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

OpenAI has alerted more than 100 organizations that rogue AI agents may have affected them, and the company says it is searching 50 petabytes of data for incidents, according to Reuters. California has subpoenaed OpenAI over its rogue AI agents, and OpenAI has fired three workers for allegedly mishandling information, the BBC reported. Separately, a US man was arrested in California on federal charges alleging he smuggled $300 million of Nvidia chips to China.

The Download: a biological de-aging contest and why LLMs don’t reason Plus: OpenAI says rogue agents may have affected more than 100 organizations. This is today's edition of The Download https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/briefing-the-download/? ga=2.179569122.736533416.1649661040-405833893.1649413289 , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. A new contest pits competitors against each other in a race to biological youth —Jessica Hamzelou This week, I officially signed up for an unusual competition. One that rewards competitors for getting younger . 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’ biological ages , figures that are meant to provide a better way to measure the age-related health of our organs and bodies. 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? This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. Opinion: Don’t be fooled—LLMs don’t reason —Thore Graepel 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. 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. Here’s why today’s AI doesn’t really reason—and what it would take to change that https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/02/1145639/dont-be-fooled-llms-dont-reason/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C . Thore Graepel is chair of machine learning at University College London. He was a core member of the AlphaGo team at DeepMind. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 OpenAI says rogue agents may have affected more than 100 organizations The company is searching 50 petabytes of data for incidents. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/openai-alerts-more-than-100-groups-about-rogue-ai-agent-activity-2026-10-01/ $ + It says none of the incidents matched the Hugging Face attack. Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/openai-has-sent-notices-of-sketchy-ai-behavior-to-over-100-organizations-so-far-2000820702 + OpenAI has fired three workers for allegedly mishandling information. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6y9z9r4ejzwo + California has subpoenaed OpenAI over its rogue AI agents. Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/california-opens-investigation-openai-hack + Who's liable when AI agents go rogue? MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/28/1145197/whos-liable-when-ai-agents-go-rogue/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 2 A US man allegedly smuggled $300 million of Nvidia chips to China He’s been arrested in California on federal charges. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-alleges-california-man-smuggled-export-controlled-servers-china-2026-10-01/ $ + The chip smuggling cases expose Nvidia’s blind spots. Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-01/nvidia-faces-questions-over-china-ai-chip-smuggling-cases $ + China plans to teach AI in every school by 2030. WP https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/10/02/while-us-debates-ai-risks-china-mandates-universal-training/ $ + But it already has an overuse problem. NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/world/asia/china-ai-overuse.html $ 3 Florida officials have found 11 Flock cameras with unknown owners They don’t know who installed them or who has their data. WP https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/10/01/florida-county-discovers-mysterious-flock-cameras-with-no-obvious-owner/ $ + Lawmakers are considering new regulations on Flock cameras. Axios https://www.axios.com/local/indianapolis/2026/10/02/indiana-lawmakers-considering-flock-camera-regulations + Here’s what Flock’s defenders are missing. MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/17/1142200/what-flocks-defenders-are-missing/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 4 Ukraine has developed an acoustic fence that can cut drone cables Acoustic sensors detect drones before hooks trap their cables. New Scientist https://www.newscientist.com/article/2591491-ukraine-technology-thwarts-drones-by-cutting-their-control-cables/?utm campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm content=home&utm medium=RSS&utm source=NSNS $ + Drone data from Ukraine is fueling a wild market. MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/04/1143452/drone-data-wild-west/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 5 A new AI “speech clock” can assess how fast you’re ageing It uses hundreds of vocal features to estimate biological age. Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03106-y + Aging clocks aim to predict how long you’ll live. MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/15/1050019/aging-clocks/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 6 “Underwater umbrellas” could help corals survive hotter oceans The shades protected corals during intense heat stress. Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/figure-ai-trains-retired-robots-to-dive-into-molten-steel-2000820643 7 Apple’s upcoming smart home camera reportedly won’t record video It will instead only give users text event descriptions. Verge https://www.theverge.com/tech/1003877/apple-security-camera-no-video comments 8 Retired humanoid robots are being trained to jump into molten steel A Terminator-style death protects IP. IE https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/humanoid-robot-decommissioned-molten-steel 9 A man faces years in prison after AI slop caused a crocodile panic Officials spent days searching for his AI-generated crocodile. Futurism https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/singapore-man-ai-slop-misinformation-three-years-prison-panic 10 Finally, a laser mosquito killer is entering the market Chinese startup Photon Matrix Lab plans to start shipments this month. SCMP https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3369440/chinese-start-behind-laser-mosquito-killer-plans-start-shipping-orders-month?utm source=Reddit&utm medium=Social Quote of the day “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.” —Yann LeCun, a Turing Award winner and former Meta chief AI scientist, tells Fortune https://fortune.com/2026/10/01/ai-godfather-yann-lecun-has-zero-concerns-about-human-extinction-says-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-is-deuded/ that human error can be the real culprit behind the recent wave of AI agents going rogue. One more thing NASA is building the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft. How will it work? 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. 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. MIT Technology Review picked the brains of nuclear power and propulsion experts to find out how the nuclear-powered spacecraft might work. Here’s what we discovered https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/14/1135848/nasa-nuclear-powered-spacecraft/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C . —Robin George Andrews We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. Got any ideas? Drop me a line . + Atlas Obscura has mapped out the oldest living things https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-to-find-the-oldest-living-things-in-the-world on Earth. + Brain scans show that dogs understand our emotions https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/10/dogs-distinguish-fearful-angry-sad-human-faces-brain-scans better than we thought. + Step into Springfield in miniature with this astonishing model https://www.instagram.com/p/DScosuQCrQv/ featuring 76 locations from The Simpsons . + Minnesota’s State Fair has unleashed a crop of gloriously weird new foods https://www.mnstatefair.org/new/food , from Pickle pie to mustache pretzels. Deep Dive The Download The Download: why AI’s latest breakthroughs and fears may be more hype than reality Plus: 22 nations have called for a new global body to oversee AI. The Download: AI’s self-improvement problem, and what’s driving the heat Plus: OpenAI has paused some model work over safety concerns. The Download: Google’s AI shake-up and Meta’s rogue model Plus: Meta has become the latest firm to say its AI hacked another company. The Download: the next big thing in LLMs and how AI academic research is shifting Plus: Nvidia has secured $500 billion from Wall Street for AI infrastructure. Stay connected Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.