An AI-powered “brain decoder” can now read your thoughts with surprising accuracy. Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin have achieved a groundbreaking feat: translating people’s brain activity, including their unspoken thoughts, into actual speech. This development, detailed in a study published in Nature, marks a significant advancement in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. Traditionally,… Continue reading Mind-reading technology has arrived
The New Financial Union of 3 Tech Giants Michael Burry of ‘Big Short’ fame has made a $845 million bet against the American AI industry. The question is, why? Well, for a number of years, analysts have alleged that the AI industry is vastly overvalued and exists in a financial bubble, and this month has… Continue reading AI Bubble Hits Apex as Michael Burry Shorts the Industry
In the age of digital assistants, chatbots, and generative AI, we’ve all had the occasional encounter with a machine that seems almost human—until it inevitably messes up your grocery list or misinterprets your sarcasm. But here’s a question you might not have considered: should we treat these non-sentient entities with the same manners we use… Continue reading Should you say please and thank you to AI?
Try talking to yourself without opening your mouth, by simply saying words internally. What if you could search the internet like that—and get an answer back? In the first live public demo of his new technology, TED Fellow Arnav Kapur introduces AlterEgo: a wearable AI device with the potential to let you silently talk to… Continue reading AlterEgo: a device that lets you speak with your mind
A group of researchers studied 15 months of human mobility movement data taken from 1.5 million people and concluded that just four points in space and time were sufficient to identify 95% of them, even when the data weren’t of excellent quality. That was back in 2013. Nearly ten years on, surveillance technologies permeate all aspects of… Continue reading Not Big Brother, but close: a surveillance expert explains some of the ways we’re all being watched, all the time
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation delivers an urgent call for action. Haidt argues that the evidence is in. Teenagers’ widespread use of smartphones is causing a mental health crisis. Individual, collective and legislative action is required to limit their smartphone access. Haidt begins his book with an allegory. Imagine someone… Continue reading Have smartphones created an ‘anxious generation’? Jonathan Haidt sounds the alarm
Fake photography is nothing new. In the 1910s, British author Arthur Conan Doyle was famously deceived by two school-aged sisters who had produced photographs of elegant fairies cavorting in their garden. Today it is hard to believe these photos could have fooled anybody, but it was not until the 1980s an expert named Geoffrey Crawley… Continue reading AI image generation is advancing at astronomical speeds. Can we still tell if a picture is fake?
There is a fine line between creativity and self-destruction. Apple’s new crush advert, which shows items linked to creative pursuits being pulverised to make way for the new iPad Pro, tried to find that line but instead appears to have made a rare mis-step. It has angered a lot of people in the process. Apple has now apologised… Continue reading Apple’s ‘crush’ advert annoys people across generations – that’s why it misfired
Using bluetooth, neuroscientists and neurosurgeons said they had re-established the communication between the brain and a damaged spinal cord with a wireless digital bridge, allowing a paralysed man to walk again. Dutchman Gert-Jan Oskam, 40, was paralysed in a cycling accident 12 years ago. Through electronic implants, his thoughts are wirelessly transmitted to his legs and feet, facilitated by… Continue reading Video: paralysed man walks with the power of thought
Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence which is rapidly transforming numerous sectors, revolutionising the way we interact with technology. At the forefront of this revolution is the media industry, where machine learning is not just an accessory but a driving force in content creation and manipulation. Its capacity to analyse and learn from… Continue reading The deepfake generation
