Author: The Conversation

Misleading information online is often treated as a technical glitch, something that better algorithms or stricter moderation can fix. But research points to a more complex reality. That is, the rise of “misfluencers”, individuals who shape how information is interpreted, shared and trusted across digital platforms. Whether acting deliberately or not, they tap into emotion, identity and community to amplify misleading claims in ways that feel credible and relatable. This human layer makes misinformation harder to detect and regulate. It’s a danger when it comes to everyday decisions about important topics like health, finance and technology. Understanding how misfluencers operate…

We’ve heard a lot about the artificial intelligence (AI) boom and how enormous amounts of money are being poured into companies building ever more powerful technologies. That boom is now taking a new turn as major AI players edge closer to becoming publicly-traded companies. According to reports, OpenAI is preparing to file confidentially for a public listing that could value the ChatGPT maker at hundreds of billions of dollars. Rivals, including Anthropic (Claude) and Elon Musk’s SpaceX – which just absorbed xAI (Grok) – are also moving toward the stock market. What many people may not realise, however, is that, through retirement funds,…

Many of the most exciting discoveries in science involve highly specialised knowledge and making connections between far-flung facts. Scientists must combine deep analysis with broad reasoning strategies. As in many information-rich tasks, researchers are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) systems to speed up their work. AI tools may be able to support key steps such as generating ideas, reviewing existing work and analysing data. The latest systems use large language models (LLMs) to allow scientists to interact naturally and directly with the vast body of knowledge captured in words in the scientific literature. But as two new systems described in papers just published in Nature show, when…

On Monday, a nine-member federal jury in Oakland, California, took less than two hours to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman. Crucially, the jury did not rule on the core claims of the case. These included whether OpenAI, the company behind the popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, strayed from its founding mission and whether Altman and OpenAI’s co-founder Greg Brockman enriched themselves at the expense of a charitable purpose. It decided only that Musk had waited too long to sue in relation to his core claims about breaches of a founding contract or breach of…

How does a medium once branded “the devil’s own box” become the fireplace around which a nation tries to rekindle its broken identity? This question lies at the heart of our recently published book that marks 50 years since the flicker of the first official TV broadcast in South Africa in 1976. The volume takes stock of television’s journey from a tool of state propaganda to a contested site of democratic expression. Today, this fireplace has expanded beyond the state-owned public broadcaster to incorporate private TV channels and platforms. It has evolved into the digital frontier of streaming services like Netflix, SABC+ and the…

Tech giant Meta recently announced a set of new features to give parents greater oversight of how their children use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Horizon. This follows the company’s announcement earlier this month that it is expanding age assurance checks to filter 13-to-17-year-old users into teen accounts in the United States and other countries, following Australia’s rollout in 2025. Meta is also implementing new age checks and easier reporting of underage users to support account removals. These changes come as Meta faces increasing pressure internationally to do more to keep kids safe on its platforms. So what exactly are the changes? And will they likely work…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has crossed a threshold in the modern workplace. It is being used for everything from helping employees manage schedules to supporting financial forecasts. A similar shift is now unfolding inside research laboratories. There is currently a boom in national initiatives to accelerate the integration of AI into science. These include the US Genesis Mission and South Korea’s AI Co-Scientist Challenge. But despite clear benefits, we believe these institutional drives are neglecting important issues that carry immense risks for scientific research. Today, more than half of researchers use AI for work tasks, including reviews of academic journals and designing experiments. AlphaFold is an AI tool developed…

From live speech translation in video calls to auto-dubbing on TikTok, the technology to dissolve language barriers has arrived. Real-time translation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) is now embedded in everyday life. Tools from OpenAI, Meta, Google and many others now offer near-instant translation across dozens of languages, and they keep improving. All this raises a vital question. If machines can do this faster and more accurately than humans, is investing years in learning another language still worth it? The logic is appealing. Humans have always offloaded cognitive work onto tools. Writing reduces demands on our memory. Calculators removed the burden of mental arithmetic. AI…

I teach writing and rhetoric, but my college students and I often overlook a surprisingly complicated question: What is writing? And can artificial intelligence really do it? Many people think of “writing” as putting words on a page. However, even from very early on, writers have seen their craft as something more. From Enheduanna, the first named author on record, to Plato and Aristotle, writing has been portrayed and defined in ways that suggest AI may not be “writing” at all. If not, what should we call AI text? ChatGPT and I have an idea. Praising and pleading Enheduanna, who lived around…

The nonprofit ARC Prize Foundation, on May 1, 2026, released the results of a new benchmark: a test of an AI system’s ability to solve a game. The results were striking – humans scored 100%, while the most advanced AI systems scored under 1%. At first glance, this may be surprising to users of AI who are impressed by its polished essays, codebases and multistep projects generated in seconds. How can these brilliant AI systems struggle with these simple Tetris-shaped puzzles? That confusion points to a risk: AI is becoming integrated into everyday life faster than people can make sense of it. We…