Latest posts

  • The Big Idea: why we should embrace AI doctors

    People are understandably wary of new technology, but human error is often more lethal We expect our doctors to be demi-gods – flawless, tireless, always right. But they are only human. Increasingly, they are stretched thin, working long hours, under immense pressure, and often with limited resources. Of course, better conditions would help, including more…

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  • Met chief rejects calls to scrap live facial recognition at Notting Hill carnival

    Mark Rowley says technology will be ‘non-discriminatory’ and ‘does not perform in a way which exhibits bias’ The Metropolitan police commissioner has hit back at demands to drop the use of live facial recognition cameras at this weekend’s Notting Hill carnival over concerns of racial bias and an impending legal challenge. Mark Rowley wrote in…

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  • Author Rie Qudan: Why I used ChatGPT to write my prize-winning novel

    Sympathy Tower Tokyo attracted controversy for being partly written using AI. Does its author think the technology could write a better novel than a human? “I don’t feel particularly unhappy about my work being used to train AI,” says Japanese novelist Rie Qudan. “Even if it is copied, I feel confident there’s a part of…

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  • Facial recognition cameras too racially biased to use at Notting Hill carnival, say campaigners

    Exclusive: Letter to the Met says technology ‘unfairly targets community that carnival exists to celebrate’ The Met commissioner should scrap plans to deploy live facial recognition (LFR) at next weekend’s Notting Hill carnival because the technology is riven with “racial bias” and subject to a legal challenge, 11 civil liberty and anti-racist groups have demanded.…

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  • The all-female rescue mission to Mars: my opera about a toxic tech bro takeover of the red planet

    Four women travel 140m miles across the heavens – only to find their new world in hostile corporate hands. Composer Jennifer Walshe reveals what fed into her epic opera, from low-gravity procreation to Shrek in space Why write an opera about Mars? Because Mars isn’t just a planet. It’s a philosophy, an ideology. The way…

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  • ‘The BBC feels very samey and boring’: the over-50s who prefer YouTube

    More Britons in this age group are switching to the video platform, with its shorter, niche and more personal content UK viewers over the age of 55 watched almost twice as much YouTube last year as they did in 2023, with 42% of them watching on a TV, according to a survey by the communications…

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