Technology

The Download: meet the judges using AI, and GPT-5’s health promises

August 12, 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. Meet the early-adopter judges using AI The propensity for AI systems to make mistakes that humans miss has been on full display in the US legal system as of late. The follies began…

What you may have missed about GPT-5

August 12, 2025
Before OpenAI released GPT-5 last Thursday, CEO Sam Altman said its capabilities made him feel “useless relative to the AI.” He said working on it carries a weight he imagines the developers of the atom bomb must have felt. As tech giants converge on models that do more or less the same thing, OpenAI’s new…

Sam Altman and the whale

August 11, 2025
My colleague Grace Huckins has a great story on OpenAI’s release of GPT-5, its long-awaited new flagship model. One of the takeaways, however, is that while GPT-5 may make for a better experience than the previous versions, it isn’t something revolutionary. “GPT-5 is, above all else,” Grace concludes, “a refined product.” This is pretty much…

Meet the early-adopter judges using AI

August 11, 2025
The propensity for AI systems to make mistakes and for humans to miss those mistakes has been on full display in the US legal system as of late. The follies began when lawyers—including some at prestigious firms—submitted documents citing cases that didn’t exist. Similar mistakes soon spread to other roles in the courts. In December,…

The Download: a quantum radar, and chipmakers’ deal with the US government

August 11, 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. This quantum radar could image buried objects Physicists have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging, using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected…

This quantum radar could image buried objects

August 11, 2025
Physicists have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging, using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected radio waves. The radar is a type of quantum sensor, an emerging technology that uses the quantum-mechanical properties of objects as measurement devices. It’s still a prototype, but its…

The Download: GPT-5 is here, and Intel’s CEO drama

August 8, 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. GPT-5 is here. Now what? At long last, OpenAI has released GPT-5. The new system abandons the distinction between OpenAI’s flagship models and its o series of reasoning models, automatically routing user queries…