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.
I checked out one of the biggest anti-AI protests ever
Pull the plug! Pull the plug! Stop the slop! Stop the slop! For a few hours this Saturday, February 28, I watched as a couple hundred anti-AI protesters marched through London’s King’s Cross tech hub, home to the UK headquarters of OpenAI, Meta and Google DeepMind, chanting slogans and waving signs. The march was organized by a coalition of two separate activist groups, Pause AI and Pull the Plug, who billed it as the largest protest of its kind yet.
This is all familiar stuff. Researchers have been calling out the harms, both real and hypothetical, caused by generative AI— especially models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google DeepMind’s Gemini—for years. What’s changed is that those concerns are now being taken up by protest movements that can rally significant crowds of people to take to the streets and shout about it. Read the full story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
We’re putting more stuff into space than ever. Here’s what’s up there.
Earth’s a medium-size rock with some water on top, enveloped by gases that keep everything that lives here alive. Just at the edge of that envelope begins a thin but dense layer of human-built, high-tech stuff.
People started putting gear up there in 1957, and now it’s a real habit. Telescopes look up and out at the wild universe. Humans live in an orbiting metal bubble. In the last five years, the number of active satellites in space has increased from barely 3,000 to about 14,000—and climbing. And then there’s the garbage. Here’s a closer look at Earth’s ever-thickening shell of human-made matter—the anthroposphere.
—Jonathan O’Callaghan
This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.
MIT Technology Review is a 2026 ASME finalist in reporting
The American Society of Magazine Editors has named MIT Technology Review as a finalist for a 2026 National Magazine Award in the reporting category.
The shortlisted story—“We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard”—is part of our Power Hungry package on AI’s energy burden.
In a rigorous investigation, senior AI reporter James O’Donnell and senior climate reporter Casey Crownhart spent six months digging through hundreds of pages of reports, interviewing experts, and crunching the numbers. Read more about what they found out.
What comes after the LLMs?
The AI industry is organized around LLMs: tools, products, and business models. Yet many researchers believe the next breakthroughs may not look like language models at all. Join us for a LinkedIn Live discussion at 12.30pm ET on Tuesday March 3 to dive into the emerging directions that could define AI’s next era. Register here!
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The Pentagon wanted Anthropic to analyze bulk data collected from Americans
It proved the sticking point in talks as OpenAI swooped in to ink a new deal. (The Atlantic $)+ Anthropic has vowed to legally challenge its “security risk” label. (FT $)
+ Here’s a blow-by-blow look at how negotiations fell apart. (NYT $)
+ Downloads of Claude are on the up. (TechCrunch)
2 Iranian apps and websites were hacked in the wake of the US-Israeli strikes
News sites and a religious app were co-opted to display anti-military messages. (Reuters)
+ They urged personnel to abandon the regime and to liberate the country. (WSJ $)
+ Unsurprisingly, X is rife with disinformation about the attacks. (Wired $)
+ The campaign has disrupted online delivery orders across the Middle East. (Bloomberg $)
3 DeepSeek is poised to release a new AI model this week
The multimodal V4 is being released ahead of China’s annual parliamentary meetings. (FT $)
4 The UK is trialing a social media ban for under-16s
Hundreds of teens will test overnight digital curfews and screen time limits. (The Guardian)
+ What it’s like to attend a phone addiction meeting. (Boston Globe $)
5 Celebrities are winning huge sums playing on this major crypto casino’s slots
In fact, their lucky wins appear to spike while they’re livestreaming. (Bloomberg $)
6 America is desperate to steal China’s critical mineral lead
The victor essentially controls global computing, aerospace and defense. (Economist $)
+ This rare earth metal shows us the future of our planet’s resources. (MIT Technology Review)
7 How lasers became the military’s weapon of choice
From Ukraine to the US, soldiers are deploying laser guns. But why? (The Atlantic $)
+ They’re a key part of America’s arsenal in manning the southern border. (New Yorker $)
+ This giant microwave may change the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)
8 How quantum entanglement became big business
It promises unhackable communication—but is it too good to be true? (New Scientist $)
+ Useful quantum computing is inevitable—and increasingly imminent. (MIT Technology Review)
9 The iPod is proving a hit among Gen Z
Even though Apple discontinued the music player four years ago. (NYT $)
10 Chinese parents are joining matchmaking apps in their droves
In a bid to marry off their adult children as soon as humanly possible. (Nikkei Asia)
Quote of the day
“Day to day it just feels untenable…Some managers know this is the case, but executives just keep pointing to some bigger AI picture.”
—An anonymous Amazon employee describes the stresses of trying to increase productivity amid the company’s commitment to reducing headcount to the Financial Times.
One more thing
The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened?
On April 3, 2010, Steve Jobs debuted the iPad. What for most people was basically a more convenient form factor was something far more consequential for non-speakers: a life-changing revolution in access to a portable, powerful communication device for just a few hundred dollars.
But a piece of hardware, however impressively designed and engineered, is only as valuable as what a person can do with it. After the iPad’s release, the flood of new, easy-to-use augmentative and alternative communication apps that users were in desperate need of never came.
Today, there are only around half a dozen apps, each retailing for $200 to $300, that ask users to select from menus of crudely drawn icons to produce text and synthesized speech. It’s a depressingly slow pace of development for such an essential human function. Read the full story.
—Julie Kim
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 or skeet ’em at me.)
+ Neanderthal by name, not by nature—these prehistoric men were surprisingly romantic, thank you very much.
+ If you’re lucky enough to live in Boston, make sure you swing by these beautiful bars.
+ Hmm, this sticky hoisin sausage traybake sounds intriguing.
+ George Takei, you are an absolute maverick.
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