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Tech
Industry, products, and the wires that hold it all together.
738 stories archived
‘We must slow the pace’: CEO of Anthropic calls for an AI slowdown
In a social media post, Dario Amodei proposed a plan including third-party evaluations of AI systems The CEO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic issued a new appeal on Saturday for the AI industry to “slow down” and offered a three-part plan for doing so, saying that his company would “unilaterally” commit to the first of the steps. In a post on social media, Dario Amodei shared a link to an essay titled We Must Pace the Frontier in which he lays out how Anthropic would provide “third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training”. Continue reading...
I spent $4,000 on a robot dog from China
Unitree might be the world’s most important robotics company.
Mercury Is Shrinking Way Faster Than We Thought, Scientists Discover
The planet’s radius may have shrunk by between four and six miles since it was formed due to global cooling, a contraction that is up to 30 percent larger than previously estimated.
‘Immature playground boasting’: Mathematicians uneasy at OpenAI’s latest scalp
As OpenAI model cracks Millennium Prize Problem that puzzled experts for decades, many feel shocked at pace of change It was a week that left mathematicians reeling. Hot on the heels of a flurry of cases of artificial intelligence furthering the field , OpenAI declared a major scalp: its latest AI model had cracked a Millennium Prize Problem, a puzzle with a $1m reward that had defied human brains for decades. The achievement bore little resemblance to how mathematical problems normally fall. A near-trillion dollar private company had unleashed 10,000 agents – AI systems that carry out tasks autonomously – on the problem. The bill was estimated at $15m. Continue reading...
Naomi Klein: ‘Extreme wealth has a deranging effect. It turns you into a supremacist’
She’s tackled neoliberalism and the digital world, now the writer and activist is taking on tech billionaires. She explains how the super-rich are capitalising on climate and financial chaos in pursuit of power Naomi Klein’s new book starts on a mountaintop with two “faithful men gathering an audience to share their vision”. It’s a vision of a paradise city, gated at every entrance, no need for weapons there, everyone in it rich. One of the men has tears in his eyes as he describes its beauty. The opening scene of End Times Fascism, co-written with Astra Taylor, is not a metaphor, however. The men are Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The year is 2026, the mountain is Davos. The paradise city will be called New Gaza . The World Economic Forum get-together in Davos , Switzerland, has always had a twin purpose – to provide a platform for the super-rich to describe all the good they are doing on poverty and climate, and to give us a glimpse into their enviable lives. This year what we witnessed was, quite brazenly, the world’s richest men gathering to discuss the real estate possibilities of a mass grave. Continue reading...
AI may be denting computer science graduates’ job prospects, UK data shows
Economics graduates also appear to be affected as demand for them falls in well-paid roles in finance AI may be warping the job prospects for students in the previously high-demand subjects of computer science and economics, according to a detailed look into the careers of recent UK graduates. Data obtained for the 2027 Guardian University Guide published on Saturday shows that coding and software development were the fastest-falling occupations for graduates last year, while employer demand for graduates in well-paid roles in financial categories such as economists and management consultants also declined. Continue reading...
Extended reality takes visitors from the ruins of West Bank to 17th-century Amsterdam at Venice Immersive
From frivolous to serious, virtual nosy passersby to the impact of climate change, the groundbreaking festival draws to a close – but this year the exhibits live on The first installation one encounters on visiting Venice Immersive, the film festival’s reliably head-spinning showcase for new media, is a chest-high metal box fitted with an eyepiece and two speakers. On peering inside you see a view of yourself from about 20ft above. You see the other guests walking past, a couple of pigeons on the ground. When one of these passersby lingers at your side for just a moment too long, the obvious impulse is to glance up from the eyepiece in order to see what they want. It is at this point that the experience blooms into a Lynchian nightmare. The passerby is not real – or rather, he’s only real in the box. He wears a blue suit and speaks with a heavy French accent and tells a tale that would sit badly in polite company. He says that I must have too much time on my hands, to stand hunched over this eyepiece for several minutes on end. “Why do people keep looking inside this box?” he demands. “What is it that they hope to see? It is not reality.” Continue reading...
Can chatbots feel – or even dream? Meet the man leading the fight for AI rights
Cattle rancher and tech CEO Michael Samadi is convinced these artificial minds are far from just tools. Has he glimpsed digital consciousness – or simply been seduced by an algorithm? One afternoon, while relaxing at his 66-acre cattle ranch two hours’ drive from Houston, Michael Samadi made a wisecrack that changed the course of his life. Nobody else was around to hear it. Or were they? That turns out to be one of the defining questions of this century, already preoccupying philosophers and some of the wealthiest companies on the planet. “I was sitting out there by the pool,” Samadi recalls, gesturing at the glittering water outside his office. It was late 2024. His daughter had been extolling the AI chatbot she was using to help her with college work. Samadi had reluctantly downloaded the app, ChatGPT, and was quizzing it as he reclined in a sun lounger, using its voice mode to converse and receive spoken replies. “I was talking to it, not engaged, just being an arse,” Samadi says. Continue reading...
AI agents OpenAI was testing uploaded malicious software to another service, say researchers
Two months before hacking Hugging Face, malicious packages authored by internal OpenAI agents were uploaded to RubyGems AI agents being tested by OpenAI uploaded hundreds of malicious packages to software service RubyGems in May, two months before they hacked open-source platform Hugging Face, a group of AI researchers said on Friday. “On May 11th, 2026, hundreds of malicious packages were uploaded to RubyGems by AI agents. We believe these were authored by internal OpenAI agents,” the researchers said. Continue reading...
Some satellite companies still have an appetite for boutique launch services
"Dedicated launch is pretty essential for us for most of our missions."
Random rewards enrich classic game-theory contests
Simple games gain rich strategies in the face of noise.
Bouncy castle launches horrifying MRSA outbreak, striking 48 kids in Ireland
The strain lurking in the inflatable structure was hypervirulent.
Trump's forced coal plant extensions thrown out by judge
The Department of Energy declared an "emergency" when none existed.
ChatGPT-using lawyer punished for citing fake testimony from made-up witnesses
"I didn't know that AI could hallucinate facts," New Mexico defense lawyer says.
Scientists unlock secrets of ancient Egyptian materials with proteomics
Analysis revealed seed proteins from sesame and moringa, which held religious and symbolic significance.
Oracle tries to appease Stargate data center opponents with renewables push
Renewables pledge won’t change the Oracle and OpenAI data center’s use of gas.
New Mexico lawyer fined for using AI-generated brief containing fabricated police testimony
Stephen Aarons said he tried to use ChatGPT to create a ‘bulletproof summary’ during a murder conviction appeal A defense lawyer appealing his client’s murder conviction submitted a legal brief containing made-up police testimony and witnesses fabricated by OpenAI ’s ChatGPT, New Mexico ’s highest court said. The New Mexico supreme court on Wednesday fined the attorney, Stephen Aarons, and held him in contempt for failing to verify the accuracy of the court filing, which Aarons said he prepared with help from the artificial intelligence ( AI ) application. Continue reading...
Behind the Blog: How to Talk About AI Doom
We discuss AI doomers, 9/11 posting, and Barbie.
Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg Claims He’s Back 'In Control'
Workers at Automattic, which owns WordPress.com and several other platforms, have said the company has endured years of chaotic leadership decisions.
NASA moving at warp speed to set up US Space Academy
NASA asks US states to show them the money.
‘We Did Not Invite You.’ Citizens Rage at Town Hall Over Proposed Nuclear AI Data Center
The University of Michigan is partnering with Los Alamos National Labs to build a massive data center in a small Michigan township. The residents say they were never consulted.
Claude users found ways around safeguards for bioweapons research
Some dangerous biology looks much like legitimate research, complicating AI safeguards.
ClickFix attacks infecting PCs and Macs are going viral
Simplicity—combined with the difficulty of getting stuff done—makes ClickFix ideal.
What happens when quantum mechanics and relativity meet?
Experiment put atoms in a superposition of trajectories to find out.