packing a punch This mantis shrimp-inspired robotic arm can crack an egg Device can grab like a hand, crawl across the floor, or jump high, just by pulling on a simple muscle. Jennifer Ouellette Jan 29, 2025 2:00 pm | 4 Credit: Seoul National University Credit: Seoul National University Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn more An egg-cracking beam relies on a hyperelastic torque reversal mechanism similar to that used by mantis shrimp and jumping fleas. Credit: Seoul National University. We usually think of robots as being made out of hard, rigid materials, but soft robotics seeks to build robotic devices out of more flexible materials that mimic the properties of those found in living animals. Case in point: Korean engineers have built soft robots capable of rapid and powerful joint movements by employing the same mechanism that gives the mantis shrimp such a powerful punch, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Robotics.As we've reported previously,mantis shrimp come in many different varieties; there are some 450 known species. But they can generally be grouped into two types: those that stab their prey with spear-like appendages ("spearers") and those that smash their prey ("smashers") with large, rounded, and hammer-like claws ("raptorial appendages"). Those strikes are so fast (as much as 23 meters per second, or 51 mph) and powerful, they often produce cavitation bubbles in the water, creating a shock wave that can serve as a follow-up strike, stunning and sometimes killing the prey. Sometimes a strike can even produce sonoluminescence, whereby the cavitation bubbles produce a brief flash of light as they collapse.According toa 2018 study, the secret to that powerful punch seems to arise not from bulky muscles but from the spring-loaded anatomical structure of the shrimp's arms, akin to a bow and arrow or a mousetrap. The shrimp's muscles pull on a saddle-shaped structure in the arm, causing it to bend and store potential energy, which is released with the swinging of the club-like claw. It's essentially a latch-like mechanism (technically, Latch-mediated spring actuation, or LaMSA), with small structures in the muscle tendons called sclerites serving as the latch.This isn't the first time scientists have looked to the mantis shrimp as an inspiration for robotics. In 2021, we reported on a Harvard researcher who developed a biomechanical model for the mantis shrimp's mighty appendage and built a tiny robot to mimic that movement. What's unusual in the mantis shrimp is that there is a one-millisecond delay between when the unlatching and the snapping action occurs.The Harvard team identified four distinct striking phases and confirmed it's the geometry of the mechanism that produces the rapid acceleration after the initial unlatching by the sclerites. The short delay may help reduce wear and tear of the latching mechanisms over repeated use.New types of motion The operating principle of the Hyperelastic Torque Reversal Mechanism (HeTRM) involves compressing an elastomeric joint until it reaches a critical point, where stored energy is instantaneously released. Credit: Science Robotics, 2025 Co-author Kyu-Jin Cho of Seoul National University became interested in soft robotics as a graduate student, when he participated in the RoboSoft Grand Challenge. Part of his research involved testing the strength of so-called "soft robotic manipulators," a type often used in assembly lines for welding or painting, for example. He noticed some unintended deformations in the shape under applied force and realized that the underlying mechanism was similar to how the mantis shrimp punches or how fleas manage to jump so high and far relative to their size.In fact, Cho's team previously built a flea-inspired catapult mechanism for miniature jumping robots, using the Hyperelastic Torque Reversal Mechanism (HeTRM) his lab developed. Exploiting torque reversal usually involves incorporating complicated mechanical components. However, "I realized that applying [these] principles to soft robotics could enable the creation of new types of motion without complex mechanisms," Cho said.Now he's built on that work to incorporate the HeTRM into a soft robotic arm that relies upon material properties rather than structural design. It's basically a soft beam with alternating hyperelastic and rigid segments.Our robot is made of soft, stretchy materials, kind of like rubber," said Cho. "Inside, it has a special part that stores energy and releases it all at onceBAM!to make the robot move super fast. It works a bit like how a bent tree branch snaps back quickly or how a flea jumps really far. This robot can grab things like a hand, crawl across the floor, or even jump high, and it all happens just by pulling on a simple muscle. Using HeTRM, energy can be stored in a flexible joint and then released instantly, allowing it to wrap around objects, much like an octopus. Credit: Science Robotics, 2025 Making the soft robotic arm involved a combination of 3D printing and silicone molding, per the authors. The mold had a top and bottom part, with rigid segments fixed within the bottom mold; the top mold had corresponding holes to the cavities for the soft segments. The researchers used laser cutting to make acrylic sheet "slit molds" inserted between the rigid segments. They then poured silicone into the bottom mold, placed the top mold over it, and poured more silicone through the top mold's holes to create the soft segments.The molds and plate were removed after three hours of curing, and the team applied silicon adhesive to bond the rigid segments to the soft joints. They used a titanium wire as an actuating tendon, using Teflon grease to reduce friction. They also used 3D-printed markers along the rigid segments for image tracking.Cho et al. next tested the capabilities of their robotic arm by mounting it onto a platform, using a motor to pull the tendon and a three-pulley measurement system to measure the tendon force. When the motor pulled the tendon in one direction, the beam compressed. Tension was gradually increased until the beam snapped in the opposite direction, eventually returning to its original position.The team demonstrated the robotic arm both gently stroking an egg (without the HeTRM) and cracking the shell (with the HeTRM). The researchers built a two-legged robot that could crawl like a turtle and use the HeTRM and twining octopus-like tentacles comprised of six HeTRM joints arranged in pairs to propel itself across uneven wet sand. They also devised a soft gripper capable of grabbing a falling ping-pong ball or a tangerine or holding delicate objects like a piece of jelly or an origami box without crushing them.Science Robotics, 2025. DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.ado7696 (About DOIs).Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 4 Comments

Particles of light helped test a quantum paradoxArlume/AlamyResearchers created particles of light that effectively exist in 37 dimensions at once so they could test an extreme version of a quantum paradox.This experiment shows that quantum physics is more nonclassical than many of us thought. It could be [that] 100 years after its discovery, we are still only seeing the tip of the iceberg, says Zhenghao Liu at the Technical University of Denmark.He and his colleagues focused on the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) paradox, which shows

Simulating turbulent air flow accurately is vital for weather forecastsEUMETSAT/ESAQuantum-inspired algorithms can simulate turbulent fluid flows on a classical computer much faster than existing tools, slashing computation times from several days on a large supercomputer to just hours on a regular laptop. This could improve weather forecasts and increase the efficiency of industrial processes, say researchers.Turbulence in liquid or air involves numerous interacting eddies that quickly become so chaotically complex that precise simulation is impossible for even the most powerful computers. Quantum counterparts promise to improve matters, but currently even the most advanced machines are incapable of anything but rudimentary demonstrations. AdvertisementThese turbulence simulations can be simplified by replacing precise calculations with probabilities. But even this approximation leaves scientists with computations that are infeasibly demanding to solve.Nikita Gourianov at the University of Oxford and his colleagues have now developed a new approach that uses quantum computer-inspired algorithms called tensor networks to represent turbulence probability distributions.Tensor networks originated in physics and came into common use in the early 2000s. They now offer a promising path to eke out much more performance from existing classical computers before truly useful quantum machines are available. The latest science news delivered to your inbox, every day.Sign up to newsletterThe algorithms and the way of thinking comes from the world of quantum simulation, and these algorithms are very close to what quantum computers do, says Gourianov. Were seeing quite a drastic speed-up, both in theory and in practice.In just a few hours, the team was able to run a simulation on a laptop that previously took several days on a supercomputer. The new algorithm saw a 1000-fold reduction in processor demand, and a million-fold reduction in memory demand. While this simulation was just a simple test, the same types of problem on a larger scale lie behind weather forecasts, aerodynamic analysis of aircraft and analysis of industrial chemical processes.The turbulence problem, which has data in five dimensions, gets extremely difficult without using tensors, says Gunnar Mller at the University of Kent, UK. Computationally, its a nightmare, he says. You could maybe do it in limited cases, when you have a supercomputer and are happy to run it for a month or two.Tensor networks work by, in effect, reducing the amount of data a simulation requires, drastically cutting the computational power required to run it. The amount and nature of the data removed can be carefully controlled by dialling the level of precision up or down.These mathematical tools have already been used in the cat-and-mouse game between quantum computer developers and classical computer scientists. Google announced in 2019 that a quantum processor called Sycamore had achieved quantum supremacy the point at which a quantum computer can complete a task that would be, for all intents and purposes, impossible for ordinary computers.However, tensor networks simulating the same problem on large clusters of conventional graphics processing units later achieved the same thing in just over 14 seconds, undermining Googles previous claim. Google has since pulled ahead once more with its new Willow quantum machine.Large and fault-tolerant quantum computers, once they are created, will be able to run tensors on much larger scales with much greater precision than classical computers, but Mller says he is excited by what might be achieved in the meantime.With a laptop, the authors of this paper could beat whats possible on a supercomputer, just because they have a smarter algorithm, he says. If you use this algorithm on a supercomputer, you may go way further than you could using any direct computational approach. It immediately has a tremendous benefit, and I dont have to wait another 10 years to have the perfect quantum computer.Journal reference:Science Advances DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ads5990 Topics:quantum computing

Benedict Cumberbatch told Variety he won't be in the next "Avengers" movie, but now he's saying he was wrong.Cumberbatch might be joking; Marvel stars love to play coy with the press to avoid spoilers.He next stars as a grieving father in "The Thing With Feathers," which just premiered at Sundance.Marvel fans already knew they hadn't seen the last of Doctor Strange, but we might be getting more of him sooner than we thought at least if Benedict Cumberbatch's latest comments are to be believed.On the red carpet for the premiere of his new film "The Thing With Feathers" at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Business Insider asked Cumberbatch about his recent Variety interview, in which it seemed he had accidentally spilled the beans that his MCU hero Doctor Strange wouldn't be appearing in the upcoming "Avengers: Doomsday," out next year."I got that wrong, I am in the next one," Cumberbatch told BI when asked if he'd gotten any sternly worded emails from the notoriously spoiler-averse Marvel team as a result of his previous comments.When I pointed out that other Marvel stars have straight-up lied about their involvement in certain movies before (like Cumberbatch's "Spider-Man: No Way Home costar Andrew Garfield, who gleefully kept secret one of the most satisfying MCU cameos ever), Cumberbatch quickly played coy once again: "Don't ever believe anything I say," he said with a smirk. Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." Marvel Studios The film, which will see the surprising return of "Iron Man" star Robert Downey Jr. in a new role as the villainous Doctor Doom, marks the beginning of the next chapter in the MCU, based on the "Secret Wars" saga from the comics.In his Variety interview, Cumberbatch said Doctor Strange is "in a lot" of "Avengers: Secret Wars," the 2027 sequel coming out after "Doomsday." (Both are being directed by returning Marvel filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, who directed the last two "Avengers" movies.)In the meantime, Cumberbatch can next be seen in writer-director Dylan Southern's "The Thing With Feathers," a darkly comic horror film where he plays a man grieving the sudden death of his wife, leaving him a single father to two young sons. Cumberbatch's character, simply called Dad, spirals into despair and encounters an anthropomorphic giant crow, a seemingly malevolent creature that accompanies the family through their grief journey.Southern called the film a "passion project" for both him and Cumberbatch, who also produces.Though it's quite a different role from the Marvel sorcerer who made him an international star, Southern said Cumberbatch put his signature no-holds-barred work ethic into the performance, which required him to go to some dark emotional places."It was mesmerizing to watch," Southern told BI. "He really went there."

I looked forward to being a father and didn't expect it to be as tough as it has been.I worked hard to be a good dad, but my daughter still made choices my wife and I didn't agree with.No matter what, I'll always be there through the good and bad times for my daughter.I never thought parenting would be a tough job. I looked forward to being a father. When my wife told me we were expecting a baby girl, I couldn't help but start to imagine all of the ways that I would make an impact in her life. I thought of things like play dates at the park, walks on the beach, father-daughter dances and everything I could do to be the very best dad.I remember holding my daughter when she was born. She looked like a fragile, little thing that could disappear in my hands at any second. She opened her eyes to look at me and it was the most beautiful sight. As I was taking her home, I vowed that no matter what, I'll always be there for my daughter.The years went by in a blurThe years passed by and my daughter was already a teenager. At this point, my wife and I went through a parenting phase that we could only describe as a nightmare. Our daughter would skip school, hang out with bad company, and was unruly a majority of the time. My wife and I struggled with feelings of shame and guilt especially because we had done all we could to raise her in the best way we knew how.She was our only child and we had visualized the best life for her, not the reality that we were living. I think I had selfish fantasies of the valedictorian she would be, and how she would ace her math classes and take part in all school projects. I struggled to accept that my precious little girl was now living in a way that only served her. Still, I was an unconditional father, always there to support her no matter what.And then things got even harderAlthough I felt like I was stuck in a teenage trance and an unending roller coaster of emotions, time didn't wait for me to catch up. After constantly being in and out of trouble as a teenager, my little girl faced her first arrest at 19. A night of reckless drinking and driving resulted in a DUI charge. Someone was injured in the accident and my daughter was sentenced to some time in jail. Jail time. I was shocked, confused, and felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. It's amazing how one day you can wake up and everything is okay, and the next your life is turned upside down. I felt so defeated.I grieved for something I never really hadWhen you do everything you can to ensure a happy existence for your child, it's difficult when things don't turn out the way you anticipate. It's like grieving for something you never really had to begin with.I've always seen myself as a stand-up father and would trade spots with my daughter in a heartbeat. I love her to the ends of the earth and there's nothing I wouldn't do to turn things around for her.Needless to say, jail is a tough pill to swallow, but I'm hoping that time away will be an opportunity for her to reflect on her life and make the changes that we are all hoping for.I'm giving myself graceI realize that parenting never stops. It's a job you take on from the day you have your child to the day you die. It's a for better, for worse commitment that doesn't allow you to let your child down. No matter what, I'll always be there through the good and bad times, and the in-betweens.As a dad, I've been disappointed but the love still flows freely. I wish better decisions were made but it's never too late to work things out. I've stopped overly-criticizing myself and I'm focusing more on trying to do better. I've repurposed my pain and I'm hopeful that someday things will change.

The Logoff is a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.Welcome to The Logoff. Today were focusing on Donald Trumps (and Elon Musks) plan to purge the federal workforce, which has major implications for everyone even if you dont work in government.Whats the latest? The Trump administration last night emailed almost all federal employees with something between an invitation and a threat. The email gave them two options:Resign effective at the end of September. Until then, you can keep your job and dont necessarily have to come to the office.Do nothing and keep working, while subject to new expectations (including in-office work requirements) and without any guarantee of job security.Its the latest in a string of actions designed to force out career government employees. (Career employees are the ones who keep their jobs from one president to the next; political appointees generally turn over with each administration.) Trump has also issued an executive order to temporarily raise the limit on how many noncareer appointees hes allowed to have.Why are they doing this? Trumps team wants to thin the ranks of career employees and replace some of them with political appointees, shrinking government and giving the president more control of what remains.If you dont work in government, why should you care? Because the Trump administration is conducting a giant national experiment, and were all the subjects. Career employees bring longstanding expertise and continuity to the countless functions our government performs everything from keeping airplanes in the sky to reviewing medication to enforcing laws to tracking national security threats.Driving civil service members out of government en masse is a bet that these workers were never necessary to begin with. Many experts have warned that poses great risks for keeping the government functioning. If the purge is successful, well all find out if theyre right.And with that, its time to log off ...Another day of space content? Yes, another day of space content! But can you blame me? Scientists just announced theyve found, and I quote, the basic building blocks for life on an asteroid. No, its not aliens. But its still pretty cool.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

When it comes to AI, Id consider myself a casual user and a curious one. Its been creeping into my daily life for a couple of years, and at the very least, AI chatbots can be good at making drudgery slightly less drudgerous. But whenever I start to feel convinced that tools like ChatGPT and Claude can actually make my life better, I seem to hit a paywall, because the most advanced and arguably most useful tools require a subscription. Then came DeepSeek.The Chinese startup DeepSeek sunk the stock prices of several major tech companies on Monday after it released a new open-source model that can reason on the cheap: DeepSeek-R1. The company says R1s performance matches OpenAIs initial reasoning model, o1, and it does so using a fraction of the resources. It also cost a lot less to use. That adds up to an advanced AI model thats free to the public and a bargain to developers who want to build apps on top of it.While OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have collectively spent billions of dollars training their models, DeepSeek claims it spent less than $6 million on using the equipment to train R1s predecessor, DeepSeek-V3. (Disclosure: Vox Media is one of several publishers that has signed partnership agreements with OpenAI. Our reporting remains editorially independent.)To get unlimited access to OpenAIs o1, youll need a pro account, which costs $200 a month. DeepSeek does charge companies for access to its application programming interface (API), which allows apps to talk to each other and helps developers bake AI models into their apps. But what DeepSeek charges for API access is a tiny fraction of the cost that OpenAI charges for access to o1. So it might not come as a surprise that, as of Wednesday morning, DeepSeek wasnt just the most popular AI app in the Apple and Google app stores. It was the most popular app, period.The main reason people are very excited about DeepSeek is not because its way better than any of the other models, said Leandro von Werra, head of research at the AI platform Hugging Face. Its more that its an open model, and coming from a place where people didnt expect it to come from.So as Silicon Valley and Washington pondered the geopolitical implications of whats been called a Sputnik moment for AI, Ive been fixated on the promise that AI tools can be both powerful and cheap. And on top of that, I imagined how a future powered by artificially intelligent software could be built on the same open-source principles that brought us things like Linux and the World Web Web. This could be wishful thinking and a little bit naive. After all, OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit company with the mission to create AI that would serve the entire world, regardless of financial return. Thats no longer the case. But this is why DeepSeeks explosive entrance into the global AI arena could make my wishful thinking a bit more realistic. While my own experiments with the R1 model showed a chatbot that basically acts like other chatbots while walking you through its reasoning, which is interesting the real value is that it points toward a future of AI that is, at least partially, open source. It indicates that even the most advanced AI capabilities dont need to cost billions of dollars to build or be built by trillion-dollar Silicon Valley companies. That means more companies could be competing to build more interesting applications for AI. And while American tech companies have spent billions trying to get ahead in the AI arms race, DeepSeeks sudden popularity also shows that while it is heating up, the digital cold war between the US and China doesnt have to be a zero-sum game.DeepSeeks unconventional, almost-open-source approachWhile you may not have heard of DeepSeek until this week, the companys work caught the attention in the AI research world a few years ago. The company actually grew out of High-Flyer, a China-based hedge fund founded in 2016 by engineer Liang Wenfeng. High-Flyer found great success using AI to anticipate movement in the stock market. That, however, prompted a crackdown on what Beijing deemed to be speculative trading, so in 2023, Liang spun off his companys research division into DeepSeek, a company focused on advanced AI research.From the outset, DeepSeek set itself apart by building powerful open-source models cheaply and offering developers access for cheap. In the software world, open source means that the code can be used, modified, and distributed by anyone. In the context of AI, that applies to the entire system, including its training data, licenses, and other components. Thanks to DeepSeeks open-source approach, anyone can download its models, tweak them, and even run them on local servers. The major US players in the AI race OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft have closed models built on proprietary data and guarded as trade secrets. Meta has set itself apart by releasing open-source models. Conventional wisdom suggested that open models lagged behind closed models by a year or so. DeepSeek apparently just shattered that notion.RelatedOpenAIs new anti-jobs programDeepSeeks models are not, however, truly open source. Theyre whats known as open-weight AI models. That means the data that allows the model to generate content, also known as the models weights, is public, but the company hasnt released its training data or code. Von Werra, of Hugging Face, is working on a project to fully reproduce DeepSeek-R1, including its data and training pipelines. One of the goals is to figure out how exactly DeepSeek managed to pull off such advanced reasoning with far fewer resources than competitors, like OpenAI, and then release those findings to the public to give open-source AI development another leg up. If more people have access to open models, more people will build on top of it, von Werra said.Still, we already know a lot more about how DeepSeeks model works than we do about OpenAIs. DeepSeek published a detailed technical report on R1 under an MIT License, which gives permission to reuse, modify, or distribute the software. A similar technical report on the V3 model released in December says that it was trained on 2,000 NVIDIA H800 chips versus the 16,000 or so integrated circuits competing models needed for training. Training took 55 days and cost $5.6 million, according to DeepSeek, while the cost of training Metas latest open-source model, Llama 3.1, is estimated to be anywhere from about $100 million to $640 million. But because Meta does not share all components of its models, including training data, some do not consider Llama to be truly open source.When it comes to performance, theres little doubt that DeepSeek-R1 delivers impressive results that rival its most expensive competitors. A comparison of models from Artificial Analysis shows that R1 is second only to OpenAIs o1 in reasoning and artificial analysis. It actually slightly outperforms o1 in terms of quantitative reasoning and coding. The big tradeoff appears to be speed. DeepSeek is kind of slow, and youll notice it if you use R1 in the app or on the web. It does show you what its thinking as its thinking, though, which is kind of neat.Now, the number of chips used or dollars spent on computing power are super important metrics in the AI industry, but they dont mean much to the average user. The most basic versions of ChatGPT, the model that put OpenAI on the map, and Claude, Anthropics chatbot, are powerful enough for a lot of people, and theyre free. They can summarize stuff, help you plan a vacation, and help you search the web with varying results. But chatbots are far from the coolest thing AI can do. The challenge to Americas global AI supremacyWhats most exciting about DeepSeek and its more open approach is how it will make it cheaper and easier to build AI into stuff. This is a huge deal for developers trying to create killer apps as well as scientists trying to make breakthrough discoveries. Its also a huge challenge to the Silicon Valley establishment, which has poured billions of dollars into companies like OpenAI with the understanding that the massive capital expenditures would be necessary to lead the burgeoning global AI industry.Its not an understatement to say that DeepSeek is shaking the AI industry to its very core. The stock markets reaction to the arrival of DeepSeek-R1s arrival wiped out nearly $1 trillion in value from tech stocks and reversed two years of seemingly neverending gains for companies propping up the AI industry, including most prominently NVIDIA, whose chips were used to train DeepSeeks models. It also indicated that the Biden administrations moves to curb chip exports in an effort to slow Chinas progress in AI innovation may not have had the desired effect. Joe Biden started blocking exports of advanced AI chips to China in 2022 and expanded those efforts just before Trump took office. However, Chinas AI industry has continued to advance apace its US rivals. DeepSeek is joined by Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent, who have also continued to roll out powerful AI tools, despite the embargo. What this means for the future of Americas quest for AI dominance is up for debate. President Donald Trump praised DeepSeeks ability to come up with a faster method of AI and much less expensive method. He added, The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win.But were far too early in this race to have any idea who will ultimately take home the gold. This is like being in the late 1990s or even right around the year 2000 and trying to predict who would be the leading tech companies, or the leading internet companies in 20 years, said Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.What is clear is that the competitors are aiming for the same finish line. Liang said in a July 2024 interview with Chinese tech outlet 36kr that, like OpenAI, his company wants to achieve general artificial intelligence and would keep its models open going forward. He added, OpenAI is not a god. Liangs goals line up with those of Sam Altman and OpenAI, which has cast doubt on DeepSeeks recent success. Microsoft and OpenAI are reportedly investigating whether DeepSeek used ChatGPT output to train its models, an allegation that David Sacks, the newly appointed White House AI and crypto czar, repeated this week. There is, of course, the chance that this all goes the way of TikTok, another Chinese company that challenged US tech supremacy. It was originally Trump who cited national security concerns as a reason to ban the app, which is owned by ByteDance. Congress and the Biden administration took up the mantle, and now TikTok is banned, pending the apps sale to an American company. DeepSeek uses ByteDance as a cloud provider and hosts American user data on Chinese servers, which is what got TikTok in trouble years ago. The concern here is that the Chinese government could access that data and threaten US national security. DeepSeek also says in its privacy policy that it can use this data to review, improve, and develop the service, which is not an unusual thing to find in any privacy policy.Unsurprisingly, DeepSeek does abide by Chinas censorship laws, which means its chatbot will not give you any information about the Tiananmen Square massacre, among other censored subjects. But its not yet clear that Beijing is using the popular new tool to ramp up surveillance on Americans. At least, its not doing so any more than companies like Google and Apple already do, according to Sean OBrien, founder of the Yale Privacy Lab, who recently did some network analysis of DeepSeeks app.From a privacy standpoint, people need to understand that most mainstream apps are spying on them, and this is no different, OBrien told me. Its just a question of whos doing the spying. Which brings us back to that paywall question. Theres an old adage that if something online is free on the internet, youre the product. So while its exciting and even admirable that DeepSeek is building powerful AI models and offering them up to the public for free, it makes you wonder what the company has planned for the future.In the meantime, you can expect more surprises on the AI front. You might even be able to tinker with these surprises, too. OpenAI recently rolled out its Operator agent, which can effectively use a computer on your behalf if you pay $200 for the pro subscription. This week, people started sharing code that can do the same thing with DeepSeek for free.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone have reached Season 2, but while there's plenty to enjoy fans have been left disappointed by the increasingly zany skin offerings

While all eyes are on Nintendo's Switch 2, Microsoft's console strategy appears to be paying dividends as Xbox was the world's biggest publisher in December 2024

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trumps nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has vowed to solve Americas chronic health epidemic, and, in so doing, Make America Healthy Again. Part of this national health glow-up involves bringing new levels of transparency to the federal government, Kennedy has argued, which is ironic because, during his confirmation this week, Kennedy made it as clear as mud what everybody should expect from his tenure at Americas most important health agency. During Wednesdays hearing, Kennedy refused to answer basic questions about a variety of subjects. Would he support bans on abortion medications, like mifepristone? Did he believe school shootings were caused by anti-depressants? Would he support making cuts to Medicaid? Did he support extending set-to-expire tax credits that have allowed low-income Americans access to healthcare? In all of these issues, Kennedy preferred equivocations to definitive answers. There was one question, however, that Kennedy was able to answer with relative certainty: Is healthcare a human right? Bernie Sanders asked the nominee, at one point. The answer was simple: No. The HHS head nominee said that healthcare was not a human right in the same way that, say, free speech was a human right because, unlike free speech, healthcare costs money and money, as we all know, is the only thing that matters in America. Kennedy was also treated to a grilling from Sanders about a website associated with an organization that Kennedy previously foundedthe Childrens Health Defensethat sells anti-vax baby clothes. One of the issues at play during Kennedys hearing was whether he would continue to profit from his anti-vaccination activism during and after his public service. Kennedy noted that he had recently parted ways with the organization in preparation for his federal position. Sanders then switched tactics. Are you supportive of these onesies? Sanders hilariously yelled at Kennedy, as the flustered nominee sputtered evasively. Sanderss onesie digression added some much-needed levity to the hearing, which was otherwise a grim spectacle of political maneuvering. While his critics see him as a wacky ideologue, Kennedys supporters largely view him as a valiant subversive dedicated to fighting the monied forces that rule the food and healthcare industries. I submit, however, that Kennedy is actually neither of these things. Instead, I believe he is just another power-hungry twit with a penchant for grifterism who wants to hold office and is willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish that goal. Indeed, there is currently no evidence that Trump plans to do anything to make America healthy again, or to advance Kennedys bizarre health crusades, or to let him go wild, as he previously quipped. For instance, one of the areas of the food industry that RFK has often espoused concern for is seed oils, which Kennedy has claimed are harmful to Americans health. Trump recently picked Kailee Tkacz Buller to be the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Bullers previous position was as the President and CEO of the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA). This is consistent with Trumps first administration when he hired Buller and other lobbyists from the snack food and corn syrup industries to write Americans dietary guidelines and helm pivotal food agencies. Trump also famously likes snack foods, so its unclear why anyone would think he would be harsh on the companies responsible for developing them.In general, Kennedy has revealed himself to be full-of-shit phony who will betray any and all of his most frequently espoused beliefs just for a chance to suckle at the power teat. Indeed, he somehow managed to spend over a decade lobbying on behalf of the environmental movement, only to turn around and endorse a political leader who has openly stated he wants to gut the EPA, politicize disaster relief funds, and open up public lands for drilling and development. Since being offered a top spot in Trumps administration, he has also significantly backtracked on his vaccine skepticism, and reined in his more kooky talking points, in an apparent effort to skate through his current confirmation process and allow himself a smooth transition. What became apparent at Kennedys hearing, however, isnt just that the man is willing to compromise most of his beliefs for access to power. It also became apparent that he is more than willing to act as a surrogate for the true policymakers in the Trump administration: the billionaire-backed libertarian right that wants to smash the federal bureaucracy, dismantle public welfare programs, and return all the money and the power to the private sector. Kennedy openly criticized government-administered healthcare programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and seemed to imply that those programs should be discarded for purely market-based approaches to health services. Kennedy also pimped Medicare Advantage, a partially privatized version of Medicare that has been widely criticized for being more difficult to use and providing less coverage. We need to listen to what people prefer to be on, Kennedy said, which is funny since there has been an outpouring of public anger against the Medicare Advantage plans, which have been characterized by patients as shitty and entrapping.Still, this is all very much the line of the people who helped Trump get elected and who are currently busy writing his policies. Project 2025s plan for HHS states a desire to push Americans into Medicare Advantage plans which, The Nation notes, would be a boon to private insurance companies, since it essentially privatizes the wildly popular public program. The project has also suggested instituting work requirements for Medicaid recipients, suggests the abolition of the Head Start program, would aggressively go after abortion access, and would, generally, work to undermine the public sectors role in healthcare administration.