A slew of announcements from OpenAI and Google this week brought us to the brink of human-like AI assistants. Generative artificial intelligence is getting faster, and being applied to an increasing number of tasks. But without a major breakthrough to the models underpinning such projects, it has led some to emerge from the parapets and ask whether the technology will continue getting smarter given its exponential hunger for data. One of them is Dr. Michael Pound, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.
OpenAI will announce plans for a search engine powered by artificial intelligence on Monday May 13, Reuters reports. It's the latest challenge to search king Google and comes just one day before the tech giant's annual developer conference. On this week's Tech 24, Peter O'Brien looks at what might get Google sweating, amid changing search habits, a federal antitrust trial and smart new AI "answer engines". One of these is Perplexity AI. Speaking to FRANCE 24, CEO Aravind Srinivas says its results "cut through the noise" that comes up on a traditional Google search.
On Sunday, Chinese President Xi Jinping will come to Europe for the first time in five years, staying in France until Tuesday. Aside from the Ukraine war, technology – computer chips and green tech in particular – could be the most important talking point on the agenda. FRANCE 24's Peter O'Brien tells us more in this week's edition of Tech 24.
US President Joe Biden signed a law this week giving TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance nine to 12 months to sell the popular video-sharing app or face a ban. The company has vowed to fight this in the courts. How might the showdown play out, and what does it mean for TikTok users globally? FRANCE 24's Tech Editor Peter O'Brien tells us more.
Legal proceedings began in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday, targeting the cryptocurrency exchange Binance and two of its executives on charges of money laundering and tax evasion. Tigran Gambaryan, a US citizen and Binance's head of financial crimes compliance, appeared alone in court after Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan and the company’s regional manager for Africa, escaped custody and fled. Gambaryan's family is asking for the US to do more to secure his release. Find out why Nigeria is cracking down on crypto in this week's edition of Tech 24.
The United Nations has unanimously approved its first resolution on artificial intelligence, with all member states agreeing to make sure the technology respects human rights. The UN also hopes that AI will help it achieve its development goals for 2030, which are well behind schedule.
French daily and website Le Monde has become the latest publisher to strike a deal with OpenAI, allowing the San Francisco company to use its journalists' work to train artificial intelligence systems. To deal with claims that AI firms have plagiarised content scraped from the internet in order to build tools like ChatGPT, publishers have taken different approaches.
As people continue to turn to artificial intelligence for romance, new research suggests that almost every romantic AI companion disregards your privacy, and could be selling your data. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
After a week in the wild, the consensus is in: Apple's new "spacial computing" headset, the Vision Pro, is impressive, expensive, and ludicrous to wear in public.
The world's first major regulation on artificial intelligence should almost be done and dusted – but France is causing trouble. FRANCE 24's Tech Editor Peter O'Brien tells us more.
Fantasy role-playing video game "Baldur's Gate 3" has won Game of the Year at the Game Awards in Los Angeles – the Oscars of gaming – after three and a half hours of speeches, prizes, announcements and adverts. The awards themselves were mostly a hurried afterthought as almost five million viewers of the Game Awards' official stream were subjected to a bombardment of trailers.
Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, says a leaked French government memo risked undermining public trust in cybersecurity protocols, after it was revealed that Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne had ordered cabinet members and their staff to delete popular messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp.
The tech sector in Africa is expected to have another year of growth in 2023, despite a turndown in venture capital investment worldwide. There are big opportunities in connectivity – mobile internet, fibre, satellite, subsea cables – thanks in part to Africa’s growing population. FRANCE 24’s Technology Editor Peter O’Brien reports from the 2023 Africa Tech Festival in Cape town.
You may not have heard of it, but the social movement called "effective altruism" continues to influence public discourse around artificial intelligence, despite the fall from grace of the movement's highest-profile figure and one of its biggest donors: disgraced "crypto king" Sam Bankman-Fried. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel was a shocking breach of Israeli defence technology, which is among the world's most renowned. But things weren’t exactly easy before the war. Investment in Israeli startups plunged amid a global tech sector turndown and domestic political turmoil. Many young tech industry workers have now been drafted. In this week's Tech 24, we take a look at how the Israeli tech sector is responding ahead of an anticipated ground invasion of Gaza.
The European Commission has opened an investigation into X, Elon Musk's social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The move comes after Brussels ordered X, as well as rivals Meta and TikTok, to act quickly to tackle the spread of disinformation, which has surged on each of these platforms since Hamas's deadly attack on Israel.
It’s already proving a very busy September for artificial intelligence (AI) regulation, with tech billionaires meeting US lawmakers, the EU wrangling over a landmark law and the UK concerned that AI might end life as we know it.
Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has made waves this summer, enjoying millions of signups and raising $115 million, while other crypto startups struggle. But it's come under intense regulatory scrutiny, not least in France and Germany, over privacy concerns. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
It's the starting gun for the busiest time of the year in tech: IFA Berlin. Europe's largest tech trade show has kicked off, with more folding phones and robot lawnmowers than anyone could possibly need. With the "smart home" facing privacy and interoperability concerns and the smartphone industry dogged by falling sales, can we still get excited by new gizmos? FRANCE 24's Technology Editor Peter O'Brien went to Berlin to find out.
The world's top neurotechnology companies can keep indefinite possession of the data generated by the brains of their trial subjects and customers, and even share it with third parties, according to upcoming research. FRANCE 24's Tech Editor Peter O'Brien tells us more.