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 is more likely than humans to form biases when hiring
The next time you apply for a job, AI may screen your résumé before any human sees it. But there’s good reason to question whether AI will judge you fairly.
We already know that LLMs pick up human biases from their training data. New research suggests they can also develop their own biases from experience—and stereotype job applicants more than humans do.
As AI companies race to build agentic models that remember the tiniest details about users, they may be handing them ammunition for forming those biases.
Read the full story on AI’s alarming potential to stereotype job applicants.
—Michelle Kim
The risk of weather data sabotage is rising
Every morning, airline dispatchers, grid operators, and farmers around the world make decisions based on weather forecasts. More recently, the forecasts have become relevant for another industry: prediction markets, where people bet money on all kinds of real-world events, including the weather.
The temptation to manipulate weather data to get an edge in these markets, combined with a collective move toward data-driven AI weather forecasting, is starting to put the accuracy of weather predictions at risk.
As experts in the field, we can foresee scenarios where the risks snowball into far bigger, more systemic problems.
Find out why the threats to weather data are growing—and how to stay ahead of them.
—Monique Kuglitsch, Jesper Dramsch, Franz G. Kuglitsch, & Andrea Toreti
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 SpaceX is negotiating to sell the Pentagon AI compute
It would provide data center capacity worth billions of dollars. (WSJ $)
+ Deepening ties between Elon Musk’s company and the DoD. (Reuters $)
+ Meanwhile, Anthropic is in talks with Meta to acquire compute. (CNBC)
+ The compute explosion is only just beginning. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Trump Media wants $100,000 a month for early access to Trump’s posts
The premium feed is being pitched to trading firms and banks. (FT $)
+ It aims to monetize Trump’s market-moving social media posts. (Reuters $)
+ Critics described the plan as “brazen corruption.” (Guardian)
3 ICE shared Medicaid data it wasn’t supposed to have with Palantir
Court filings show the data reached the contractor before being deleted. (NPR)
+ ICE is using data broker tools to identify “unaccompanied minors.” (Wired $)
4 Apple briefly overtook Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company
The iPhone maker’s earnings durability has impressed investors. (Reuters $)
+ While Nvidia’s rise has stalled amid shifting AI bets. (CNBC)
5. Politicians are trying to change what chatbots say about them
A new industry has sprung up to help them edit AI outputs. (NYT $)
+ Chatbots can sway voters better than political ads. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Washington is opening the door to armed robots
The Pentagon is accelerating AI weapons development. (WP $)
+ “Humans in the loop” in war is an illusion. (MIT Technology Review)
7 China’s Moonshot has paused new subscriptions amid surging uptake
Demand for the headline-grabbing Kimi K3 has strained capacity. (SCMP)
+ China’s open-source AI is challenging US models. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Lab-grown teeth could soon replace fillings and implants
Scientists believe regenerative medicine could transform dentistry. (BBC)
+ Humanlike “teeth” have been grown in mini pigs. (MIT Technology Review)
9 AI slop on birdwatching forums is putting research at risk
It could contaminate records of species. (Guardian)
10 Heart experts have good news for your coffee habit
Roughly five cups per day is fine—and may even be beneficial. (Gizmodo)
Quote of the day
“The most authoritarian government is producing the most egalitarian models, and what should be the most democratic government is breeding companies that are the most authoritarian.”
—Rayan Krishnan, CEO of Vals AI, a company that evaluates AI performance, gives the New York Times his take on the competition between Chinese and American models.
One More Thing
The curious case of the disappearing Lamborghinis
A new wave of theft is rocking the luxury car industry—mixing high tech with old-school chop-shop techniques to snag vehicles while they’re in transport.
It’s remained under the radar, even as it’s rocked the industry over the past two years. MIT Technology Review identified more than a dozen cases involving high-end vehicles, obtained court records, and spoke to law enforcement, brokers, drivers, and victims in multiple states to reveal how transport fraud is wreaking havoc across the country.
Find out how a new wave of transport fraud is wreaking havoc across the country.
—Craig Silverman
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.)
+ Here’s the perfect outfit for a heat wave: the world’s first self-cooling clothes.
+ The “unhinged” cake decorators at a Missoula Walmart have become local legends.
+ This visual guide to chili peppers around the world is a lavishly illustrated ode to the world’s hottest fruit.
+ Take a quirky tour of mid-20th-century cinema in this thread of film posters inadvertently photographed by postwar town planners.
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