August 15, 2025

The Download: Taiwan’s silicon shield, and ChatGPT’s personality misstep

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. Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening Taiwanese politics increasingly revolves around one crucial question: Will China invade? China’s ruling party has wanted to seize Taiwan for more than half a century. But in…

August 2025

Meet the first batch of VCs set to judge Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

August 15, 2025
Startup Battlefield 200 is the crown jewel of TechCrunch Disrupt. From thousands of applicants, only the top 20 will take the Stage at Disrupt 2025 (October 27–29, San Francisco) to pitch their vision to panels of top-tier VCs in front of a live audience. Every contender is chasing game-changing impact — and we’re here for the drama, the breakthroughs, and the big reveals.

The Download: Taiwan’s silicon shield, and ChatGPT’s personality misstep

August 15, 2025
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. Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening Taiwanese politics increasingly revolves around one crucial question: Will China invade? China’s ruling party has wanted to seize Taiwan for more than half a century. But in…

Losing GPT-4o sent some people into mourning. That was predictable.

August 15, 2025
June had no idea that GPT-5 was coming. The Norwegian student was enjoying a late-night writing session last Thursday when her ChatGPT collaborator started acting strange. “It started forgetting everything, and it wrote really badly,” she says. “It was like a robot.” June, who asked that we use only her first name for privacy reasons,…

Indigenous knowledge meets artificial intelligence

August 15, 2025
There is no word for art in most Native American languages. Instead, the closest terms speak not to objecthood but to action and intention. In Lakota, “wówačhiŋtȟaŋka” implies deep thought or reflection, while “wóčhekiye” suggests offering or prayer. Art is not separate from life; it is ceremony, instruction, design. Like architecture or code, it carries…

Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening

August 15, 2025
One winter afternoon in a conference room in Taipei, a pair of twentysomething women dragged their friend across the floor. Lying on the ground in checkered pants and a brown sweatshirt, she was pretending to be either injured or dead. One friend picked her up by her arms, the other grabbed hold of her legs,…

Why US federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA vaccines

August 15, 2025
This time five years ago, we were in the throes of the covid-19 pandemic. By August 2020, we’d seen school closures, national lockdowns, and widespread panic. That year, the coronavirus was responsible for around 3 million deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Then came the vaccines. The first mRNA vaccines for covid were authorized for…