The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The Trump administration has laid off thousands of federal health workers
It’s blaming the government shutdown—but labor unions are suing. (Reuters $)
+ The firings will decimate parts of the CDC that work on disease surveillance. (STAT)
2 AI videos of dead celebrities are upsetting their families
OpenAI is coming under mounting pressure to restrict what its video generator Sora 2 can create. (WP $)
+ Sora was downloaded over a million times in less than five days—a rate even faster than ChatGPT. (BBC)
3 The Dutch government has taken control of a Chinese-owned chipmaker
The move comes after Beijing tightened restrictions on the export of rare earth elements, which could hurt Europe’s car industry. (CNBC)
4 Why some developers reject AI coding tools
Even at their best, they introduce bugs into the code base that can be tricky to spot. (The Information $)
+ The second wave of AI coding is here. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Police are begging teens to stop pulling the AI homeless man prank
Kids are using AI to create images of a disheveled person in their home, then sending that to their parents. (The Verge)
6 How Elon Musk’s embrace of Trump continues to hurt Tesla
The result is that his cars are now more expensive and less desirable. (The Atlantic $)
+ China might force Tesla to redesign its door handles. (Wired $)
+ How did China come to dominate the world of electric cars? (MIT Technology Review)
7 What happened after schools in Australia banned phones?
Both students and staff say the impact has been overwhelmingly positive. (The Guardian)
8 AI is fantastic at detecting small earthquakes
But the really big prize is seeing if it can help with predicting them, too. (Ars Technica)
+ What we can learn from Japan’s “megaquake” preparations. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Climate change is creating new hybrid species
The “grue jay” is half-blue jay, half-green jay. It’s also a sign of the times we live in. (Nautilus)
+ How a breakthrough gene-editing tool will help the world cope with climate change. (MIT Technology Review)
10 How people gamify Hinge to get the dates they want
It puts people’s most promising matches behind a paywall—but they’re finding workarounds. (The Cut $)
+ There’s now a term for daters who use AI to boost their appeal : chatfishers. (The Guardian)
Quote of the day