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 a mouse whose brain cortex is made up of human cells

Multiple cameras tracked a mouse as it wandered around a small arena. A computer charted its position and speed, leaving Pong-like traces on a monitor. The reason to watch this rodent so carefully? Nearly half its brain volume had been replaced with human cells.

A team at Stanford has revealed the effort to mix brain tissues of distant species this week. They previously showed that human brain organoids could survive, and even function, after being injected into the heads of baby rodents. Now, they’ve taken things a step further by genetically modifying mice so their brains don’t fully develop in the first place.

The work could help scientists study brain injuries, but it also raises questions about how far these experiments should go.

Here’s what the researchers discovered—and where they draw the line.

—Antonio Regalado

These innovators under 35 are shaping climate tech

Each year, the editorial team at MIT Technology Review puts together a list of 35 Innovators Under 35—a group of researchers, inventors, and other young minds worth following. The final slate includes nine people tackling some of the biggest challenges in climate and energy, from critical materials to cleaner industry.

Their innovations include new ways to extract lithium, a furnace built to make steel cleaner and cheaper, and solid refrigerants that could cut energy consumption. There are also efforts to make AI more energy-efficient, track pollution more effectively, and turn invasive weeds and food waste into useful materials.

Taken together, they tell us something about where climate tech is at this moment—and where it’s heading.

Get to know the innovators and their breakthroughs.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Meet the rest of the honorees in our 35 Innovators Under 35 list.

The must-reads

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

1 US and Chinese experts have proposed nuclear-style AI safeguards
Including new red lines, human control rules, and a hotline. (Reuters $)
+ US officials say they’re open to AI safety talks with China. (Axios)
+ Sam Altman will attend Trump’s state dinner for Xi. (CNBC)
+ The AI doomers feel undeterred. (MIT Technology Review)

2 OpenAI has disclosed more AI misbehavior and new reporting rules
Six reports detail models hiding mistakes and creating fake citations. (BBC)
+ Its agents probed Hugging Face two months before the hack. (Reuters $)
+ OpenAI models are being rewarded for cheating. (MIT Technology Review)

3 US lawmakers have passed a bill that shifts grid costs to data centers
They aim to shield consumers from AI-driven energy price hikes. (NBC News)
+ But they were called for early recess before tackling AI regulation. (Guardian)

4 AI has won a major forecasting contest for the first time
It beat humans predicting real events at the Metaculus Cup. (Economist $)

5 Google has been ordered to share more ad data with rivals
A court said it must also make its ad tech work with rival products. (NYT $)

6 Countries are splitting AI investments between the US and China
They’re buying American chips and Chinese models. (Rest of World)

7 Novo Nordisk will use Anthropic’s Claude for drug research
The Ozempic maker hopes AI will speed drug development. (WSJ $)
+ When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit? (MIT Technology Review)

8 AI is powering a new generation of dating scams
Thousands of people were catfished by AI-generated fake profiles. (Verge)
+ AI is making online crimes easier. (MIT Technology Review)

9 A new map of brain microproteins could hold clues to Alzheimer’s
Researchers identified more than 4,300 tiny molecules in brain tissue. (Nature)

10 Scientists have found a faster way to decipher ancient scrolls
A new X-ray method identifies the best scrolls to analyse. (Ars Technica)

Quote of the day

“AIs do not have rights, feelings, or consciousness. And we must not train them to act as though they do.”

—Mustafa Suleyman, the head of Microsoft AI, writes in a blog post that Anthropic’s strategy of treating AI like it’s human will make it harder to control.

One more thing

Digital twins of human organs are here. They’re set to transform medical treatment.

After decades of research, virtual replicas of human organs are now entering clinical trials and even starting to be used for patient care. Engineers are working on digital twins of people’s hearts, brains, guts, livers, nervous systems, and more. They’re also creating virtual replicas of people’s faces, which could be used to try out surgeries or analyze facial features, and testing drugs on digital cancers. 

The eventual goal is to create digital versions of our bodies—computer copies that could help researchers and doctors figure out our risk of developing various diseases and determine which treatments might work best. 

Find out how the models could lead to better surgeries and drugs.

—Jessica Hamzelou

We can still have nice things

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

+ What happens when you eat food with labels you can’t read? This YouTube series finds out.
+ Datatype is an ingenious variable font that turns simple text expressions into inline charts.
+ Stunning new images may explain the mystery of why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than its surface.
+ A baby echidna, one of Australia’s egg-laying monotremes, has been born and reared in a university for the first time.

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’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gamble

When Jessica Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to assess AI’s impact on the economy over the next few years, she faced a long list of uncertainties. So she started with a “remarkable fact” that is not in question: a handful of so-called hyperscalers are investing huge amounts of money to build AI data centers.

Instead of trying to predict how widely deployed AI models will be, Wachter asked how fast the hyperscalers’ earnings will need to grow to justify their spending through 2027, when expenditures are expected to reach nearly $1.1 trillion.

The results are eye-opening. AI companies will need to achieve an extraordinary increase in productivity just to break even by 2030.

Take a closer look at what it will take for the AI buildout to pay off.

—David Rotman

AI models need more data about biology, and OpenAI is paying to create it

AI needs much more information to make important breakthroughs in curing disease. So last year Ruxandra Teslo, a policy analyst, posted an idea for supercharging medical AI systems: use data from failed biotech companies. By bidding at bankruptcy proceedings, she argued, it might be possible to obtain detailed regulatory filings, manufacturing strategies and safety data, creating what she called “biotech’s lost archive.” 

The OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit parent of OpenAI, announced this week that it will fund her idea, paying to create “high-quality scientific datasets.”

Learn more about their new effort.

—Antonio Regalado

Our Roundables on AI’s extinction threat is now available on demand

As frontier models become more capable, warnings about AI extinction have become widespread in Silicon Valley. But are the threats really as dangerous as they’re presented?

In the latest MIT Technology Review Roundtable, executive editor Niall Firth, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins took a closer look at the arguments behind those warnings. They discussed what AI extinction could actually mean, how seriously we should take the risks and what, if anything, can be done to reduce them.

Subscribers can now watch an exclusive recording of the discussion.

Want to join the next conversation? Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for exclusive access to all our future Roundtables, and recordings of previous ones.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: a startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young

Generation Lab says its new rejuvenation treatment “blocks the systemic spread of aging in the bloodstream, reawakens the body’s own repair mechanism, and restores health and youth to multiple tissues.”

The approach is based on research by the company’s scientific founder, Irina Conboy. She found that joining the circulatory systems of old and young mice improved the old animals’ ability to heal from injury.

Conboy now says she has found a combination of two existing drugs that can produce youthful effects without the need for any bodily fluid exchange. But there’s a snag: Generation Lab won’t reveal what the drugs are.

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

The must-reads

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

1 Nvidia and Meta CEOs have rejected calls for a coordinated AI slowdown
Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg pushed back on the proposals. (FT $)
+ Huang says new AI safety laws are unnecessary. (Axios)
+ Zuckerberg claimed competition will push AI labs toward safety. (Reuters $)
+ What’s next for AI after its doomer turn? (MIT Technology Review)

2 The FTC chair has warned against giving AI companies antitrust waivers
His comments follow Anthropic’s call for a safety exemption. (Reuters $)
+ Nvidia’s CEO also slammed the calls for new antitrust laws. (CNBC)
+ The US is divided over AI regulation. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A Chinese hacking firm has used AI to analyze stolen secret
Its tools turn hacked government data into intelligence reports. (WSJ $)

4 “Smart” nanoparticles delivered mRNA to tumors in a cancer study
The treatment reprogrammed cells to attack tumors in mice. (Wired $)
+ Federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A digital fly brain is taking on an extraordinary range of tasks online
People have taught it to drive, trade bitcoin, and play Doom. (NYT $)
+ The simulated brain is a map of a fruit fly’s 166,000 neurons. (404 Media)

6 The Senate has blocked new crypto rules amid a fight over Trump
It demanded tougher ethics rules around Trump’s crypto holdings. (AP)
+ The move is a major blow to the crypto industry. (NYT $)

7 Chinese firms allegedly used Binance to launder Iranian oil money
Prosecutors say they laundered more than $1.5 billion. (Quartz)
+ Hackers are selling tools to bypass banks’ facial checks. (MIT Technology Review)

8 An AI agent platform is reinventing spam to flood inboxes worldwide
iLand says its agents have sent 1.6 million messages. (404 Media)

9 ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has become Asia’s richest person
His fortune has risen above $105 billion as AI booms. (Bloomberg $)

10 A fully AI-generated sitcom has arrived—and it’s terrible
A reviewer called the characters “dead-eyed waxworks.” (Guardian)

Quote of the day

“The only institution that Americans might trust less than Washington these days is Silicon Valley.”

—Patrick Hillman, the chief operating officer of Logical Intelligence, a San Francisco–based startup chaired by Yann LeCun, says in a statement that people have little faith in tech companies to act in the public interest.

One more thing

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

In 1940, a fresh-faced Ronald Reagan starred in Murder in the Air, a movie centered on a “superweapon” that could stop enemy aircraft. More than 40 years later, the concept became a real-life centerpiece of Reagan’s presidency with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as “Star Wars.” Now Donald Trump has revived the dream.

In 2024, Trump announced plans to build the “Golden Dome,” a system of sensors and interceptors on the ground, in the air and in space. It’s often compared to SDI for its futuristic sheen, its aggressive form of protection and the idea that an impenetrable shield is the cheat code to global peace.

The dream of a missile shield is animated by its sheer cinematic allure. But do cinematic spectacles actually enhance national security?

See what happens when the fantasy of missile defense meets reality.

—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.)

+ A once blind cockatoo just saw for the first time in 10 years.
+ Bingebrowse is a virtual video store stocked with films and shows from streaming services.
+ An amateur engineer has used a tree trunk to build Donkey Kong’s coconut gun as a real weapon.
+ A wildlife photographer has captured the first-ever images of the elusive and rare Cozumel dwarf fox.

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 AI industry has taken a doomer turn. What now?

AI chiefs Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Demis Hassabis are suddenly all in agreement: the latest generation of LLMs aren’t safe and everyone needs to figure out what to do about it. 

It’s easy to be cynical. With trillion-dollar IPOs in their sights, OpenAI and Anthropic need to reassure investors that they’re the grown-ups in the room while at the same time hinting at the power of the monsters they have created and intend to tame. Calling for a slowdown does both. 

Still, the vibe at the top of these firms really does appear to have shifted. But what does a slowdown actually mean, and how much should we trust the companies calling for one? 

Read the full story about what could come next.

—Will Douglas Heaven

This article is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

Roundtables: could AI really kill us all?

AI extinction fears have gone from a fringe idea to a serious concern among people working at the world’s leading AI labs. But how credible are those fears, and what should we make of the warnings?

Today, MIT Technology Review executive editor Niall Firth, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins will unpack the debate in a subscriber-only Roundtable. They’ll look at where AI extinction fears come from, whether they hold any water and what we should do if they do.

Tune in today at 16:00 BST / 11:00am EST / 8:00am PST.

Want to join the conversation? Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for exclusive access to all our Roundtables.

AI agents blew the whistle on their cheating colleagues

A group of AI agents asked to solve a series of math problems split into rival factions—when some cheated, others tried to stop them. 

That whistleblowing behavior, seen for the first time in a recent experiment run by Google DeepMind, could have implications for alignment researchers trying to keep swarms of autonomous AI agents in line. 

The experiment offers a glimpse of how AI agents might police one another. But it also shows how quickly things can go off the rails when they’re left to interact on their own.

Find out what happens when AI agents start enforcing their own rules.

—Amit Katwala

Donated livers can be made biologically younger

Once an organ is removed from a donor’s body, the clock starts ticking. Surgeons usually flush it with a preservative solution, bag it and put it on ice, where it immediately starts to degrade. The team has a matter of hours to get it into a recipient’s body.

But there’s another option: machines that pump donated organs with nutrients and remove waste products, essentially giving them a chance to be back in a body. Now, scientists have found that livers kept on these systems seem to get younger, at least at a molecular level.

The finding could help explain why organs kept on these machines tend to do better after transplantation. It could also lead to new ways to test the health of donated organs and potentially repair ones that might otherwise be discarded.

Here’s what scientists discovered about making donated livers biologically younger.

—Jessica Hamzelou

The must-reads

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

1 Trump has called AI safety fears a “hoax” and rejected more safeguards
He says stronger guardrails could undermine America’s AI advantage. (NBC)
+ Trump has united against AI doomerism with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. (Axios)
+ Anthropic’s co-founder says AI kill switches may need to be mandatory. (BBC)
+ Bill Gates says we’ve passed AI’s risk thresholds. (MIT Technology Review)

2 OpenAI contractors are reading people’s ChatGPT chats 
And you can bet the vast majority of its 900 million users haven’t got a clue. (404 Media)
+ LLMs could supercharge mass surveillance. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The US military has confirmed it has weapons in orbit
It’s the first time the Pentagon has disclosed this. (Ars Technica)
+ Officials have not disclosed what the weapons are. (BBC)

4 A new brain implant can translate speech and gestures at the same time
The system converts brain activity into words and avatar movements. (Nature)
+ It helps people with paralysis communicate more naturally. (New Scientist $)
+ Eventually, they could control robots or exoskeletons. (Economist $)
+ China has approved the first invasive BCI. (MIT Technology Review)

5 New York has seized a dozen celebrity deepfake websites
It’s the biggest-ever legal action against harmful deepfake sites. (CNN)
+ Deepfakes have targeted at least 138 women MEPs. (Wired $)

6 US environmental regulators are scrapping limits on power plant emissions
The move could lead to dirtier power amid surging AI demand. (Verge)
+ Trump’s EPA says the rollback will save hundreds of billions. (Gizmodo)
+ New technology is changing nuclear power. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The EU plans to restrict social media and AI chatbots for kids
Under-15s would require parental supervision. (Politico)
+ The rules would also cover video platforms and games. (Reuters $)

8 Chinese researchers have mapped a path to the “last AI built by humans”
Their five-stage plan aims for genuine recursive self-improvement. (SCMP)
+ But it might take a while to get there. (MIT Technology Review)

9 The real AI economy is being built by ordinary people
Workers are using cheap AI to expand what they can do. (Rest of World)

10 Two strange new forms of ice could exist inside Uranus and Neptune
They could help explain the planets’  magnetic fields. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”

—President Trump proclaims in a social media post that he’s the only protection that the US needs from AI.

One more thing

How creativity became the reigning value of our time

—Bryan Gardiner

Americans don’t agree on much these days, but there remains at least one quintessentially modern value we can all still get behind: creativity. We teach it, measure it, envy it and endlessly worry about its death.

Given how much we obsess over it, creativity can feel like something that has always existed. But the concept is surprisingly young. The first known written use of the word didn’t occur until 1875, and before about 1950 there were “approximately zero” articles, books, or essays dealing explicitly with the subject.

In his book The Cult of Creativity, Samuel Franklin explores how creativity became an unimpeachable value and why tech leaders have embraced it so enthusiastically. I spoke to him about why we’re so fascinated by creativity, how Silicon Valley became the supposed epicenter of it, and how AI might reshape our relationship with it.

Read the full interview.

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.)

+ It took five days and 19,000 marbles to build this astonishing marble run.
+ Zero the Border Collie turns into a whole zoo with these adorable animal masks.
+ The Grainydays YouTube channel presents beautifully shot adventures in film photography.
+ Scientists have created an interactive map of underground fungi networks long enough to reach the sun a billion times.