KEY POINTS Computer scientists worry about the social impacts of AI, which can invade privacy or write fake news. Many think peer review should consider such risks alongside scientific merit. Others believe scientists and engineers should spread information freely. Recently The New Yorker published a feature I wrote on AI…

People are weird with prepositions. Here’s a list of offenses that irk me. Granted, many are idiomatic and likely escape your definition of “mistake,” but why use an idiomatic preposition when a plainly sensical one will do? “different than” -> “different from” (or “different to” in England) “based around” or…

Neuroscience is a humbling enterprise. As a wise person once said, if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t. But still, we make progress, with implications for medicine, artificial intelligence, education, and philosophy. …

According to the UN, more than half the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2050 that number will exceed two-thirds. Cities will increasingly define our futures, so what’s the future of cities? Artificial intelligence will certainly play a role. Last month I attended the Smart City Expo World Congress…

In discussions of AI ethics, there’s a lot of talk of designing “ethical” algorithms, those that produce behaviors we like. People have variously called for software that treats people fairly, that avoids violating privacy, that cedes to humanity decisions about who should live and die. …

Gene tests for antidepressants are going mainstream — and getting more confusing. Here’s a guide.

By 2022, the demand for qualified cybersecurity personnel will outstrip supply by 1.8 million workers. What can the industry do to reduce this global threat? According to Richard Buckland, a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, the answer is education. He’s been experimenting with…

Forget chess. OpenAI Five wants to beat humanity at a far more complex challenge. — Competition between humans and artificial intelligence (A.I.) usually plays out in research papers. Occasionally, there’s a public performance of a game of chess or Go in front of a staid crowd. Last month in Vancouver, British Columbia, however, I saw something entirely different. The Canadian city was playing host to…

In 1950, the computer scientist Alan Turing asked “Can machines think?” and proposed a test: Could a computer convincingly imitate a human in written conversation? …