Early warnings can save lives before earthquakes like the 5.6-magnitude quake that killed and injured hundreds in Indonesia in 2022 ADITYA AJI/AFP via Getty Images Your phone may be among the billions of devices worldwide that already serve as an earthquake early-warning system in dozens of countries. Since launching in 2020, Google’s Android Earthquake Alerts … Read more
Wikipedia already shows signs of huge AI input Serene Lee/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The arrival of AI chatbots marks a historical dividing line after which online material can’t be completely trusted to be human-created, but how will people look back on this change? While some are urgently working to archive “uncontaminated” data from the … Read more
Goalkeepers struggle to guess which way a penalty taker will shoot JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images Deep learning models trained on more than 1000 penalty kicks in football matches can predict which way the ball will go better than real-life goalkeepers. “Penalty kicks are some of the most decisive moments in soccer, often determining the … Read more
Matthias Oberholzer/Unsplash One of the not-funny ironies of the 21st century has been that everything we thought was social media is actually just mass media, except it’s terrible and broken. Luckily, journalists and creators are finally figuring out how to leave the old media models behind and enter the future. The term “mass media” became … Read more
US President Donald Trump displays a signed executive order at an AI summit on 23 July 2025 in Washington, DC Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images President Donald Trump wants to ensure the US government only gives federal contracts to artificial intelligence developers whose systems are “free from ideological bias”. But the new requirements could allow his administration … Read more
The Skydweller drone Skydweller A solar-powered surveillance drone with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet could fly for weeks or months at a time, according to its operator, while watching for drug-smuggling vessels, pirates or naval warships. It has been performing test flights off the US Gulf Coast this month. The Skydweller … Read more
A Russian ambush drone with solar panels seen in Ukraine Serhii Beskrestnov Small racing quadcopters carrying explosives, known as first-person-view drones or FPVs, have become the dominant weapon in the war in Ukraine. Now, some are fitted with solar cells so they can wait for extended periods to ambush targets, turning them into a new … Read more
Now you see me… en.photo/Alamy The desire to disappear has been strong throughout history. It didn’t go well for the protagonist in H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, but that is because his invisibility was permanent. What was needed – and what was longed for – was a means of disappearing temporarily, as popularised by … Read more
Certain AI training techniques may encourage models to be untruthful Cravetiger/Getty Images Common methods used to train artificial intelligence models seem to increase their tendency to give misleading answers, according to researchers who are aiming to produce “the first systematic analysis of machine bullshit”. It is widely known that large language models (LLMs) have a … Read more
A deepfake video of Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese on a smartphone Australian Associated Press/Alamy A universal deepfake detector has achieved the best accuracy yet in spotting multiple types of videos manipulated or completely generated by artificial intelligence. The technology may help flag non-consensual AI-generated pornography, deepfake scams or election misinformation videos. The widespread availability … Read more