Today’s edition of the newsletter, titled “The Download,” landed in readers’ inboxes as a weekday update on AI, and it begins with a query that reads more like a headline than an invitation for a response: could AI really kill us all? The newsletter responds by saying the question is circulating far and wide — and that the publication is now running short of space to address it.
The Roundtable That Ran Long
The question of whether AI could truly destroy humanity was the subject of a live Roundtables event held on Wednesday by MIT Technology Review. The gathering generated more inquiries than could be addressed within the allotted time, which prompted the newsletter to invite senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins to respond to several of the most notable ones.
The questions they sought to address include: am I going to die? Why would AI want to kill us, if it does at all? Is AI truly dangerous, or is it merely tech companies generating publicity? And what measures can be put in place to ensure AI is controlled, monitored, and regulated properly?
Biotech’s Dark Turn
One of the ways AI could potentially cause catastrophic harm is by aiding the design and creation of bioweapons. In 2022, researchers found that it was remarkably easy to do this with an AI “molecule generator” built to develop drugs. In less than six hours, the model generated 40,000 molecules that could serve as chemical warfare agents.
Almost every field of science now has AI tools capable of answering questions, and gene editing and synthetic biology have made biotech tools more accessible. Safeguards exist, but none of them are foolproof. Scientists do not even agree on how grave the risk actually is.
The story is from The Checkup, the newsletter’s weekly biotech edition.
The Astronaut Question
The reasons we venture into space run the gamut from national pride to a sense of divine purpose, from a thirst for knowledge to financial gain. After the launch of Artemis II, a number of fresh books argue that all these rationales point toward a single underlying truth: human beings have an innate urge to wander, and that impulse drives us outward.
Deana L. Weibel, a space anthropologist, opens The Ultraview Effect by framing human space exploration as a form of pilgrimage. Eiman Jahangir, a civilian astronaut, then narrates her own journey with Blue Origin in A Heart for Space. Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut, closes the trio by arguing that people simply “need to know what’s on the other side.” in Dinner with an Astronaut.
All three authors contribute to the argument that space travel is not merely about national pride or scientific inquiry but something deeper within human nature, and they do so as part of a wave of new literature about space.
The Must-Reads List
A selection of headlines from the past week has been gathered into a single collection, running from alarming items to those that are absurd. The full list stands as follows:
| Position | Headline |
|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft and OpenAI workers say AI is destroying the web |
| 2 | Robot boats have fought each other for the first time |
| 3 | Security researchers breached OpenAI using Anthropic’s tools |
| 4 | OpenAI reportedly expects to soon crack another famous math problem |
| 5 | Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI wants to buy data from failed startups |
| 6 | Schools are pushing back against Big Tech’s classroom takeover |
| 7 | Hackers have revealed how Flock cameras track cars—and people |
| 8 | Chinese firms doubled down on science after US tech restrictions |
| 9 | A three-year-old’s cancer disappeared after an experimental cell therapy |
| 10 | NYC’s new robotoilets will kick you out after 10 minutes |
The lineup carries behind-a-paywall material, including the Nature piece on Chinese companies doubling down on science. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Information, Bloomberg, Wired, and Fast Company all show up here, so anyone following these links will find themselves needing a subscription at some point.
Across the list, Gizmodo shows up twice, while MIT Technology Review itself appears three times. This points to the newsletter’s own reporting holding considerable weight in this edition, even though it mostly directs readers toward other outlets.
The Quote From Brent Hecht
“The largest theft of labor in human history.”
Brent Hecht, Microsoft’s director of Applied Science, expresses worries about the training data employed by AI systems in remarks made public through court filings from the New York Times vs OpenAI copyright lawsuit. That particular statement sits within a newsletter section titled “One more thing,” a distinct piece of reporting not tied to the main roundup.
What makes the quote stand out is that it comes from a named person speaking memorably, and it points to the source of the conflict — the copyright fight between the Times and OpenAI. The newsletter offers no explanation of what the theft of labor involves, nor how Hecht defines it; it simply notes that he raised the concern in court filings.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory
The newsletter’s edition closes with a note about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is ready to transform our understanding of the cosmos. High atop Chile’s 2,700-meter Cerro Pachón, the air is clear and dry, leaving few clouds to block the beautiful view of the stars. The observatory is using a car-size 3,200-megapixel digital camera — the largest ever built — to produce a new map of the entire night sky every three days.
Each night, the observatory produces 20 terabytes of data while it catalogues billions of new objects over 10 years. That scale of output makes for a striking accomplishment, and it serves as a reminder that the universe retains many mysteries that can be addressed without any artificial intelligence at all.
The edition leaves the newsletter’s own questions unaddressed. Debate over bioweapons risk continues. The astronaut books supply a human context for space travel. As for the web, it appears to be falling apart due to AI — though that is the claim made by Microsoft and OpenAI staff.
This dense edition of The Download raises serious questions about AI’s extinction risk and bioweapons threats, and it pays off most when readers take their time with it. Mostly, the answers point elsewhere, toward other publications. Whether that approach counts as a strength or a weakness depends entirely on what the reader hopes to find.
A digest of the week’s technology news, featuring the most important, scary, and fascinating stories, is exactly what the newsletter provides. It does not attempt to pass for a standalone publication; instead, it simply points readers toward what they should read next, and it performs that task extremely well.
Source material: “The Download: AI’s extinction risk and bioweapons threat,” MIT Technology Review.
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