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. Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs People looking for precursors to artificial intelligence often point to science fiction by...

In 1943, while the world’s brightest physicists split atoms for the Manhattan Project, the American psychologist B.F. Skinner led his own secret government project to win World War II.  Skinner did not aim to build a new class of larger, more destructive weapons. Rather, he wanted to...

How to close the loop between user behavior and LLM performance, and why human-in-the-loop systems are still essential in the age of gen AI.Read More

TL;DR Vibe coding is great for quick hacks; lasting software still needs real engineers. Vibe coding, the trend of using AI to generate code by describing what you want in natural language, has been hailed as the future of programming. Coined by AI pioneer Andrej...

Morris found it could also reproduce verbatim passages from copyrighted works, including three out of six book excerpts he tried.Read More

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. Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening Taiwanese politics increasingly revolves around one crucial question: Will China invade? China’s...

There is no word for art in most Native American languages. Instead, the closest terms speak not to objecthood but to action and intention. In Lakota, “wówačhiŋtȟaŋka” implies deep thought or reflection, while “wóčhekiye” suggests offering or prayer. Art is not separate from life; it...

One winter afternoon in a conference room in Taipei, a pair of twentysomething women dragged their friend across the floor. Lying on the ground in checkered pants and a brown sweatshirt, she was pretending to be either injured or dead. One friend picked her up by her arms, the other...