The Download: a biological de-aging contest and why LLMs don’t reason

<p><em>This is today&#8217;s edition of </em><a href="https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/briefing-the-download/?_ga=2.179569122.736533416.1649661040-405833893.1649413289"><em>The Download</em></a>,<em> our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what&#8217;s going on in the world of technology.</em></p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>A new contest pits competitors against each other in a race to biological youth</strong></h3> <p><em>—Jessica Hamzelou</em></p> <p>This week, I officially signed up for an unusual competition. One that rewards competitors for getting <em>younger</em>.</p> <p>I recently turned 40, and I don’t need reminding that both time and my chronological age only tick forward. But this game is focused on competitors’ <em>biological ages</em>, figures that are meant to provide a better way to measure the age-related health of our organs and bodies.</p> <p>Over six months, around 500 of us will try to reverse our biological age using a bunch of different measures. There’s even a leaderboard! But is it even possible to measure whether someone is getting younger?&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/02/1145610/younger-contest-race-to-biological-youth/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">Read the full story on the controversy around biological age measurements and how I’ll test them myself</a>.</p> <p><strong>This </strong><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/02/1145610/younger-contest-race-to-biological-youth/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*"><strong>story</strong></a><strong> is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. </strong><a href="https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/biotech-the-checkup/?_ga=2.27955388.1879496638.1664182320-160041263.1657781451&amp;mc_cid=a40eac2491&amp;mc_eid=f221407621&amp;utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*"><strong>Sign up</strong></a><strong> to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.</strong></p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Opinion: Don’t be fooled—LLMs don’t reason</strong></h3> <p><em>—Thore Graepel</em></p> <p>Ten years ago, I watched a program I helped build stun the world by beating Go champion Lee Sedol. AlphaGo won after making a move so strange that some commentators thought it was a programming glitch. It was AlphaGo’s powers of reasoning that made this creative choice—and these are powers that today’s AI lacks.&nbsp;</p> <p>This is why I recently left my position at Google DeepMind. I believe we need a fresh approach to machine reasoning, one that draws on AlphaGo’s architecture.</p> <p><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/02/1145639/dont-be-fooled-llms-dont-reason/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">Here’s why today’s AI doesn’t really reason—and what it would take to change that</a>.</p> <p><em>Thore Graepel is chair of machine learning at University College London. He was a core member of the AlphaGo team at DeepMind.</em></p> <p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>The must-reads</strong></p> <p><em>I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.</em></p> <p><strong>1 OpenAI says rogue agents may have affected more than 100 organizations<br></strong>The company is searching 50 petabytes of data for incidents. (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/openai-alerts-more-than-100-groups-about-rogue-ai-agent-activity-2026-10-01/">Reuters</a> $)<br><em>+ It says none of the incidents matched the Hugging Face attack.</em> (<a href="https://gizmodo.com/openai-has-sent-notices-of-sketchy-ai-behavior-to-over-100-organizations-so-far-2000820702">Gizmodo</a>)<br><em>+ OpenAI has fired three workers for allegedly mishandling information.</em> (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6y9z9r4ejzwo">BBC</a>)<br><em>+ California has subpoenaed OpenAI over its rogue AI agents.</em> (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/california-opens-investigation-openai-hack">Guardian</a>)<br><em>+ Who&#8217;s liable when AI agents go rogue? </em>(<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/28/1145197/whos-liable-when-ai-agents-go-rogue/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">MIT Technology Review</a>)</p> <p><strong>2 A US man allegedly smuggled $300 million of Nvidia chips to China<br></strong>He’s been arrested in California on federal charges. (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-alleges-california-man-smuggled-export-controlled-servers-china-2026-10-01/">Reuters</a> $)<br><em>+ The chip smuggling cases expose Nvidia’s blind spots.</em> (<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-01/nvidia-faces-questions-over-china-ai-chip-smuggling-cases">Bloomberg</a> $)<br><em>+ China plans to teach AI in every school by 2030. </em>(<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/10/02/while-us-debates-ai-risks-china-mandates-universal-training/">WP</a> $)<br><em>+ But it already has an overuse problem.</em> (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/world/asia/china-ai-overuse.html">NYT</a> $)<strong> </strong></p> <p><strong>3 Florida officials have found 11 Flock cameras with unknown owners<br></strong>They don’t know who installed them or who has their data. (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/10/01/florida-county-discovers-mysterious-flock-cameras-with-no-obvious-owner/">WP</a> $)<br><em>+ Lawmakers are considering new regulations on Flock cameras.</em> (<a href="https://www.axios.com/local/indianapolis/2026/10/02/indiana-lawmakers-considering-flock-camera-regulations">Axios</a>)<br><em>+ Here’s what Flock’s defenders are missing. </em>(<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/17/1142200/what-flocks-defenders-are-missing/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">MIT Technology Review</a>)</p> <p><strong>4 Ukraine has developed an acoustic fence that can cut drone cables<br></strong>Acoustic sensors detect drones before hooks trap their cables. (<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2591491-ukraine-technology-thwarts-drones-by-cutting-their-control-cables/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&amp;utm_content=home&amp;utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_source=NSNS">New Scientist</a> $)<br><em>+ Drone data from Ukraine is fueling a wild market. </em>(<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/04/1143452/drone-data-wild-west/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">MIT Technology Review</a>)</p> <p><strong>5 A new AI “speech clock” can assess how fast you’re ageing<br></strong>It uses hundreds of vocal features to estimate biological age. (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03106-y">Nature</a>)<br><em>+ Aging clocks aim to predict how long you’ll live. </em>(<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/15/1050019/aging-clocks/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">MIT Technology Review</a>)</p> <p><strong>6 “Underwater umbrellas” could help corals survive hotter oceans<br></strong>The shades protected corals during intense heat stress. (<a href="https://gizmodo.com/figure-ai-trains-retired-robots-to-dive-into-molten-steel-2000820643">Gizmodo</a>)</p> <p><strong>7 Apple’s upcoming smart home camera reportedly won’t record video</strong><br>It will instead only give users text event descriptions. (<a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/1003877/apple-security-camera-no-video#comments">Verge</a>)</p> <p><strong>8 Retired humanoid robots are being trained to jump into molten steel<br></strong>A Terminator-style death protects IP. (<a href="https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/humanoid-robot-decommissioned-molten-steel">IE</a>)</p> <p><strong>9 A man faces years in prison after AI slop caused a crocodile panic<br></strong>Officials spent days searching for his AI-generated crocodile. (<a href="https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/singapore-man-ai-slop-misinformation-three-years-prison-panic">Futurism</a>)</p> <p><strong>10 Finally, a laser mosquito killer is entering the market<br></strong>Chinese startup Photon Matrix Lab plans to start shipments this month. (<a href="https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3369440/chinese-start-behind-laser-mosquito-killer-plans-start-shipping-orders-month?utm_source=Reddit&amp;utm_medium=Social">SCMP</a>)</p> <p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>Quote of the day</strong></p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>“Those agents are doing exactly what they’ve been asked to do. They were supposed to be in sandboxes, but the sandboxes were leaky and horribly designed.”</strong></h2> <p>—Yann LeCun, a Turing Award winner and former Meta chief AI scientist, <a href="https://fortune.com/2026/10/01/ai-godfather-yann-lecun-has-zero-concerns-about-human-extinction-says-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-is-deuded/">tells Fortune</a> that human error can be the real culprit behind the recent wave of AI agents going rogue.</p> <p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>One more thing</strong></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/SR-1_Freedom_Mars_flyby.jpg?fit=2128,1196" alt=""/></figure> <h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><br></strong><strong>NASA is building the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft. How will it work?</strong></h4> <p>Just before Artemis II began its historic slingshot around the moon, NASA revealed an even grander space travel plan. By the end of 2028, the agency aims to fly a nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft to Mars.</p> <p>A successful mission would herald a new era in spaceflight—and might just give the US the edge in the race against China. But the project remains shrouded in mystery.</p> <p><em>MIT Technology Review</em> picked the brains of nuclear power and propulsion experts to find out how the nuclear-powered spacecraft might work. <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/14/1135848/nasa-nuclear-powered-spacecraft/?utm_source=the_download&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_term=*%7CSUBCLASS%7C*&amp;utm_content=*%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C*">Here’s what we discovered</a>.</p> <p><em>—Robin George Andrews</em></p> <p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>We can still have nice things</strong></p> <p><em>A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? </em><a href="mailto:[email protected]"><em>Drop me a line</em></a><em>.)</em></p> <p>+ Atlas Obscura has mapped out the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-to-find-the-oldest-living-things-in-the-world">oldest living things</a> on Earth.<br>+ Brain scans show that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/10/dogs-distinguish-fearful-angry-sad-human-faces-brain-scans">dogs understand our emotions</a> better than we thought.<br>+ Step into Springfield in miniature with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DScosuQCrQv/">this astonishing model</a> featuring 76 locations from <em>The Simpsons</em>.<br>+ Minnesota’s State Fair has unleashed a crop of <a href="https://www.mnstatefair.org/new/food">gloriously weird new foods</a>, from Pickle pie to mustache pretzels.</p>