The Download: creating the perfect baby, and carbon removal’s lofty promises
Plus: Meta has taken down a group dedicated to tracking ICE officers’ movements
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 race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess
An emerging field of science is seeking to use cell analysis to predict what kind of a person an embryo might eventually become.
Some parents turn to these tests to avoid passing on devastating genetic disorders that run in their families. A much smaller group, driven by dreams of Ivy League diplomas or attractive, well-behaved offspring, are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to optimize for intelligence, appearance, and personality.
But customers of the companies emerging to provide it to the public may not be getting what they’re paying for. Read the full story.
—Julia Black
This story is from our forthcoming print issue, which is all about the body. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land. Plus, you’ll also receive a free digital report on nuclear power.
The problem with Big Tech’s favorite carbon removal tech
Sucking carbon pollution out of the atmosphere is becoming a big business—companies are paying top dollar for technologies that can cancel out their own emissions.
Tech giants like Microsoft are betting big on one technology: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). But there are a few potential problems with BECCS, as my colleague James Temple laid out in a new story. And some of the concerns echo similar problems with other climate technologies we cover, like carbon offsets and alternative jet fuels. Read the full story.
—Casey Crownhart
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.
2025 climate tech companies to watch: Fervo Energy and its advanced geothermal power plants
Some places on Earth hit the geological jackpot for generating electricity. In those spots, three conditions naturally align: high temperatures, plentiful water, and rock that’s permeable enough for fluids to circulate through.
Enhanced geothermal systems aim to replicate those conditions in far more places—producing a steady supply of renewable energy wherever they’re deployed. Fervo Energy uses fracking techniques to create geothermal reservoirs capable of delivering enough electricity to power massive data centers and hundreds of thousands of homes. Read the full story.
—Celina Zhao
Fervo Energy is one of our 10 climate tech companies to watch—our annual list of some of the most promising climate tech firms on the planet. Check out the rest of the list here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Meta removed a Facebook group that shared ICE agent sightings
It’s the latest tech company to acquiesce to US government pressure. (NYT $)
+ Meta says the group violates its policies against “coordinated harm.” (NBC News)
+ Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Loss-making AI startups are still soaring in value
If it looks like a bubble, and sounds like a bubble… (FT $)
+ AI-backed energy firms have also ballooned in value. (WSJ $)
+ Scaling isn’t always the answer, y’know. (Wired $)
3 Facial recognition is failing people with facial differences
Yet it’s being embedded in everything from phone unlocking systems to public services. (Wired $)
4 Tech billionaires are backing a startup that treats tumors with sound waves
It’s being touted as a less-invasive alternative to chemotherapy. (Bloomberg $)
5 Scam texts are a billion-dollar criminal enterprise
And we’re being inundated with more of them than ever before. (WSJ $)
+ The people using humor to troll their spam texts. (MIT Technology Review)
6 South Korea has rolled back an AI textbook program for schools
Turns out it was riddled with inaccuracies and added to teachers’ workloads. (Rest of World)
+ The country is considering allowing Google and Apple to make hi-res maps. (TechCrunch)
7 YouTube is setting its sights on sports
Which makes sense, given that it’s conquered pretty much all the other TV genres. (Hollywood Reporter $)
8 Job hunting in the age of AI is bleak
Even the best candidates are being overlooked. (The Atlantic $)
+ The job market is a mess too. (Slate $)
9 A new channel broadcasts a livestream direct from the ISS 🌏
If you’ve ever wanted to be an astronaut, watching this is the next best thing. (The Guardian)
10 The end of support for Windows 10 is an e-waste disaster
Up to 400 million machines could be heading to the scrap heap. (404 Media)
+ The US government has cut funding for a battery-metals recycler. (Bloomberg $)
+ AI will add to the e-waste problem. Here’s what we can do about it. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“We are not the elected moral police of the world.”
—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reacts to the outcry sparked by his company’s decision to relax its rules to let adults hold erotic conversations with ChatGPT, CNBC reports.
One more thing
Inside India’s scramble for AI independenceDespite its status as a global tech hub, India lags far behind the likes of the US and China when it comes to homegrown AI.
That gap has opened largely because India has chronically underinvested in R&D, institutions, and invention. Meanwhile, since no one native language is spoken by the majority of the population, training language models is far more complicated than it is elsewhere.
So when the open-source foundation model DeepSeek-R1 suddenly outperformed many global peers, it struck a nerve. This launch by a Chinese startup prompted Indian policymakers to confront just how far behind the country was in AI infrastructure—and how urgently it needed to respond. Read the full story.
