Month: June 2024

Once derided for saucy advertisements and romance novel plots, these mobile games are venturing into the mainstream In late May, in a $58m Bel Air hilltop mansion, influencers, reality stars and other Angelenos milled around Netflix-branded TV screens displaying choices to be made: Are you a Gemini or a Capricorn? What color are your eyes? …

As spicy as you want it: interactive fiction games put forward a new kind of narrative Read More »

The Guardian reveals FTX trustees, in charge after the CEO’s downfall, allege payments were made with looted funds Multiple events hosted at a historic former hotel in Berkeley, California, have brought together people from intellectual movements popular at the highest levels in Silicon Valley while platforming prominent people linked to scientific racism, the Guardian reveals. …

Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its $5m back Read More »

A new essay on the rise of superintelligent machines pivots from being a warning to humanity to a rallying cry for an industrial complex to bolster American military defence Ten years ago, the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom published Superintelligence, a book exploring how superintelligent machines could be created and what the implications of such technology …

How’s this for a bombshell – the US must make AI its next Manhattan Project | John Naughton Read More »

Artificial intelligence is creating companions who can be our confidants, friends, therapists and even lovers. But are they an answer to loneliness or merely another way for big tech to make money? Could you fall in love with an artificial intelligence? When Spike Jonze’s film, Her, came out 10 years ago, the question still seemed …

Computer says yes: how AI is changing our romantic lives Read More »

Less than half of Australian children and teens think they can tell real news stories from fake. So how well are we preparing them for a new media world order? Beneath an old Queenslander on the south side of the Brisbane River, beside a garage with a hand-painted sign that reads “recording” and above a …

Reading, writing and … disinformation: should schoolchildren be taught media literacy like maths? Read More »

The student on the image she took while working on a series for her photography A-level Aleesha Coker, then 17, and her two younger sisters, Freda and Bintu, had stopped off at the corner shop for a snack on their way home from school. Coker had been working on a series for her photography A-level, …

‘As their older sister, I feel a responsibility to protect them and be a role model’: Aleesha Coker’s best phone picture Read More »

Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book blames social media for a decline in teenage mental health. But is he right? When I was 13, two of my friends were arrested for shoplifting. Along with two boys in our year, they had decided to bunk off school – our suburban grammar school renowned for its academic excellence – and get the …

I’m an expert on adolescence: here’s why a smartphone ban isn’t the answer, and what we should do instead Read More »

Concerns set out over supply of materials with military applications, and impact of subsidies on global market China’s role in providing assistance to Russia in its war against Ukraine, and its “harmful overcapacity” in the production of cheap goods, have been targeted by G7 leaders despite misgivings from Germany. On the second day of the …

Russian ties and cheap tech: G7 leaders unequivocal in criticism of China Read More »

Apple rolled out a feature highly requested by both disabled users and podcast creators. Why did it take so long? Ren Shelburne was fed up with trying to listen to popular podcast episodes her friends recommended. Shelburne, a photographer with partial hearing loss and an auditory processing condition, remembers struggling to finish a particular episode. …

Accessible and ‘a pleasure to read’: how Apple’s podcast transcriptions came to be Read More »

Pope Francis is leaning on thinking of Paolo Benanti, a friar adept at explaining how technology can change world After a gruelling first day discussing how to finance a prolonged war against an authoritarian dictator, G7 leaders in Puglia next turned for advice from someone who insists he is infallible, and for good measure thinks …

Why the pope has the ears of G7 leaders on the ethics of AI Read More »