Curated from MIT Technology Review — Here’s what matters right now:
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. The State of AI: A vision of the world in 2030 There are huge gulfs of opinion when it comes to predicting the near-future impacts of generative AI. In one camp there are those who predict that over the next decade the impact of AI will exceed that of the Industrial Revolution—a 150-year period of economic and social upheaval so great that we still live in the world it wrought. At the other end of the scale we have team ‘Normal Technology’: experts who push back not only on these sorts of predictions but on their foundational worldview. That’s not how technology works, they argue. Advances at the cutting edge may come thick and fast, but change across the wider economy, and society as a whole, moves at human speed. Widespread adoption of new technologies can be slow; acceptance slower. AI will be no different. What should we make of these extremes? Read the full conversation between MIT Technology Review’s senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and Tim Bradshaw, FT global tech correspondent, about where AI will go next, and what our world will look like in the next five years. This is the final edition of The State of AI, a collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Read the rest of the series , and if you want to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the world of AI, sign up to receive our free Algorithm newsletter every Monday. How AI is changing the economy There’s a lot at stake when it comes to understanding how AI is changing the economy at large. What’s the right outlook to have? Join Mat Honan, editor in chief, David Rotman, editor at large, and Richard Waters, FT columnist, at 1pm ET today to hear them discuss what’s happening across industries and the market. Sign up now to be part of this exclusive subscriber-only event. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Trump says he’ll sign an order blocking states from regulating AI But he’s facing a lot of pushback, including from members of his own party. ( CNN ) + The whole debacle can be traced back to congressional inaction. ( Semafor ) 2 Google’s new smart glasses are getting rave reviews You’ll be able to get your hands on a pair in 2026. Watch out, Apple and Meta. ( Tech Radar ) 3 Trump gave the go-ahead for Nvidia to sell powerful AI chips to China The US gets a 25% cut of the sales—but what does it lose longer-term? ( WP $) + And how much could China stand to gain? ( NYT $) + How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions. ( MIT Technology Review ) 4 America’s data center backlash is here Republican and Democrat alike, local residents are sick of rapidly rising power bills. ( Vox $) + More than 200 environm
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Original reporting: MIT Technology Review