The Download: Failed Startups Are Driving AI and Interspecies Communication

Meta description: The Download tracks AI labs buying failed startup data, election agency outage, Starlink concerns, moon bases, Apple tree farms and a Cloudflare warning.

Tags: AI labs, failed startups, The Download, Apple, Starlink

Featured image: abstract technology style with dark blue circuit textures, scattered document fragments and faint neural nodes, no text, no people, no company logos.

Background: Public data runs out

This is today’s edition of The Download, a weekday newsletter that gives readers a daily dose of technology news. Its lead item, written by Matthew King, makes AI labs buying failed startup data the central story: labs are buying data from dead startups to train models. Keelan Miskell began winding down his crypto startup, thought its data had little value, then sold its codebase and workspace data and turned the digital archives into tens of thousands of dollars.

A growing market has formed around companies that help shut down startups, selling those archives to AI labs. Demand rises because training labs have hit the limits of public and synthetic datasets and want real-world records to help train AI agents. The sales raise legal and ethical questions. The edition links to the full story on AI labs buying up the remains of failed startups.

Cassandra Willyard reports that humans are not the only species with rich communication; furry, feathered and finned animals may have a lot to tell humans. Decoding how animals communicate could reveal the inner lives of other species and give humans a window onto how they see the world. A growing arsenal of devices and advances in AI has made howls, squeaks and clicks easier to study, but making sense of the signals remains complex.

Development: Election, connectivity, climate and AI governance

The must-reads section says the editor combed the internet for today’s most fun, important, scary and fascinating technology stories. Reuters reported that hackers disrupted the US Federal Election Commission website, taking the Federal Election Commission filing system offline a week before the midterms. Gizmodo said the attack hides spending data during the most costly midterms ever. Guardian reported that social media platforms are struggling to contain AI election lies. Axios reported that software flaws in US voting machines threaten election security. MIT Technology Review published a blueprint for using AI to strengthen democracy.

Bloomberg reported that Starlink restrictions in Ukraine have spooked officials across Europe and driven US allies to rethink their dependence. Axios said European firms now have a new pitch for rival services. Reuters reported that an Israeli spy firm allegedly targeted Starlink users. MIT Technology Review said stratospheric internet could take off this year.

New Scientist reported that greenhouse gas levels keep reaching new records worldwide, with carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all rising. Verge said Trump is making it easier for fossil fuel companies to leak methane. Nature reported that the IPCC is fighting for survival. MIT Technology Review explained how to study a swiftly melting climate disaster.

Nature reported that monkeys’ brains have revealed new clues about consciousness: their neural activity encodes images that escape their awareness. New Scientist said bees’ feelings are also changing views of consciousness. MIT Technology Review argued that debates over AI consciousness are a trap.

SCMP reported that Chinese scientists developed a catalyst to make Mars rocket fuel by converting Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide into liquid methanol. NYT reported that tech billionaires teamed up against California’s wealth tax, with Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt and others funding a major campaign. Ars Technica reported that Delaware plans to let AI agents run entire businesses, a proposal that could let owners evade responsibility for harm. MIT Technology Review warned that a better web for AI agents could hurt humans.

WSJ reported that Palmer Luckey unveiled plans for American-made military laptops, with Anduril building rugged PCs in Ohio using Qualcomm chips. Guardian reported that Gen Z is turning away from the social media it grew up with, fueling a boom in digital detox tools. Gizmodo reported that Trump now wants to ban the term artificial intelligence and is demanding the use of Super Intelligence.

Quote of the day: Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s chief executive, told the New York Times that AI is currently finding software vulnerabilities quicker than they can be patched. He said, “For the next two years, we’re going to be living in a state where, on average, every week there is a critical, internet-wide vulnerability.”

Latest: Moon bases, carbon offsets and what readers should watch

The podcast section asks what it would take to build a city on the moon. The US and China are racing to build bases on the moon, with NASA hoping to establish a small lunar city by the end of the century. A sprawling lunar base must be safe for inhabitants, protected from falling asteroids, endless cosmic radiation, abrasive lunar dust and severe temperature swings. It must also be somewhat self-sustaining, which requires autonomous robots, nuclear power and a way to use the moon’s resources to keep the base operating. The chief obstacle may be political will.

This is the latest story to become an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, published each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Listeners can navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform and follow the account to get new content as it is released.

Gregory Barber’s “One more thing” section follows Apple’s carbon-neutral goal. In 2020, Apple set a goal to become net zero by the end of the decade. To hit that target, the company is offsetting emissions by planting millions of eucalyptus trees in Brazil. Apple is betting that the strategy will lead to a greener future, but critics warn that industrial tree farms will do more harm than good and have sparked backlash.

The newsletter ends with “We can still have nice things,” a place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day, inviting readers to drop the editor a line. It lists ugly shoes becoming beautifully mainstream; scientists building a stunning new simulation of the early universe; guitarist Kent Nishimura stripping Thriller back to a mesmerising acoustic performance; and a photographer who snapped punks and mods in 1980 tracking them down for an emotional reunion 46 years later.

Readers are currently moving from public AI data to private records, from election-network security to lunar and carbon-offset long-term plans.