The Download: AI puzzles and a path to our nearest star system

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This edition of MIT Technology Review's daily newsletter bundles two distinct AI stories. The more consequential is OpenAI restricting an upcoming model after its own safety evaluations rated it a 'critical' cybersecurity risk — no further details are provided in this digest, but it represents a notable instance of a frontier lab voluntarily restricting a model on safety grounds before release. The second story covers the Fermi Explorer Mission, a nonprofit that announced plans to launch a spacecraft toward Alpha Centauri by end of 2029. The mission trajectory was discovered by an AI system developed by PSI, a physics research lab. The spacecraft would take up to 80,000 years to reach the star system 4.4 light-years away — the mission value is in developing the trajectory methodology and interstellar precedent. The newsletter also covers AI performance on the New York Times Connections puzzle, which improved from 18% success in late 2024 to near-perfect by early 2025, and touches on the evolving role of astronauts following Artemis II. Note: This is a newsletter digest — none of the stories receive full coverage. The OpenAI cyber risk item likely has a dedicated article with substantially more detail.