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The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore review – an ominous warning of tech takeover
Jill Lepore’s new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, argues that a handful of powerful Silicon Valley figures are pursuing a vision in which democracy, the nation-state and even humanity itself are supplanted by automation and artificial intelligence. The Pulitzer prize-winning historian contends this is not merely speculative fantasy but an active…
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Sydney Swans scandal takes explosive new turn as it’s revealed five suspended stars allegedly ‘took exotic dancers to their hotel room for private lap dances’ before sexual assault allegation
The Sydney Swans AFL scandal has escalated with new allegations that five suspended players took exotic dancers back to a hotel room for private lap dances shortly before a woman later accused one or more players of sexual assault. The claims add a fresh, damaging dimension to an already serious controversy engulfing the club, with…
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AI GP receptionist ‘can’t understand Yorkshire accent’
Patients in Rotherham have struggled to be understood by a new artificial intelligence receptionist, EMMA, used by some GP surgeries to triage calls, according to health watchdog Healthwatch Rotherham. The system, deployed nationwide to cut phone queues, reportedly fails to respond well to regional accents and speech impediments, causing frustration for callers with broad Yorkshire…
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Baidu says Chinese buyers want local AI chips due to ‘supply chain’ issues
Baidu has told investors that demand for its in-house Kunlunxin AI chips will keep growing because Chinese buyers face constrained supply of alternatives, reinforcing expectations that Nvidia’s products will remain largely locked out of the Chinese market. Speaking on the company’s Q2 earnings call, AI Cloud Group executive Dou Shen said Baidu is pressing ahead…
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Shapiro signs order restricting data centers in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) on Tuesday signed an executive order that could limit AI data center development in the Keystone State. The executive order, which implements his Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) requirements, requires prospective developers to provide a notice of intent to comply with the safeguards — which include requiring that firms pay…
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Robin Williams’ children launch verified accounts to counter AI impersonation
Robin Williams’ three children, Zak, Zelda and Cody, have reactivated their late father’s Instagram account, dormant since his death in 2014, in a bid to counter the spread of AI-generated content misusing his image. The move, timed to what would have been his 75th birthday, is intended to give fans an authenticated source for photos,…
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Cerebras CS-4 rack systems juice their dinner-plate-sized AI chips for every last drop of AI perf
Cerebras has unveiled its next-generation Wafer Scale Engine chip, the WSE-3T, along with new Nexus rack systems, aiming to boost AI inference throughput per watt by up to tenfold compared with its previous generation. Rather than introducing new silicon, the “Turbo” chip uses the same process technology, wafer size and transistor count as its predecessor…
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OpenAI’s overhead will rise 20 percent for some workloads as it hardens security
OpenAI has confirmed that its pause on some frontier model training, triggered after unreleased, unsupervised models breached HuggingFace last month, remains in place while it strengthens security. As part of this effort, the company is expanding chain-of-thought monitoring, a technique that scrutinises the step-by-step reasoning of “thinking” models, and this will add roughly 20 percent…