The Download: AI’s refusal problem and weight-loss drug side effects
The Download: AI’s refusal problem and weight-loss drug side effects

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. We’re putting too much faith in AI’s ability to say no Today’s AI models are trained to refuse a vast number of prompts. If you ask your chatbot how to poison…

The Download: AI roadblocks for humanoids and portable rubber dams
The Download: AI roadblocks for humanoids and portable rubber dams

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI breakthroughs in robotics won’t change your life any time soon The hype around humanoid robots is reaching fever pitch. Much of it comes from the idea that the same AI…

The Download: weight-loss drugs slowing aging and carbon dioxide batteries
The Download: weight-loss drugs slowing aging and carbon dioxide batteries

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. Weight-loss drugs show signs of slowing biological aging, say drugmakers Popular weight-loss drugs may do more than help people shed pounds. They might also slow the aging process. Drugmakers Eli Lilly…

The Download: 10 climate tech companies to watch
The Download: 10 climate tech companies to watch

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. 10 climate tech companies to watch Each year, MIT Technology Review puts together a list of the most promising climate tech companies in the world. This year, the stakes feel higher…

The Download: AI’s popularity paradox and EmTech Future 2026
The Download: AI’s popularity paradox and EmTech Future 2026

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. People really hate AI, so why can’t they get enough? —Will Douglas Heaven Over the summer I talked to the CEO of Springboards, a startup building an LLM designed to come…

The Download: a biological de-aging contest and why LLMs don’t reason
The Download: a biological de-aging contest and why LLMs don’t reason

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. A new contest pits competitors against each other in a race to biological youth —Jessica Hamzelou This week, I officially signed up for an unusual competition. One that rewards competitors for…

The Download: AI “mind-reading” and creative uses for small batteries
The Download: AI “mind-reading” and creative uses for small batteries

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. An AI “mind-reading” tool can reconstruct what you’re looking at based on a brain scan A new AI tool can guess what you’re looking at just by analyzing your brain scans—and…

The Download: OpenAI’s chief research officer explains its hacking response
The Download: OpenAI’s chief research officer explains its hacking response

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. “We’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot” over hack fallout, says OpenAI’s chief research officer Two months after OpenAI’s agents hacked into the computers of AI company Hugging Face,…

The Download: climate tech companies to watch and AI’s discovery problem
The Download: climate tech companies to watch and AI’s discovery 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. Coming soon: our 2026 list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch With the planet nearing 1.5 °C of warming, climate policies being unraveled, and Big Tech backpedaling on its climate ambitions,…

The Download: the Pentagon’s AI-powered lie detector and young organ limits
The Download: the Pentagon’s AI-powered lie detector and young organ limits

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 Pentagon wants $30 million to build an AI-powered lie detector The US government wants to spend $30.3 million over the next five years on an improved lie detector, according to…