Author: The Conversation

The search for life beyond Earth is a key driver of modern astronomy and planetary science. The U.S. is building multiple major telescopes and planetary probes to advance this search. However, the signs of life – called biosignatures – that scientists may find will likely be difficult to interpret. Figuring out where exactly to look also remains challenging. I am an astrophysicist and astrobiologist with over 20 years of experience studying extrasolar planets – which are planets beyond our solar system. My colleagues and I have developed a new approach that will identify the most interesting planets or moons to search for life and help…

In less than three years, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has radically changed the assessment landscape. In this time, universities have taken various approaches, from outright banning the use of generative AI, to allowing it in some circumstances, to allowing AI by default. But some university teachers and students have reported they remain confused and anxious, unsure about what counts as “appropriate use” of AI. This has been accompanied by concerns AI is facilitating a rise in cheating. There is also a broader question about the value of university degrees today if AI is used in student assessments. In a new journal article, we examine current approaches…

The world’s most developed economies have also burned the most oil and coal (fossil fuels) over the years, causing the most climate change damage. Preventing further climate change means a global fossil fuel phase-out must happen by 2050. Climate change mitigation scientists Sven Teske and Saori Miyake analysed the potential for renewable energy in each of the G20 countries. They concluded that the G20 is in a position to generate enough renewable energy to supply the world. For African countries to benefit, they must adopt long-term renewable energy plans and policies and secure finance from G20 countries to set up renewable energy…

Jensen Huang believes questions of whether artificial intelligence could destroy humanity are fear-mongering – and get in the way of progress. The founder of Nvidia, which makes the computer chips enabling AI such as ChatGPT, he was rankled when a journalist wondered if he is “an AI Robert Oppenheimer”. He’s not building bombs, he responded. But for journalist Stephen Witt, what he terms “The Fear” (shared by arguably “the three most cited computer scientists alive”) was a motive for writing The Thinking Machine, his history of Nvidia. His book, which doubles as a biography of its founder, asks: what does the artificial intelligence Nvidia…

If you’ve worried that AI might take your job, deprive you of your livelihood, or maybe even replace your role in society, it probably feels good to see the latest AI tools fail spectacularly. If AI recommends glue as a pizza topping, then you’re safe for another day. But the fact remains that AI already has definite advantages over even the most skilled humans, and knowing where these advantages arise — and where they don’t — will be key to adapting to the AI-infused workforce. AI will often not be as effective as a human doing the same job. It won’t…

The problem is simple: it’s hard to know whether a photo’s real or not anymore. Photo manipulation tools are so good, so common and easy to use, that a picture’s truthfulness is no longer guaranteed. The situation got trickier with the uptake of generative artificial intelligence. Anyone with an internet connection can cook up just about any image, plausible or fantasy, with photorealistic quality, and present it as real. This affects our ability to discern truth in a world increasingly influenced by images. I teach and research the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), including how we use and understand digital images. Many people ask how we…

Next time you’re working in a coffee shop or similar public space, take a moment to look around at your “co-workers” for the day, busy, like you are, with laptops, cellphones and tablets. How many of those devices belong to the organisations that employ them? Or are they – and you – using personal devices to conduct company business? Many businesses are embracing the convenience of a practice known as “bring your own device”. This allows employees to use their personal or privately owned devices such as smartphones, laptops, USB drives, and even personal cloud storage, for work purposes. A…

For years, astronomers have predicted a dramatic fate for our galaxy: a head-on collision with Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbour. This merger – expected in about 5 billion years – has become a staple of astronomy documentaries, textbooks and popular science writing. But in our new study published in Nature Astronomy, led by Till Sawala from the University of Helsinki, we find the Milky Way’s future might not be as certain as previously assumed. By carefully accounting for uncertainties in existing measurements, and including the gravitational influence of other nearby galaxies, we found there is only about a 50% chance…

People turn to the internet to run billions of search queries each year. These range from keeping tabs on world events and celebrities to learning new words and getting DIY help. One of the most popular questions recently asked was: “How to inspect a used car?”. If you asked Google this at the beginning of 2024, you would have been served a list of individual search results and the order would have depended on several factors. If you asked the same question at the end of the year, the experience would be completely different. That’s because Google, which controls the search engine market,…

About a century ago, scientists were struggling to reconcile what seemed to be a contradiction in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Published in 1915, and already widely accepted worldwide by physicists and mathematicians, the theory assumed the universe was static – unchanging, unmoving and immutable. In short, Einstein believed the size and shape of the universe today was, more or less, the same size and shape it had always been. But when astronomers looked into the night sky at faraway galaxies with powerful telescopes, they saw hints the universe was anything but that. These new observations suggested the opposite…