Europe Scrambles for Relevance in the Age of AI


That concentration of power is uncomfortable for European governments. It makes European companies downstream customers of the future, importing the latest services and technology in exchange for money and data sent westward across the Atlantic. And these concerns have taken on a new urgency—partly because some in Brussels perceive a growing gap in values and […]

We’re Still Waiting for the Next Big Leap in AI


When OpenAI announced GPT-4, its latest large language model, last March, it sent shockwaves through the tech world. It was clearly more capable than anything seen before at chatting, coding, and solving all sorts of thorny problems—including school homework. Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI, announced today that it has made its own AI advance that […]

Airbnb’s Olympics Push Could Help It Win Over Paris


Short-term rentals can function as a quick release valve for a city expecting an influx of visitors, increasing capacity for a short time nearly instantly. In fact, despite the usual hype around the Olympic Games, there are still many places to stay in Paris this summer. A search on Airbnb for a two-person stay during […]

Adobe Says It Won’t Train AI Using Artists’ Work. Creatives Aren’t Convinced


When users first found out about Adobe’s new terms of service (which were quietly updated in February), there was an uproar. Adobe told users it could access their content “through both automated and manual methods” and use “techniques such as machine learning in order to improve [Adobe’s] Services and Software.” Many understood the update as […]

STEM Students Refuse to Work at Google and Amazon Over Project Nimbus


More than 1,100 self-identified STEM students and young workers from more than 120 universities have signed a pledge to not take jobs or internships at Google or Amazon until the companies end their involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract providing cloud computing services and infrastructure to the Israeli government. The pledgers included undergraduate […]

Apple Proved That AI Is a Feature, Not a Product


Apple’s otherworldly, flying-saucer headquarters in Cupertino, California, felt like a suitable venue this week for a bold and futuristic revamp of the company’s most prized products. With iPhone sales slowing and rivals gaining ground thanks to the rise of tools like ChatGPT, Apple offered its own generative artificial intelligence vision at its Worldwide Developer Conference […]

Light-Based Chips Could Help Slake AI’s Ever-Growing Thirst for Energy


“What we have here is something incredibly simple,” said Tianwei Wu, the study’s lead author. “We can reprogram it, changing the laser patterns on the fly.” The researchers used the system to design a neural network that successfully discriminated vowel sounds. Most photonic systems need to be trained before they’re built, since training necessarily involves […]

As Google Targets AI Search Ads, It Could Learn a Lot From Bing


Disclosure of ads has been an issue on Copilot as well. Though Microsoft says it labels all ads, Marcus Pratt, senior vice president for insights and technology at the ad-buying agency Mediasmith, says he’s encountered at least two searches in which links with indications that they are sponsored arguably haven’t been adequately disclosed. Last week, […]

No Matter How You Package It, Apple Intelligence Is AI


While companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others had been upfront about their efforts in AI, for years Apple had been silent. Now, finally, its executives were talking. I got an advance look one day. Eager to shed the the impression that the most innovative of the tech giants was a laggard in this vital […]

I Spent a Week Eating Discarded Restaurant Food. But Was It Really Going to Waste?


It’s 10 pm on a Wednesday night and I’m standing in Blessed, a south London takeaway joint, half-listening to a fellow customer talking earnestly about Jesus. I’m nodding along, trying to pay attention as reggae reverberates around the small yellow shop front. But really, all I can really think about is: What’s in the bag? […]