1 The US is dismantling itself
A foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck its standing in the world. (Wired $)
+ We need to talk about whether Donald Trump might be losing it. (New Yorker $)
2 Big Tech is taking on more debt to fund its AI aspirations
And the bubble just keeps growing. (WP $)
+ Forget unicorns. 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the “hectocorn.” (The Guardian)
+ Everyone in tech agrees we’re in a bubble. They just can’t agree on what happens when it pops. (MIT Technology Review)
3 DOGE accessed even more personal data than we thought
Even now, the Trump administration still can’t say how much data is at risk, or what it was used for. (NPR)
4 TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new US entity
Ending years of uncertainty about its fate in America. (CNN)
+ Why China is the big winner out of all of this. (FT $)
5 The US is now officially out of the World Health Organization
And it’s leaving behind nearly $300 million in bills unpaid. (Ars Technica)
+ The US withdrawal from the WHO will hurt us all. (MIT Technology Review)
6 AI-powered disinformation swarms pose a threat to democracy
A would-be autocrat could use them to persuade populations to accept cancelled elections or overturn results. (The Guardian)
+ The era of AI persuasion in elections is about to begin. (MIT Technology Review)
7 We’re about to start seeing more robots everywhere
But exactly what they’ll look like remains up for debate. (Vox $)
+ Chinese companies are starting to dominate entire sectors of AI and robotics. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Some people seem to be especially vulnerable to loneliness
If you’re ‘other-directed’, you could particularly benefit from less screentime. (New Scientist $)
9 This academic lost two years of work with a single click
TL;DR: Don’t rely on ChatGPT to store your data. (Nature)
10 How animals develop a sense of direction 🦇🧭
Their ‘internal compass’ seems to be informed by landmarks that help them form a mental map. (Quanta $)
Quote of the day
“The rate at which AI is progressing, I think we have AI that is smarter than any human this year, and no later than next year.”
—Elon Musk simply cannot resist the urge to make wild predictions at Davos, Wired reports.