Author: The Conversation

Artificial intelligence or AI uses computers to perform tasks that would normally have needed human intelligence. Today AI is being put to use in many aspects of everyday life, like virtual banking assistants, health chatbots, self-driving cars, even the recommendations you see on social media. A new survey of over 3,000 South Africans from all walks of life asked how people feel about AI. It reveals that most South Africans can’t relate to AI in meaningful ways – despite the global hype about its pros and cons. We asked two of its authors to tell us more. What did you find? The research…

When the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory goes online later this decade, it will create one of science’s biggest data challenges. The SKA Observatory is a global radio telescope project built in the Southern Hemisphere. There, views of our Milky Way are clearest and the SKA’s remote sites limit human-made radio interference. The project spans two sites: approximately 131,000 Christmas-tree-shaped antennas in western Australia and 200 large dish antennas in the Karoo region of South Africa. As part of this international collaboration, Canada has established a data-processing centre at the University of Victoria. The SKA Observatory will produce around 600 petabytes of data each…

Generative AI promises to help solve everything from climate change to poverty. But behind every chatbot response lies a deep environmental cost. Current AI technology requires the use of large datacentres stationed around the world, which altogether draw enormous amounts of power and consume millions of litres of water to stay cool. By 2030, datacentres are expect to consume as much electricity as all of Japan, according to the International Energy Agency, and AI could be responsible for 3.5% of global electricity use, according to one consultancy report. The continuous massive expansion of AI use and its rapidly growing energy demand would…

OpenAI’s latest research paper diagnoses exactly why ChatGPT and other large language models can make things up – known in the world of artificial intelligence as “hallucination”. It also reveals why the problem may be unfixable, at least as far as consumers are concerned. The paper provides the most rigorous mathematical explanation yet for why these models confidently state falsehoods. It demonstrates that these aren’t just an unfortunate side effect of the way that AIs are currently trained, but are mathematically inevitable. The issue can partly be explained by mistakes in the underlying data used to train the AIs. But using mathematical analysis…

Imagine adjusting the temperature of the air conditioning or skipping a song in your car, not by fiddling with a screen or voice command, but simply by swiping your hand across the fabric of your seatbelt. It sounds futuristic, but this is the direction automotive design could be shifting towards — away from screens and buttons, and towards multi-touch textiles that sense your gestures and respond to them. I am an interaction design professor and director of a research lab that develops smart textile technology. These textiles can transform how people interact with everyday objects and materials, including car interiors,…

Social companion robots are no longer just science fiction. In classrooms, libraries and homes, these small machines are designed to read stories, play games or offer comfort to children. They promise to support learning and companionship, yet their role in family life often extends beyond their original purpose. In our recent study of families in Canada and the United States, we found that even after a children’s reading robot “retired” or was no longer in active and regular use, most households chose to keep it — treating it less like a gadget and more like a member of the family. Luka…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how students write essays, practise languages and complete assignments. Teachers are also experimenting with AI for lesson planning, grading and feedback. The pace is so fast that schools, universities and policymakers are struggling to keep up. What often gets overlooked in this rush is a basic question: how are students and teachers actually learning to use AI? Right now, most of this learning happens informally. Students trade advice on TikTok or Discord, or even ask ChatGPT for instructions. Teachers swap tips in staff rooms or glean information from LinkedIn discussions. These networks spread knowledge quickly but…

You’re introduced to someone and your attention catches on their eyes. They might be a rich, earthy brown, a pale blue, or the rare green that shifts with every flicker of light. Eyes have a way of holding us, of sparking recognition or curiosity before a single word is spoken. They are often the first thing we notice about someone, and sometimes the feature we remember most. Across the world, human eyes span a wide palette. Brown is by far the most common shade, especially in Africa and Asia, while blue is most often seen in northern and eastern Europe.…

Attempts at communicating what generative artificial intelligence (AI) is and what it does have produced a range of metaphors and analogies. From a “black box” to “autocomplete on steroids”, a “parrot”, and even a pair of “sneakers”, the goal is to make the understanding of a complex piece of technology accessible by grounding it in everyday experiences – even if the resulting comparison is often oversimplified or misleading. One increasingly widespread analogy describes generative AI as a “calculator for words”. Popularised in part by the chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, the calculator comparison suggests that much like the familiar plastic…

Back in the 2000s, the American pharmaceutical firm Wyeth was sued by thousands of women who had developed breast cancer after taking its hormone replacement drugs. Court filings revealed the role of “dozens of ghostwritten reviews and commentaries published in medical journals and supplements being used to promote unproven benefits and downplay harms” related to the drugs. Wyeth, which was taken over by Pfizer in 2009, had paid a medical communications firm to produce these articles, which were published under the bylines of leading doctors in the field (with their consent). Any medical professionals reading these articles and relying on them for prescription advice…