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.
AI agents are not your “coworkers”
Imagine coming in to work to learn that a new underling will report to you. The worker is not a person but an AI tool—one that your company nonetheless calls Alex, an “employee” with a title and defined responsibilities. How well do you think you would work with Alex?
If you’re anything like the managers studied by Boston University professor Emma Wiles, treating that AI as a “coworker” would lead you to do a worse job. They caught 18% fewer errors when the work was attributed to an agentic “AI employee” rather than a chatbot.
This is an alarming glimpse of the future Silicon Valley is hurling us toward. Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have all released tools for managing teams of AI agents, many of which are advertised as digital colleagues. Find out why that’s a losing proposition for workers.
—James O’Donnell
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
This flying solar-powered platform could deliver better internet from the air
As soon as August, a giant silver bullet will cut its way through the dry air of the southwestern US and cross the Pacific to reach the coast of Japan.
Once there, the roughly 200-foot-long craft, built by the New Mexico–based company Sceye, will park some 18 kilometers above the ocean’s surface in the stratosphere, then use a custom-built antenna to supplement a 5G network, in a test that includes beaming data straight to devices.
Sceye (pronounced “sky”) is one of several firms building these high-altitude platform stations, or HAPS. Find out why they plan to connect us from the stratosphere.
—Rachel Courtland
This story is from the latest edition of our magazine, which is all about engineering. Subscribe now to get a copy, plus all our other issues and a range of subscriber-only content.
Longevity’s next frontier: “reprogramming” your body
Billions of dollars are flooding into efforts to reverse aging as scientists explore ways to return cells to a younger state. But how far off are these experimental treatments? Will they really work? At a virtual Roundtables event today, MIT Technology Review will examine the science behind the hype.
Science editor Mary Beth Griggs and senior biotechnology reporter Jessica Hamzelou will explore longevity’s latest frontier in a subscriber-only discussion.
Register here to join the session at 11:30 AM ET / 8:30 AM PT / 16:30 GMT.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The US House has passed new youth online safety legislation
+ It would set baseline federal standards for kids’ online safety. (Politico $)
+ States would be allowed to adopt more aggressive protections. (Reuters $)
+ But critics say it lets tech companies avoid accountability. (Axios)
+ And tech groups warn it threatens privacy and free expression. (NBC)
+ The Senate is expected to push for tougher rules. (The Hill)
2 Ford is rehiring human engineers after AI failed to match quality checks
It said the AI lacked the training and expertise of technicians. (Bloomberg $)
+ The new hires will train younger staff and reprogram AI tools. (BBC)
+ Many firms that replaced workers with AI are now rehiring humans. (Forbes)
+ The AI jobs hysteria needs a reality check. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Senator Mark Warren is set to introduce a bill to regulate AI agents
It would set rules for agent permissions and verification. (The Information $)
+ Voters of both parties want tighter AI regulation. (NBC News)
+ But politicians are bitterly divided on the rules. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Rocket Lab is buying Iridium for $8 billion to take on SpaceX
It wants to integrate the satellite network with its launch services. (The Verge)
+ Which could create a fleet that can compete with SpaceX. (WSJ $)
5 Hackers have exposed secrets about Apple’s upcoming iPhone 18
The data was stolen from Tata Electronics, Apple’s Indian supplier. (Reuters $)
+ The breach also exposed Tesla secrets. (TechCrunch)
6 Chatbots are replacing therapists despite lacking scientific evidence
Experts question their safety and therapeutic quality. (WSJ $)
+ Chatbots may make us lose control of our brains. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Newborn DNA sequencing is edging closer to routine healthcare
Trials are expanding despite privacy and ethical concerns. (Economist $)
+ The push for perfect babies is an ethical mess. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Astronomers are using AI to find new galaxies
New tools are reviving decades of space telescope data. (FT $)
9 Remote-controlled cockroach swarms can now breathe underwater
The cyborg insects could one day explore Mars. (New Scientist $)
10 Drone shows are creating new forms of worship
Churches are depicting biblical stories with thousands of UAVs. (Wired $))
Quote of the day
“This is taking us back to the 1950s, and that is not progress.”
—Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells NPR that slashing regulations undoes decades of safety lessons from the industry.
One More Thing
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?
When Kyle Cornforth walked into IDEO’s San Francisco offices for a meeting about reimagining school lunches, she was impressed. “It was Post-its everywhere, prototypes everywhere,” she recalls. “What I really liked was that they offered a framework for collaboration and creation.”
Cornforth was new to IDEO’s way of working: a six-step methodology for innovation called design thinking. But when she looked at the ideas themselves, she had questions: “I was like, ‘You didn’t talk to anyone who works in a school, did you?’ They were not contextualized in the problem at all.”
Design thinking broadened the idea of “design,” elevating designers to take on big, knotty problems through a structured process. But critics argue it has produced unrealistic ideas and, by centering designers, reinforced existing inequities.
Read the full story on the rise and fall of design thinking.
—Rebecca Ackermann
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 London tube station has solved its persistent flooding issue by reintroducing beavers.
+ The Beastie Boys song “Sabotage” has been stunningly recreated in this stop-motion video.
+ Classical antiquity is lovingly preserved in this collection of over 8,000 late Latin and Greek letters from the Roman world.
+ This homemade jet-powered fishing boat is a reminder that great engineering and good judgment don’t always travel together.
Top image credit: Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/MITTR | Photos Getty
Please send homemade jet-powered fishing boats to hi@technologyreview.com.
You can follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for reading!
—Thomas
