TopTechTrends

The Download: how people really use AI, and Flock’s design choices

August 18, 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. We still don’t know how people are really using AI AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using their products. But they only release the…

We still don’t know how people are really using AI

August 18, 2026
AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using products like Claude and ChatGPT, but they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say.  “There is no independent source to corroborate it,” says Anka Reuel, a Computer Science PhD candidate at the Stanford Trustworthy AI Research…

The role of the astronaut is in flux

August 18, 2026
When the four astronauts on board NASA’s Artemis II swung around the moon earlier this year, they set a new record for the farthest humans have ever ventured from Earth, surpassing the distance set by Apollo 13 in 1972 by some 4,000 miles.  While no space mission can live up to the historic touchdown of…