Australia risks ‘shipping’ intellectual capability overseas if educational rigour not restored, experts warn

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An academic at the Australian National University has accused it of a “hysterical” response to students using AI to cheat, as tertiary institutions rush to shore up the credibility of assessments.

But a colleague warned Australia is in danger of “shipping our national intellectual capability” to companies in California and China if educational rigour is not restored.

Shift in pecking order illustrates that investors are reassessing outlook for artificial intelligence

Apple overtook Nvidia on Friday to become the world’s most valuable company, reshuffling the top ranks of tech heavyweights as investors reassess the outlook for artificial intelligence.

Apple was last valued at $4.88tn as ⁠its shares held steady, while Nvidia ⁠was roughly at $4.86tn, ​after a 3.5% decline.

Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from surveillance, their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of privacy

As facial recognition technology is rolled out across Britain’s public spaces, a new generation of designers say privacy could be the next big fashion trend.

Companies have started incorporating “adversarial patterns” in their garments – carefully designed arrangements of shapes, colours and repeated motifs said to exploit weaknesses in some computer vision systems.

BBC Philharmonic/Havlat/Kaziboni/Piatti Quartet
(NMC)
Einstein’s field equations, Newton’s universal law and artificial intelligence are among the subjects of Laidlow’s ambitious orchestral works

Robert Laidlow is as at home in the realms of science and technology as he is in the world of classical music. As this NMC debut album demonstrates, his intricate, wildly imaginative work is eminently approachable, even if the core concepts are highly complex.

Warp, a terse, 12-minute piano concerto, proposes a musical solution to Einstein’s field equations as the intrepid Joseph Havlat boldly goes where no pianist has gone before amid the distorting fabric of orchestral space-time. Strident orchestral lines spiral ever upwards, stretching instruments to their limits, while the piano maintains its course towards a serene conclusion. Handsomely recorded, the BBC Philharmonic and Vimbayi Kaziboni offer vibrantly detailed support.

Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists make any difference?

By Robert P Baird. Read by Simon Darwen

Read the text version here

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Case is one of first brought by an AI company against a user ⁠for allegedly using a tool to generate child abuse material

Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup xAI has sued a South Carolina man arrested ⁠earlier this year on charges of sexually exploiting minors, alleging he misused the company’s AI system Grok to ⁠create child sexual abuse ⁠material.

xAI ​alleged in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas on Tuesday, that Terry Harwood violated the company’s ⁠terms of service. The case is one of the first brought by an AI company against one of its users ⁠for allegedly using an AI system to generate child sexual abuse material.

Keith Thomas can move arms and hands, and feel sensation of touch after ‘double neural bypass’ and months of training

A man who was paralysed from the chest down in a swimming accident six years ago has been able to feed himself and drink from a cup thanks to a brain implant that bypasses his spinal cord injury.

Keith Thomas of Massapequa, New York, could not lift his arms off his wheelchair when he agreed to trial the technology in 2021, but after surgery to implant electrodes in his brain and many months of training, he was able to move the limbs again.