June 3, 20255 min readAre We Ready for Death in Space?NASA has quietly taken steps to prepare for a death in space. We need to ask how nations will deal with this inevitability now, as more people start traveling off the planetBy Peter Cummings edited by Lee Billings SciePro/Science Photo Library/Getty ImagesIn 2012 NASA stealthily slipped a morgue into orbit.No press release. No fanfare. Just a sealed, soft-sided pouch tucked in a cargo shipment to the International Space Station (ISS) alongside freeze-dried meals and scientific gear. Officially, it was called the Human Remains Containment Unit (HRCU). To the untrained eye it looked like a shipping bag for frozen cargo. But to NASA it marked something far more sobering: a major advance in preparing for death beyond Earth.As a kid, I obsessed over how astronauts went to the bathroom in zero gravity. Now, decades later, as a forensic pathologist and a perennial applicant to NASA’s astronaut corps, I find myself fixated on a darker, more haunting question:On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What would happen if an astronaut died out there? Would they be brought home, or would they be left behind? If they expired on some other world, would that be their final resting place? If they passed away on a spacecraft or space station, would their remains be cast off into orbit—or sent on an escape-velocity voyage to the interstellar void?NASA, it turns out, has begun working out most of these answers. And none too soon. Because the question itself is no longer if someone will die in space—but when.A Graying CorpsNo astronaut has ever died of natural causes off-world. In 1971 the three-man crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 mission asphyxiated in space when their spacecraft depressurized shortly before its automated atmospheric reentry—but their deaths were only discovered once the spacecraft landed on Earth. Similarly, every U.S. spaceflight fatality to date has occurred within Earth’s atmosphere—under gravity, oxygen and a clear national jurisdiction. That matters, because it means every spaceflight mortality has played out in familiar territory.But planned missions are getting longer, with destinations beyond low-Earth orbit. And NASA’s astronaut corps is getting older. The average age now hovers around 50—an age bracket where natural death becomes statistically relevant, even for clean-living fitness buffs. Death in space is no longer a thought experiment. It’s a probability curve—and NASA knows it.In response, the agency is making subtle but decisive moves. The most recent astronaut selection cycle was extended—not only to boost intake but also to attract younger crew members capable of handling future long-duration missions.NASA’s Space MorgueIf someone were to die aboard the ISS today, their body would be placed in the HRCU, which would then be sealed and secured in a nonpressurized area to await eventual return to Earth.The HRCU itself is a modified version of a military-grade body bag designed to store human remains in hazardous environments. It integrates with refrigeration systems already aboard the ISS to slow decomposition and includes odor-control filters and moisture-absorbent linings, as well as reversed zippers for respectful access at the head. There are straps to secure the body in a seat for return, and patches for name tags and national flags.Cadaver tests conducted in 2019 at Sam Houston State University have proved the system durable. Some versions held for over 40 days before decomposition breached the barrier. NASA even drop-tested the bag from 19 feet to simulate a hard landing.But it’s never been used in space. And since no one yet knows how a body decomposes in true microgravity (or, for that matter, on the moon), no one can really say whether the HRCU would preserve tissue well enough for a forensic autopsy.This is a troubling knowledge gap, because in space, a death isn’t just a tragic loss—it’s also a vital data point. Was an astronaut’s demise from a fluke of their physiology, or an unavoidable stroke of cosmic bad luck—or was it instead a consequence of flaws in a space habitat’s myriad systems that might be found and fixed? Future lives may depend on understanding what went wrong, via a proper postmortem investigation.But there’s no medical examiner in orbit. So NASA trains its crews in something called the In-Mission Forensic Sample Collection protocol. The space agency’s astronauts may avoid talking about it, but they all have it memorized: Document everything, ideally with real-time guidance from NASA flight surgeons. Photograph the body. Collect blood and vitreous fluid, as well as hair and tissue samples. Only then can the remains be stowed in the HRCU.NASA has also prepared for death outside the station—on spacewalks, the moon or deep space missions. If a crew member perishes in vacuum but their remains are retrieved, the body is wrapped in a specially designed space shroud.The goal isn’t just a technical matter of preventing contamination. It’s psychological, too, as a way of preserving dignity. Of all the “firsts” any space agency hopes to achieve, the first-ever human corpse drifting into frame on a satellite feed is not among them.If a burial must occur—in lunar regolith or by jettisoning into solar orbit—the body will be dutifully tracked and cataloged, treated forevermore as a hallowed artifact of space history.Such gestures are also of relevance to NASA’s plans for off-world mourning; grief and memorial protocols are now part of official crew training. If a death occurs, surviving astronauts are tasked with holding a simple ceremony to honor the fallen—then to move on with their mission.Uncharted RealmsSo far we’ve only covered the “easy” questions. NASA and others are still grappling with harder ones.Consider the issue of authority over a death and mortal remains. On the ISS, it’s simple: the deceased astronaut’s home country retains jurisdiction. But that clarity fades as destinations grow more distant and the voyages more diverse: What really happens on space-agency missions to the moon, or to Mars? How might rules change for commercial or multinational spaceflights—or, for that matter, the private space stations and interplanetary settlements that are envisioned by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other tech multibillionaires?NASA and its partners have started drafting frameworks, like the Artemis Accords—agreements signed by more than 50 nations to govern behavior in space. But even those don’t address many intimate details of death.What happens, for instance, if foul play is suspected?The Outer Space Treaty, a legal document drafted in 1967 under the United Nations that is humanity’s foundational set of rules for orbit and beyond, doesn’t say.Of course, not everything can be planned for in advance. And NASA has done an extraordinary job of keeping astronauts in orbit alive. But as more people venture into space, and as the frontier stretches to longer voyages and farther destinations, it becomes a statistical certainty that sooner or later someone won’t come home.When that happens, it won’t just be a tragedy. It will be a test. A test of our systems, our ethics and our ability to adapt to a new dimension of mortality. To some, NASA’s preparations for astronautical death may seem merely morbid, even silly—but that couldn’t be further from the truth.Space won’t care of course, whenever it claims more lives. But we will. And rising to that grim occasion with reverence, rigor and grace will define not just policy out in the great beyond—but what it means to be human there, too.

This June on Netflix, check out Taraji P. Henson in Straw, plus Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy and more.

Frankenstein, the post-Enlightenment novel written by a teenage girl that invented modern science fiction, has long been Guillermo del Toro’s white whale. The Mexican filmmaker has eyed adapting Mary Shelley’s story of a modern day Prometheus since the 1990s. And now it’s almost here. It’s a good feeling for the filmmaker and his admirers… but it also an opportunity of mounting excitement for fans of Shelley, too, since so much of her 1818 masterpiece remains mostly associated with the page in spite of the countless film adaptations based on the story of a man and his monster. And as judged by the first remarkable teaser trailer of Frankenstein introduced by del Toro and stars Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth at Netflix’s Tudum event Saturday night, it’s safe to stay that del Toro is pulling from Shelley directly… including a wrap-around story of hers that is seldom ever attempted on the screen. “What manner of creature is that?” a shaken voice whispers in the new Frankenstein trailer. “What manner of devil made him?” We never exactly see what countenance could earn the dehumanizing term “creature” in the trailer, but we feel his presence. He is a silhouette, a shadow—a vengeful wraith—walking across a sheet of ice with the sunset to his back. And he is approaching what is demonstrably a half-mad, frostbitten Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), who can only say in his frozen delirium “I did.” Victor is the devil who made that. For fans of Shelley’s novel, or just those with a good memory of Kenneth Branagh’s now mostly forgotten 1994 adaptation of the book, this framing device should send a chill of anticipation through the spine as giddy as any more familiar promises of gods and monsters. That’s because del Toro is adapting the cruel framing device Shelley used to introduce both Victor and the creature he pursues. Indeed, most of Frankenstein on the page is told in flashback and relayed by our protagonist Victor as a kind of last rites confession as he dies from fever and starvation after years and years of chasing his creation north. Always north. Whereas most of the novel takes place actually at the end of the Enlightenment era of the 19th century—the glory days of Mary’s famous philosophical and activist parents—the only “modern” part of the story is to compare the zeal for discovery in Victor with what was only a dawning fascination in the 19th century with discovering the North Pole (a feat that wouldn’t actually be accomplished until the early 20th century). In the book, Victor’s tale of obsession for greatness causes a captain who has led his men to becoming stuck in the Arctic ice to reflect on the potentially lethal consequences of his ambitions—especially after he meets the Monster who later verifies Victor’s story by mourning over the scientist’s body. The framing device is fascinating because of where it places the story in history, but also because it elevates the tragedy of the so-called Monster and his Creator. Who was really hunting who at the end of the world in the North Pole, and who is truly the monster? The Creature did terrible things, but how much of that is Victor’s fault for abandoning his progeny to a lifetime of loneliness hatred, and despair, including by that which gave him life? Both suffer tragic fates in the end in the cold. Unloved and unremembered, except by one sea captain no one will believe. While it remains to be seen if del Toro is doing a straight-ahead faithful adaptation of the novel—in fact we can assume he is not since Isaac’s Victor dresses more like a Victorian of the mid-19th century than a contemporary of Voltaire or Thomas Jefferson, and we also know that Burn Gorman appears in the movie as Fritz, a character created by Universal Pictures in the iconic 1931 film adaptation starring Boris Karloff—it is fascinating to see the master filmmaker returning to the source material. It also raises questions of just where he will go with Jacob Elordi’s intentionally obscured and hidden Monster. We know from the trailer’s end with the Monster attacking the crew of the North Pole-bound ship (a beat also, we might add, is not in the novel) that he has the power of speech. It will be curious indeed to learn if he proves to be a Milton-esque philosopher demon, which is also a largely ignored element of Shelley’s original story. Frankenstein is expected to premiere in November on Netflix.

Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home. This week, Captain America: Brave New World, the Marvel superhero movie starring Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford, smashes its way onto Disney Plus after hitting video on demand in April. It’s a big week for animation, with the Oscar-nominated The Wild Robot and the Korean science fiction romance Lost in Starlight both releasing on Netflix, while DreamWorks’ adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s internationally bestselling Dog Man graphic novel series arrives on Peacock. New titles available to rent include the Chinese legal thriller The Prosecutor, and two tales of forbidden love: the Shakespearean musical Juliet & Romeo and The Grey director Joe Carnahan’s action flick Shadow Force. Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend! New on Netflix Lost in Starlight Genre: Science fiction romanceDirector: Han Ji-wonCast: Kim Tae-ri, Hong Kyung/Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Justin H. Min Set in 2050 Seoul, Netflix’s first Korean original animated film is a story of literally star-crossed lovers. An astronaut headed for Mars and a musician fall for each other and face the pain of separation. Trying to make a long-distance relationship work is especially difficult when you’re 139 million miles away from each other. A Widow’s Game Genre: Crime dramaDirector: Carlos SedesCast: Carmen Machi, Ivana Baquero, Tristán Ulloa Based on a true story, this Spanish film stars Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth) as Maje, the young widow of a man stabbed seven times and left in a parking lot in a seeming crime of passion. The investigation leads to Maje’s lovers, as the police try to figure out who’s really behind the crime. The Wild Robot Genre: Family science fictionRun time: 1h 42mDirector: Chris SandersCast: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor Based on Peter Brown’s middle-grade book, DreamWorks’ Academy Award-nominated film follows Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), a helpful robot who accidentally washes up on an island that’s only inhabited by animals. While she initially terrifies all the creatures there, she winds up befriending a fox (Pedro Pascal) who helps her raise a runty gosling (Kit Connor) and prepare him for his first migration. From our review:  From director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon), The Wild Robot is a tenderly crafted story that pushes computer animation in a beautiful new direction — and is exactly the sort of movie that the current animation landscape so desperately needs. New on Disney Plus Captain America: Brave New World Genre: Superhero actionRun time: 1h 58mDirector: Julius OnahCast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford Set after the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Captain America: Brave New World sees Sam Wilson — having fully embraced his role as the new Captain America — being called on to resolve an international incident in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on newly elected President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford). With time running out and the walls closing in, will Sam be able to come out on top and rescue the world from the brink of devastation? Probably! From our review: As a Captain America movie, Brave New World is batting strongly below average. Its plot is at least mildly reminiscent of 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it’s both fair and unfair to compare the two. Unfair in that Winter Soldier is still among the best-regarded MCU movies, while BNW is running uphill from table-setting a potential new Captain America franchise, dealing with post-production rewrites and reshoots, and the general malaise of the MCU’s post-Avengers: Endgame audience. But fair in that, like Winter Soldier, BNW was also clearly designed as a grounded thriller (by the sliding scale of “grounded” in the MCU) featuring global political stakes and a superpowered conspiracy at its heart. New on Hulu The Seed of the Sacred Fig Genre: Political dramaRun time: 2h 48mDirector: Mohammad RasoulofCast: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami Writer and director Mohammad Rasoulof had to flee Iran after he was sentenced to eight years in prison ahead of the premiere of The Seed of the Sacred Fig. The Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated film is a fictional story set against the backdrop of political protests, incorporating real footage of the 2022 and 2023 unrest that followed the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, who was fatally beaten by Iranian “morality police” under the accusation that she was wearing her hijab improperly. New on Peacock Dog Man Genre: Family comedyRun time: 1h 29mDirector: Peter HastingsCast: Peter Hastings, Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery Peter Hastings continues the Captain Underpants franchise with an adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s graphic novel series about a hero created when a police officer and his dog were stitched together into one individual after being wounded while failing to defuse a bomb. Pete Davidson plays Dog Man’s evil cat nemesis in the DreamWorks film, which uses CG animation styled to resemble craft materials. New on Starz Flight Risk Genre: ThrillerRun time: 1h 31mDirector: Mel GibsonCast: Mark Wahlberg, Topher Grace, Michelle Dockery No one is quite who they seem in Mel Gibson’s claustrophobic thriller, where a U.S. Marshal (Michelle Dockery) hires a pilot (Mark Wahlberg) to get an informant from Alaska to New York so he can testify against the crime family he worked for. As they travel across the wilderness, the group fights for control of the increasingly tense and violent flight. New on Shudder and HIDIVE Vampire Hunter D Genre: Horror animeRun time: 1h 31mDirector: Toyoo AshidaCast: Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizō Katō AMC Networks re-released a digitally remastered version of Toyoo Ashida’s classic anime film to celebrate its 40th anniversary in theaters in April, and is now offering it across both its anime and horror streaming services. Set in a far future where vampires rule the world, the action-packed film follows a mysterious vampire hunter hired to protect a woman from a vampire lord who wants her to be his next bride. New to digital Fight or Flight Genre: Action comedyRun time: 1h 42mDirector: James MadiganCast: Josh Hartnett, Katee Sackhoff, Charithra Chandran Basically Bullet Train but in the air, Fight or Flight casts Black Hawk Down and Penny Dreadful star Josh Hartnett as a disgraced Secret Service agent given the chance to clear his name by catching an elusive hacker known as the Ghost, who’s boarded a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco. Unfortunately, the plane is packed with assassins looking to kill the Ghost and anyone who gets in their way. Juliet & Romeo Genre: Musical romanceRun time: 2h 2mDirector: Timothy Scott BogartCast: Jamie Ward, Clara Rugaard, Rupert Everett West Side Story already did the decisive musical version of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, but this adaptation plays closer to the original text while adding a soundtrack full of original pop tunes to the tale of two feuding houses of Verona. Filmed on location in Italy, Juliet & Romeo’s high-profile supporting cast includes Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter, The White Lotus) as Lord Montague and Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect) as Lady Capulet. The Prosecutor Genre: Legal thrillerRun time: 1h 57mDirector: Donnie YenCast: Donnie Yen, Cheung Chi Lam Julian, Michael Hui Ip Man’s Donnie Yen directs and stars in this Chinese legal thriller loosely based on a real 2016 drug trafficking case. Yen plays detective Fok Chi-ho, who loses faith in policing and decides the better way to ensure criminals face justice is as a public prosecutor. The Prosecutor might be mostly courtroom drama, but there’s still plenty of action, combining old-school martial arts techniques with modern film technology. Shadow Force Genre: Action thrillerRun time: 1h 43mDirector: Joe CarnahanCast: Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark StrongEight years ago, Kyrah Owens (Kerry Washington of Scandal and Little Fires Everywhere) and Isaac Sarr (Omar Sy of Lupin and Jurassic World) joined a multinational special forces group dubbed Shadow Force, but they’ve left that life behind to raise their son. Their old boss (played by Mark Strong of Shazam! and Sherlock Holmes) doesn’t accept their resignation, and is trying to hunt them down.

The third and final season of dystopian survival series Squid Game—one of Netflix's most-watched shows—is coming in June. The South Korean thriller picks up after last season's cliffhanger, with Gi-hun (Player 456) at the center of the new game. The new season will be available on June 27. Also on June's lineup is the return of FUBAR (June 12), the action series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Monica Barbaro as a father and daughter who both work for the CIA. Carrie-Anne Moss joins the cast this season as a former East German spy. On the documentary side, Netflix will stream Titan: The OceanGate Disaster (June 11) following its premiere at the Tribeca Festival just a few days earlier. The feature uses first-hand accounts of former OceanGate employees to create a portrait of CEO Stockton Rush and the history leading up to the submersible's failure in 2023. The platform will also drop three new installments of its anthology series Trainwreck, which covers major news events gone wrong. This month's stories cover the deaths at 2021's Astroworld music festival (The Astroworld Tragedy, June 10), the rise and fall of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford (Mayor of Mayhem, June 17), and the ill-fated "poop cruise" (Poop Cruise, June 24). Sports docs this month include Power Moves with Shaquille O'Neal (June 4), a series that follows Shaq in his role as president of Reebok Basketball alongside Allen Iverson, and season two of AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (June 18). Netflix comedy specials in June include Justin Willman: Magic Lover (June 17) and Steph Tolev: Filth Queen (June 24). Here's everything coming to Netflix in June, and everything that's leaving.What's coming to Netflix in June 2025Available soonThe Great Indian Kapil Show: Season 3—Netflix SeriesRana Naidu: Season 2—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 1The AmericanBarbarianBee MovieThe BirdsThe Blues BrothersThe Devil's OwnDune (1984)The EqualizerFamily PlotFocusFrenzyThe Great OutdoorsHitchcockHopThe Legend of ZorroThe Man Who Knew Too MuchNeighborsNow You See MeNow You See Me 2The Nutty ProfessorPokémon The Series: XYPokémon The Series: XY: XY: Kalos QuestPokémon The Series: XY: XYZRear WindowThe Theory of EverythingThe TownU-571UsVertigoAvailable June 3Sara - Woman in the Shadows—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 4Criminal Code: Season 2—Netflix SeriesEva Lasting: Season 3—Netflix SeriesPower Moves with Shaquille O'Neal—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 5Barracuda Queens: Season 2—Netflix SeriesGinny & Georgia: Season 3—Netflix SeriesTires: Season 2—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 6K.O.—Netflix FilmMercy For None—Netflix SeriesTYLER PERRY'S STRAW—Netflix FilmThe Survivors—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 7Boys on the SidePiece by PieceAvailable June 9The Creature Cases: Chapter 5—Netflix FamilyAvailable June 10Families Like Ours—Netflix SeriesTrainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy—Netflix DocumentaryAvailable June 11Aniela—Netflix SeriesCheers to Life—Netflix FilmCocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Ft.—Netflix DocumentaryOur Times—Netflix FilmTitan: The OceanGate Disaster—Netflix DocumentaryAvailable June 12The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish: Season 2FUBAR: Season 2—Netflix SeriesPlaneAvailable June 13Kings of Jo'Burg: Season 3—Netflix SeriesToo Hot to Handle: Spain—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 14Grey's Anatomy: Season 21Available June 16The Last Witch HunterAvailable June 17Justin Willman: Magic Lover—Netflix Comedy SpecialKaulitz & Kaulitz: Season 2—Netflix SeriesScandal: Seasons 1-7Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem—Netflix DocumentaryAvailable June 18AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Season 2—Netflix SeriesRosario Tijeras (Mexico): Season 4—Netflix SeriesSomebody Feed Phil: Season 8—Netflix SeriesYOLANTHE—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 19The Waterfront—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 20KPop Demon Hunters—Netflix FamilyOlympo—Netflix SeriesSemi-Soeter—Netflix FilmAvailable June 22The InternAvailable June 24Steph Tolev: Filth Queen—Netflix Comedy SpecialTrainwreck: Poop Cruise—Netflix DocumentaryAvailable June 25The Ultimatum: Queer Love: Season 2—Netflix SeriesAvailable June 27Pokémon Horizons: Season 2—The Search for Laqua Part 3—Netflix FamilySquid Game: Season 3—Netflix SeriesWhat's leaving Netflix in June 2025Leaving June 1Batman BeginsBeginnersBurlesqueCloserCult of ChuckyDaddy Day CareThe Dark KnightThe Dark Knight RisesDen of ThievesFrom Prada to NadaGoodFellasMaMagic Mike XXLPride & PrejudiceTedTed 2Two Weeks NoticeLeaving June 11Gran Turismo: Based on a True StoryTrapLeaving June 14Godzilla x Kong: The New EmpireLeaving June 16The Equalizer: Seasons 1-3Won't You Be My Neighbor?Leaving June 17CarolLeaving June 19MigrationLeaving June 21American SniperLeaving June 22Brain on FireLeaving June 26Ordinary People

To grow, we must forget… but now AI remembers everythingAI’s infinite memory could endanger how we think, grow, and imagine. And we can do something about it.Photo by Laura Fuhrman on UnsplashWhen Mary remembered too muchImagine your best friend — we’ll call her Mary — had perfect, infallible memory.At first, it feels wonderful. She remembers your favorite dishes, obscure movie quotes, even that exact shade of sweater you casually admired months ago. Dinner plans are effortless: “Booked us Giorgio’s again, your favorite — truffle ravioli and Cabernet, like last time,” Mary smiled warmly.But gradually, things become less appealing. Your attempts at variety or exploring something new are gently brushed aside: “Heard about that new sushi place, should we try it?” you suggest. Mary hesitates, “Remember last year? You said sushi wasn’t really your thing. Giorgio’s is safe. Why risk it?”Conversations start to feel repetitive, your identity locked to a cached version of yourself. Mary constantly cites your past preferences as proof of who you still are. The longer this goes on, the smaller your world feels… and comfort begins to curdle into confinement.Now, picture Mary isn’t human, but your personalized AI assistant.A new mode of hyper-personalizationWith OpenAI’s new memory upgrade, ChatGPT can now recall everything you’ve ever shared with it, indefinitely. Similarly, Google has opened the context window with “Infini-attention,” letting large language models (LLMs) reference infinite inputs with zero memory loss. And in consumer-facing tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, this now means persistent, personalized memory across conversations, unless you manually intervene.https://medium.com/media/f1f7978fb8d63f7a1e9f52f051808f44/hrefThe sales pitch is seductively simple: less friction, more relevance. Conversations that feel like continuity: “Systems that get to know you over your life,” as Sam Altman writes on X. Technology, finally, that meets you where you are.In the age of hyper-personalization — of the TikTok For You page, Spotify Wrapped, and Netflix Your Next Watch — a conversational AI product that remembers everything about you feels perfectly, perhaps dangerously, natural.Netflix “knows us.” And we’re conditioned to expect conversational AI to do the same.Forgetting, then, begins to look like a flaw. A failure to retain. A bug in the code. Especially in our own lives, we treat memory loss as a tragedy, clinging to photo albums and cloud backups to preserve what time tries to erase.But what if human forgetting is not a bug, but a feature? And what happens when we build machines that don’t forget, but are now helping shape the human minds that do?Forgetting is a feature of human memory“Infinite memory” runs against the very grain of what it means to be human. Cognitive science and evolutionary biology tell us that forgetting isn’t a design flaw, but a survival advantage. Our brains are not built to store everything. They’re built to let go: to blur the past, to misremember just enough to move forward.Our brains don’t archive data. They encode approximations. Memory is probabilistic, reconstructive, and inherently lossy. We misremember not because we’re broken, but because it makes us adaptable. Memory compresses and abstracts experience into usable shortcuts, heuristics that help us act fast, not recall perfectly.Evolution didn’t optimize our brains to store the past in high fidelity; it optimized us to survive the present. In early humans, remembering too much could be fatal: a brain caught up recalling a saber-tooth tiger’s precise location or exact color would hesitate, but a brain that knows riverbank = danger can act fast.Image generated by ChatGPT.This is why forgetting is essential to survival. Selective forgetting helps us prioritize the relevant, discard the outdated, and stay flexible in changing environments. It prevents us from becoming trapped by obsolete patterns or overwhelmed by noise.And it’s not passive decay. Neuroscience shows that forgetting is an active process: the brain regulates what to retrieve and what to suppress, clearing mental space to absorb new information. In his TED talk, neuroscientist Richard Morris describes the forgetting process as “the hippocampus doing its job… as it clears the desktop of your mind so that you’re ready for the next day to take in new information.”https://medium.com/media/e272064dd59f29c4ca35e808d39e4e72/hrefCrucially, this mental flexibility isn’t just for processing the past; forgetting allows us to imagine the future. Memory’s malleability gives us the ability to simulate, to envision, to choose differently next time. What we lose in accuracy, we gain in possibility.So when we ask why humans forget, the answer isn’t just functional. It’s existential. If we remembered everything, we wouldn’t be more intelligent. We’d still be standing at the riverbank, paralyzed by the precision of memories that no longer serve us.When forgetting is a “flaw” in AI memoryWhere nature embraced forgetting as a survival strategy, we now engineer machines that retain everything: your past prompts, preferences, corrections, and confessions.What sounds like a convenience, digital companions that “know you,” can quietly become a constraint. Unlike human memory, which fades and adapts, infinite memory stores information with fidelity and permanence. And as memory-equipped LLMs respond, they increasingly draw on a preserved version of you, even if that version is six months old and irrelevant.Sound familiar?This pattern of behavior reinforcement closely mirrors the personalization logic driving platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Extensive research has shown how these platforms amplify existing preferences, narrow user perspectives, and reduce exposure to new, challenging ideas — a phenomenon known as filter bubbles or echo chambers.Positive feedback loops are the engine of recommendation algorithms like TikTok, Netflix, and Spotify. From Medium.These feedback loops, optimized for engagement rather than novelty or growth, have been linked to documented consequences including ideological polarization, misinformation spread, and decreased critical thinking.Now, this same personalization logic is moving inward: from your feed to your conversations, and from what you consume to how you think.“Echo chamber to end all echo chambers”Just as the TikTok For You page algorithm predicts your next dopamine hit, memory-enabled LLMs predict and reinforce conversational patterns that align closely with your past behavior, keeping you comfortable inside your bubble of views and preferences.Jordan Gibbs, writing on the dangers of ChatGPT, notes that conversational AI is an “echo chamber to end all echo chambers.” Gibbs points out how even harmless-seeming positive reinforcement can quietly reshape user perceptions and restrict creative or critical thinking.Jordan Gibb’s conversation with ChatGPT from Medium.In one example, ChatGPT responds to Gibb’s claim of being one of the best chess players in the world not with skepticism or critical inquiry, but with encouragement and validation, highlighting how easily LLMs affirm bold, unverified assertions.And with infinite memory enabled, this is no longer a one-off interaction: the personal data point that, “You are one of the very best chess players in the world, ” risks becoming a fixed truth the model reflexively returns to, until your delusion, once tossed out in passing, becomes a cornerstone of your digital self. Not because it’s accurate, but because it was remembered, reinforced, and never challenged.When memory becomes fixed, identity becomes recursive. As we saw with our friend Mary, infinite memory doesn’t just remember our past; it nudges us to repeat it. And while the reinforcement may feel benign, personalized, or even comforting, the history of filter bubbles and echo chambers suggests that this kind of pattern replication rarely leaves room for transformation.What we lose when nothing is lostWhat begins as personalization can quietly become entrapment, not through control, but through familiarity. And in that familiarity, we begin to lose something essential: not just variety, but the very conditions that make change possible.Research in cognitive and developmental psychology shows that stepping outside one’s comfort zone is essential for growth, resilience, and adaptation. Yet, infinite-memory LLM systems, much like personalization algorithms, are engineered explicitly for comfort. They wrap users in a cocoon of sameness by continuously repeating familiar conversational patterns, reinforcing existing user preferences and biases, and avoiding content or ideas that might challenge or discomfort the user.Hyper-personalization traps us in a “comfort cocoon” that prevents from growing and transforming. From Earth.comWhile this engineered comfort may boost short-term satisfaction, its long-term effects are troubling. It replaces the discomfort necessary for cognitive growth with repetitive familiarity, effectively transforming your cognitive gym into a lazy river. Rather than stretching cognitive and emotional capacities, infinite-memory systems risk stagnating them, creating a psychological landscape devoid of intellectual curiosity and resilience.So, how do we break free from this? If the risks of infinite memory are clear, the path forward must be just as intentional. We must design LLM systems that don’t just remember, but also know when and why to forget.How we design to forgetIf the danger of infinite memory lies in its ability to trap us in our past, then the antidote must be rooted in intentional forgetting — systems that forget wisely, adaptively, and in ways aligned with human growth. But building such systems requires action across levels — from the people who use them to those who design and develop them.For users: reclaim agency over your digital selfJust as we now expect to “manage cookies” on websites, toggling consent checkboxes or adjusting ad settings, we may soon expect to manage our digital selves within LLM memory interfaces. But where cookies govern how our data is collected and used by entities, memory in conversational AI turns that data inward. Personal data is not just pipelines for targeted ads; they’re conversational mirrors, actively shaping how we think, remember, and express who we are. The stakes are higher.Memory-equipped LLMs like ChatGPT already offer tools for this. You can review what it remembers about you by going to Settings > Personalization > Memory > Manage. You can delete what’s outdated, refine what’s imprecise, and add what actually matters to who you are now. If something no longer reflects you, remove it. If something feels off, reframe it. If something is sensitive or exploratory, switch to a temporary chat and leave no trace.You can manage and disable memory within ChatGPT by visiting Settings > Personalization.You can also pause or disable memory entirely. Don’t be afraid to do it. There’s a quiet power in the clean slate: a freedom to experiment, shift, and show up as someone new.Guide the memory, don’t leave it ambient. Offer core memories that represent the direction you’re heading, not just the footprints you left behind.For UX designers: design for revision, not just retentionReclaiming memory is a personal act. But shaping how memory behaves in AI products is design decision. Infinite memory isn’t just a technical upgrade; it’s a cognitive interface. And UX designers are now curating the mental architecture of how people evolve, or get stuck.Forget “opt in” or “opt out.” Memory management shouldn’t live in buried toggles or forgotten settings menus. It should be active, visible, and intuitive: a first-class feature, not an afterthought. Users need interfaces that not only show what the system remembers, but also how those memories are shaping what they see, hear, and get suggested. Not just visibility, but influence tracing.ChatGPT’s current memory interface enables users to manage memories, but it is static and database-like.While ChatGPT’s memory UI offers user control over their memories, it reads like a black-and-white database: out or in. Instead of treating memory as a static archive, we should design it as a living layer, structured more like a sketchpad than a ledger: flexible and revisable. All of this is hypothetical, but here’s what it could look like:Memory Review Moments: Built-in check-ins that ask, “You haven’t referenced this in a while — keep, revise, or forget?” Like Rocket Money nudging you to review subscriptions, the system becomes a gentle co-editor, helping surface outdated or ambiguous context before it quietly reshapes future behavior.Time-Aware Metadata: Memories don’t age equally. Show users when something was last used, how often it comes up, or whether it’s quietly steering suggestions. Just like Spotify highlights “recently played,” memory interfaces could offer temporal context that makes stored data feel navigable and self-aware.Memory Tiers: Not all information deserves equal weight. Let users tag “Core Memories” that persist until manually removed, and set others as short-term or provisional — notes that decay unless reaffirmed.Inline Memory Controls: Bring memory into the flow of conversation. Imagine typing, and a quiet note appears: “This suggestion draws on your July planning — still accurate?” Like version history in Figma or comment nudges in Google Docs, these lightweight moments let users edit memory without switching contexts.Expiration Dates & Sunset Notices: Some memories should come with lifespans. Let users set expiration dates — “forget this in 30 days unless I say otherwise.” Like calendar events or temporary access links, this makes forgetting a designed act, not a technical gap.Image a Miro-like memory board where users could prioritize, annotate, and link memories.Sketchpad Interfaces: Finally, break free from the checkbox UI. Imagine memory as a visual canvas: clusters of ideas, color-coded threads, ephemeral notes. A place to link thoughts, add context, tag relevance. Think Miro meets Pinterest for your digital identity, a space that mirrors how we actually think, shift, and remember.When designers build memory this way, they create more than tools. They create mirrors with context, systems that grow with us instead of holding us still.For AI developers: engineer forgetting as a featureTo truly support transformation, UX needs infrastructure. The design must be backed by technical memory systems that are fluid, flexible, and capable of letting go. And that responsibility falls to developers: not just to build tools for remembering, but to engineer forgetting as a core function.This is the heart of my piece: we can’t talk about user agency, growth, or identity without addressing how memory works under the hood. Forgetting must be built into the LLM system itself, not as a failsafe, but as a feature.One promising approach, called adaptive forgetting, mimics how humans let go of unnecessary details while retaining important patterns and concepts. Researchers demonstrate that when LLMs periodically erase and retrain parts of their memory, especially early layers that store word associations, they become better at picking up new languages, adapting to new tasks, and doing so with less data and computing power.Photo by Valentin Tkach for Quanta MagazineAnother more accessible path forward is in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). A new method called SynapticRAG, inspired by the brain’s natural timing and memory mechanisms, adds a sense of temporality to AI memory. Models recall information not just based on content, but also on when it happened. Just like our brains prioritize recent memories, this method scores and updates AI memories based on both their relevance and relevance, allowing it to retrieve more meaningful, diverse, and context-rich information. Testing showed that this time-aware system outperforms traditional memory tools in multilingual conversations by up to 14.66% in accuracy, while also avoiding redundant or outdated responses.Together, adaptive forgetting and biologically inspired memory retrieval point toward a more human kind of AI: systems that learn continuously, update flexibly, and interact in ways that feel less like digital tape recorders and more like thoughtful, evolving collaborators.To grow, we must choose to forgetSo the pieces are all here: the architectural tools, the memory systems, the design patterns. We’ve shown that it’s technically possible for AI to forget. But the question isn’t just whether we can. It’s whether we will.Of course, not all AI systems need to forget. In high-stakes domains — medicine, law, scientific research — perfect recall can be life-saving. However, this essay is about a different kind of AI: the kind we bring into our daily lives. The ones we turn to for brainstorming, emotional support, writing help, or even casual companionship. These are the systems that assist us, observe us, and remember us. And if left unchecked, they may start to define us.We’ve already seen what happens when algorithms optimize for comfort. What begins as personalization becomes repetition. Sameness. Polarization. Now that logic is turning inward: no longer just curating our feeds, but shaping our conversations, our habits of thought, our sense of self. But we don’t have to follow the same path.We can build LLM systems that don’t just remember us, but help us evolve. Systems that challenge us to break patterns, to imagine differently, to change. Not to preserve who we were, but to make space for who we might yet become, just as our ancestors did.Not with perfect memory, but with the courage to forget.To grow, we must forget… but AI remembers everything was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When you describe it in words, the Indianapolis 500 might seem like a boring watch: Cars go round and round an oval track 200 times, totaling 500 miles over the course of a few hours. But if you were a driver, you’d be having a hell of a different experience. Think screaming speeds of 230 miles per hour, pulling 4 Gs on corners, with one’s reflexes and split-second decisions drawing a thin line between victory and tragedy . . . over the course of a few hours. It’s a level of intensity that TV networks have been trying to bring viewers into for years with in-car cameras and things like driver radio communiques. It has been working. Last year, NBC—which covered the spectacle from 2019–2024—netted the most streams of the race ever and averaged 5.34 million total viewers, up from 4.9 million in 2023 and 4.8 million in 2022. This year marks FOX’s first time ever broadcasting it, and they likely want that trend to continue, so they’re throwing all the tech they have at it. And that includes the innovative, diminutive Driver’s Eye, dubbed the world’s smallest live broadcast camera, which brings fans directly into drivers’ helmets (quite literally) like never before. For the first time in Indy 500 history, viewers will have a view of the race exactly as its stars see it from within their helmets—from dramatic passes and vehicle-quaking jousts to the very mechanics of how they operate their cars at such speeds. [Photo: Bell Racing] “Driver’s Eye brings the human factor,” says Alex Miotto Haristos, COO of Racing Force Group, which owns the tech. “It brings the struggle.” And it could bring the ratings, too—especially if it catches on in the series like it has in Formula 1. [Photo: Bell Racing] MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE The UK-born, Italy-raised Haristos is perhaps an unlikely creator of racing gear. He began his career in management consulting and later real estate before acquiring an electronics company and launching it as Zeronoise in 2018 with Stephane Cohen of Bell Racing Helmets. Haristos doesn’t come from a racing background, but rather dubs himself a business engineer who saw it as an opportunity. He says he quickly found himself falling down the rabbit hole into a passion project given the sheer challenging nature of the Driver’s Eye tech, which they began developing in 2019. Ray Harroun driving his Marmon Wasp, the first winner of the Indy Race in 1911. [Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images] That challenge is very real when you’re working on a product meant to be inserted into a race-car driver’s most critical piece of safety gear, particularly in a sport where said driver’s head is sticking out of the car. Racing helmets are modern design marvels that evolved out of leather and cloth versions in the Indy 500’s early days to steel helmets in 1916. According to IndyCar, every driver has a primary and one or two backups, and they’re all custom-fit and produced per FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) standards. (Want to buy your own? Haristos says that’ll cost you between $5,000 and $8,000.) The outer shell features ultralight carbon fiber; there’s a fireproof liner; a built-in airbag to assist in helmet removal without neck strain; numerous elements to ensure maximum aerodynamics in 200+ mph runs; and audio insulation so drivers can communicate with their teams over the roar of 33 engines on the track.  “Your job is to not alter any feature of the helmet,” Haristos says. “The helmet you don’t touch. You have to work with what you have, and you have to manage to integrate everything seamlessly. This is the trick.” [Photo: Bell Racing] The team set out to capture exactly what a driver was seeing on the racetrack, raw and unfiltered, shakes and all—and quickly understood that they couldn’t work on the outer surface of a helmet because it would be a safety issue. So they homed in on the side padding of the helmet that Haristos says is around a centimeter away from the eye, which, given the sensitive proximity, went through the FIA for approval, as well. The organization mandated a minuscule size and weight for the camera, so rather than starting with what image quality they wanted to achieve and so on, “We started working backwards. And in the beginning it was like, No, this is impossible.” Ultimately, the team had to break apart camera design as we know it—a single unit—and separate the internal systems to make it work. They stripped out everything they could for what needed to go in the helmet, and were left with a tiny sensor with the ability to capture high-res video (in the case of the Indy 500, in 1080p, 60fps) in the smallest of real estate. Today, that unit clocks in at 8.8 x 8.8 mm, and weighs less than a dime. Then, they moved the rest of the camera’s guts to the car itself. Which is also a feat, particularly in Indy racing, which involves older cars that are already stuffed to the max from additions over the years.  “You can’t do one thing without affecting another,” says Michael Davies, FOX EVP of field and technical management and operations. “There’s no change that you can make on a car that doesn’t fuck something else up. And I’m always reminded of something a very smart man said, which is that when you solve a problem, you inevitably create another one, but you must make sure that the problem you create is smaller than the one that you solved.” Haristos says that for Indy, they were told that the only available space was on the side of the car by the radiator—not an ideal spot, given the high temperature and so on. So they had to develop a custom housing that was more efficient and could operate at a higher temp while still fitting into the tightest of spaces.  Ultimately, from the helmet camera to the housing, it was crucial that the additions all felt seamless to the driver.  “Comfort in motorsport translates into confidence,” Haristos says. “Confidence translates into performance.” [Photo: Bell Racing] CROSSING THE POND Safety equipment manufacturer OMP Racing acquired Zeronoise in 2019—and they also acquired Bell, a major purveyor of helmets to Formula 1 and the Indy 500, with 23 of the 33 drivers donning its headwear for the latter. (All the brands would eventually coalesce under the newly formed Racing Force Group in 2021; last year, it ​did $74.1 million in revenue, up 4.8% from 2023.) After they developed the first iteration of Driver’s Eye, the team got it into Formula E racing in 2020, and was able to finalize the development of the tech, testing it in Formula 1 in 2021—and giving race fanatics a new, visceral way to experience the sport. It gained ground, and in 2023 became mandatory in Formula 1. FOX tested Driver’s Eye in some NASCAR races that same year, and now on Sunday you’ll be able to watch the Indy 500 from the perspective of 2023/2024 winner Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Will Power, Marcus Ericsson and Felix Rosenqvist.  Josef Newgarden [Photo: Bell Racing] Of course, there’s more tech wizardry at play behind the scenes than merely hooking up a camera. The Driver’s Eye is mounted in a dark helmet with a massive underexposure—and the track is a massive overexposure. Drivers race with different filters and colors on their visors, which they can tear off in layers periodically throughout the race as they get dirty. Moreover, the Indy 500 is hours long, there are varying weather scenarios, the sun and shadows are moving, and everything is very much in a state of flux. Haristos says Driver’s Eye compensates for all of it, from white balance to the varying visor colors, with a mix of automatic and manual controls, making for a seamless sync with the rest of the program. (Which, let’s be honest, is critical—a director has to use the shots, lest Driver’s Eye be rendered obsolete.)  From a production standpoint, FOX’s Davies says that since the system allows for a view of drivers’ hands on the controls and exactly what they’re looking at in any given moment, it’s also a boon to race commentators, who have told him that’s it’s the most useful angle for them in being able to craft a narrative around what’s happening on the track. Moreover, he says the raw nature of the footage truly shows the athleticism at play on the part of the drivers, something that can get lost in traditional shots. “We can really cover the event from the inside out, instead of the outside in,” he says. And on top of that, he adds, it’s something sponsors like—and request. Thus a bevy of IndyCar racing’s household names. now driving with the cameras embedded in their helmets.  The Driver’s Eye is just one tiny tool in FOX’s arsenal, which seems designed to shock and awe—and plant a flag in their take on the race. For the first time, live drones will be deployed, including custom high-speed FPV drones; there are more than 100 cameras in play, 108 mics, 16 in-car cameras offering views of drivers’ faces and cockpits, and more (including 5.1 surround sound “that’ll blow your head off”). “We’re playing some pretty big hits here and looking forward to seeing how it enhances the big race,” Davies says. “You can see it in a completely different way—even if you’ve watched Indy for as long as it’s been on TV.”

Screenshot from footage shared by the US Coast Guard. US Coast Guard 2025-05-24T12:33:28Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? New video shows the moment the wife of the late OceanGate CEO heard the apparent sound of the Titan sub imploding. "What was that bang?" Wendy Rush said after a slamming noise could be heard through a monitor on the sub's support ship. All five passengers on the sub were killed as it descended to view the Titanic wreck in June 2023. Video footage released by the US Coast Guard shows the moment the wife of the late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush heard the apparent sound of the Titan submersible imploding.In the video, Wendy Rush, a director at the ocean tourism company — which has since suspended all operations — can be seen attempting to contact the sub from the Polar Prince support vessel when a loud slamming sound can be heard through her monitor."What was that bang?" she said, before receiving a message saying the sub had dropped two weights, seeming to give her the impression the trip was going to plan. Analysts say the message may have been sent shortly before the sub imploded but a delay may have caused it to come through later.The Titan sub imploded while descending to view the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023, killing all five people on board.The Titan lost communication with the Polar Prince around one hour and 45 minutes into its dive, sparking a frantic search effort involving US, Canadian, and French rescuers.The vessel's wreckage was discovered by a remotely operated vehicle four days after it went missing, around 500 meters (roughly 1,640 feet) from the bow of the Titanic, per the Coast Guard.OceanGate cofounder Stockton Rush, pilot and adventurer Hamish Harding, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and former French Navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet were the passengers in the vessel.OceanGate charged up to $250,000 per ticket to see the Titanic, which lies at a depth of around 12,500 feet.A passenger waiver form for the Titan viewed by Business Insider in 2023 said the sub had successfully completed "as few as 13" out of 90 dives to the depth of the Titanic.A new Netflix documentary scheduled to be released in June will take a closer look at what caused the tragedy.