Author: The Conversation

There have been several headlines over the past week about an AI chatbot officially passing the Turing test. These news reports are based on a recent preprint study by two researchers at the University of California, San Diego, in which four large language models (LLMs) were put through the Turing test. One model – OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 – was deemed indistinguishable from a human more than 70% of the time. The Turing test has been popularised as the ultimate indicator of machine intelligence. However, there is disagreement about the validity of this test. In fact, it has a contentious history which calls into question how effective it really is at…

You may have seen ads by Apple promoting its new Clean Up feature that can be used to remove elements in a photo. When one of these ads caught my eye this weekend, I was intrigued and updated my software to try it out. The feature has been available in Australia since December for Apple customers with certain hardware and software capabilities. It’s also available for customers in New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The tool uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse the scene and suggest elements that might be distracting. You can see those…

Electronic microchips are at the heart of the modern world. They’re found in our laptops, our smartphones, our cars and our household appliances. For years, manufacturers have been making them more powerful and efficient, which increases the performance of our electronic devices. But that trend is now faltering because of the increased cost and complexity of manufacturing chips, as well as performance limits set by the laws of physics. This is happening just as there’s a need for increased computing power because of the boom in artificial intelligence (AI). An alternative to the electronic microchips we currently use are photonic chips. These…

“Avoid screens before bed” is one of the most common pieces of sleep advice. But what if the real problem isn’t screen time − it’s the way we use social media at night? Sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread yet overlooked public health issues, especially among young adults and adolescents. Despite needing eight to 10 hours of sleep, most adolescents fall short, while nearly two-thirds of young adults regularly get less than the recommended seven to nine hours. Poor sleep isn’t just about feeling tired − it’s linked to worsened mental health, emotion regulation, memory, academic performance and even increased risk for chronic illness and early mortality. At the same time, social media…

You’re about to recycle your laptop or your phone, so you delete all your photos and personal files. Maybe you even reset the device to factory settings. You probably think your sensitive data is now safe. But there is more to be done: hackers may still be able to retrieve passwords, documents or bank details, even after a reset. In fact, 90% of second-hand laptops, hard drives and memory cards still contain recoverable data. This indicates that many consumers fail to wipe their devices properly before resale or disposal. But there are some simple steps you can take to keep your…

“I’m really not sure what to do anymore. I don’t have anyone I can talk to,” types a lonely user to an AI chatbot. The bot responds: “I’m sorry, but we are going to have to change the topic. I won’t be able to engage in a conversation about your personal life.” Is this response appropriate? The answer depends on what relationship the AI was designed to simulate. Different relationships have different rules AI systems are taking up social roles that have traditionally been the province of humans. More and more we are seeing AI systems acting as tutors, mental…

On April 1, 2025, the Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC introduced the world’s most advanced microchip: the 2-nanometre (2nm) chip. Mass production is expected for the second half of the year, and TSMC promises it will represent a major step forward in performance and efficiency, potentially reshaping the technological landscape. Microchips are the foundation of modern technology, found in nearly all electronic devices, from electric toothbrushes and smartphones to laptops and household appliances. They are made by layering and etching materials like silicon to create microscopic circuits containing billions of transistors. These transistors are effectively tiny switches, managing the flow of electricity and allowing computers to…

The “music” of starquakes – enormous vibrations caused by bursting bubbles of gas that ripple throughout the bodies of many stars – can reveal far more information about the stars’ histories and inner workings than scientists thought. In new research published in Nature, we analysed the frequency signatures of starquakes across a broad range of giant stars in the M67 star cluster, almost 3,000 light years from Earth. Using observations from the Kepler space telescope’s K2 mission, we had a rare opportunity to track the evolution of stars during most of their journey through the giant phase of the stellar life…

Where would we be without knowledge? Everything from the building of spaceships to the development of new therapies has come about through the creation, sharing, and validation of knowledge. It is arguably our most valuable human commodity. From clay tablets to electronic tablets, technology has played an influential role in shaping human knowledge. Today we stand on the brink of the next knowledge revolution. It is one as big as — if not more so — the invention of the printing press, or the dawning of the digital age. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a revolutionary new technology able to collect…

On Thursday, 27 March, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent its last messages to the Gaia Spacecraft. They told Gaia to shut down its communication systems and central computer and said goodbye to this amazing space telescope. Gaia has been the most successful ESA space mission ever, so why did they turn Gaia off? What did Gaia achieve? And perhaps most importantly, why was it my favourite space telescope? Running on empty Gaia was retired for a simple reason: after more than 11 years in space, it ran out of the cold gas propellant it needed to keep scanning the sky. The telescope did its last…