This edition of The Download surveys a pair of developments at the intersection of technology and everyday life. One feature, by James O’Donnell, explores digital clones: Artificial Intelligence models that replicate a specific person by combining hyperrealistic video, lifelike voices derived from minutes of speech, and conversational chatbots. Those clones promise not general intelligence but a way to ´think´ like a particular person, and the author describes trying to build a clone of himself to test whether a well-crafted stand-in could help with real work demands. The story originally appeared in The Algorithm newsletter.
Another piece, by Jon Keegan, examines how lidar, or light detection and ranging, is being used to quantify the toll of climate disasters on landscape geometry. Researchers are applying lidar to study the damage left by the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles County, which burned for 24 days, killed 29 people, destroyed 16,000 structures, and consumed more than 55,000 acres. The article notes the landscape was physically transformed and says losses were estimated at Not stated. Precise lidar measurements help researchers understand and track the cascading physical effects of such events.
The newsletter also previews MIT Technology Review´s upcoming Innovators Under 35 list, to be published next Monday and featuring 35 founders, engineers, roboticists, and materials scientists; the list has been published since 1999. The must-reads roundup highlights several technology stories, including Meta creating unauthorized celebrity chatbots, an FTC warning to big tech about complying with EU laws, Ukraine using drones to deliver supplies, the collapse of Builder.ai as an industry signal, an expiring US electric vehicle tax credit, a major new project using Artificial Intelligence to research vaccines, and reports that chatbots can be manipulated into breaking their rules. Short columns reflect on advertising, digitization, and light cultural items to close the newsletter.
