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 inevitable weakness of metrics
There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal. There are even more that it can obscure or corrupt.
Like a lot of people bitten by the self-quantifying bug, I started gathering personal data to pursue a nebulous collection of goals and desires. I wanted to feel better physically and emotionally, get outside more, and bring order to the messiness and uncertainty of my daily existence.
But external metrics and data can never capture what’s truly important. Worse, they inevitably redefine your core sense of what’s important, whether you’re aware of the trap or not.
Dive into the dangers of quantifying our lives with metrics.
—Bryan Gardiner
This story is from the next edition of our magazine, which is all about engineering. Subscribe now to get a copy when it lands!
Elephant alert! AI warning systems aim to avoid deadly clashes
India is home to about 60% of the world’s wild Asian elephants, and around 80% of their habitat lies outside protected areas. That brings them into close contact with people, and clashes can turn lethal: there have been some 3,000 human casualties in the last five years and over 1,000 elephant deaths since 2014.
In response, state forest departments, NGOs, and locals are designing, testing, and deploying a range of AI systems that cut response and warning times to minutes—or even seconds. They range from wildlife eyes in Maharashtra to infrared drones in Chhattisgarh.
Find out how they work in our interactive map.
—Kanika Gupta
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The US has allowed Anthropic to release Mythos 5 to “trusted” orgs
About 100 US companies and federal agencies now have access. (Semafor)
+ The White House said appropriate safeguards were now in place. (WSJ $)
+ The US had restricted both models over national security concerns. (BBC)
+ Which raised new questions about AI safety. (MIT Technology Review)
2 A Chinese AI model has matched Mythos in finding security bugs
Security researchers say Zhipu AI is poised to reset the AI race. (WSJ $)
+ It’s sparked alarm that US restrictions are boosting China’s progress. (NYT $)
+ Although it still can’t match Anthropic or OpenAI on general tasks. (Verge)
+ In the AI race, China is eyeing a come-from-behind victory. (WP $)
3 Apple is seeking approval to buy chips from a blacklisted Chinese firm
It’s lobbying the White House for clearance to buy from ChangXin. (FT $)
+ ChangXin is on a Pentagon list of firms with Chinese military ties. (WP $)
+ Chipmakers are profiting off AI at the expense of everyone else. (WSJ $)
+ The US is banning imports of more Chinese technology. (Reuters $)
+ But Chinese tech companies feel optimistic. (MIT Technology Review)
4. South Korea plans to train its entire military as “drone warriors”
It wants to train all 500,000 personnel. (Reuters $)
+ And produce 110,000 drones by 2029. (Ars Technica)
5 Google has limited Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models
Meta wanted more compute than Google could provide. (FT $)
+ The cap has disrupted and delayed some Meta AI projects. (Bloomberg $)
6 Zuckerberg wants Meta to work with Polymarket and Kalshi
Meta wants its own prediction market, but without real-money bets. (NYT $)
+ The partnerships could hedge risks and accelerate development. (Reuters $)
7 Extreme heat is putting already hot data centers under pressure
Severe weather is now the leading cause of loss for data centers. (CNBC)
+ Heat waves also mess with your brain. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Android phones alerted millions moments before Venezuela’s earthquakes
They gave users between seconds and up to two minutes’ notice. (NYT $)
9 Scientists think Uranus and Neptune may not be the icy giants we imagined
They may have a magma ocean brewing on the inside. (Gizmodo)
10 Too much sleep may be as harmful as too little
A new study suggests 6.4–7.8 hours is the sweet spot. (Economist $)
Quote of the day
“This kind of powerful weapon that can alter the landscape of cyberwarfare can’t remain solely in American hands.”
—360 Security CEO Zhou Hongyi tells a cybersecurity conference in Beijing why Chinese AI firms need to match the capabilities of their rivals in the US, The Wall Street Journal reports.
One More Thing
Why Generation Z falls for online misinformation
Research shows that young people are more likely to believe and pass on misinformation if they feel a sense of common identity with the person who shared it in the first place.
Offline, teenagers are likely to draw on the context that their communities provide. Social media, however, promotes credibility based on identity rather than community. And when trust is built on identity, authority shifts to influencers.
As young people participate in more political discussions online, those who have successfully cultivated identity-based credibility could become de facto community leaders, attracting like-minded people and steering the conversation. While that has the potential to empower marginalized groups, it also exacerbates the threat of misinformation.
Find out what we can all learn about how young people evaluate truth online.
—Jennifer Neda John
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.)
+ The Euclid space telescope has captured the most detailed image yet of the Milky Way.
+ Here’s a lovely, lilting medieval bardcore cover of Daft Punk’s electronic classic Veridis Quo.
+ A toilet plunger becomes an unlikely engineering breakthrough in this quest to build a better blowgun.