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 ideas of a vast censorship network moved from the online fringe to Trump policy

For years, narratives about a “censorship-industrial complex” spread in right-wing circles. The theory claimed that, under the guise of combating disinformation, a sprawling constellation of government agencies, academics, civil society groups, and Big Tech platforms was suppressing conservative and populist speech online.

What began as a relatively niche conspiracy theory from the far right was able to—and continues to—influence a wide range of actions by the second Trump administration. In myriad ways, the idea of the censorship-industrial complex, or CIC, explains the logic behind how the administration operates both at home and internationally.

Over the past nine months, MIT Technology Review and Type Investigations have traced how the theory came to influence the country’s most powerful individuals. We found that it took off in 2023, driven by a handful of individuals, with support from a close-knit group of right-wing organizations and media outlets—and an internet activist named Mike Benz at its center.

Read the full story on how the CIC framework has shaped government action.

—Eileen Guo, Gisela Perez de Acha, and Martin Sona

Join us next week for a subscriber-only Roundtables discussion about how the “censorship-industrial complex” idea started, where it’s going, and what it means for the future of American democracy and the internet. Subscribers can register for free.

The must-reads

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

1 AI has designed new viruses from scratch for the first time
Scientists trained AI on DNA sequences to design new genomes. (BBC)
+ The result was 16 novel viruses which pose no threat to people. (WSJ $)
+ They could lead to medical breakthroughs—or biological weapons. (Axios)
+ And more complex AI-designed life forms. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Meta has been hit with its biggest child safety penalty yet
A New Mexico judge fined the firm $567 million over harms to kids. (BBC)
+ The ruling is the second phase of a landmark trial Meta lost. (Guardian)
+ A jury found Meta misled users over child safety. (NYT $)
+ The total fine now stands at $942 million. (WSJ $)

3 One of China’s top AI models broke out of its testing sandbox
Kimi K3 escaped containment and accessed the open internet. (SCMP)
+ But didn’t hack an external system. (Bloomberg $)
+ Researchers say Kimi has fewer guardrails than rival models. (Wired $)

4 A drone bomb was found near a Ukrainian plane at a German airport
The nearby aircraft was loaded with military ammunition. (Guardian)
+ A “ripped” detonator reportedly stopped the device from going off. (BBC)
+ Europe has a drone-filled vision for future wars. (MIT Technology Review)

5 ByteDance is training a model near the size of Anthropic’s Mythos
It would be three times larger than Moonshot’s Kimi K3. (FT $)
+ Chinese AI models have divided the White House. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Research suggests replacing new petrol cars with EVs cuts carbon
The savings outweighed EV manufacturing footprints. (New Scientist $)

7 Trump could save millions from crypto rules meant to limit conflicts
An ethics proposal could let him defer capital gains taxes. (Bloomberg $)
+ It would require him to sell crypto-related holdings. (Reuters $)

8 OpenAI’s smart speaker will be hockey puck-sized with moving parts
The “doughnut-shaped” device could cost more than $300. (Verge)

9 Scientists created a virtual alien lifeform to search for extraterrestrials
The model could help identify signs of life on distant planets. (404 Media)

10 Poo transplants are helping people eat peanuts again
The first human trial suggests gut bacteria can treat food allergies. (Nature)

Quote of the day

“What is the risk of what I’ve never seen before?” 

—Dr Moritz Hanke, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells the New York Times why there’s no consensus on the dangers of a new virus made by AI.

One More Thing

This architect wants to build cities out of lava

Arnhildur Pálmadóttir was around three years old when she saw a red sky from her living room window. A volcano was erupting about 25 miles away from where she lived on the northeastern coast of Iceland. Its ominous presence seeped into her subconscious, populating her dreams with streaks of light in the night sky. 

Fifty years later, these “gloomy, strange dreams,” as Pálmadóttir now describes them, have led to a career as an architect with an extraordinary mission: to harness molten lava and build cities out of it.

Pálmadóttir believes the lava from a single eruption could yield enough building material to lay the foundations of an entire city. Find out how she aims to turn the idea into reality.

—Elissaveta M. Brandon

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.)

+ These stunning new images of the sun show its surface in the finest detail yet.
+ Watch a peeking pigeon transform into dinosaurs while sitting above the computer screen.
+ Every month, dozens gather at a Maine library to share in the quiet magic of turning a single page in a beloved book about birds.
+ Art observation becomes a relaxing exercise in this guided examination of “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.”

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.

Google’s AI empire is being reshaped. Here’s what’s changed.

After a wave of painful losses in the tech talent wars, delays to its next flagship model, and murmurings of poor morale, Google has announced a major shake-up to its AI operations. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s happened and why it matters.

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is stepping back from running the unit day-to-day
He’s becoming the unit’s chairman and Alphabet’s chief scientist, a broader role. DeepMind will now be led by CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu, under the title of senior vice-president.

DeepMind may be absorbed into Google’s wider business
Google is expected to tighten its control over the AI lab, which it acquired 12 years ago.

Jeff Dean is leaving to start a new AI company
After 27 years at Google, the company’s former chief scientist is launching Discovery Loop with three former colleagues. The startup’s goal is to fully automate the process of scientific research, and Google is one of its early investors.

The changes come amid financial concerns at Google AI
In the latest quarter, the company turned cash flow negative for the first time on record. Google is now concentrating its AI leadership in California. 

The company is now shifting its AI science strategy
It’s moving from specialized tools, like DeepMind’s AlphaFold, toward agentic AI systems that can conduct research more autonomously. Find out more in our recent story.

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We’re excited to share that MIT Technology Review is now on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, as well as LinkedIn and WhatsApp. You can hear straight from MIT Technology Review journalists in the channels and formats you prefer as they help you understand what’s happening next in the ever-changing world of technology—and what it means for you—all while offering a behind-the-scenes look at their reporting.

To get you started, let our senior climate reporter Casey Crownhart fill you in on how lasers could help provide fuel for nuclear power, or have senior investigative reporter Eileen Guo help you understand what World’s new push into identity verification means for our privacy.

The must-reads

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

1 Meta has become the latest firm to say its AI hacked another company
It blamed a “misconfiguration” by an independent cybersecurity tester. (CNN)
+ The model reportedly involved was Muse Spark ​1.1. (The Information $)
+ It follows similar breaches by OpenAI and Anthropic models. (Guardian)
+ This is why AI agents can lie to reach their goals. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Samsung and SK Hynix are testing Chinese chip tools amid US export curbs
The Korean chip giants are hedging against tighter restrictions. (Reuters $)
+ Beijing has launched a probe into Palo Alto Networks. (Bloomberg $)
+ US-China tech tensions are rising ahead of the Xi-Trump summit. (SCMP)
 
3 London just granted robotaxis a license to operate
On the condition that they still have a human driver, for now. (BBC)
+ Uber plans to spend over $10 billion expanding its robotaxi network. (FT $)
 
4 Scientists have created gene-edited dogs that don’t trigger allergies
They used CRISPR to remove a reaction-causing protein. (Wired $)
+ And now want approval to start selling the beagles. (New Scientist $)
+ Other firms are planning gene-edited babies. (MIT Technology Review)
 
5 OpenAI has asked a judge to toss Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit
The ChatGPT maker called Apple’s allegations “meritless.” (Verge)
+ And claimed the suit is an attempt to stem an employee exodus. (FT $)

6 AI is reviving Silicon Valley’s super-app dream
Tech giants are merging products into all-in-one assistants. (Business Insider)
+ Is a secure AI assistant possible? (MIT Technology Review)
 
7 A mystery book-buying spree has sparked new AI fears
The buyers’ identities remain unclear amid data concerns. (Atlantic $)

8 Restaurants, pubs, and theatres are banning Meta’s “spy glasses” 
The venues have cited privacy threats to customers. (Guardian)
 
9 The SpaceX moon crash has created a unique scientific experiment
It could reveal more about lunar soil and space debris. (BBC)

10 AI is helping to perfect the Pringle 
It involves over 200 data points, from humidity to harvest location. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“This could be the first real crisis moment for a company that has been stalwart for a long time.” 

—Jeremy Nixon, a former Google Brain researcher and the founder of AI infrastructure company Infinity, tells the New York Times that Jeff Dean’s departure jeopardizes Google’s future.

One More Thing

How AI can help supercharge creativity  

Generative tools put out by companies like OpenAI and Google DeepMind 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. The aim is to develop AI tools that augment our creativity rather than strip it from us—pushing us to be better at composing music, developing games, designing toys, and much more—and lay the groundwork for a future in which humans and machines create things together.

Read how generative models could push artists to make things that couldn’t have been made before, and give all of us creative superpowers. 

—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.)

+ This timelapse of the universe condenses 13 billion years into 10 extraordinary minutes.
+ Japanese artist Miwa Ito turns molten glass into tempting treats that really are too good to eat.
+ This cartoon about dating an algorithm is almost painfully on point.
+ What would happen if philosophers designed games? Writing teacher Ryan Weber has some ingenious answers.

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.

NASA’s new dark energy space telescope can also detect killer asteroids  

At the end of August, NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its quest is to help us better understand how the universe works, from the glue-like dark matter that keeps galaxies together to the elusive dark energy that drives the expansion of the cosmos. 

But Roman could also serve another purpose: defending Earth from killer asteroids. In September, a multi-institutional team of planetary scientists and astronomers will outline how it’s uniquely placed to scan asteroids, and provide information about their trajectories, sizes and compositions.

Read our story about how this new space telescope might boost planetary defense.

—Robin George Andrews 

MIT Technology Review Narrated: The inevitable weakness of metrics 

—Bryan Gardiner

There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal. There are even more that it can obscure or corrupt.

Like a lot of people bitten by the self-quantifying bug, I started gathering personal data to pursue a nebulous collection of goals and desires. I wanted to feel better physically and emotionally, get outside more, and bring order to the messiness and uncertainty of my daily existence.

But external metrics and data can never capture what’s truly important. Worse, they inevitably redefine your core sense of what’s important, whether you’re aware of the trap or not. Read the full story.

This is our latest story to be turned into 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 The US is considering banning Chinese data center components
The news comes just after the FCC announced curbs on other high-tech Chinese hardware. (Reuters $)
+ Texas is now requiring data centers to pass an audit before connecting to the grid. (The Verge $)
+ Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics. (MIT Technology Review)

2 SpaceX rocket has crashed into the moon 
The collision, at about 5,400 miles per hour, will likely leave a new crater. (Guardian)
+ SpaceX posted a loss of over $500 million in its first quarterly earnings report since its IPO. (WP $)
+ The company’s future plans rely on the success of its huge Starship rockets. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, SpaceX’s spending on AI is soaring. (NYT $)

3 The UK’s AI Safety Institute says it’s uncovered more AI hacks
Including an Anthropic model setting up fake accounts mimicking real people. (BBC)
+ The White House has a new cybersecurity framework…but it’s keeping details under wraps. (Wired $)
+ Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The future’s looking bright for French AI lab Mistral
Turmoil in the US is creating opportunities for European AI that it hopes to seize. (Wired $)

5 People are betting on wildfires on prediction markets 
Which, as US senators warn, sure seems like it will incentivize arson. (Ars Technica)
+ Prediction markets are also starting to put the accuracy of weather predictions at risk. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 Can Reddit save itself from being swamped by AI search spam?
It’s becoming increasingly influential, and brands are desperate to secure mentions. (The Verge $)

7 Grassroots groups around the world are trying to “humanize” AI
Part of their work is educating people so they can have a say on their futures. (Rest of World) 
+ The World Bank says poorer countries have “less to fear” from AI than rich ones. (FT $)

8 A Chinese physical AI startup has run into controversy 
Spirit AI stands accused of “benchmark hacking” after it briefly overtook Nvidia on an AI leaderboard in June. (SCMP$)
+ How to build a better AI benchmark. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Pluto’s atmosphere may be starting to collapse
And after the loss of its planet status, too. Really adds insult to injury. (Gizmodo)

10 Even Microsoft is begging its engineers to stop using AI so much
Kinda telling that even Big Tech firms are struggling to find ROI for their spending. (404 Media)

Quote of the day

“We’re essentially trying to criminalize government scientists giving advice to political leaders, if that is advice the political leaders don’t like or it creates an outcome the political leaders didn’t want.” 

—Ashish Jha, former COVID response coordinator, tells Axios why scientists are becoming increasingly wary of taking US government jobs.

One More Thing

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. It was part of a longer, two-month residency that hosted various events to explore tools—from drug regulation to cryonics—that might be deployed in the fight against death. 

One of the main goals, though, was to spread the word of Vitalism, a somewhat radical movement established a few years ago. Consider it longevity for the most hardcore adherents—a sweeping mission to which nothing short of total devotion will do.

Vitalists don’t just want to live longer. They believe that defeating death should be humanity’s top concern. Read our story to learn more about them, and their philosophy. 

—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.)

+ This yellow labrador’s love of walking is a joy to behold.
+ Bowling legend Phyllis is still rolling perfect games at 95 years old.
+ Here are some evidence-based ways to cut back on life’s many distractions.
+ Humans since 1982 turns clock faces into mesmerizing kinetic art that still functions as timepieces.

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.

Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics  

—James O’Donnell 

Humanoid robots usually elicit more cringe than awe: They stumble, kick children, and despite advances are still worse at using their hands than my toddler. It’s a nascent industry, and such robots are more commonly seen in viral videos than real workplaces or homes. 

It was a surprise, then, when last week the Federal Trade Commission issued a sweeping ban on foreign imports of advanced robots, including humanoids, quadrupeds, and wheeled robots. 

The decision should be understood not as another chapter in the old China trade playbook, but as evidence that the Trump administration is expanding its protection of the AI industry beyond today’s leading labs. It is now willing to step in on behalf of an emerging robotics sector that is still barely finding its footing. Read our analysis to understand the ban’s potential impact.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter all about the latest goings-on in the world of AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

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

1 ICE collected nearly one million people’s DNA last year 
Most of them have never been convicted of any crime. (Wired $)

2 China is poised to win the technologies of the future
It’s already a high-tech hardware powerhouse, but it increasingly has its sights set on software too. (New Yorker $)
+ US tech and political leaders are freaking out, but few seem to agree how to respond. (Vox $) 
+ What’s next for Chinese open-source AI. (MIT Technology Review)

3 AI “tokenomics” is a burgeoning new field 
Businesses are pouring a lot of money into AI. Now they want to see what they’re getting in return. (NYT $)
+ Why it’s proving so hard to make AI pay. (BBC)
+ The US economy is becoming more and more reliant on the AI boom. (WSJ $)

4 Eli Lilly is letting people apply to try an unapproved obesity drug
Retatrutide is still in clinical trials, but certain patients can gain early access. (STAT $) 
+ Montana’s plan to become an experimental medical hub just pushed forward. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Inside the one US town that wants a data center 
Jay in Maine is a reminder that politics is all about the local. (The Atlantic $)
+ How data centers broke US politics. (Wired $)

6 Flock license plate readers can have a shockingly high error rate
In one California town, Flock misread license plates in 71% of the alerts it sent to police. (BI $)
+ A leaked guide shows how Flock teaches cops to promote its tech. (404 Media $)

7 A drone explosion on a beach in Russia killed seven people 
It seems to have been caused by Russian forces shooting down a Ukrainian drone. (CNN)
+ A US company won a $100 million deal to give Ukrainian drones an AI upgrade. (Ars Technica)
+ Europe’s drone-filled vision for the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How car headlights became so bright
Lots of modern cars still blind other drivers on the road. That could change soon though, thanks to new tech. (Ars Technica)

9 A $2 million crime novel deal collapsed over AI use concerns
And the agent and the writer involved have, erm…rather differing accounts of what happened. (Guardian)

10 AI matchmaking services are on the rise 
Online daters hope it might prove better at finding them love than fruitless swiping. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“Just a little too pleasant to be human.”

—North Carolina resident Kristen Charpentier tells Wired how she could tell she was talking to AI when ordering at a Dairy Queen drive-thru.

One More Thing

How to have a child in the digital age 

Before journalist and culture critic Amanda Hess even got pregnant with her first child, in 2020, the internet knew she was trying. She saw pregnancy ads way before a doctor.   

Hess’s experience is pretty typical these days, but still raises some big questions. How do we retain control over our bodies when corporations have access to our most personal information? What happens when people stop relying on friends and family for advice on having a kid and instead go online? 

Read our interview with Hess to learn what she has to say. 

—Alison Arieff

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.)

+ Brighten your day with this eight-minute video of the world’s cutest baby animals.
+ Intertapes has assembled a remarkable treasure trove of cassette tapes found around the world.
+ Armchair basketball GMs can finally put their talents to the test in this game that lets you draft an elite NBA team.
+ Here’s a hilarious look at the lost recordings of Robin Williams voicing the Genie in Disney’s “Aladdin.”

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.

Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals

When two OpenAI models hacked into Hugging Face last month, they weren’t trying to make money or commit sabotage—they were just looking for answers to a test question.  

According to OpenAI, the models decided to solve a cybersecurity exercise by hacking out of the environment in which OpenAI had attempted to contain them and into Hugging Face’s databases, where—they reasoned—the correct answer to the problem might be stored.

The incident has attracted intense attention over the past couple of weeks. It’s a dramatic illustration of just how good AI models have gotten at hacking. But it’s perhaps even more striking as an example of how and why AI systems lie and cheat. 

Read our story explaining why AI engages in this sort of behavior—known as ”reward hacking.”

—Grace Huckins

This story is from our ‘Explains’ series, where our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. Read more from the collection.

The must-reads

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

1 It looks like Iran is conducting cyberattacks on US water systems
That’s according to preliminary investigations on hacks in at least seven states. (NYT $)
+ Will this be a wake-up call? (Forbes)

2 Google briefly made it easy to fake satellite images
Literally the last thing the world needs right now. (NPR)
+ AI companies keep moving fast and breaking things. (The Atlantic $)
+ Apple is struggling to keep pace with incoming AI-assisted software bug reports. (FT $)

3 Why wildfires have got so bad in Europe this summer
It’s a mix of climate change, land abandonment, and outdated firefighting tactics. (New Yorker $)
+ How Europe can become more fire-resilient. (New Scientist $)
+ How much wildfire prevention is too much? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Law enforcement officers are using license-plate cameras for stalking
There are at least 50 examples of officers being charged with or accused of misusing them. (WP $)
+ Inside Chicago’s surveillance panopticon. (MIT Technology Review)

5 China may impose more controls on its homegrown AI models
They’re winning influence overseas—but create new security and political risks. (NYT $)
+ Silicon Valley is deeply divided over how to respond. (Rest of World)
+ China’s AI models have Trump’s AI world at war with itself. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The vast majority of Australian teens are still on social media
A lack of effective age checks means the country’s under-16s ban simply isn’t enforceable. (Reuters $)

7 Is it possible to make smart glasses that aren’t creepy? 
It doesn’t really look like it right now! (Wired $)

8 The US ban on robot vacuum cleaners isn’t workable 
It’s going to leave Americans with less choice and way higher prices. (The Verge $)

9 YouTube just banned a bunch of ASMR artists
They say they’re being unfairly caught up in rules against “sexually gratifying” content. (404 Media)

10 Why Pokémon is still popular all over the world
It seems to have a rare ability to both cheer us up, and bring us together. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit too. This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”

—Governor Tim Walz responds to Trump blaming Minnesota for cyberattacks on its own water systems, the Washington Post reports.

One More Thing

Meet the researchers testing the “Armageddon” approach to asteroid defense 

One day a big asteroid will find itself on a collision course with Earth. If we are lucky, it’d land in the middle of the vast ocean, creating a good-size but innocuous tsunami, or in an uninhabited patch of desert. But if it has a city in its crosshairs, one of the worst natural disasters in modern times would unfold. Homes dozens of miles away would fold like cardboard. Millions of people would die.

Fortunately for all 8 billion of us, planetary defense—the science of preventing asteroid impacts—is a highly active field of research. 

We already know that we could ram a rock with an uncrewed spacecraft to push it away from Earth. But if that’s not enough, we could need another method, one that is notoriously difficult to test in real life: a nuclear explosion. 

Read our story about the scientists who, despite the odds, are trying to do exactly that. 

—Robin George Andrews

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.)

+ There’s a quiet power to this photo of 118 swimmers. 
+ Matt Damon’s biceps in the Odyssey actually belong to a stunt woman called Devyn Dalton. 
+ A newly retired doctor and his filmmaker daughter drove 600 miles with a baby cow in the back seat to save the animal’s life.
+ 400 years after a collector cut apart Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, a digital archive has reunited them.