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The Download: an organ transplant breakthrough, and homegrown Chinese chips
Plus: Space data centers don't exist yet, but people already oppose them. Supercooled kidneys have been transplanted into pigs in a "landmark achievement" When it comes to organ donation, time is everything. As soon as an organ has been removed from a donor's body, it starts to deteriorate. Surgeons have only a matter of hours to get it into a recipient. In most cases, organs will be kept on ice during that time, at around 4 C (39 F). They cannot be frozen--in previous attempts, ice has formed, causing all kinds of damage.
The Download: energy transmission and US threats against Chinese AI
Plus: Why the OpenAI hack is the scariest AI mishap yet. The power line that could reshape New York's grid is hitting snags During a heat wave on July 3, New York State's grid imported enough electricity from Canada to meet about 9% of its total demand that day. Some of that power shuttled in on a 339-mile power line stretching from Quebec to Queens. It opened in May and is officially the longest underground transmission line in North America. It could provide up to 20% of New York City's electricity demand, largely with abundant hydropower from Quebec. One wrinkle: The line has been down for most of this month, and some experts are concerned about how drought will affect the power supply feeding it.
The Download: AI hiring biases, and weather data sabotage
Plus: SpaceX is negotiating to sell the Pentagon AI compute. The next time you apply for a job, AI may screen your rรฉsumรฉ 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.
The Download: a donor conception cap and world models for AI
Plus: Apple has sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing trade secrets. Ties van der Meer doesn't know how many siblings he has. The 47-year-old was conceived at a private fertility clinic using sperm from an anonymous donor. He eventually tracked down one sibling, but he may have others he'll never find. Other donor-conceived people have found they have tens or even hundreds of them. "It does make you feel a bit mass-produced," said one who discovered they had 25 half-siblings.
The Download: Claude's inner workings and OpenAI's "super app"
Plus: OpenAI has unveiled its long-awaited super app. The AI firm Anthropic has got the clearest glimpse yet at what's really going on inside large language models as they answer questions or carry out tasks. What they found ranges from the mundane to the unnerving. Researchers at the company built a tool called the Jacobian lens (or J-lens) and used it to uncover a hidden area, which they named the J-space, inside its flagship LLM, Claude. The J-space contains words related to the response a model is working on but may not ultimately produce. If Claude were a person (which it is not), you might say these hidden words reveal what's on its mind before it actually speaks.
The Download: your stake in OpenAI, and the Treasury's AI warning
Plus: Samsung profits have jumped 1,800% on booming AI chip sales. Sam Altman's proposal that Americans should share in the wealth created by AI is back in the spotlight, with reports that he is discussing giving the US government a 5% stake in OpenAI. At the company's current valuation, that stake would be worth roughly $320 per American household. The idea is meant to address concerns that AI companies are benefiting from human-generated work without compensating creators, while also easing fears that AI will cause a collapse of the labor market by providing a safety net. The details, however, remain unclear. Indeed, the offer may be more powerful as a political narrative than as a policy plan.
The Download: a smoking "endgame" and a new Elizabeth Bear story
Plus: An EU lawmaker investigating spyware was hacked by that same spyware. The UK's generational tobacco ban might not work. As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking.
Achieving operational excellence with AI
As AI reshapes how work gets done, organizations with strong process frameworks are best positioned to lead and maintain operational rigor at scale. Frameworks like Lean Six Sigma and business process management (BPM) first gained traction because they promised clarity in the chaos--a structured way to bring order to messy, sprawling operations. Lean Six Sigma emphasized statistical rigor and quality control; BPM created end-to-end maps of how work should flow across departments. Both offered a repeatable way to embed habits of measurement, analysis, and accountability into day-to-day company culture. But today, those time-tested playbooks are evolving as companies seek to embed AI into established process excellence methodologies. By some estimates, the market for AI-powered process optimization is projected to exceed $113 billion within the next decade.
Roundtables: Longevity's Next Frontier: "Reprogramming" Your Body
Billions of dollars are flooding into efforts to reverse aging as scientists explore ways to return cells to a younger state. But how far off are these experimental treatments? Why "reprogramming" is the buzziest approach to reversing aging right now A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that's holding back LLMs Will Douglas Heaven Musk v. Altman week 1: Elon Musk says he was duped, warns AI could kill us all, and admits that xAI distills OpenAI's models Michelle Kim China has approved the world's first invasive brain-computer chip--here's what's next The country wants to become a global leader in brain implants. Strong government support is expected to help accelerate that process. Researchers are decoding how signals move between body and brain, with implications for how we understand and treat conditions from obesity to anxiety. In an early step towards artificial wombs, a biotech company claims it's developed a "fully artificial" chicken egg.
The Download: metric weaknesses and AI elephant warnings
Plus: The US has allowed Anthropic to release Mythos 5 to "trusted" orgs. There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal. There are even more that it can obscure or corrupt. Like a lot of people bitten by the self-quantifying bug, I started gathering personal data to pursue a nebulous collection of goals and desires. I wanted to feel better physically and emotionally, get outside more, and bring order to the messiness and uncertainty of my daily existence. But external metrics and data can never capture what's truly important.