The Download: threats from space mirrors and credit for AI drugs

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

This company’s plans to deploy space mirrors could jeopardize the night sky for many

A company that plans to beam sunlight from space to Earth on demand might unintentionally brighten the night sky for many more people than intended, according to a new study.

Later this year, Reflect Orbital plans to launch a test satellite that will extend an 18-by-18-meter mirror in orbit. The goal is to eventually launch up to 50,000 larger satellites that can reflect sunlight to Earth on demand.

Reflect Orbital says the technology could extend sunlight for solar panel charging, emergency response, and military activities. But new research suggests the giant beams could shine as bright as 10,000 full moons and scatter light over tens of kilometers, raising concerns about dark skies, aviation, and wildlife.

Read the full story on the fierce debate over the space mirrors.

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit?

When Insilico Medicine used its computer models to propose a promising drug for pulmonary fibrosis, it enthusiastically claimed that the molecule had been “discovered by” generative AI. But when it filed a patent, the company made no mention of AI. Instead, it named five humans as the drug’s “inventors.”

The discrepancy points to a fascinating wrinkle in intellectual-property law. No matter how fundamental an AI is to a discovery, when it comes to winning rights to an invention, it’s humans—and only humans—who can take the credit.

As AI models become capable of generating drug designs as easily as ChatGPT can write a thank-you note, the question of who actually invented something could get much harder to answer.

Here’s how AI drug discovery could force patent law to confront what it means to invent.

—Antonio Regalado

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The data center backlash is scrambling the midterm electionsIt’s breaking the bipartisan consensus behind America’s AI buildout. (Axios)+ Politicians are turning against the data centers they once championed. (WSJ $)+ Across the political divide, people hate data centers. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Ukraine planned to swarm Moscow airports with AI-guided dronesThe stalled operation aimed to send 1,000 autonomous drones a night. (Atlantic $)+ Kyiv wants Musk’s approval to use Starlink-equipped drones in Russia. (FT $)+ Ukraine’s ex-defense minister wants defense tech funding from the US. (Reuters $)

3 A staggering 90% of biomedical papers show signs of AI useA new study suggests it’s far more common than previously thought. (Nature)+ A third of new web pages also involve AI authorship. (TechCrunch)+ AI for science needs reasoning, not just data. (MIT Technology Review)

4 China plans to make the first landing at the moon’s south pole this yearThe Chang’e 7 mission will hunt for lunar ice. (Scientific American)+ It will deploy robotic landers, rovers, and “hopping” probes. (Reuters $)

5 We need new measures of AI intelligenceBetter experiments could reveal what AI actually understands. (Quanta)+ And human-centered, context-specific metrics. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 A tech billionaire wants to automate the restaurant industryMarc Lore aims to control everything from production to delivery. (FT $)

7 An English county is rejecting Palantir for a homegrown platformGreater Manchester insists it can do a better job itself. (Wired $)

8 New research estimates humans could live for 194 yearsIf we cure all the theoretically curable causes of aging. (New Scientist $)+ Longevity enthusiasts are gaining influence. (MIT Technology Review)

9 The galaxy’s fastest star could show how a black hole warps spacetimeIts orbit could reveal the speed of Sagittarius A*’s spin. (Wired $)

10 Mark Zuckerberg has bought an Irish castleThe 440-acre estate reportedly cost up to €30 million. (Verge)

Quote of the day

“The emperor is a fan of Flock, and we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum.” 

—Darth Vader (or, at least, a man in his costume), passionately defends Flock at a San Diego public safety committee meeting, 404 Media reports.

One More Thing

Meet the new biologists treating LLMs like aliens

LLMs are such vast and complicated systems that nobody quite understands what they are, how they work, or what they can really do—not even the people who build them. That makes it hard to get a grip on their hallucinations, set up effective guardrails, and know when to trust them.

So researchers are trying something different: studying them as if t