July 3, 2025

The Download: AI agents hype, and Google’s electricity plans

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. Don’t let hype about AI agents get ahead of reality —Yoav Shoham is a professor emeritus at Stanford University and cofounder of AI21 Labs. At Google’s I/O 2025 event in May, the company…

Technology

Motor neuron diseases took their voices. AI is bringing them back.

February 13, 2025
Jules Rodriguez lost his voice in October of last year. His speech had been deteriorating since a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2020, as the muscles in his head and neck progressively weakened along with those in the rest of his body. By 2024, doctors were worried that he might not be able…

The AI relationship revolution is already here

February 13, 2025
AI is everywhere, and it’s starting to alter our relationships in new and unexpected ways—relationships with our spouses, kids, colleagues, friends, and even ourselves. Although the technology remains unpredictable and sometimes baffling, individuals from all across the world and from all walks of life are finding it useful, supportive, and comforting, too. People are using…

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns of ‘race’ to understand AI as it becomes more powerful

February 12, 2025

Right after the end of the AI Action Summit in Paris, Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei called the event a “missed opportunity.” He added that “greater focus and urgency is needed on several topics given the pace at which the technology is progressing” in the statement released on Tuesday. The AI company held a […]

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Harnessing cloud and AI to power a sustainable future 

February 12, 2025
Organizations working toward ambitious sustainability targets are finding an ally in emerging technologies. In agriculture, for instance, AI can use satellite imagery and real-time weather data to optimize irrigation and reduce water usage. In urban areas, cloud-enabled AI can power intelligent traffic systems, rerouting vehicles to cut commute times and emissions. At an industrial level, advanced…

The Download: robot reanimation, and AI crawler wars

February 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. Robots are bringing new life to extinct species In the last few years, paleontologists have developed a new trick for turning back time and studying prehistoric animals: building experimental robotic models of them. …

Robots are bringing new life to extinct species

February 12, 2025
Paleontologists aren’t easily deterred by evolutionary dead ends or a sparse fossil record. But in the last few years, they’ve developed a new trick for turning back time and studying prehistoric animals: building experimental robotic models of them. In the absence of a living specimen, scientists say, an ambling, flying, swimming, or slithering automaton is…

AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed for everyone

February 11, 2025
We often take the internet for granted. It’s an ocean of information at our fingertips—and it simply works. But this system relies on swarms of “crawlers”—bots that roam the web, visit millions of websites every day, and report what they see. This is how Google powers its search engines, how Amazon sets competitive prices, and…

The Download: offshore rocket launches, and how DOGE plans to use AI

February 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. The dream of offshore rocket launches is finally blasting off Want to send something to space? Get in line. The demand for rides off Earth is skyrocketing, with launches more than doubling over…

AI investments surged 62% to $110 billion in 2024 while startup funding overall declined 12%, says Dealroom

February 11, 2025

Venture capitalists are gobbling up term sheets for startups peddling artificial intelligence, even as they remain picky when it comes to funding the wider spectrum of technology.  According to new figures from analytics firm Dealroom, AI startups raised $110 billion in funding last year, up 62% on the year before. At the same time, privately-backed […]

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Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex.

February 11, 2025
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. No tech leader before has played the role in a new presidential administration that Elon Musk is playing now. Under his leadership, DOGE has entered offices in a half-dozen agencies and counting,…