September 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. The looming crackdown on AI companionship As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin.…

As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin from data center sprawl. But this week showed that another threat entirely—that of kids forming unhealthy bonds with AI—is the one pulling AI safety out of the academic…