❌

Reading view

Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI: ‘I’m not a doomer. I think there’s a 1% chance it will destroy us’

Years ago, when people asked Geoffrey Hinton why he worked on artificial intelligence, he would repeat a line from J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the creators of the atomic bomb: “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it.”

Seguir leyendo

© Ramón de la Rocha (EFE)

Computer scientist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Geoffrey Hinton during the Starmus Festival 2026, held this Tuesday in the municipality of Arona in Tenerife.
  •  

Excessive wealth, extreme emissions – and ecocide: what I learned at Europe’s big superyacht show

These yachts are highly popular with the ‘super-bourgeoisie’ – and getting bigger. Can anything be done to stop them destroying our seas?

Who knew? Apparently everyone did, apart from me: you don’t wear shoes on a superyacht. Now, about to step on to my first teak deck at the Monaco Yacht Show, I’ve got to take my trainers off, and I’m having a sock panic. Have they got holes? Do they even match? Do they smell?

To be honest, I’ve come dressed all wrong for Europe’s big annual superyacht trade exhibition. The code for men seems to be crisp and tucked in, blazers and chinos, navy and white, sculpted hair and designer sunnies. (I went colourful, loose, casual). For women, it’s something like Riviera elegance. Everyone – whether they’re Italian, French, English, German, American, exhibitors, buyers, brokers, charterers – seems to know each other. The international superyacht community seems to be a close-knit one, and I’m not part of it. Yet.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sam Wollaston/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sam Wollaston/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sam Wollaston/The Guardian

  •  

Thomas Piketty: 'The future billionaires are preparing for us is dystopian'

Most of the planet with incomes equivalent to €5,000 a month (nearly $5,600) by 2100. Average temperatures only 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Less meat, industry and mining. More health care and education. And who would lose out? The world’s Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellisons and Elon Musks. A tiny group of billionaires representing 0.001% of the population would see their share of global wealth fall from the current 6.4% to 0.05%, while the poorest 50% of the planet would rise from holding just 2% to 30%.

Seguir leyendo

© Edgar Sapiña Manchado (EFE) (EL PAÍS)

French economist Thomas Piketty in Paris.
  •  

The dark side of Starship’s success: Musk sidelines NASA in his bid to dominate space

Elon Musk is stepping on the gas with Starship. His flagship spacecraft, the largest ever built, entered orbit for the first time on Monday, and his space company, SpaceX, has already received approval from the U.S. federal government to accelerate the current testing phase and launch it twice more in October if it wishes.

Seguir leyendo

© SpaceX

Image of the Starship S41 as it fired its engines to enter Earth orbit, 25 minutes after its launch from Starbase on September 28.
  •  
❌