The Download: bad news for inner Neanderthals, and AI warfare’s human illusion

The Download: bad news for inner Neanderthals, and AI warfare’s human illusion Plus: Despite blacklisting Anthropic, the White House wants its new model. 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. The problem with thinking you’re part Neanderthal There’s a theory that many of us have an “inner Neanderthal.” The idea is that Homo sapiens and a cousin species once bred, leaving some people today with a trace of Neanderthal DNA. This DNA is arguably the 21st century’s most celebrated discovery in human evolution. But in 2024, a pair of French geneticists called into question the theory's very foundations. They proposed that what scientists interpret as interbreeding could instead be explained by population structure—the way genes concentrate in smaller, isolated groups. Find out what…