The Download: the hunt for underground hydrogen and more rogue OpenAI agents

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How much hydrogen awaits us underground? A flurry of exploration efforts is searching for underground stores of hydrogen gas, which could provide a valuable source of zero-carbon fuel. The hunt has spread all over the world and engaged dozens of startups, including the Bill Gates–backed Koloma, which has been poking around the US Midwest to reach ancient oceanic rocks associated with hydrogen production. But the search so far has come up short.  No one has yet reported finding a commercially viable reservoir of the gas, and public data on what has been found remains in short supply. Yet researchers estimate that trillions of tons of H₂ are produced within Earth’s crust. If a small fraction could be recovered, it could meet global hydrogen demand for centuries. Follow the global race to find hydrogen underground. —James Dinneen This story is from our latest print magazine, which is all about kids. to receive every issue when it lands. Trump is not doing that on data centers.” —Darrell M. West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation, tells NPR that Republican midterm candidates are at odds with President Trump over data centers. One more thing What is AI? Artificial intelligence is the hottest technology of our time. It sounds like a stupid question, but it’s one that’s never been more urgent.  Here’s the short answer: AI is a catchall term for a set of technologies that make computers do things that are thought to require intelligence when done by people. But even that definition contains multitudes. And that right there is the problem. What does it mean for machines to understand speech or write a sentence? What kinds of tasks could we ask such machines to do? And how much should we trust the machines to do them? Here’s why we still can’t agree on what AI actually is—and the real-world consequences it’s creating. —Will Douglas Heaven We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas?