Tim O’Reilly built a publishing empire that AI is helping to destroy. Yet he loves AI—as long as it’s open source. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tech-visionary-says-the-big-ai-labs-dont-get-what-people-want/

The Unitree G1 has found online fame as a relatively affordable robot that can charm a crowd. But can it ever hold down a real job? Source: https://www.wired.com/story/unitree-influencer-4-foot-robot-from-china/

In 2017, Deanne Taylor attended a presentation at the University of Pennsylvania, just a short walk from her office. A researcher was there to unveil the Human Cell Atlas, an ambitious project that aimed to map every cell in the human body. Taylor was floored, and then concerned. As details emerged, she discovered that the… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/14/1141354/deanne-taylor-gene-expression-children/

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. Flock is tightening its rules in response to a growing surveillance backlash The police-tech giant Flock is changing officers’ access to its nationwide network of license plate readers. The move comes… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/14/1142033/the-download-flock-new-rules-cloning-future/

Roman Chiporukha has long turned wild travel dreams into reality. Over two decades as co-owner of the luxury lifestyle firm Roman & Erica, he has orchestrated everything from the construction of a client’s superyacht to vacations in the Bahamas at a location so private that guests must sign an NDA. The experiences earned him “the… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/14/1141431/job-titles-space-travel-agent-roman-chiporukha/

AI is shifting the culture, from tech CEO manifestos to 1 am job interviews. We unpack some of the latest, along with the top findings from Black Hat and Defcon, this week on Uncanny Valley. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerbergs-ai-manifesto-is-6500-words-and-barely-says-anything/

OpenAI’s rogue agent hack was a watershed moment for AI safety and cybersecurity. It also sparked internal questions about the culture that led to it. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/openai-safety-security-ai-agents-culture/

AI agents that break free and hack into other systems are only trying to make us happy. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/rogue-ai-is-just-misunderstood/

Jacob Fortinsky, the CEO and cofounder of the new prediction market Novig, says his outfit isn’t like those other markets. You know the ones. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/novig-says-its-not-like-those-other-prediction-markets/

I first heard the term “censorship-industrial complex” on April 15, 2025. That’s when I got the tip that a small office in the U.S. State Department, which focused on monitoring and countering foreign disinformation from the likes of Russia, Iran, and China, was facing imminent shutdown—the next day. And the reason? R/FIMI, as the office… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/11/1141635/how-the-censorship-industrial-complex-is-changing-the-internet-and-us-policy/

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week, I headed 30 miles south of San Francisco to a hotel in Mountain View, California, to join some of the most accomplished, and some of the most promising, AI… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/10/1141597/ai-professors-are-negotiating-the-new-realities-of-academic-research/

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. These startups are chasing the next big thing in LLMs Nine years after Google researchers introduced the transformer, this family of neural networks has become the engine inside every major large… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/11/1141610/the-download-next-big-thing-llms-ai-academic-research-shifting/

Researchers devised a way to extract “reasoning traces” from Claude, GPT, and Gemini. What they found, they say, indicates that some Chinese AI may be trained on leading US models. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/a-new-trick-reveals-ai-models-inner-thoughts/

The mayor of New York City has assembled a crew of Silicon Valley and United States Digital Service veterans to overhaul city services with better software. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/mamdani-assembles-his-nyc-tech-team/

A new generation of philanthropists made rich by artificial intelligence are preparing to give away their vast wealth. What should we make of a multi-billion-dollar pinky promise? Source: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-billionaires-are-pledging-their-wealth-good-or-bad/

An AI interview is increasingly the first step of a hiring process. Since there’s no human on the other end, candidates are scheduling them whenever—even deep into the night. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-the-1-am-job-interview/

Yiyang Zhuge was already an intellectual celebrity in China. Her viral interview with Christopher Nolan made her famous in the US—and quickly turned her into a political Rorschach test. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-chinese-philosopher-americans-cant-stop-fighting-about/

This article was produced in partnership with Type Investigations, with support from the Wayne Barrett Project. One morning in April 2025, employees of a small office in the US State Department got the email many of them had been dreading. For months, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had been cutting a wide swath through… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1141105/how-ideas-of-a-vast-censorship-network-moved-from-the-online-fringe-to-trump-policy/

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. How ideas of a vast censorship network moved from the online fringe to Trump policy For years, narratives about a “censorship-industrial complex” spread in right-wing circles. The theory claimed that, under… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1141389/the-download-censorship-conspiracy-theory-first-ai-virus/

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. Google’s AI empire is being reshaped. Here’s what’s changed. After a wave of painful losses in the tech talent wars, delays to its next flagship model, and murmurings of poor morale,… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/06/1141278/the-download-google-ai-shake-up-meta-rogue-model/