Radically different
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.
What actually matters in AI right now? It’s getting harder to tell amid the constant launches, hype, and warnings. To cut through the noise, MIT Technology Review’s reporters and editors have distilled years of analysis into a new essential guide: the 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now.
The list builds on our annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies, but takes a wider view of the ideas, topics, and research shaping AI, spotlighting the trends and breakthroughs shaping the world.
We’ll be unpacking one item from the list each day here in The Download, explaining what it means and why it matters. Read the full rundown now—and stay tuned for the days ahead.
As the conflict in Iran has escalated, a crucial resource is under fire: the desalinization technology that supplies water in the region.
President Donald Trump recently threatened to destroy “possibly all desalinization plants” in Iran if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. The impact on farming, industry, and—crucially—drinking in the Middle East could be severe. Find out why.
—Casey Crownhart
This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 An unauthorized group has reportedly accessed Anthropic’s Mythos
Users in a private online forum may have gained access. (Bloomberg $)
+ Anthropic said the model was too dangerous for a full release. (Axios)
+ Mozilla used it to find 271 security vulnerabilities in Firefox. (Wired $)
2 Meta will track workers’ clicks and keystrokes for AI training
Tracking software is being installed on workers’ computers.(Reuters $)
+ Employees are up in arms about the program. (Business Insider)
+ LLMs could supercharge mass surveillance in the US. (MIT Technology Review)
3 ChatGPT allegedly advised the Florida State shooter
About when and where to strike, and which ammunition to use. (Washington Post $)
+ Florida’s attorney general is probing ChatGPT’s role in the shooting. (Ars Technica)
+ Does AI cause delusions or just amplify them? (MIT Technology Review)
4 SpaceX has secured the option to buy AI startup Cursor for $60 billion
Or pay $10 billion for the work they’re doing together. (The Verge)
+ SpaceX made the deal as it prepares to go public. (NYT $)
+ Musk’s endgame for the company may be a land grab in space. (The Atlantic $)
5 The Pentagon wants $54 billion for drones
That would rank among the top 10 military budgets for entire nations. (Ars Technica)
+ Shoplifters could soon be chased down by drones. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Apple’s new chief hardware officer signals a sprint to build in-house chips
Apple silicon lead Johny Srouji has been promoted to the role. (CNBC)
7 China’s government is tightening its grip on AI firms that try to leave
It’s doing all it can to stop firms like Manus sending talent and research overseas. (Washington Post $)
8 The FBI is probing the deaths of scientists tied to sensitive research
Including a nuclear physicist and MIT professor shot outside his home. (CNN)
9 The US is accelerating research into psychedelic medical treatment
Including the mysterious ibogaine. (Nature)
+ But psychedelics are (still) falling short in clinical trials. (MIT Technology Review)
10 The first retail boutique run by an AI agent has opened—and it’s chaos
The San Francisco shop is reassuringly mismanaged. (NYT $)
Quote of the day
—Donald Trump pays a classy tribute to Tim Cook on Truth Social.
One More Thing
A US agency pursuing moonshot health breakthroughs has hired a researcher advocating an extremely radical plan for defeating death. His idea? Replace your body parts. All of them. Even your brain.
Jean Hébert, a program manager at the US Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), believes we can beat aging by adding youthful tissue to people’s brains. Read the full story on his futuristic plan to extend human life.
—Antonio Regalado
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ A Lego set was sent to the edge of space—and survived.
+ Go behind the scenes with Werner Herzog as he guides a new generation of filmmakers.
+ This video about enshittification perfectly captures the frustration of the degrading internet.
+ NASA’s latest deep-space capture offers a rare view of planetary systems in their absolute infancy.
WASHINGTON — Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once said there are no vaccines that are safe and effective. On Wednesday, he seemed to have changed his tune.
Across two Senate hearings, Kennedy noted that as health secretary, he funded the development of new vaccines, green-lit new shots for patients, asserted flu vaccines are preventive care, and even urged “every child to get the MMR,” a shot he previously suggested wasn’t safe. Last week, he acknowledged the shot could have saved the life of a child who died of measles.
Kennedy’s agenda continues to make waves across American health care, as his department pursues a broad crackdown on alleged fraud and seeks to upend Americans’ relationship with ultra-processed foods, all after major cuts across health agencies and a reworking of vaccine policy. But the about-face expands to a number of core MAHA issues — chemicals in food and the government’s relationship with industry among them.
It comes as some leaders of the insurgent movement have grown skeptical of the administration they rallied to support, forcing the Trump administration to thread the needle between courting the MAHA base’s ongoing support and dropping MAHA priorities seen as impractical or politically unwise.
Washington state hospitals say their Medicare patients are waiting two to four times longer in some cases for procedures that are now subject to prior authorization under a new Medicare program.
The report from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is among the first to document alleged patient harm stemming from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ new Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction, or WISeR, Model. Cantwell is one of several Democratic members of Congress who have been urging CMS to scrap the program, which launched Jan. 1.
Cantwell aired her concerns about WISeR to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a Senate Committee on Finance hearing Wednesday. She said CMS is using artificial intelligence as a “denial device” and that patients are waiting weeks to get sign off for services that previously didn’t require approval.
A former tobacco industry executive has been appointed to senior leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alarming public health advocates and critics of industry influence on government.
Stephen Sayle, named in March as the CDC’s deputy director for legislative affairs, previously worked at Fontem Ventures, a subsidiary of the British multinational tobacco corporation Imperial Brands. Between 2017 and 2018, he was U.S. vice president of corporate affairs at Fontem, which is focused on non-combustible tobacco products like the e-cigarette brand blu and the oral nicotine pouch brand Zone.
Background: Given the increasing prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders and enduring barriers to care, there is a critical need for alternative treatment options. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots show promise for increasing access to mental health care, though more direct research is needed to establish their efficacy. Objective: This pilot study aimed to test the efficacy of a generative mental health chatbot rooted in solution-focused therapy compared to the general-purpose ChatGPT and an assessment-only control (AOC) group on depression, anxiety, and well-being. Methods: A total of 185 English-speaking adults were recruited online and randomly assigned to one of three groups: AI therapy, ChatGPT, or AOC. Of these, 147 eligible participants filled out a pretreatment assessment. Over a 3-week period, the AI therapy group (n=44) was instructed to complete 3 structured, fully automated app-based sessions per week (9 total), while the ChatGPT group (n=60) was instructed to engage in 9 unstructured conversations with ChatGPT (GPT-4o–based models). The control group (n=43) received no intervention. In the AI therapy group, 39% (n=17) completed all sessions, as did 62% (n=38) of those in the ChatGPT group. Primary outcome measures, self-assessed online at baseline and postintervention, included the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Overall Depression Severity and Impairment Scale (ODSIS) (depression), 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (anxiety), and World Health Organization Well-Being Index (5-item version) (well-being). Linear mixed effects models were used for data analysis. Results: Compared to AOC, both the AI therapy group (=−0.47; =.01) and the ChatGPT group (=−0.44; =.02) demonstrated significant reductions in depression scores measured by PHQ-9. The AI therapy group showed nonsignificant reductions in anxiety (=−0.37; =.11) and ODSIS depression scores (=−0.25; =.22) and an increase in well-being (=0.12; =.53) compared to AOC. Similarly, a nonsignificant reduction in anxiety (=−0.27; =.22) and ODSIS depression scores (=−0.12; =.53) and an increase in well-being (=0.20; =.29) were observed in the ChatGPT group compared to AOC. The AI therapy group did not significantly outperform the ChatGPT group on any outcomes (PHQ-9: =−0.19; =0.03; =.87; 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale: =−0.57; =−0.11; =.62; ODSIS: =−0.59; =−0.13; =.50; and WHO: =−0.38; =−0.07; =.69). Conclusions: Both the structured generative AI chatbot and ChatGPT showed a significant reduction in depression scores compared to the control group. No significant effects were observed across other outcomes, although descriptive trends indicated improvements in anxiety. While the AI therapy group showed descriptively better outcomes for depression and anxiety, differences between groups were not significant. A larger sample and longer intervention may be needed for the emerging trends to yield clinically meaningful effect sizes. Trial Registration: OSF Registries osf.io/r76ef;
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In case you missed it, Revolution Medicines’ sessions yesterday were jam-packed with conference attendees. While most of the media coverage focused on the daraxonrasib in frontline pancreatic cancer data, the company also revealed some activity in a new compound, RM-055. CEO Mark Goldsmith described it as being part of a new class of “catalytic inhibitors,” since it can slice off a phosphate from GTP-RAS, or the “on” form of RAS, and turn the protein off.
This generated a lot of interest because one of the main ways that cancer develops resistance to RAS inhibitors is by amplifying mutant RAS, basically flooding the cell with the oncoprotein and overwhelming the inhibitor. RM-055, with its catalytic ability to turn multiple mutant RAS proteins off, may be the next step in the arms race against RAS-addicted cancer.
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified on Wednesday before the Senate lawmakers who arguably hold the most power in advancing or hindering his Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing put the secretary face-to-face with Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), whose vote to confirm Kennedy last year came with a number of promises on vaccine policy that Kennedy has since blown through.