2. Do We Really Want AI Agents to Remove All the Friction From Our Lives?

AI agents promise convenience, but for now, many are creating more confusion than they solve.

• AI agents are creating chaos in e-commerce (The Atlantic, paywall)
• What would it be like to outsource your life to an AI agent? (Vox, paywall)
• Websites are starting to close their doors to AI agents. (The Verge, paywall)
• AI agents bring new challenges for online sellers. (The Wall Street Journal, paywall)

3. How Drones Have Changed the Front Line in Ukraine

Drones have effectively created “kill zones” that are becoming wider and more dangerous.

• How drones are transforming the battlefield in Ukraine (The New York Times, paywall)
• President Trump denied ordering restrictions on Starlink in Ukraine. (CNBC)

4. China May Restrict Foreign Access to AI Models

China is also considering ways to limit the sharing of chip designs.

• China considers export controls on AI models, chips and agents (Bloomberg, paywall)
• Why is the Western open-weight model still unable to compete with the Chinese model? (Rest of World)
• Why Trumpworld still can’t agree on how to deal with Chinese AI. (MIT Technology Review)

5. HTC’s Smart Glasses May Be More Private Than Meta’s

The advantage may be that HTC’s glasses are not tied to a major social media platform.

• HTC wants its Vive Eagle smart glasses to be the anti-Meta (Wired, paywall)
• A bug caused Meta’s glasses to record conversations without the wearer’s knowledge. (Ars Technica)
• Smart glasses are already causing havoc in India. (MIT Technology Review)

6. Inside One Man’s Quest to Build California’s Largest AI Data Center

Sebastian Lucci had no intention of responding to massive opposition from local residents.

• Inside the plan for California’s largest AI data center (The Guardian)
• Americans are flocking to city halls to shut down data centers—and it’s working. (Quartz, paywall)
• No wonder companies are considering space applications. (MIT Technology Review)

7. Someone Put Vibe Coding on a Gun for the First Time

And it seems to work—sometimes.

An AI-generated, vibe-coded 3D-printed gun appears to work (The Verge, paywall)

8. AI Could Change the Way We Grieve

Creating a realistic AI chatbot based on a deceased person has never been easier.

• The ethics of creating AI chatbots of deceased loved ones (Vox, paywall)
• Deepfakes of deceased loved ones are rapidly growing in China. (MIT Technology Review)

9. Japan Is Preparing to Launch a Mission to Mars’ Largest Moon

If all goes well, the mission should help scientists understand how Phobos formed.

Japan’s mission to Mars’ largest moon, Phobos (New Scientist, paywall)

10. Amateurs Crack a Long-Held Secret Code 🕵️

It is one of the most entertaining uses of large language models.

Amateurs use AI to crack a long-held secret code (Nature)

Quote of the Day

“Google wouldn’t have answered my calls in my first term. Now they’re kissing my ass.”

President Trump bragged about how much Big Tech companies are bending the knee to him during a rally in Kentucky this weekend. Read the report from The Verge.

One More Thing: Do AI Health Tools Actually Work?

There Are More AI Health Tools Than Ever—but How Well Do They Work?

In the past few months alone, Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI have launched medical chatbots.