Ukraine has regained high-speed Starlink and Starshield connectivity, a restoration that matters for air defences and drone operations. That's one of the headlines in today's edition of The Download, MIT Technology Review's weekday newsletter.
In an opinion piece, Sam Hiner, cofounder of the Young People's Alliance, and Emma Leiken, executive director of the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund at Hopelab, argue that the focus on AI safety disasters ignores everyday harms. They note that a third of teens now choose to discuss serious matters with AI companions instead of other people. Students rely on chatbots to write their papers, while social media feeds engineered to provoke envy keep users scrolling. These products can meet narrow safety requirements yet still erode how people think, learn, and interact. The authors contend that the tech industry should address more than catastrophic harms.
The newsletter also features the "Are we there yet?" series from MIT Technology Review's Impossible issue, which scores six long-promised technologies on a progress meter. The first entry looks at nuclear spaceflight. Earlier this year, NASA announced plans to build Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear-reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft, and fly it to Mars by the end of 2028. A successful mission could mean faster travel and less exposure to harmful cosmic radiation. Yet the US has started and terminated several nuclear propulsion programs over the past 75 years.
The mission carries a $2 billion price tag. Robin George Andrews examines how close NASA is to making nuclear-powered spaceflight a reality.
Source: MIT Technology Review · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing