November 14, 2025

The Download: how AI really works, and phasing out animal testing

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. OpenAI’s new LLM exposes the secrets of how AI really works The news: ChatGPT maker OpenAI has built an experimental large language model that is far easier to understand than typical models. Why…

Technology

The Download: the solar geoengineering race, and future gazing with the The Simpsons

November 5, 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. Why the for-profit race into solar geoengineering is bad for science and public trust —David Keith is the professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago and Daniele Visioni is an assistant…

From vibe coding to context engineering: 2025 in software development

November 5, 2025
This year, we’ve seen a real-time experiment playing out across the technology industry, one in which AI’s software engineering capabilities have been put to the test against human technologists. And although 2025 may have started with AI looking strong, the transition from vibe coding to what’s being termed context engineering shows that while the work…

Why the for-profit race into solar geoengineering is bad for science and public trust

November 4, 2025
Last week, an American-Israeli company that claims it’s developed proprietary technology to cool the planet announced it had raised $60 million, by far the largest known venture capital round to date for a solar geoengineering startup. The company, Stardust, says the funding will enable it to develop a system that could be deployed by the…

The Download: the AGI myth, and US/China AI competition

November 4, 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. How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time —Will Douglas Heaven, senior AI editor  Are you feeling it? I hear it’s close: two years, five years—maybe next year! And I…

The State of AI: Is China about to win the race? 

November 3, 2025
The State of AI is a collaboration between the Financial Times & MIT Technology Review examining the ways in which AI is reshaping global power. Every Monday for the next six weeks, writers from both publications will debate one aspect of the generative AI revolution reshaping global power. In this conversation, the FT’s tech columnist…

The Download: gene-edited babies, and cleaning up copper

November 3, 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. Here’s the latest company planning for gene-edited babies The news: A West Coast biotech entrepreneur says he’s secured $30 million to form a public-benefit company to study how to safely create genetically edited…

This startup wants to clean up the copper industry

November 3, 2025
Demand for copper is surging, as is pollution from its dirty production processes. The founders of one startup, Still Bright, think they have a better, cleaner way to generate the copper the world needs.  The company uses water-based reactions, based on battery chemistry technology, to purify copper in a process that could be less polluting…

Here’s the latest company planning for gene-edited babies

October 31, 2025
A West Coast biotech entrepreneur says he’s secured $30 million to form a public-benefit company to study how to safely create genetically edited babies, marking the largest known investment into the taboo technology.   The new company, called Preventive, is being formed to research so-called “heritable genome editing,” in which the DNA of embryos would be…