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Gather round and hear three of the latest scary stories from Silicon Valley and beyond that will frighten you long after the candy is eaten Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe nights are drawing in, the carved pumpkins are in windows and the neighbourhood children are preparing to cause trouble, so here's three tales of tech terror - ones that will resonate long after the candy is gone.Bankman-Fried's decision to testify in his own defense is a risky one, as it will allow prosecutors the chance to cross-examine him. He has so far remained silent through a three-week trial as former members of his inner circle testified that he directed them to commit crimes, including diverting customer funds from FTX to his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and that he lied to investors and lenders.He was asked in November 2022 during his first interview after the exchange evaporated: Are your lawyers suggesting it's a good idea for you to be speaking?" Bankman-Fried answered: No, they are very much not ... I have a duty to talk; I have a duty to explain what happened."I made a number of small mistakes and a number of large mistakes," Bankman-Fried, 31, said in sharing his version of the rise and fall of crypto trading platform FTX. The biggest mistake, he said, was not implementing a dedicated risk management team. There were significant oversights," he said. His testimony also suggested that he will attempt to clarify the encryption and data-retention practices at FTX, and explain away seemingly spurious movements of money.The banks that financed Elon Musk's $44 billion purchase of Twitter are still struggling a year later to contain the damage to their balance sheets.The banks currently expect to take a hit of at least 15%, or roughly $2 billion, when they sell the debt, people familiar with the matter said ... Bankers close to the deal say that Musk's capricious management and a weakening advertising market could point to a junk-bond rating, a designation reserved for companies at higher risk of defaulting.Games must never trick you out of your time. You should never wonder what am I even doing with my life?" when you play a game. Good games are a collaborator to you in the pursuit of fun. Good games inspire curiosity. Continue reading...

Educators are trying to understand how these tools work and, perhaps most pressingly, how they can be misusedIn the year since OpenAI released ChatGPT, high school teacher Vicki Davis has been rethinking every single assignment she gives her students. Davis, a computer science teacher at Sherwood Christian Academy in Georgia, was well-positioned to be an early adopter of the technology. She's also the IT director at the school and helped put together an AI policy in March: the school opted to allow the use of AI tools for specific projects so long as students discussed it with their teachers and cited the tool. In Davis's mind, there were good and bad uses of AI, and ignoring its growing popularity was not going to help students unlock the productive uses or understand its dangers.It's actually changed how I design my projects because there are some times I want my students to use AI, and then there are times I don't want them to," Davis said. What am I trying to teach here? Is this an appropriate use of AI or not?" Continue reading...

In gaming as in cinema, all of the most personal, creative and risk-taking horror can be found away from the mainstream. And happily it's also a genre in which budget constraints can be turned into an advantageLeaf through the history of independent video games and the pages are drenched in horror. It was there in the 1990s shareware era of Doom and Hugo's House of Horrors. It was there too in the Flash games of the early 2000s: Exmortis, the House series, the now lost Hotel 626. And it is here now, in the modern indie age. Lone coders and small development studios have always explored dark stories in haunted houses, lonely forests and seemingly abandoned spacecraft populated by demonic entities. Some of the greatest ever horror games are indies: Amnesia: Dark Descent, Devotion, Slender, Iron Lung. And of course there's Five Nights at Freddy's, one of the most successful indie games of the past decade, which took hold initially as a playground legend.They're not as polished or widely known as Resident Evil or Dead Space, but their very obscurity adds to the terror and uncertainty they instil. So why is horror so popular among independent developers? Why do so many of them set out to terrify? Continue reading...

Charges of 12.99 a month smartphone users for and 9.99 for desktop introduced to comply with EU data privacy rulesFacebook and Instagram users in the European Union will be charged up to 12.99 a month for ad-free versions of the social networks as a way to comply with the bloc's data privacy rules, parent company Meta said on Monday.Starting in November, users on desktop browsers can pay 9.99 ($10.50) a month, while Apple iOS or Android users will pay roughly 12.99. The higher prices reflect commissions charged by the Apple and Google app stores on in-app payments, the company said in a blogpost. Continue reading...

In 2003 a franchise was launched that combined Hollywood tragedy and euphoria with innovative narrative and gameplay, changing the face of the industry for everWhat struck you most at the time was the sheer cacophony of it. The explosions, the gunfire from dozens of other soldiers around you, the sheer chaos and confusion. While other first-person shooters of the era usually put the player in full control of a single character taking on whole platoons of enemies singlehandedly, the original Call of Duty, which is 20 years old this week, dumped you into the middle of major onslaughts, surrounded by AI comrades. You weren't Rambo, you were just a grunt, a cog in the second world war machine.It wasn't quite the first game to do this. The Medal of Honor titles from Electronic Arts were already dabbling in the whole idea of the epic battlefield shooter, but when the creative team behind the best instalment in that series Allied Assault, grew dissatified with life under EA, 22 of them set up their own studio and signed a publishing deal with Activision. That was in 2002, and the studio was Infinity Ward. Barely a year later Call of Duty arrived. Continue reading...

Experts say artificial intelligence can play an important role in exploiting the potential of countries' fast-growing populationsIn South Africa, there are drones monitoring weeds; in Mauritius, there are computers crunching health data for better outcomes for patients; and in Nairobi, surveillance systems impose a modicum of order on the chaotic traffic.The bright new future of artificial intelligence in Africa is part of the bright new future of the continent as a whole, advocates say. Continue reading...

There's some inspired direction as Misery meets Ex Machina in this sci-fi psychological thrillerIn what has the distinctively zoned-out vibe of another lockdown-born project, Natalie Kennedy's sci-fi psychological thriller sees Clare Rivers (Rachel Shelley), an author with writer's block, sign up for a deluxe writing retreat operated entirely by AI. Sealed hermetically into her unit by a virus that corrupts the system, she can't leave until she has produced a book, making Blank play out like Misery and Ex Machina spliced.Taking place in a near future where writing is all holographic word processors and genial AI assistants rather than tattered notebooks and half-eaten Twixes, the profession seems to have moved on. Or perhaps not: Clare's blockage is aggravated by being locked in with only a malfunctioning amnesiac android called Rita (Heida Reed) for company. Reset every day and refusing to open the external doors until Clare has delivered the goods, in the face of the writer's exasperation Rita can only passive-aggressively reel off: You seem distressed. Maybe you should have a lie down." Continue reading...

The lowdown on where and what to buy and avoiding the pitfalls while trying to save moneyIf you need a new smartphone but want to save money and be more sustainable, buying a refurbished one is the answer.As with brand-new phones, there are many places to buy them from, but there are also various types of refurbished handsets, and a few potential pitfalls to avoid. Here's what you need to know. Continue reading...

Plenty of power, camera and fancy AI features packed into a smaller frame that is cheaper than rivalsGoogle's standard Pixel 8 gets a little smaller, faster and smarter, while lasting longer than the competition with seven years of updates.The new Android costs 699 (799/$699/A$1,199) - a 100 increase on last year's model - but still undercuts the competition from Samsung and Apple, which cost about 800.Screen: 6.2in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (428ppi)Processor: Google Tensor G3RAM: 8GBStorage: 128 or 256GBOperating system: Android 14Camera: 50MP + 12MP ultrawide, 10.5MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)Dimensions: 150.5 x 70.8 x 8.9mmWeight: 187g Continue reading...

Motorists locked inside their cars, while an NHS doctor said her BMW iX accelerated to 65mph and then crashedAn electric car owner has claimed her vehicle's autopilot engaged without warning and accelerated to 65mph, zigzagged across the road and caused a serious crash, the Guardian can reveal.The alleged incident involved a doctor, Ravpreet Kaur, who was travelling in Buckinghamshire with her son in the family's 80,000 BMW iX. Her husband said they were lucky to escape unhurt. Continue reading...

By digitising scents as we have images and sounds, researchers hope they can transform everything from food and agriculture to disease preventionDid you ever try to measure a smell?" Alexander Graham Bell once asked an audience of graduands at a high school in Washington DC.He then quizzed the probably confused class of 1914 as to whether they could tell when one scent was twice the strength of another, or measure the difference between two distinct odours. Eventually, though, he came to the point: Until you can measure their likenesses and difference, you can have no science of odour," Bell said. If you are ambitious to find a new science, measure a smell." Continue reading...

Silicon Valley overshadows its transatlantic rivals. But as artificial intelligence grows - and with a global summit on it this week - some think it could offer a Euro startup the chance to become a new GoogleArthur Mensch is one of a new generation of entrepreneurs hoping to solve a longstanding problem with the European economy: its failure to produce a Silicon Valley-style tech behemoth.The 31-year-old Frenchman is chief executive of Mistral, a startup that achieved a 240m (206m) valuation in its first round of financing - four weeks after it was founded. And he believes artificial intelligence (AI) will be the great leveller, putting Europe on a par with its previously uncatchable competitors across the Atlantic. Continue reading...

We've watched in horrified fascination as the town square that was once the world's collective pulse has gone up in flamesOver the last year, we've watched with horrified fascination as Elon Musk, the world's richest man, rained deathblow after deathblow upon a social network that once served as the global town square for the world's most influential people, brands and institutions.Since buying Twitter for $44bn in October 2022, Musk has fired thousands of staffers, including those working in content moderation, trust and safety, and public policy. He's opened up verification, once reserved for notable users, to anyone that pays a $8 subscription fee, making it impossible to tell who's real and who's not. He's blown up messaging, restricting the platform's ability to privately text nearly any user to only those who pay. He's booted journalists he doesn't like from the service, labeled NPR as state-affiliated media", throttled traffic to news sites, reinstated previously-banned white nationalists, resurrected Donald Trump's account, unleashed threats and harassment on former staff members, killed the best bots, feuded with the Anti-Defamation League, deprecated headlines, toyed with putting the whole site behind a paywall, installed a CEO who will forever be known for a disastrous first public interview, and destroyed one of the world's most recognizable brand names - Twitter - by changing it to X. Continue reading...

Bankman-Fried says his biggest mistake was not implementing a dedicated risk management team for crypto trading platform FTXSam Bankman-Fried admitted to making management mistakes while at the helm of FTX, his former multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency empire, during testimony in his defense at trial.I made a number of small mistakes and a number of large mistakes," Bankman-Fried, 31, said in sharing his version of the rise and fall of crypto trading platform FTX. The biggest mistake, he said, was not implementing a dedicated risk management team. Continue reading...

Questions remain about gathering unlikely to help PM fulfil aspiration of UK shaping global approachNo one is yet quite sure who will attend or what, if anything, will be decided, but Rishi Sunak's government is adamant that next week's AI safety summit will be a vital first step towards getting to grips with a subject that is moving at a pace even the experts cannot fully comprehend.Understandable worries inside No 10 that the Israel-Gaza war could mean a summit lacking in world leaders have eased slightly with confirmation that the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, will attend. Continue reading...

Who's never off The Crown group chat? Who sings whole songs in the Game of Thrones one? And who dropped a bombshell on the Bridgerton bunch? TV talent tell all about their WhatsApp groupsBehind every big TV series there is now a buzzing WhatsApp group. From spitballing ideas for great plotlines to arranging sweepstakes, and those dramatic has left the chat" notifications, the action-packed groups used by people in television shows are constantly ablaze.If you put nine show-offs in a group, it becomes lively pretty quickly," laughs Ghosts co-creator Larry Rickard - who plays caveman Robin and the head of Tudor spectre Humphrey. To manage the wildness while making the hit BBC comedy, he set up multiple group chats. There is one for all the lead actors called Ghosts" (which - out of the goodness of our hearts - we also let livings' Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Charlotte Ritchie into"), with another named Idiot News" specifically for the writers - and not the cast (They already know we're massive nerds; they don't need to see proof"). They're packed with impersonations delivered via voice note (Jim Howick does a helium-voiced cockney and Martha Howe-Douglas sounds like Noddy Holder"), but not everybody is always fully engaged. You might wait a month to get a reply from Simon Farnaby - it's like a visit from the Queen. In fact, one time he didn't reply because he was actually with the Queen!" Continue reading...

Advertisers are spending less, regulators are circling, staff is at less than 50% of what it used to be and user numbers are downElon Musk wrote within hours of buying Twitter that he didn't do it because it would be easy".That statement has proven to be one of the few certainties about his ownership of the influential social media platform, which has tipped the business into a state of constant flux, with advertisers slashing spending, user numbers down, regulators circling and the staff at less than 50% of what it used to be. Continue reading...

Retailer predicts robust margins for rest of year despite rise in interest rates and people returning to bricks-and-mortar storesProfits almost tripled at Amazon in the latest quarter as consumers continued to spend heavily despite the sharp rise in interest rates.The world's largest retailer forecast that sales would continue to rise at a robust pace for the rest of the year. Growth had been knocked by surging prices and customers returning to bricks-and-mortar stores. Continue reading...

A competently made yet maddeningly dull attempt to bring the hit video game to the big screen makes for an instantly forgettable night at the moviesThere are five nights to be survived at cursed old pizza spot Freddy Fazbear's yet it feels like an awful lot more in this surprisingly flat attempt to turn a hit video game into a hit movie. At a flabby, sign-of-the-times 110 minutes, there's far too much of so many things - dream sequences, exposition, first act buildup - and far too little of what one would naturally expect from something as surface-level silly as this - fun.It's partly because writer-director Emma Tammi and game creator Scott Cawthon, acting as co-writer here, seem frighteningly unsure of how seriously they're supposed to take Five Nights at Freddy's and so we're left equally confused. It clangs from straight-faced speeches about childhood trauma to cartoonish kids' movie-level goofiness, tonally awkward and strangely, maddeningly dull, unravelling a mystery that's as predictable as it is uninteresting. A film about murderous animatronic animals should not have one checking their watch quite so much ... Continue reading...

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC; Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games

The hip-hop mogul who signed Tupac talks about 90s rap from a San Diego correctional facility. Plus: five of the best nostalgic podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereOne of the greatest joys of podcasting is that anyone can have a go. This week Suge Knight, the record label boss that signed Tupac, Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre, launched his own series from prison, while serving 28 years for killing a man with a car. Collect Call With Suge Knight is a crackly recording of phone conversations from San Diego's RJ Donovan correctional facility. Might this year's hottest new podcasting genre involve 90s rap moguls settling scores from behind bars? Probably not, judging by this meandering episode. But it's certainly a colourful addition to the world of podcasts.In other, less incarceration-based retro thrills, we've got a look at the best nostalgic podcasts out there, from odes to 90s pop culture to a homage to the neon glitz and glamour of the 80s. It's joined by a review of Jason Derulo's new romantic thriller podcast (yes, really) and a new series from Alexi Mostrous, the host of our favourite podcast of 2022. It's another diverse week.

Game developers, musicians and artists reflect on Hideo Kojima's landmark political stealth-thriller on its 25th anniversaryFor me, there are few games that encapsulate the turn of the millennium better than Metal Gear Solid. This month marks the 25th anniversary of its release on PlayStation in Japan, but it hit UK shelves a few months later in 1999, the same year as the first Matrix movie. While my school peers were mimicking Keanu and dodging invisible bullets, whispers reverberated around the playground of a PlayStation game that was somehow even cooler. You played a grizzled spy who snarled at you through the speakers. You took out helicopters, duelled with cyborg ninjas and spent a lot of time hiding under cardboard boxes. It was all exhilaratingly bizarre, and the hype seemed almost impossible to live up to.Booting up the game 25 years later, and somehow it still conjures awe. From its wonderfully delivered voice acting (a technical marvel on PlayStation 1) to its inimitable character design, it's an endearingly bonkers fiction unlike any other. It influenced a generation of game designers, played a huge part in the invention and establishment of the stealth genre, and made a celebrity out of its idiosyncratic creator Hideo Kojima, who remains one of game design's most recognisable figures. Continue reading...

MIT professor behind influential letter says unchecked development is allowing a few AI firms to jeopardise society's futureA handful of tech companies are jeopardising humanity's future through unrestrained AI development and must stop their race to the bottom", according to the scientist behind an influential letter calling for a pause in building powerful systems.Max Tegmark, a professor of physics and AI researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the world was witnessing a race to the bottom that must be stopped". Tegmark organised an open letter published in April, signed by thousands of tech industry figures including Elon Musk and the Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, that called for a six-month hiatus on giant AI experiments. Continue reading...

It has Wear OS 4, new chip and better apps - but still lags behind rivals on workouts and can't be repairedGoogle's second-generation Pixel smartwatch fixes many of its predecessor's problems, with a much faster chip, longer battery life and better health features - but it still isn't repairable, which is a huge shame.The Pixel Watch 2 costs 349 (399/$349.99/A$549) and aims to be the Apple Watch for Android, but faces stiff competition from Samsung's longstanding Galaxy Watch line. Continue reading...

Government document says impossible to rule out technology poses existential threatArtificial intelligence brings new dangers to society that must be addressed head on", the prime minister will warn on Thursday, as the government admitted it could not rule out the technology posing an existential threat.Rishi Sunak will refer to the new opportunities" for economic growth offered by powerful AI systems but will also acknowledge they bring new dangers" including risks of cybercrime, designing of bioweapons, disinformation and upheaval to jobs. Continue reading...

Company reports third-quarter revenue of $34.15bn, beating expected $33.56bn, and shares jumped in after-hours tradingMeta soared past analyst expectations in its third-quarter earnings report, solidifying investor confidence that the previously embattled tech company is out of the woods after several volatile years. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said the company enjoyed its highest operating margin in two years".The company reported a third-quarter revenue of $34.15bn, beating the expected $33.56bn, up 23% year-over-year. Shares jumped in after-hours trading, with results boosting investor confidence after Meta spent several years in volatility as it attempted to restructure its business model and expand beyond the social media products it built its empire upon. That said, advertising remains its primary revenue driver. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: The chilling genius of horror games like Remedy Entertainment's Stephen King-inspired sequel is what their warped heroes tell us about our own neuroses Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWith Halloween fast approaching there was only one game release to talk about this week: Alan Wake 2. The sequel to Remedy Entertainment's cult action-adventure promises a chilling next-gen horror experience with the eponymous hero trapped in a nightmarish alternate dimension tied to Bright Falls, Washington, the tiny town from which he disappeared 13 years ago.The original game was heavily inspired by Stephen King, its troubled horror-writer protagonist providing a cipher for the bestselling author himself and the psychologically damaged heroes of his novels, especially The Shining and The Dark Half. But Alan Wake also slots into a long history of incredibly messed-up horror-game heroes who often manifest the very monsters they're looking to destroy. Continue reading...

The TikTok creator shares what's rotting his brain lately. It's mostly chaos and early memes

Discussions about AI often focus on the futuristic threat posed by superhuman intelligence. But AI is already woven into the fabric of our daily lives. The way we travel, the food we eat, how we spend our money, the news we read and our social interactions - the influence of AI is everywhere ...

Internet Watch Foundation finds 3,000 AI-made abuse images breaking UK lawThe worst nightmares" about artificial intelligence-generated child sexual abuse images are coming true and threaten to overwhelm the internet, a safety watchdog has warned.The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said it had found nearly 3,000 AI-made abuse images that broke UK law. Continue reading...

Complaint filed in California accuses company of knowingly inducing children and teenagers into addictive social media useThe attorneys general of dozens of US states are suing Instagram and its parent company Meta over their impact on young users, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis through the addictive nature of their social media platforms.Filed in federal court in Oakland, California, on Tuesday, the lawsuit claims Meta, which also operates Facebook, has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its platforms and knowingly induced young children and teenagers into addictive and compulsive social media use. Continue reading...

Drago Tudorache, MEP who has spent four years drafting AI legislation, is optimistic final text can be agreed by WednesdayThe EU is within touching distance" of passing the world's first laws on artificial intelligence, giving Brussels the power to shut down services that cause harm to society, says the AI tsar who has spent the last four years developing the legislation.A forthcoming EU AI Act could introduce rules for everything from homemade chemical weapons made through AI to copyright theft of music, art and literature, with negotiations between MEPs, EU member states and the European Commission over final text coming to a head on Wednesday. Continue reading...

CEO of DeepMind is not a pessimist' but warns of threat from AI and says we must be active in shaping a middle way'

Demis Hassabis calls for greater regulation to quell existential fears over tech with above-human levels of intelligence

It's complicated, contentious and sweeping. As the landmark legislation becomes law, here's a guide to its key rules on everything from pornographic content to protecting children Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDeepfakes, viral online challenges and protecting freedom of expression: the online safety bill sprawls across many corners of the internet and it's about to become official. The much-debated legislation is due to receive royal assent, and therefore become law, imminently.The purpose of the act is to make sure tech firms have the right moderating systems and processes in place to deal with harmful material. This means a company cannot comply by chance," says Ben Packer, a partner at the law firm Linklaters. It must have systems and processes in place to, for instance, minimise the length of time for which illegal content is present." Continue reading...

Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles have been around since Victorian times - everything from private automobiles to taxis, ambulances and tricycles. We've got the photos to prove itThe history of the electric car is surprisingly enraging. If you imagine early electric vehicles at all (full disclosure: I didn't until recently), it will probably be as the quixotic and possibly dangerous dream of a few eccentrics, maybe in the 1920s or 1930s, when domestic electrification became widespread. It's easy to imagine some stiff-collared proto-Musk getting bored of hunting and affairs, eyeing his newly installed electric lights speculatively, then wreaking untold havoc and mass electrocutions.The reality is entirely different. By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric; we're looking at the history of a cruelly missed opportunity, and it started astonishingly early. The Scottish engineer Robert Anderson had a go at an electric car of sorts way back in the 1830s, though his invention was somewhat stymied by the fact rechargeable batteries were not invented until 1859, making his crude carriage something of a one-trick pony (and far less useful than an actual pony).Thomas Edison with his electric car, circa 1895. Continue reading...

Authors and academics also warn development of advanced systems utterly reckless' without safety checksPowerful artificial intelligence systems threaten social stability and AI companies must be made liable for harms caused by their products, a group of senior experts including two godfathers" of the technology has warned.Tuesday's intervention was made as international politicians, tech companies, academics and civil society figures prepare to gather at Bletchley Park next week for a summit on AI safety. Continue reading...

Dating app users will be able to show possible matches to others for their opinions and recommendationsOne of the most gruelling hurdles in any new relationship is when it becomes time to meet the parents. But now Tinder has come up with a way to make sure your partner has the familial seal of approval before they've even been introduced.The dating app has created a tool called Matchmaker, which allows users to offer up to 15 friends, family members or guardians 24 hours to scrutinise their possible matches. They can view the profiles and make suggestions without having an account of their own - and, fortunately, cannot start messaging on your behalf. Continue reading...

Tax audits and land use inquiries follow company founder announcing run for Taiwan presidency

Systems operating across government departments and police forces raise concerns about accountability and discrimination

Exclusive: findings show uncontrolled and potentially discriminatory way technology used in Whitehall and some police forces

Exclusive: Hikvision, whose kit is banned in US, receives clarification about where its cameras can be placedHikvision, the Chinese surveillance firm identified by the UK government as a security threat, has recommitted" to Britain after receiving clarification that a ban on its cameras being positioned at sensitive sites does not extend to public authorities or police stations.In a message to clients, the Chinese state-owned company, whose equipment is prohibited in the US on national security grounds, said the new guidance would allow it to move forward with our mission". Continue reading...

Travellers are getting seemingly convincing messages asking them to provide bank card details and threatening their reservation will be cancelledTravellers using the popular hotel website Booking.com are being warned not to fall for scam emails asking them to confirm their hotel payment, after a hack of Booking.com's email system.In recent weeks the Observer has been contacted by a number of customers claiming that they had received scam emails from within the Booking.com system. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used by employers to help decide who to hire. What does it mean for candidates - and their future bosses?

An Australian company that helped the website remain accessible has been ordered to pay damages - but the legal arguments remain unsettled

Businesses keep trying to prove AI's superior creativity, but haven't proved it can compete with human inspirationProve you're not a robot. It's (fairly) easy if you try. You could scroll down or click the little x in the corner of the screen to get rid of me. If you are reading the print edition you could just turn the page.One of the indignities of the digital age is being asked, constantly, to confirm we are who we say we are, that we are indeed a human being. Something feels slightly amiss when the (non-human) technology demands that we convince it that we are not the same as them. Big (and sometimes overexcited) claims are being made for artificial intelligence, the most recent being the claim from Wharton business school in Philadelphia that ChatGPT is more creative than human beings (well, more creative than MBA students, anyway). Continue reading...

With the intentions of Xi Jinping uncertain, there is a rush to build advanced chip-fabrication plants outside Taiwan. But it is proving a bigger challenge than anticipatedWhen the history of our time comes to be written, one thing that will amaze historians is how an entire civilisation managed to impale itself on its worship of optimisation and efficiency. This obsession is what underpinned the hubris of globalisation. Apple's famous slogan Designed by Apple in California, manufactured in China" became its guiding light. So long as products could be made available to consumers everywhere, it no longer mattered where they were made. Until it did.We first twigged this when the pandemic struck, and we became suddenly aware of how fragile supply chains built to maximise efficiency could be. Shouldn't we be optimising for resilience rather than efficiency, people wondered. And maybe our obsession with offshoring" production to low-wage countries might not be such a good idea after all. Continue reading...

The billionaire's posts began with a laboured gag and ended with a dangerous intervention into the reporting of the conflict in GazaA year ago this week, when he completed the purchase of Twitter for $44bn, Elon Musk tweeted the bird is freed". Billionaires like nothing more than casting themselves as popular liberators, but the acquisition fitted the pattern of his ever-expanding empire.Musk has colonised areas of the economy from which public funding and regulation have been in retreat. His carmaker, Tesla, is shaping the future of transport; SpaceX, meanwhile, has in many ways replaced Nasa on the final frontier (so far this year it has launched 75 spacecraft). Continue reading...

The AP photographer captured two friends meeting as the sun set on a torrid evening near GironaIn the countryside just outside Girona, a group of friends share a 300-year-old farmhouse. They spend their weekends and holidays here, with their kids. What began as a way to disconnect from the big city of Barcelona evolved into something quite different for Isaac, nine, and Pau, seven, pictured here; it's where they laid the bedrock of their friendship.Pau's dad, Emilio Morenatti, AP's chief photographer for Spain and Portugal, took the shot on his iPhone 14 while unpacking the car for a visit in August. We'd just arrived on this torrid, midsummer evening and were planning a few days of rest. I saw this scene in the courtyard, under the trees, and knew it was special: this moment where two lifelong friends met under a wonderful sunset. I'd have missed it had I gone inside for my camera." Continue reading...

Bidding wars appear to be over as BT and Sky share content and heat goes out of auctions in continental EuropeEight years ago a triumphant Richard Scudamore revelled in a record 5.14bn haul from the sale of Premier League TV rights, after a second consecutive high-stakes auction where eye-watering bidding fuelled another 70% increase in value.I continue to be surprised by every television deal," said the then chief executive of the body that runs and monetises the UK's crown jewel sports rights. Continue reading...