April 18, 2025

How creativity became the reigning value of our time

Americans don’t agree on much these days. Yet even at a time when consensus reality seems to be on the verge of collapse, there remains at least one quintessentially modern value we can all still get behind: creativity.  We teach it, measure it, envy it, cultivate it, and endlessly worry about its death. And why…

The Download: how the military is using AI, and AI’s climate promises

April 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. Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military For much of last year, US Marines conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia were also…

Startups Weekly: Enjoying the reprieve

April 11, 2025
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Startups aren’t isolated from the world. But this week, funding news felt positively uncorrelated from the overall news cycle, offering somewhat of a reprieve — or perhaps […]

Love or immortality: A short story

April 11, 2025
1. Sophie and Martin are at the 2012 Gordon Research Conference on the Biology of Aging in Ventura, California. It is a foggy February weekend. Both are disappointed about how little sun there is on the California beach. They are two graduate students—Sophie in her sixth and final year, Martin in his fourth—who have traveled…

How AI is interacting with our creative human processes

April 11, 2025
In 2021, 20 years after the death of her older sister, Vauhini Vara was still unable to tell the story of her loss. “I wondered,” she writes in Searches, her new collection of essays on AI technology, “if Sam Altman’s machine could do it for me.” So she tried ChatGPT. But as it expanded on…

Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military

April 11, 2025
For much of last year, about 2,500 US service members from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed aboard three ships throughout the Pacific, conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. At the same time, onboard the ships, an experiment was unfolding: The Marines in the unit responsible for…

Leaders from Accel and Paladin Capital Group join the stage at StrictlyVC London in May

April 11, 2025
Mark your calendar — StrictlyVC London is just around the corner on 13 May. Designed for founders, entrepreneurs, and investors, this exclusive gathering promises deep VC insight and high-value connections. We’re thrilled to welcome our first pair of confirmed speakers: Nazo Moosa, managing director of Paladin Capital Group, and Sonali De Rycker, partner of Accel […]

Lucid Motors wins bankruptcy auction for Nikola’s Arizona factory and other assets

April 11, 2025
EV startup Lucid Motors has emerged as a surprise winner in the bankruptcy auction for electric trucking company Nikola’s Arizona factory and other assets, according a late Thursday court filing. Lucid committed around $30 million in cash and non-cash considerations in exchange for the factory, Nikola’s lease on its Phoenix headquarters, and “certain machinery, equipment […]

Why the climate promises of AI sound a lot like carbon offsets 

April 11, 2025
The International Energy Agency states in a new report that AI could eventually reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, possibly by much more than the boom in energy-guzzling data center development pushes them up. The finding echoes a point that prominent figures in the AI sector have made as well to justify, at least implicitly, the gigawatts’ worth…

Tesla used car listings skyrocketed in March

April 10, 2025
A growing number of Tesla owners are putting their used vehicles up for sale, as consumers react to Elon Musk’s political activities and the global protests they have fueled. In March, the number of used Tesla vehicles listed for sale on Autotrader.com skyrocketed, Sherwood News reported, citing data from Autotrader parent company Cox Automotive. The […]