Author: The Conversation

When small Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek released a family of extremely efficient and highly competitive AI models in January, it rocked the global tech community. The release revealed China’s growing technological prowess. It also showcased a distinctly Chinese approach to AI advancement. This approach is characterised by strategic investment, efficient innovation and careful regulatory oversight. And it’s evident throughout China’s broader AI landscape, of which DeepSeek is just one player. In fact, the country has a vast ecosystem of AI companies. They may not be globally recognisable names like other AI companies such as DeepSeek, OpenAI and Anthropic. But…

American quantum computing startup PsiQuantum announced yesterday that it has cracked a significant puzzle on the road to making the technology useful: manufacturing quantum chips in useful quantities. PsiQuantum burst out of “stealth mode” in 2021 with a blockbuster funding announcement. It followed up with two more last year. The company uses so-called “photonic” quantum computing, which has long been dismissed as impractical. The approach, which encodes data in individual particles of light, offers some compelling advantages — low noise, high-speed operation, and natural compatibility with existing fibre-optic networks. However, it was held back by extreme hardware demands to manage the fact that photons fly…

Generative AI systems like large language models and text-to-image generators can pass rigorous exams that are required of anyone seeking to become a doctor or a lawyer. They can perform better than most people in Mathematical Olympiads. They can write halfway decent poetry, generate aesthetically pleasing paintings and compose original music. These remarkable capabilities may make it seem like generative artificial intelligence systems are poised to take over human jobs and have a major impact on almost all aspects of society. Yet while the quality of their output sometimes rivals work done by humans, they are also prone to confidently churning out factually incorrect information. Sceptics have also…

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney can produce text, images and videos far more quickly than any one person can accomplish by hand. But as someone who studies the societal impacts of AI, I’ve noticed an interesting trade-off: The technology can certainly save time, but it does so precisely to the extent that the user is willing to surrender control over the final product. For this reason, generative AI is probably most useful for things we care about the least. Ceding creative control Let’s use the example of AI image generators. You probably have a rough idea of how they work. Just type…

OpenAI’s “deep research” is the latest artificial intelligence (AI) tool making waves and promising to do in minutes what would take hours for a human expert to complete. Bundled as a feature in ChatGPT Pro and marketed as a research assistant that can match a trained analyst, it autonomously searches the web, compiles sources and delivers structured reports. It even scored 26.6% on Humanity’s Last Exam (HLE), a tough AI benchmark, outperforming many models. But deep research doesn’t quite live up to the hype. While it produces polished reports, it also has serious flaws. According to journalists who’ve tried it, deep research can miss key details, struggle with recent information…

NASA will soon launch a new telescope which it says will create the “most colourful” map of the cosmos ever made. The SPHEREx telescope is relatively small but will provide a humongous amount of knowledge in its short two-year mission. It is an infrared telescope designed to take spectroscopic images – ones that measure individual wavelengths of light from a source. By doing this it will be able to tell us about the formation of the universe, the growth of all galaxies across cosmic history, and the location of water and life-forming molecules in our own galaxy. In short, the mission –…

Food insecurity is one of humanity’s most pressing challenges, impacting more than two billion people worldwide. Paradoxically, as so many suffer from lack of access to food, more than 30 per cent of the world’s food is wasted each year, driven by inefficiencies in production, distribution and consumption. Outdated, imprecise and often incorrect labelling systems — such as printed expiry dates — contribute to these huge problems, leading to the unnecessary disposal of safe, healthy food, increased greenhouse gas emissions and financial losses. Addressing these crises requires bold investment in sustainable technologies that are already tested and available. These include smart food-packaging innovations that provide…

As in-person dating activities make a comeback and the allure of dating apps fade, platforms like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are becoming passé for millennials and Gen Z. But while the era of dating apps is on the decline, people aren’t ditching the search for love altogether. There are enough heart-shaped chocolates, red lingerie and silicone toys to keep us going for decades. The real question is: who or what is filling the void left by the dating app industry? The answer is artificial intelligence. Tech companies have woven AI into everything from facial recognition software to voice-activated assistants and sexbots. Now, it’s being inserted…

We often forget how wonderful it is that life exists, and what a special and unique phenomenon it is. As far as we know, ours is the only planet capable of supporting life, and it seems to have arisen in the form of something like today’s single-celled prokaryotic organisms. However, scientists have not given up hope of finding what they call LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor, the ancestral cell from which all living things we know are descended) beyond the confines of our planet. Where are we looking? Since humans started dreaming about Martians, scientific understanding has changed significantly. The most recent vehicles…

Netflix knows we’re on our phones while we watch TV. Recent articles discuss Netflix’s or streamers’ requests for creatives to produce content optimized for casual viewing, meaning intentionally scripted for distracted viewers. I’ve spent the last few years researching how Netflix shapes European screen production, a region where the streaming giant has invested billions in original content. I first encountered the concept of “second-screen shows” — created with distracted viewing in mind — in 2022. At the time, I was doing interviews with producers, showrunners, screenwriters and directors who had worked on European Netflix originals (due to confidentiality, they have been given pseudonyms here). Two of my interviewees…