Author: The Conversation

It is difficult to spend any time on the internet these days without being inundated with advertisements. Not all advertising is bad – especially if it saves you money and targets your interests. But you may have noticed as you’ve scrolled through social media or read the news online recently that the ads you see are often impersonal and irrelevant to your interests. They are also sometimes dangerous, promoting harmful and illegal medical products. All of this goes against the common assumption that technological advancements combined with increased personal data collection would lead to a better online experience for people. Instead,…

South Africa is immersed in a “just energy transition” from a fossil fuel-based energy system to a cleaner, low-carbon energy system. This new system will be based primarily on renewable energy, such as solar, wind and green hydrogen. Such a transition is deeply contested. Those with direct and indirect commercial interests in the coal industry will defend their stake. On the other hand, those who could gain from a transition will aim to entrench their new interests in the renewable energy sector. Then there are those who argue that gas is a reasonable compromise between the need to decarbonise and the need to…

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company that developed the popular ChatGPT chatbot and the text-to-art program Dall-E, is at a crossroads. On Oct. 2, 2024, it announced that it had obtained US$6.6 billion in new funding from investors and that the business was worth an estimated $157 billion – making it only the second startup ever to be valued at over $100 billion. Unlike other big tech companies, OpenAI is a nonprofit with a for-profit subsidiary that is overseen by a nonprofit board of directors. Since its founding in 2015, OpenAI’s official mission has been “to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity.”…

When Apple’s version of AI, branded as Apple Intelligence, rolls out in October to folks with the company’s latest hardware, the response is likely to be a mix of delight and disappointment. The AI capabilities on their way to Apple’s walled garden will bring helpful new features, such as textual summaries in email, Messages and Safari; image creation; and a more context-aware version of Siri. But as Apple Intelligence’s beta testing has already made clear, the power of these features falls well below what is on offer from major players like OpenAI, Google and Meta. Apple AI won’t come close to the quality of document…

Young children spend a lot of time using screens: watching television, playing on touchscreen apps, or Facetiming with grandparents. Research on global screen time guidelines has found that around 75% of children aged up to two years use some form of digital media daily, and 64% of children aged two to five years use it for more than an hour a day. Digital media is part of children’s lives and is set to stay that way. This means it is crucial to understand how to use this technology so children can benefit from it, and how to maximise its educational…

Whether we’re socialising, shopping, banking, studying or working, billions of people around the world spend hours each day online. This digital immersion has many benefits – and plenty of pitfalls, too. Here are just a few of the articles we’ve published by academics who specialise in various aspects of online safety. They’re packed full of cautionary tales and expert advice for keeping your digital spaces safe. Identifying online scams Think it’s only the digitally unsophisticated who get trapped by online scammers? Think again. Cybersecurity expert Thembekile Olivia Mayayise warns that even some of the most seasoned internet users she knows have fallen prey to…

The sight of a fireball streaking across the sky brings wonder and excitement to children and adults alike. It’s a reminder that Earth is part of a much larger and incredibly dynamic system. Each year, roughly 17,000 of these fireballs not only enter Earth’s atmosphere, but survive the perilous journey to the surface. This gives scientists a valuable chance to study these rocky visitors from outer space. Scientists know that while some of these meteorites come from the Moon and Mars, the majority come from asteroids. But two separate studies published in Nature today have gone a step further. The research was…

October 26, 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of director James Cameron’s science fiction classic, The Terminator – a film that popularised society’s fear of machines that can’t be reasoned with, and that “absolutely will not stop … until you are dead”, as one character memorably puts it. The plot concerns a super-intelligent AI system called Skynet which has taken over the world by initiating nuclear war. Amid the resulting devastation, human survivors stage a successful fightback under the leadership of the charismatic John Connor. In response, Skynet sends a cyborg assassin (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to 1984 – before Connor’s birth…

Stories define people – they shape our relationships, cultures and societies. Unlike other skills replaced by technology, storytelling has remained uniquely human, setting people apart from machines. But now, even storytelling is being challenged. Artificial intelligence, powered by vast datasets, can generate stories that sometimes rival, or even surpass, those written by humans. Creative professionals have been among the first to feel the threat of AI. Last year, Hollywood screenwriters protested, demanding – and winning – protections against AI replacing their jobs. As university professors, we’ve seen student work that seems suspiciously AI-generated, which can be frustrating. Beyond the threat to livelihoods, AI’s ability…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken centre stage in basic science. The five winners of the 2024 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics shared a common thread: AI. Indeed, many scientists – including the Nobel committees – are celebrating AI as a force for transforming science. As one of the laureates put it, AI’s potential for accelerating scientific discovery makes it “one of the most transformative technologies in human history”. But what will this transformation really mean for science? AI promises to help scientists do more, faster, with less money. But it brings a host of new concerns, too – and if scientists rush…