The Download: the future of nuclear power plants, and social media-fueled AI hype
The Download: the future of nuclear power plants, and social media-fueled AI hype

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Why AI companies are betting on next-gen nuclear AI is driving unprecedented investment for massive data centers and an energy supply that can support its huge computational appetite. One potential source of electricity…

The Download: squeezing more metal out of aging mines, and AI’s truth crisis
The Download: squeezing more metal out of aging mines, and AI’s truth crisis

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. Microbes could extract the metal needed for cleantech In a pine forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the only active nickel mine in the US is nearing the end of its life. At a…

The Download: inside a deepfake marketplace, and EV batteries’ future
The Download: inside a deepfake marketplace, and EV batteries’ 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. Inside the marketplace powering bespoke AI deepfakes of real women Civitai—an online marketplace for buying and selling AI-generated content, backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz—is letting users buy custom instruction files…

The Download: US immigration agencies’ AI videos, and inside the Vitalism movement
The Download: US immigration agencies’ AI videos, and inside the Vitalism movement

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. DHS is using Google and Adobe AI to make videos The news: The US Department of Homeland Security is using AI video generators from Google and Adobe to make and edit content shared…

The Download: inside the Vitalism movement, and why AI’s “memory” is a privacy problem
The Download: inside the Vitalism movement, and why AI’s “memory” is a privacy problem

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Meet the Vitalists: the hardcore longevity enthusiasts who believe death is “wrong” Last April, an excited crowd gathered at a compound in Berkeley, California, for a three-day event called the Vitalist Bay Summit.…

The Download: A bid to treat blindness, and bridging the internet divide
The Download: A bid to treat blindness, and bridging the internet divide

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 first human test of a rejuvenation method will begin “shortly” Life Biosciences, a small Boston startup founded by Harvard professor and life-extension evangelist David Sinclair, has won FDA approval to proceed with…

The Download: OpenAI’s plans for science, and chatbot age verification
The Download: OpenAI’s plans for science, and chatbot age verification

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. Inside OpenAI’s big play for science  —Will Douglas Heaven In the three years since ChatGPT’s explosive debut, OpenAI’s technology has upended a remarkable range of everyday activities at home, at work, and in…

The Download: why LLMs are like aliens, and the future of head transplants
The Download: why LLMs are like aliens, and the future of head transplants

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Meet the new biologists treating LLMs like aliens   How large is a large language model? We now coexist with machines so vast and so complicated that nobody quite understands what they are, how…

The Download: chatbots for health, and US fights over AI regulation
The Download: chatbots for health, and US fights over AI regulation

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. “Dr. Google” had its issues. Can ChatGPT Health do better?   For the past two decades, there’s been a clear first step for anyone who starts experiencing new medical symptoms: Look them up online.…

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

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models     Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in…