The Download: the future of nuclear power, and fact checking Mark Zuckerberg
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.
What’s next for nuclear power
While nuclear reactors have been generating power around the world for over 70 years, the current moment is one of potentially radical transformation for the technology.
As electricity demand rises around the world for everything from electric vehicles to data centers, there’s renewed interest in building new nuclear capacity, as well as extending the lifetime of existing plants and even reopening facilities that have been shut down.
Efforts are also growing to rethink reactor designs, and 2025 marks a major test for so-called advanced reactors as they begin to move from ideas on paper into the construction phase. Here’s what to expect next for the industry.
—Casey Crownhart
This piece is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, looking across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.
Mark Zuckerberg and the power of the media
On Tuesday last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is done with fact checking in the US, that it will roll back “restrictions” on speech, and is going to start showing people more tailored political content in their feeds. While the end of fact checking has gotten most of the attention, the changes to its hateful speech policy are also notable.
Zuckerberg—whose previous self-acknowledged mistakes include the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, and helping to fuel a genocide in Myanmar—presented Facebook’s history of fact-checking and content moderation as something he was pressured into doing by the government and media. The reality, of course, is that these were his decisions. He famously calls the shots, and always has. Read the full story.
—Mat Honan
This story first appeared in The Debrief, providing a weekly take on the tech news that really matters and links to stories we love—as well as the occasional recommendation.
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Here’s our forecast for AI this year
In December, our small but mighty AI reporting team was asked by our editors to make a prediction: What’s coming next for AI?
As we look ahead, certain things are a given. We know that agents—AI models that do more than just converse with you and can actually go off and complete tasks for you—are the focus of many AI companies right now. Similarly, the need to make AI faster and more energy efficient is putting so-called small language models in the spotlight. However, the other predictions were not so clear-cut. Read the full story.
—James O’Donnell
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.
To witness the fallout from the AI team’s lively debates (and hear more about what didn’t make the list), you can join our upcoming LinkedIn Live this Thursday, January 16 at 12.30pm ET. James will be talking it all over with Will Douglas Heaven, our senior editor for AI, and our news editor, Charlotte Jee.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 China is considering selling TikTok to Elon Musk
But it’s unclear how likely an outcome that really is. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’s certainly one way of allowing TikTok to remain in the US. (WSJ $)
+ For what it’s worth, TikTok has dismissed the report as ‘pure fiction.’ (Variety $)
+ Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, is dealing with an influx of American users. (WP $)
2 Amazon drivers are still delivering packages amid LA fires
They’re dropping off parcels even after neighborhoods have been instructed to evacuate. (404 Media)
3 Alexa is getting a generative AI makeover
Amazon is racing to turn its digital assistant into an AI agent. (FT $)
+ What are AI agents? (MIT Technology Review)
4 Animal manure is a major climate problem
Unfortunately, turning it into energy is easier said than done. (Vox)
+ How poop could help feed the planet. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Power lines caused many of California’s worst fires
Thousands of blazes have been traced back to power infrastructure in recent decades. (NYT $)
+ Why some homes manage to withstand wildfires. (Bloomberg $)
+ The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Barcelona is a hotbed of spyware startups
Researchers are increasingly concerned about its creep across Europe. (TechCrunch)
7 Mastodon’s founder doesn’t want to follow in Mark Zuckerberg’s footsteps
Eugen Rochko has restructured the company to ensure it could never be controlled by a single individual. (Ars Technica)
+ He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to end up like Elon Musk, either. (Engadget)
8 Spare a thought for this Welsh would-be crypto millionaire
His 11-year quest to recover an old hard drive has come to a disappointing end. (Wired $)
9 The unbearable banality of internet lexicon
It’s giving nonsense. (The Atlantic $)
10 You never know whether you’ll get to see the northern lights or not
AI could help us to predict when they’ll occur more accurately. (Vice)
+ Digital pictures make the lights look much more defined than they actually are. (NYT $)
Quote of the day
“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department.”
—Alan Duke, co-founder of fact-checking outlet Lead Stories, criticizes Meta’s decision to ax its US-based fact checkers as the groups attempt to slow viral misinformation spreading about the wildfires in California, CNN reports.
The big story
The world is moving closer to a new cold war fought with authoritarian tech
September 2022
Despite President Biden’s assurances that the US is not seeking a new cold war, one is brewing between the world’s autocracies and democracies—and technology is fueling it.
Authoritarian states are following China’s lead and are trending toward more digital rights abuses by increasing the mass digital surveillance of citizens, censorship, and controls on individual expression.
And while democracies also use massive amounts of surveillance technology, it’s the tech trade relationships between authoritarian countries that’s enabling the rise of digitally enabled social control. Read the full story.
—Tate Ryan-Mosley
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.)
+ Before indie sleaze, there was DIY counterculture site Buddyhead.
+ Did you know black holes don’t actually suck anything in at all?
+ Science fiction is stuck in a loop, and can’t seem to break its fixation with cyberpunk.
+ Every now and again, TV produces a perfect episode. Here’s eight of them.
