Dear reader,
2025 is only a month old, and it already feels like it’s been a year. A big chunk of that feeling can be attributed to the second Trump presidency kick-off – the sheer volume of executive orders issued on the very first day and countless Elon Musk memes aged me at least five years.
Meanwhile, Trump is looking back at the years of his youth. The returning president has been going down the memory lane by trashing bills that take the US back to the 1960s. Goodbye Paris Agreement, goodbye 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity rule, and goodbye many federal websites containing DEI and reproductive rights information, or the Department of Justice database on the Capitol Riots.
While activists are racing to archive important environmental data before it’s too late, the Big Tech is along for the ride. Following the legislative tsunami in Brussels including files like DSA, DMA, AI Act (and more), tech companies are looking to Trump to fend off what they perceive as “censorship” from the EU. Elon Musk’s peers are also aligning with the new administration in other ways, such as reducing their corporate DEI programmes.
While Trump’s response to this Big Tech seduction remains up in the air, he is already giving European regulators a headache by wanting to fire three members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The body supervises US surveillance and handles complaints about management of Europeans’ data – a key part of the EU-US Privacy Shield deal struck in 2023. Two previous data flow deals are dead, and this turn of events puts the “three time’s the charm” rule into question.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Polish Presidency of the Council is betting big on security on all fronts, including digital – from fighting misinformation to preventing cyber-attacks. The European Commission is staying silent, allegedly reassessing its probes into American Big Tech companies. China, on the other hand, is following Deng Xiaoping’s famous “hide your strength, bide your time” philosophy. A surprise drop of a powerful new Chinese AI model, DeepSeek, wiped $1tn off US tech stocks in record time.
Before we go fully into the 60s and start a big techno-trade Cold War, let’s take a breath and catch up on some news our wonderful contributors picked out.
Until next time!
Julia
Love reading out-of-the-Brussels-bubble tech news? Share it with your friends and colleagues. They can subscribe here. Ideas? Suggestions? Comments? Send them our way!
#TechAways is brought to you by SEC Newgate EU’s one and only #tech team featuring Julia Piwowarska, Camilla Frison, and Ali El Majjaoui.
One prompt at a time, please. AI is poisoning our planet ⚗️ [The Next Web]
Simple maths: how many electronic devices (such as tablets, smartphones, laptops, monitors) do you own? Now, how many of those will you probably replace over the next five years? And how many people around the world will do the same? Add all these numbers up, and what do you get? Yep, exactly: a massive e-waste problem. A recent study has put a number on it: by 2030, we could hit 5 million tonnes of e-waste. That’s one million elephants standing side by side. The main reason behind this surge is the widespread use of AI, which needs tons of computing power and storage, plus the fact that tech gadgets have a relatively short lifetime. We don’t need to crunch more numbers to see the environmental mess we’re heading toward: the toxic chemicals from these devices could end up poisoning the soil, water and air we breathe. To avoid this, the study suggests we all embrace the circular economy and avoid unnecessary electronic purchases.
Dark oxygen: minerals power life from the deep sea 💨 [Tech Crunch]
If we’re still breathing and alive, it’s thanks to phytoplankton. It might sound like the name of an indie band, but it refers to the vast array of plants floating across our oceans and producing most of the oxygen for the humankind. We all know this: plants get sunlight, plants get excited, plants produce oxygen. But recent discoveries are raising serious questions about the origin of life on Earth. Take a deep breath: a team of scientists has found that deep in the Pacific Ocean, some minerals can generate oxygen in light-deprived environments. This is called “dark oxygen.” Release your breath. They probably could have called us to come up with a catchier name, but they decided to call it “dark” because it is found more than 4,000 meters below the surface, where no light can be found. And what happens on Earth echoes in space… NASA is currently studying this phenomenon, as it could offer a hint on how life might be sustained on other planets without direct sunlight.
AI vs snakes 🐍 [Ars Technica]
AI is taking a shot at snake venom, and the results are both promising and incomplete. Researchers have used AI to design proteins that can neutralise toxins found in venom, a step to developing better snakebite treatment. Current anti-venom methods rely on injecting animals with venom to create antibodies, but these treatments are costly, require refrigeration, and have short shelf lives. Focusing on “three-finger toxins” found in cobras and mambas, AI tools designed proteins that bind with and block these deadly molecules. During tests, one protein successfully protected mice from neurotoxic effects, even when administered after exposure. However, when tackling cell-damaging toxins from spitting cobras, the results were less effective, suggesting researchers may have targeted the wrong areas of the toxin. It’s a small step forward, but the battle against snake venom isn’t over yet.
AI fails the history exam 📖 [Tech Crunch]
AI may be a genius at coding and generating podcasts, but history? Not really. A recent study tested top language models with advanced historical questions, and the results were disappointing. Researchers found that even the best-performing model had 46% accuracy, barely any better than random guessing! So, what’s the issue with AI and history? First of all, it lacks the depth of understanding required for complex historical analysis. The researchers also observed other trends, such as models performing worse on questions about certain regions, like the sub-Saharan Africa, indicating potential biases in their training data. While researchers are optimistic that AI will one day assist historians, for now, thankfully we can rely on historians with PhDs.
In case you haven’t had enough:
Dictatorships Will Be Vulnerable to Algorithms [WIRED]
Inside the AI startup refining Hollywood — one f-bomb at a time [The Next Web]
AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it [MIT Technology Review]
Could Humans Have a Brain Microbiome? [WIRED]
Looking for a new job? How about becoming an EV teledriver? [The Next Web]
About this week’s editor, Julia Miriam Piwowarska:
I’ve been a media consultant at SEC Newgate EU for the past three years and a Brussels apologist for four (seriously, the weather is not that bad… coming from Poland, at least). My free time revolves around food. If you want to try a new coffee place under the guise of networking, get in touch!