“Retailers want ‘delightfully human’ AI to do your shopping, but will the chatbots go rogue?”
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Russ Roberts (https://hawaiisciencejournal.com).
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Today
Plans for agentic shopping assistants are under way at Australia’s major companies. Guardian Australia tested the technology after a string of mishaps Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Major retailers say it won’t be long before sophisticated AI “assistants” plan your meals, organise your parties and do your shopping. But companies, many that are already struggling with
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Nintendo Switch 2; Game Freak/Omega Force/Nintendo Work together with a bunch of lovable Pokémon to restore a long-abandoned town in this novel, absorbing game that’s quite unlike others in the series Bear with me here: Pokémon has always had an environmentalist subtext. As you wander its verdant, creature-filled worlds, collecting species like an acquisitive David Attenborough, you are constantl
Yesterday
Quality camera, good software and long battery life, but you should just buy the Pixel 9a instead The latest smartphone in the lower-cost A-series Pixel line shows what makes Google phones so good, while undercutting the competition on price. The problem is that it differs little from its predecessor, which is still on sale. Priced from £499 (€549/$499/A$849), the Pixel 10a is more like a second
Companies will pay for upgrades and new electricity generation in agreement to mitigate concerns of rising bills Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and several artificial intelligence companies signed a pledge at the White House on Wednesday to bear the cost of new electricity generation to power their datacenters. The agreement is meant to help mitigate concerns that big tech’s datacenters are driv
CEO’s claims come amid increased scrutiny of US military’s use of the technology and ethics concerns from AI workers Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, told employees on Tuesday that his company does not control how the Pentagon uses their artificial intelligence products in military operations. Altman’s claims on OpenAI’s lack
Twitter investors allege the billionaire publicly derided the social network to sink its stock price and buy it at a bargain Elon Musk took the stand on Wednesday in a trial brought by Twitter investors, who allege the billionaire committed securities fraud as he was buying the social media company in 2022. The class-action lawsuit alleges Musk agreed to buy Twitter but then waffled for months, a
Lawsuits and slander claims fly in IG Metall’s battle with Elon Musk over employment rights and conditions Business live – latest updates Europe’s largest trade union is trying to gain control of the works council at Elon Musk’s Tesla gigafactory near Berlin, in an industrial relations showdown marked by lawsuits and mutual accusations of slander. The works council, an elected body of employees t
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Fredrik Gertten travels the world meeting activists who have had enough of corruption, kleptocracy and structural inequality – while Bregman’s nuggets of wisdom are a joy Bicycling Dutch historian Rutger Bregman does not identify as an optimist. He says that optimism makes people lazy, complacent that history is going in the right direction. Instead he describes himself as a “possibilist”, a beli
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Dassault Aviation says €100bn project may soon be ‘dead’ if Airbus will not agree on how to share workload France and Germany’s next-generation fighter jet project could soon be “dead”, one of the two companies tasked with delivering it has warned, amid a worsening corporate rift over who gets to build the aircraft. Dassault Aviation, France’s leading warplane maker, said Airbus’s defence arm – w
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With the wait for the new Winds and Waves games set to stretch into 2027, Pokemon’s 30th anniversary celebrations have plugged the gap with a deluge of nostalgia bait. Is the franchise in danger of losing its heart? • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here It has been almost impossible to escape Pokémon for the past few weeks. To mark the 30th anniversary of the original
Lawsuit is first wrongful death case brought against Google over flagship AI product after death of Jonathan Gavalas Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Last August, Jonathan Gavalas became entirely consumed with his Google Gemini chatbot. The 36-year-old Florida resident had started casually using the artificial intelligence tool earlier that month to he
Oxford-based firm has raised $103m for commercial development of software for self-driving industrial vehicles Nvidia is investing in the British autonomous driving startup Oxa , alongside backing from the UK’s National Wealth Fund, in a boost to the country’s technology sector. The Oxford-based company, which has developed software for self-driving industrial vehicles, said it had raised $103m (
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As a historian, I’ve studied the major consumer boycotts of history. We can take down ChatGPT and send a powerful signal to Silicon Valley OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on track to lose $14bn this year. Its market share is collapsing, and its own CEO, Sam Altman, has admitted it “ screwed up ” an element of the product. All it takes to accelerate that decline is 10 seconds of your time.
Mar 3, 2026
CEO cited AI advances in cutting 4,000 workers, but a weak crypto market and declining stock price may also be at play Jack Dorsey cited AI as the driving force behind cutting 40% of his company’s employees, but other factors such as a weak crypto market, overstaffing and a declining stock price may also have motivated the move. Last week, the financial technology company Block announced that it
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As hundreds of schools implement an automated monitoring tool, educators say that students can find talking to a chatbot ‘more natural’ than confiding in a human • Produced in partnership with EdSurge The alert came around 7pm. Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam county, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platfo
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From the ghostly Shutter Story to road trip adventure Outbound and strategy puzzler Titanium Court, here are the titles we enjoyed the most from this year’s Steam Next Fest showcase These days, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every new indie game is either a co-op extraction shooter or a roguelike deck-builder – fortunately that’s not quite the case. Each February, the week-long
ChatGPT owner’s CEO says it will bar its technology being used for mass surveillance or by intelligence services Business live – latest updates OpenAI is amending its hastily arranged deal to supply artificial intelligence to the US Department of War (DoW) after the ChatGPT owner’s chief executive admitted it looked “opportunistic and sloppy”. The contract prompted fears the San Francisco startup
Democratic rematch in Durham-area district draws focus to fight over AI datacenters increasingly shaping US elections Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox A North Carolina congressional primary held on Tuesday is an early test of datacenter politics – a fight increasingly shaping elections nationwide. In the Durham-area fourth district, Congresswoman Valer
Mar 2, 2026
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I was a newcomer, negotiating all of usual classroom difficulties for the first time. Throwing AI into the mix felt like downing a coffee in the middle of a panic attack Two years ago, at the age of 39, I began training to be a school teacher. I wanted to teach English – to help young people become stronger readers, writers and thinkers, with a deeper connection to literature. After 15 years of w
Claude climbs to top of app store charts in US and UK after being blacklisted by Pentagon over ethics concerns The AI model Claude has surged in popularity after being blacklisted by the Pentagon last week over ethics concerns. Claude climbed to the No 1 spot on Apple’s chart of top free apps on Saturday in the US – dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT, just one day after the Pentagon tapped OpenAI to sup
Speed and scale of US military’s AI war planning raises fears human decision-making may be sidelined The use of AI tools to enable attacks on Iran heralds a new era of bombing quicker than “the speed of thought”, experts have said, amid fears human decision-makers could be sidelined. Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was reportedly used by the US military in the barrage of strikes as the technology
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The rapid rollout of datacenters across the US is creating a divide between municipal governments and residents Wilmington, Ohio, resident Quintin Koger Kidd was so concerned last June with his local public officials’ alleged misdoings – open meeting violations and other discrepancies – that he filed a complaint in court to have the mayor and city council members removed from their posts. When Ko
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Since 2016, the cosy, inclusive, non-heteronormative escapism of the beloved farming sim has inspired a community of devoted fans, and helped it shift 50m units When farming sim Stardew Valley first came out back in 2016, most of us saw it as a modest indie hit, offering charm, wit and a beautiful little world. Ten years later, this tiny indie has sold nearly 50m copies. If you haven’t played it
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AI is transforming our world. Accepting independent oversight is the least companies can do to protect our rights The speed with which AI is transforming our lives is head-spinning. Unlike previous technological revolutions – radio, nuclear fission or the internet – governments are not leading the way. We know that AI can be dangerous; chatbots advise teens on suicide and may soon be capable of i
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Our new free course AI for the People will show you practical ways to work with AI –without giving up judgment, privacy or your humanity Sign up for AI for the People, a six-week newsletter course, here Continue reading…
Mar 1, 2026
Trials to form part of three-month consultation on Keir Starmer’s plans to tackle negative effects of smartphone use Hundreds of teenagers will be enlisted to trial social media bans in the coming months with overnight digital curfews and daily screen time limits also tested as part of Keir Starmer’s plan to crack down on the negative effects of smartphone use . The trials will be part of a three
Campaign groups write to technology secretary amid concerns that sites could double overall electricity demand Datacentre developers are facing pressure to reveal whether their projects will increase the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns the sites could double national electricity demand . Campaign groups have written to the UK technology secretary, Liz Kendall, warning that the en
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The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no … This week’s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London? After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I’m starting to worry that computer – or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT
The record sum paid at auction for a rare example is part of a boom in trading cards – and the prices can be staggering For £12m, you could buy a seven-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north London, or
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