Latest posts

  • Datacentres using 6% of electricity supply in UK and US, research says

    Industry body says energy consumption driven by AI up 15% globally in two years as it warns of societal backlash Datacentres are consuming 6% of electricity in the UK and US, with the growing strain of AI on energy supplies prompting community resistance, according to research. The proportion of electricity used by vast warehouses stacked…

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  • Chelsea flower show garden designers clash over use of AI

    Horticulturalists express alarm after award-winning Matt Keightley launches app that can automate designs With glasses of champagne sipped among the peonies, Chelsea flower show is generally a friendly and genteel occasion. But this year, the secateurs have been drawn as gardeners clash over the use of AI in designing the exhibits. Matt Keightley, an award-winning…

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  • This Radeon RX 9070 XT deal knocks nearly $170 off a seriously powerful GPU

    A graphics card upgrade is one of those decisions that tends to sit on a list for months, waiting for a price drop significant enough to finally make it feel justified. That moment has arrived for the PowerColor Red Devil AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, now down from $849.99 to $680, putting one of the…

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  • Forget the AI job apocalypse. AI’s real threat is worker control and surveillance

    A new divide is emerging: between workers who use AI at work and those who are managed by it The real danger that artificial intelligence poses to work is not just job loss – it is the growing divide between people who use AI to extend their skills and those whose working lives are increasingly…

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  • Who is Louis Mosley, the man tasked with defending Palantir against its critics?

    The company’s UK and Europe boss has become a lightning rod for the British public’s fear of a US tech takeover The hall was packed with rightwing radicals when Louis Mosley heralded a coming revolution. Just as Oliver Cromwell – that “crusader for Christ and liberty” – routed King Charles I’s royalists, “a similar revolution…

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  • ‘Being human helps’: despite rise of AI is there still hope for Europe’s translators?

    A booming tech sector has disrupted translation jobs in publishing – but they could be needed for a while longer yet In February 2022, while he was plugging away at rendering the US writer Dana Spiotta’s novel Wayward into French, the literary translator Yoann Gentric decided he needed a bit of light relief. He would…

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  • The AI jailbreakers – podcast

    Journalist Jamie Bartlett on the people trying to get AI to say things it shouldn’t … for the safety of us all All the major AI chatbots – from ChatGPT to Gemini to Grok to Claude – have things they should and shouldn’t say. Hate speech, criminal material, exploitation of vulnerable users – all of…

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  • ‘No one has done this in the wild’: study observes AI replicate itself

    World is approaching point where no one can shut down a rogue AI, says director of body behind research It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers. In the doom scenario, this means that when the…

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  • Europe’s AI translation industry told it risks reputation by partnering with US firms

    Partnership between top startup DeepL and Amazon comes amid concern about Silicon Valley’s monopoly over digital infrastructure AI companies in Europe risk losing their world-leading status in the field of machine translation, industry figures have said, after the decision by one of the continent’s leading startups to partner with Amazon’s cloud computing division provoked alarm.…

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  • DDR6 could more than double memory speeds, but don’t expect it soon

    Work on DDR6 memory is already underway, but it’ll be a while before it shows up in your next PC. According to reports, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron have all begun early development of the next-gen standard. They are quietly kicking off the process years ahead of any real-world launch. Right now, the companies have shared early…

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