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The Download: generative AI therapy, and the future of 23andMe’s genetic data

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Meet the online activists fighting back against ICE raidsTheir networks are warning migrants about ICE officer hotspots in... Read more »

The first trial of generative AI therapy shows it might help with depression

Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shared the vision, noting that fewer than half of people with a mental disorder receive therapy, and those who do might get only 45 minutes per week.... Read more »

How a bankruptcy judge can stop a genetic privacy disaster

Bankruptcy proceedings involving personal data don’t have to end badly. In 2000, the Federal Trade Commission settled with the bankrupt retailer ToySmart to ensure that its customer data could not be sold... Read more »

The Download: peering inside an LLM, and the rise of Signal

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 A judge has ordered Trump’s officials to preserve their secret Signal chat While officials are required by law to... Read more »

“Spare” living human bodies might provide us with organs for transplantation

The very existence of synthetic embryos is throwing into question our understanding of what a human embryo even is. “Is it the thing that is only generated from the fusion of a... Read more »

What is Signal? The messaging app, explained.

But Signal uses other techniques to keep your messages private and safe as well. For example, it goes to great lengths to make it hard for the Signal server itself to know... Read more »

Anthropic can now track the bizarre inner workings of a large language model

Odd behavior So: What did they find? Anthropic looked at 10 different behaviors in Claude. One involved the use of different languages. Does Claude have a part that speaks French and another... Read more »

The Download: how people fall for pig butchering schemes, and saving glaciers

Gavesh’s journey had started, seemingly innocently, with a job ad on Facebook promising work he desperately needed. Instead, he found himself trafficked into a business commonly known as “pig butchering”—a form of... Read more »

How to save a glacier

Minchew is among the researchers looking into potential plans to alter the future of glaciers. Strategies being proposed by groups around the world include building physical supports to prop them up and... Read more »

Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there

This all means it’s up to the tech companies themselves to act on their own initiative. And Big Tech has rarely acted without legislative threats or significant social or financial pressure. Companies... Read more »