The Download: unnerving AI avatars, and Trump’s climate gift to China

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.

Synthesia’s AI clones are more expressive than ever. Soon they’ll be able to talk back.

—Rhiannon Williams

Earlier this summer, I visited the AI company Synthesia to give it what it needed to create a hyperrealistic AI-generated avatar of me. The company’s avatars are a decent barometer of just how dizzying progress has been in AI over the past few years, so I was curious just how accurately its latest AI model, introduced last month, could replicate me.

I found my avatar as unnerving as it is technically impressive. It’s slick enough to pass as a high-definition recording of a chirpy corporate speech, and if you didn’t know me, you’d probably think that’s exactly what it was. 

My avatar shows how it’s becoming ever-harder to distinguish the artificial from the real. And before long, these avatars will even be able to talk back to us. But how much better can they get? And what might interacting with AI clones do to us? Read the full story.

How Trump is helping China extend its massive lead in clean energy 

On a spring day in 1954, Bell Labs researchers showed off the first practical solar panels at a press conference in New Jersey, using sunlight to spin a toy Ferris wheel before a stunned crowd.

The solar future looked bright. But in the race to commercialize the technology it invented, the US would lose resoundingly. Last year, China exported $40 billion worth of solar panels and modules, while America shipped just $69 million, according to the New York Times. It was a stunning forfeit of a huge technological lead. 

Now, thanks to its policies propping up aging fossil-fuel industries, the US seems determined to repeat the mistake. Read the full story.

—James Temple

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter all about the latest in climate and energy tech. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 AI chatbots of celebrities sent risqué messages to teenagers
Virtual versions of Timothée Chalamet and Chappell Roan discussed sex and drugs. (WP $)
+ An AI companion site is hosting sexually charged conversations with underage celebrity bots. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Trump can’t make up his mind about US tech giants
While defending them against EU regulation, he’s also pushing to break them up. (FT $)
+ He’s hosting tech leaders at the White House later today. (Reuters)
+ Elon Musk doesn’t appear to have made the guest list. (CNBC)

3 Trump’s cuts have led to babies born with HIV
Clinics in East Africa are closing, and people are being forced to skip vital drug doses. (The Guardian)
+ Artificial blood could save many lives. Why aren’t we using it? (Slate)

4 Germany has already met its 2028 goal for reducing coal-fired power
For the second year running, it won’t have to shut any more plants as a result. (Bloomberg $)
+ The UK is done with coal. How’s the rest of the world doing? (MIT Technology Review)

5 The risk of all-out nuclear war is growing
But we’ve normalized nuclear competition so much, the risks aren’t always clear. (New Yorker $)
+ Maybe it’s time to start burying nuclear reactors’ cores. (Economist $)

6 xAI is hemorrhaging executives
The CFO has left just months after joining. (WSJ $)

7 India’s chip industry is gaining momentum
Years of investment are starting to pay off. But can it strike deals with overseas chip giants too? (Bloomberg $)
+ Meanwhile, Taiwan’s chip hub is home to a baby boom. (Rest of World)
+ Inside India’s scramble for AI independence. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot only needs one AI model to work
It’s all it requires to master humanlike movements successfully. (Wired $)
+ How ‘robot ballet’ could shake up factory production lines. (FT $)
+ Humanoid robots still aren’t living up to their lofty promises. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Will we ever trust robots? (MIT Technology Review)

9 How studying astronauts could improve health on Earth
There’s still a huge amount we don’t know about space’s effects on humans. (Vox)
+ Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer? (MIT Technology Review)

10 The Caribbean island of Anguilla has hit upon an AI cash cow
By selling its .ai domain. (Semafor)
+ How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“If you are not being scammed yet, it’s because you haven’t encountered a scam designed just for you and only for you.”

—Jeff Kuo, chief executive of Taiwanese fraud prevention company Gogolook, warns the Financial Times about the endless possibilities generative AI presents to scammers.

One more thing

China built hundreds of AI data centers to catch the AI boom. Now many stand unused.

Last year, China’s boom in data center construction was at its height, fueled by both government and private investors. Renting out GPUs to companies that need them for training AI models was seen as a sure bet.

But with the rise of DeepSeek and a sudden change in the economics around AI, the industry is faltering. Prices for GPUs are falling and many newly built facilities are now sitting empty. Read the full story to find out why.

—Caiwei Chen

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.)

+ The trailer for the forthcoming Wuthering Heights film is here and it looks…interesting.
+ This fall’s crop of video games is outstanding.
+ Textured walls are a surefire way to make your home look dated. Here’s some other faux pas to avoid.
+The dogs of this year’s US Open are too cute ($)