Plus: the first zero-day exploit built by AI has been discovered. A few months before he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024, Daron Acemoglu published a paper that earned him few fans in Silicon Valley. He argued that AI would give only a small boost to US productivity and would not eliminate the need for human work. Two years later, Acemoglu's measured take has not caught on. The technology has advanced quite a bit since his cautious predictions, but the data is still largely on his side. Here are the three things Acemoglu is paying closest attention to in AI right now .

Plus: Meta's embrace of AI is making employees miserable. Here's what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak Last week, eight passengers aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship contracted a type of hantavirus transmitted by rats. But health experts stress that this situation is nothing like the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. The Andes virus is known to spread between people, and there are no specific antiviral treatments or vaccines. Yet transmission appears to require a specific form of contact that the cruise ship fostered. Here's what you need to know about the outbreak--and why experts believe it can be contained .

Plus: After years of insults, Anthropic and SpaceX have teamed up. IVF has brought millions of babies into the world over the last four decades. But the process can still be slow, painful, and expensive--and far from guaranteed to work. Now, a wave of new technologies aims to change that. Researchers are using AI to identify promising sperm and embryos, developing robotic systems that could automate parts of the IVF process, and even exploring controversial genetic editing techniques designed to prevent inherited disease. The technologies could make IVF more effective and accessible.

Plus: The Pentagon has struck sweeping AI deals for classified work. Week one of the Musk v. Altman trial: what it was like in the room Two of the most powerful figures in AI--Sam Altman and Elon Musk--are in the middle of a landmark legal showdown, with Musk alleging he was misled about OpenAI becoming a for-profit company. Our reporter Michelle Kim, who also happens to be a lawyer, has been in court each day, and has broken down the first week's key moments in her latest report . In a new Q&A, she also reveals what it was like in the room, the new details that have emerged about how Musk and OpenAI operate--and what we can expect from this week's proceedings. Find out what she's discovered so far, and if you want to keep up with MIT Technology Review's ongoing coverage of the Musk v. Altman trial, follow @techreview or @michelletomkim on X. Faster than many realize, AI is becoming the primary interface through which we form beliefs and participate in democratic self-governance. This shift could further strain already fragile institutions, but it could also help address problems like polarization and declining civic engagement.

Plus: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have all set AI spending records. In the past, getting to the North Pole involved a treacherous trip through ice many meters thick. But last year, a research vessel encountered open water and thin ice, which created an easy passage. It provided a reminder of how quickly the Arctic is changing. Now scientists are digging deep below the seabed to find out if the Arctic Ocean was ever ice-free--and what that could mean for the future of Earth's northernmost waters. Here's what they hope to discover .

Plus: OpenAI has ended its exclusive partnership with Microsoft. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going to court over OpenAI's future Ahead of OpenAI's IPO, the court could rule on whether the company can exist as a for-profit enterprise. It could even oust its leadership. Musk, an OpenAI co-founder, claims he was deceived into bankrolling the firm under false pretenses. Find out how the trial could upend the global AI race . In a celebrated episode, a community of gnomes sneak out at night to steal underpants.

The Download: DeepSeek's latest AI breakthrough, and the race to build world models Plus: China has blocked Meta's $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus. On Friday, Chinese AI firm DeepSeek released a preview of V4, its long-awaited new flagship model. Notably, the model can process much longer prompts than its last generation, thanks to a new design that handles large amounts of text more efficiently. While the model remains open source, its performance matches leading closed-source rivals from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. Here are three ways V4 could shake up AI . AI systems have already gained impressive mastery over the digital world, but the physical world remains humanity's domain.

Plus: DeepSeek has unveiled its long-awaited new AI model. When ChatGPT was released in late 2022, it showed how easily generative AI could create human-like text. This quickly caught the eye of cybercriminals, who began using LLMs to compose malicious emails. Since then, they've adopted AI for everything from turbocharged phishing and hyperrealistic deepfakes to automated vulnerability scans. Many organizations are now struggling to cope with the sheer volume of cyberattacks. AI is making them faster, cheaper, and easier to carry out, a problem set to worsen as more cybercriminals adopt these tools--and their capabilities improve.

Do you need to worry about Mythos, Anthropic's computer-hacking AI? A powerful AI kept from public access because of its ability to hack computers with impunity is making headlines around the world. But what is Mythos, does it really represent a risk and might it even be used to improve cybersecurity? Anthropic's Project Glasswing aims to improve online security The past few weeks have brought apparently alarming news of Mythos, an AI that can identify cybersecurity flaws in a matter of moments, leaving operating systems and software vulnerable to hackers. The cybersecurity community is now beginning to get a better sense of how Mythos may change the face of cybersecurity - and not necessarily for the worse.

Plus: Trump signaled he's open to reversing the Anthropic ban. When we talk about "nature," we usually mean something untouched by humans. But little of that world exists today. From microplastics in rainforest wildlife to artificial light in the Arctic Ocean, human influence now reaches every corner of Earth. In this context, what even is nature? And should we employ technology to try to make the world more "natural"?