MIT Tech

• The Download: Taiwan’s silicon shield, and ChatGPT’s personality misstep

  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 ruling party has wanted to seize Taiwan for more than half a century. But in…

• Why GPT-4o’s sudden shutdown left people grieving

  June had no idea that GPT-5 was coming. The Norwegian student was enjoying a late-night writing session last Thursday when her ChatGPT collaborator started acting strange. “It started forgetting everything, and it wrote really badly,” she says. “It was like a robot.” June, who asked that we use only her first name for privacy reasons,…

• Indigenous knowledge meets artificial intelligence

  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 is ceremony, instruction, design. Like architecture or code, it carries…

• Taiwan’s “silicon shield” could be weakening

  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 grabbed hold of her legs,…

• Why US federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA vaccines

  This time five years ago, we were in the throes of the covid-19 pandemic. By August 2020, we’d seen school closures, national lockdowns, and widespread panic. That year, the coronavirus was responsible for around 3 million deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Then came the vaccines. The first mRNA vaccines for covid were authorized for…