Author: The Conversation

It has the potential to ruin relationships, reputations and our online reality. “Deepfake” artificial intelligence technology promises to create doctored videos so realistic that they’re almost impossible to tell from the real thing. So far it has mostly been used to create altered pornographic clips featuring celebrity women’s faces but once the techniques are perfected, deepfake revenge porn purporting to show people cheating on their partners won’t be far behind. But more than becoming a nasty tool for stalkers and harassers, deepfakes threaten to undermine trust in political institutions and society as a whole. The White House recently justified temporarily banning a…

If social media was a person, you’d probably avoid them. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are loaded with pictures of people going to exotic places, looking like they are about to be on the cover of Vogue, and otherwise living a fairy-tale existence. And, like all fairy tales, these narratives feel a lot like fiction. When you compare the “projected reality” to your lived experience, it would be easy to conclude that you do not measure up. Research shows that young adults are especially vulnerable to this phenomenon. We have also studied this trend in graduate students, our next generation of scholars: they too, implicitly…

About a quarter of internet users use a virtual private network, a software setup that creates a secure, encrypted data connection between their own computer and another one elsewhere on the internet. Many people use them to protect their privacy when using Wi-Fi hotspots, or to connect securely to workplace networks while traveling. Other users are concerned about surveillance from governments and internet providers. Many VPN companies promise to use strong encryption to secure data, and say they protect users’ privacy by not storing records of where people access the service or what they do while connected. If everything worked the way it was supposed to,…

Most of us will have entered into consumer contracts with large companies and ticked a box to confirm we understand the terms and conditions – without bothering to read the fine print. We accept standard form contracts when using social media, booking flights, opening a bank account, subscribing to a gym or renting a car. In all these cases, companies offer pre-drafted standardised agreements that are not negotiable. At the same time, consumers are legally assumed to read the terms and conditions of their contracts. Because of this “duty to read”, consumers are held responsible for the written terms of their agreements,…

John J Reilly, University of Strathclyde ; Anthony (Tony) Okely, University of Wollongong; Catherine Draper, University of the Witwatersrand, and Mark S. Tremblay, University of Ottawa There is increasing concern about the amount of time children and adolescents are spending in recreational screen time. There’s also increasing controversy over whether or not screen time is actually harmful. Since 2016, we (researchers who’ve contributed to the development of the 24-hour movement guidelines for children and adolescents) have led a number of wide-ranging reviews of the scientific evidence on the impact of screen time from infancy to early adulthood. We examined whether…

As Facebook celebrates 15 years of virtual friendship, social science has compiled an expansive body of research that documents the public’s love-hate relationship with its best frenemy. What many once viewed as a confidant has devolved into a messy codependence, mired by ambiguity and mistrust. It’s a relationship that’s both taken for granted, yet extremely high-maintenance, leaving users to wonder whether they should just move on with healthier friends. But it wasn’t always like this. Friendly beginnings At its launch, Facebook was one of the most authentic social networking partners. Existing online networks, like MySpace, had influential parent companies that chaperoned their platforms, pestering users…

It’s a new day not very far in the future. You wake up; your wristwatch has recorded how long you’ve slept, and monitored your heartbeat and breathing. You drive to work; car sensors track your speed and braking. You pick up some breakfast on your way, paying electronically; the transaction and the calorie content of your meal are recorded. Then you have a car accident. You phone your insurance company. Your call is answered immediately. The voice on the other end knows your name and amiably chats to you about your pet cat and how your favourite football team did…

IBM recently unveiled what it claimed was the world’s first commercial quantum computer. While the announcement of the Q System One wasn’t scientifically groundbreaking, the fact that IBM sees this as a commercial product that organisations (if not individuals) will want to use is an important breakthrough. IBM has taken a prototype technology that has existed in the lab for over 20 years and launched it in the real world. In doing so, it marks an important step towards the next generation of computing technology becoming ubiquitous, something the world isn’t yet ready for. In fact, quantum may well prove to be the most…

Never in the history of the mobile phone has there been so much hype about a new technology ahead of its launch than there is with 5G. It seems that the mobile phone operators, handset manufacturers and equipment vendors are locked into a massive global game of one-upmanship, seeking to claim to be the first to achieve something groundbreaking with the technology. But the stakes are high – the mobile industry also desperately needs 5G, whether for new revenue sources, market share or to drive growth. Since mobile phones first appeared in the mid-1980s, the industry has launched several new “generations” of…

The human brain has amazing capabilities making it in many ways more powerful than the world’s most advanced computers. So it’s not surprising that engineers have long been trying to copy it. Today, artificial neural networks inspired by the structure of the brain are used to tackle some of the most difficult problems in artificial intelligence (AI). But this approach typically involves building software so information is processed in a similar way to the brain, rather than creating hardware that mimics neurons. My colleagues and I instead hope to build the first dedicated neural network computer, using the latest “quantum” technology rather…