data from the International Energy Agency. Communities are increasingly turning to larger plants, which can produce water more efficiently than smaller ones.
Desalination is only going to be more crucial for life in the Middle East. The region is expected to spend over $25 billion on capital expenses for desalination facilities between 2024 and 2028, according to the 2026 npj Clean Water study. More massive plants are expected to come online in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt during that time.
All this growth could consume a lot of electricity. Between growth of the technology generally and the move toward plants that use electricity rather than fossil fuels, desalination could add 190 terawatt-hours of electricity demand globally by 2035, according to IEA data. That’s the equivalent of about 60 million households.
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.
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.
As the conflict in Iran has escalated, a crucial resource is under fire: the desalinization technology that supplies water in the region.
President Donald Trump has threatened to destroy “possibly all desalinization plants” in Iran if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. The impact on farming, industry, and—crucially—drinking in the Middle East could be severe. Find out why.
—Casey Crownhart
This story is part of MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.
For small entrepreneurs, deciding what to sell and where to make it has traditionally been a slow, labor-intensive process. Now that work is increasingly being done by AI.
Tools like Alibaba’s Accio compress weeks of product research and supplier hunting into a single chat. Business owners and e-commerce experts say they’re making sourcing more accessible—and slashing the time from product idea to launch.
Read the full story on how AI is leveling the path to global manufacturing.
—Caiwei Chen
When Zeus, a medical student in Nigeria, returns to his apartment from a long day at the hospital, he straps his iPhone to his forehead and records himself doing chores.
Zeus is a data recorder for Micro1, which sells the data he collects to robotics firms. As these companies race to build humanoids, videos from workers like Zeus have become the hottest new way to train them.
Micro1 has hired thousands of them in more than 50 countries, including India, Nigeria, and Argentina. The jobs pay well locally, but raise thorny questions around privacy and informed consent. The work can be challenging—and weird. Read the full story.
—Michelle Kim
This is our latest story to be turned into an 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 Anthropic’s new model found security problems in every OS and browser
Claude Mythos has been heralded as a cybersecurity “reckoning.” (The Verge)
+ Anthrophic is limiting the rollout over hacking fears. (CNBC)
+ It’s also launching a project that lets Mythos flag vulnerabilities. (Gizmodo)
+ Apple, Google, and Microsoft have joined the initiative. (ZDNET)
2 Iranian hackers are targeting American critical infrastructure
Their focus is on energy and water infrastructure. (Wired)
+ They’re targeting industrial control devices. (TechCrunch)
3 Google’s AI Overviews deliver millions of incorrect answers per hour
Despite a 90% accuracy rate. (NYT $)
+ AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Elon Musk is trying to oust OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a lawsuit
As remedies for Altman allegedly defrauding him. (CNBC)
+ Musk wants any damages given to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm. (WSJ $)
5 ICE has admitted it’s using powerful spyware
The tools that can intercept encrypted messages. (NPR)
+ Immigration agencies are also weaponizing AI videos. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Greece has joined the countries banning kids from social media
Under-15s will be blocked from 2027. (Reuters)
+ Australia introduced the world’s first social media ban for children. (Guardian)
+ Indonesia recently rolled out the first one in Southeast Asia. (DW)
+ Experts say they’re a lazy fix. (CNBC)
7 Intel will help Elon Musk build his Terafab in Texas
They aim to manufacture chips for AI projects. (Engadget)
+ Musk says it will be the largest-ever semiconductor factory. (Engadget)
+ Future AI chips could be built on glass. (MIT Technology Review)
8 TikTok is building a second billion-euro data center in Finland
It’s moving data storage for European users. (Reuters)
+ Finland has become a magnet for data centers. (Bloomberg $)
+ But nobody wants one in their backyard. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Plans for Canada’s first “virtual gated community” have sparked a row
The AI-powered surveillance system has divided neighbors. (Guardian)
+ Is the Pentagon allowed to surveil Americans with AI? (MIT Technology Review)
10 The high-tech engineering of the “space toilet” has been revealed
Artemis II is the first mission to carry one around the world. (Vox)
Quote of the day
—OpenAI criticizes Musk’s legal action in an X post.
One More Thing
You may not notice it, but your experience on every US government website is carefully crafted.
Each site aligns an official web design and a custom typeface. They aim to make government websites not only good-looking but accessible and functional for all.
MIT Technology Review dug into the system’s history and features. Find out what we discovered.
—Jon Keegan
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.)
+ Rejoice in the splendor of the “Earthset” image captured by Artemis II.
+ Meet the fearless cat chasing off bears.
+ This document vividly explains what makes the octopus so unique.
+ Revealed: the rhythmic secret that makes emo music so angsty.
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