The Download: why 2025 has been the year of AI hype correction, and fighting GPS jamming

Some disillusionment was inevitable. When OpenAI released a free web app called ChatGPT in late 2022, it changed the course of an entire industry—and several world economies. Millions of people started talking to their computers, and their computers started talking back. We were enchanted, and we expected more.

Well, 2025 has been a year of reckoning. For a start, the heads of the top AI companies made promises they couldn’t keep. At the same time, updates to the core technology are no longer the step changes they once were.

To be clear, the last few years have been filled with genuine “Wow” moments. But this remarkable technology is only a few years old, and in many ways it is still experimental. Its successes come with big caveats. Read the full story to learn more about why we may need to readjust our expectations.

Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thousands of flights have been affected by a far-reaching Russian campaign of using radio transmissions that jammed its GPS system.

The growing inconvenience to air traffic and risk of a real disaster have highlighted the vulnerability of GPS and focused attention on more secure ways for planes to navigate the gauntlet of jamming and spoofing, the term for tricking a GPS receiver into thinking it’s somewhere else.

One approach that’s emerging from labs is quantum navigation: exploiting the quantum nature of light and atoms to build ultra-sensitive sensors that can allow vehicles to navigate independently, without depending on satellites. Read the full story.

—Amos Zeeberg

1 The Trump administration has launched its US Tech Force program
In a bid to lure engineers away from Big Tech roles and straight into modernizing the government. (The Verge)
+ So, essentially replacing the IT workers that DOGE got rid of, then. (The Register)

2 Lawmakers are investigating how AI data centers affect electricity costs
They want to get to the bottom of whether it’s being passed onto consumers. (NYT $)
+ Calculating AI’s water usage is far from straightforward, too. (Wired $)
+ AI is changing the grid. Could it help more than it harms? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Ford isn’t making a large all-electric truck after all
After the US government’s support for EVs plummeted. (Wired $)
+ Instead, the F-150 Lightning pickup will be reborn as a plug-in hybrid. (The Information $)
+ Why Americans may be finally ready to embrace smaller cars. (Fast Company $)
+ The US could really use an affordable electric truck. (MIT Technology Review)

4 PayPal wants to become a bank in the US

The Trump administration is very friendly to non-traditional financial companies, after all. (FT $)
+ It’s been a good year for the crypto industry when it comes to banking. (Economist $)

5 A tech trade deal between the US and UK has been put on ice

America isn’t happy with the lack of progress Britain has made, apparently. (NYT $)
+ It’s a major setback in relations between the pair. (The Guardian)

6 Why does no one want to make the cure for dengue?

A new antiviral pill appears to prevent infection—but its development has been abandoned. (Vox)

9 Corporate America is obsessed with hiring storytellers
It’s essentially a rehashed media relations manager role overhauled for the AI age. (WSJ $)

10 The concept of hacking existed before the internet
Just ask this bunch of teenage geeks. (IEEE Spectrum)

How DeepSeek became a fortune teller for China’s youth

As DeepSeek has emerged as a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, young people across the country have started using AI to revive fortune-telling practices that have deep roots in Chinese culture.

Across Chinese social media, users are sharing AI-generated readings, experimenting with fortune-telling prompt engineering, and revisiting ancient spiritual texts—all with the help of DeepSeek.

The surge in AI fortune-telling comes during a time of pervasive anxiety and pessimism in Chinese society. And as spiritual practices remain hidden underground thanks to the country’s regime, computers and phone screens are helping younger people to gain a sense of control over their lives. Read the full story.