South Africa grants patent to an AI system
At first glance, a recently granted South African patent relating to a “food container based on fractal geometry” seems fairly mundane. The innovation in question involves...
Four ways AI is helping astronomers learn about the universe
Astronomy is all about data. The universe is getting bigger and so too is the amount of information we have about it. But some of...
In the age of AI, we need to prepare students to work with robot...
Robots are writing more of what we read on the internet. And artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools are becoming freely available for anyone, including...
Google’s union of activists highlights the need for ethical engineering
All of my favourite engineers have either abandoned the profession or are dedicating their lives to changing it for the better. The most heroic...
Coronavirus has fuelled automation— but human involvement is still essential
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the way we work and interact with machines — and people — in the workplace. The surge in remote working brought...
5 ways AI can help space exploration
Artificial intelligence has been making waves in recent years, enabling us to solve problems faster than traditional computing could ever allow. Recently, for example,...
Algorithms workers can’t see are increasingly pulling the management strings
“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” HAL’s cold, if polite, refusal to open the pod bay doors in 2001 A Space Odyssey has...
New research shows five ways in which deepfakes are brilliant business opportunities
A visitor to The Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida presses a doorbell beside a dark life-sized screen. A darkened figure wearing a dapper...
Will artificial intelligence ever rival human creativity?
The European Patent Office recently turned down an application for a patent that described a food container. This was not because the invention was not novel...
Workplace surveillance is becoming the norm; an expert explains a realistic way of handling...
Workplace surveillance sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but we are having to get used to it. In a sign of the times, the...
