Author: The Conversation

When Beijing-based AI firm Zhipu released its open-source General Language Model (GLM), and it began competing with Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT at a fraction of the price, a familiar question resurfaced. Are we watching a new kind of intelligence, or a very old story? Solar panels and electric vehicles are among the numerous Western inventions that China turned into cheap, plentiful goods, until their inventors could barely profit from them. For American and European tech firms, like Microsoft or NVIDIA, the precedent is uncomfortable. Their stock market valuations rest on an assumption of scarcity: capable models being rare, costly and controlled by whoever trained them gives them an…

Algorithms are central to modern mathematics and computer science. They are explicit procedures valued for their clarity, efficiency and beauty. Beyond these fields, however, the word “algorithm” is most likely to evoke social media feeds, targeted advertising or a combination of the two. Through algorithms, mathematics has become culturally visible as the force behind opaque processes – with unsettling consequences. Public familiarity with algorithms has grown much faster than familiarity with the mathematical ideas they embody. The changing use of the word algorithm reflects this enhanced visibility. In fact, the meaning of this word has changed dramatically over time and has always…

Meta wants users to turn to a cute artificial intelligence (AI) “agent” throughout the day to carry out common tasks for them, such as booking flights or doing their shopping. The company’s new Muse agent shot to the top of the app charts after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg showcased it at a conference last week. Billed as having “no learning curve”, Muse can order groceries online, call customer service, send emails, book appointments and plan travel on a user’s behalf. Agents are systems which use chatbot-like large language models and reinforcement learning to complete tasks and achieve user-designated goals. They have come a long way in the past…

AI agents don’t go rogue. That’s something only humans do. Nevertheless, a New York Times article – representative of much news coverage of AI – described an OpenAI hacking incident as “A.I. bots going rogue and independently spearheading a cyberattack.” Name-brand artificial intelligence agents have been on a hacking spree in 2026. OpenAI’s software agents hacked software company Hugging Face and government sites, Anthropic’s Claude hacked four companies’ systems, and in cybersecurity experiments Google’s Gemini hacked three companies. The AI companies are investigating tens of thousands of incidents involving their agents, according to a report in Axios. These episodes have heightened fears about AI agents taking actions without…

It’s bedtime. You set your alarm, notice your phone is down to 23% battery, plug it in beside the bed and go to sleep. By the morning, it’s been connected to the charger for some seven to eight hours – much longer than it needed to reach 100%, especially if it’s on a fast charger. You may have a vague recollection this could be bad for your phone’s battery. The chemistry that makes lithium-ion batteries rechargeable has a limited shelf life, and it’s shortened by repeated charge–discharge cycles. In the past, the advice has been simple: don’t leave your phone…

Don’t believe the hype about AI taking over all forms of work. Most of the evidence to date suggests large-scale job losses are limited. But what is changing is the way work is organised. One area of increased employment is in people “cleaning up” after large language models (LLMs), or quality controlling them. The sales pitch is that these AI systems can program code, write reports, analyse data and automate routine decisions faster and better than humans, all at negligible marginal cost. In theory, this should free people to focus on higher-level thinking and leisure. In practice, AI agents produce vast amounts of “almost right” output – but…

Anthropic announced today that its Claude artificial intelligence (AI) system identified a previously unknown biological system in the DNA of viruses that infect bacteria. The press release is the first from Anthropic’s new life sciences laboratory. It highlights some similarities to CRISPR, the natural bacterial defence system that scientists now use as a gene-editing technology. It is too soon to say that Claude – or the team of human researchers involved – has discovered a “new CRISPR”. But the result does show us something about how AI is beginning to work in science, with more autonomy than simply analysing data or answering the…

Some of us now use generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) to talk through difficult feelings. We may ask a chatbot to write an email or plan a holiday, but we also tell it that we have had a rotten day or feel anxious about a presentation. A 2025 US survey of 1,058 people aged 12 to 21 found that 13% had sought advice from gen AI when feeling sad, angry or nervous. Among those aged 18 to 21, the figure was 22%. These findings suggest that turning to gen AI for emotional or mental health support is already relatively common among young people. So…

The phone rings, and it’s your grandson’s shaken voice. There’s been an accident, he says, and he needs money before anyone finds out. Except it isn’t him. It’s software that learned his voice from a clip posted online, run by a stranger working through a list of phone numbers. For years, warnings about artificial intelligence and cybersecurity have focused on corporate networks and government systems. Those threats are real. But if you follow the money in the FBI’s fraud data, a different picture emerges: Staggering sums are flowing out of household accounts. In its 2025 annual report, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center began tracking…

The recent landmark ruling against Meta in the United States was the result of a lawsuit filed in 2023, which went to trial in August 2026. It was brought by nearly fifty attorneys general, school districts and families, who alleged that the company’s social media platforms, which include Instagram and Facebook, pose serious risks to mental health. The case ended in a $18 billion settlement and imposed direct structural changes on the way Instagram and Facebook operate. These could eventually extend to other platforms and social media networks, according to Attorney General William Tong. Here, we will look at the scientific basis for each of…