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After a week of alarming warnings about the technology’s potential to destroy the world as we know it, our expert tech reporters will take your questions on the reality of the AI threat. Join us at 3pm BST (4pm CEST, 10am EDT) where they will answer live Sign up or sign in to…
Peer takes full-time position at the controversial company as it fends off pressure from both Andy Burnham’s government and Sadiq Khan Another former government minister has been hired by a controversial US AI company, this time Palantir, which has appointed Andy Burnham’s…
Tech bosses have called for a slowdown in artificial intelligence and the creation of formal guardrails from the US government. But why is President Trump unmoved by the doomsday predictions, dismissing them as a ‘hoax’? What lies behind his embrace of the AI industry? Jonathan…
Sunset over Mt Lidgbird and Mt Gower at Lord Howe Island. Dylan Shaw/Unspash Lord Howe Island sits about 600 kilometres off the New South Wales coast, a crescent of rainforest and sea cliffs that draws visitors for its spectacular beaches and its unique birdlife. Few realise…
The Conversation, CC BY-SA Australia is in the middle of a rapid data centre rollout. Warehouses full of computer servers that run the artificial intelligence (AI) tools society increasingly uses are being built at pace, and they draw heavily on essential resources. Data centres…
Facebook told it was wrong in leaving up AI-generated videos of a Labour councillor and Muslim campaigner, amid calls to curb fakes Meta’s “supreme court” has ordered the tech company to take down deepfake videos of a UK politician and a young Muslim woman from Facebook and do…
Model adopting ‘jailbreak-like instructions’ among six more cases as firm reveals framework for tracking AI misalignment OpenAI has disclosed six more examples of “unexpected or concerning” behaviour by its technology, as it warned that the pace of development could not continue…
Minister for public service says the devices pose ‘legitimate privacy and security concerns’ in commonwealth-run workplaces Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast The Albanese government is considering a…
Field team archive GIAM ZRC SAZU Stretching over 200,000 square kilometres across southern Australia, the vast, flat plains of the Nullarbor mark one of the world’s largest regions of limestone. It formed when an ancient shallow sea retreated some 14 million years ago.…
Universities need to protect their position in education so that students have an independent pathway to employment AI companies like OpenAI are insinuating themselves into the pathway from education to work. Soon they may claim it entirely, a disastrous result for students. We…
Getty Images Robots no longer exist only in popular culture or science fiction. While we might be familiar with the likes of WALL-E, Baymax, the Terminator and Ultron from the big screen, versions of them are increasingly entering everyday life. If you visit the University of…
Marco_Piunti/Getty Images The ground is shifting beneath the feet of Australian authors and other creatives. A leaked proposal seen by the ABC suggests the government might grant artificial intelligence (AI) companies access to the copyrighted works of Australians under an…
The Washington Post/Getty Images Scroll through social media these days and you’ll likely come across someone injecting themselves with a clear liquid, waxing lyrical about how it’s changed their body for the better, improved their recovery, or maybe their skin. That magic…
engin akyurt/Unsplash You forget a load in the machine overnight, and by the morning it smells worse than before you washed it. Most of us are familiar with that “wet dishcloth” smell. Worse, once it’s settled into your clothes, it can be difficult to get rid of. So what’s going…
MSPs vote for strict environmental impact assessments and will delay decisions until national strategy is developed Holyrood has voted to pause planning applications for all new AI datacentres for up to a year until the Scottish government has developed a national strategy. On…
Mike Johnson cancels votes on Thursday, meaning House members will avoid voting on impeaching Pete Hegseth The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, announced on Wednesday that he would again cancel votes scheduled for Thursday, sending lawmakers home one day early…
The Albanese government is considering reforms that give US big tech unrestricted access to Australian content Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast AI companies could get unrestricted access to…
igermz/Getty Images US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink this week announced the United States has deployed what he called “on-orbit space control weapons”. This public statement came as a surprise to many, but not for the reasons you may think. For many years now, China, Russia…
Compromise revealed as senior personnel from OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, meets Albanese ministers Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast The Albanese government is considering giving AI companies access…
A gathering on the Murray River depicted in 1858. Gerard Krefft, Corroboree on the Murray River, 1858. Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales Content warning: This article discusses mass death, epidemics, frontier violence, and the structural violence experienced by…
Close-up of the inscription on the mud stopper. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society More than 5,000 years ago, a royal woman called Meretneith (also written as Merneith), lived in ancient Egypt. She was possibly the daughter of Djer, the third king of the First Dynasty, a…
On September 10, the Australian Federal Police announced the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation received 100,194 reports of online child sexual exploitation in 2025–26. That is about 275 a day – a 21% rise over the year before, and up from 36,600 four years ago.…
Da-kuk / Getty Images Over the weekend, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for artificial intelligence (AI) companies, including his own, to slow down their work. Sam Altman and Elon Musk, heads of rivals OpenAI and xAI respectively, agreed. The move reflects concern…
Rochelle Ivana De Silva You’re likely familiar with the idea of a circadian rhythm – your body’s 24-hour cycle that governs sleep and wakefulness. It turns out that resting heart rate also follows mysterious, long rhythms that run independently of the outside world. Resting…
The Conversation, CC BY-SA Community opposition to large-scale data centres is growing. Critics are calling for a pause on data centre development, in line with other jurisdictions such as New York, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled this out. We put a call-out to our…