As a tour guide in Paris, I saw many tourists make the same mistakes. adisa/Getty Images I worked as a tour guide in Paris and took hundreds of tourists around the city. I often saw travelers repeat the same mistakes over and over again. In my opinion, staying in a hotel near the Eiffel Tower isn't worth the money. After years of living in Paris for school, I spent a year working as a tour guide in the city. During this period of my life, I spent a lot of time on top of the Eiffel Tower, inside the Louvre, and taking hundreds of tourists around Paris. However, I noticed that many tourists made the same mistakes over and over. Here are five of the most common missteps I noticed. Staying near the Eiffel Tower can be pricey. Philippe LEJEANVRE/Getty Images Although seeing the Eiffel Tower is a major reason people travel to Paris, staying near this famous landmark can be pricey. Instead, I recommend staying in the east part of the city, which has a more relaxed vibe but still offers lots of restaurant and bar options. Some tourists find the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower disappointing. Shchipkova Elena/Shutterstock I've probably spent months of my life climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower every day with groups of tourists. The problem? We would spend what felt like forever waiting to get up there, and I could feel their disappointment when they arrived. They'd look out across the city, and the view wouldn't mean much to them because you can't see Paris' most iconic landmark if you're standing on top of it. Sometimes, you can't even see very far out if there's morning fog or rain. Instead, I recommend climbing the Montparnasse Tower or going to the rooftop café at Printemps, a French department store, to look out across the city. For a special treat, I always tell tourists to get to a viewpoint at night, when the Eiffel Tower sparkles for five minutes at the top of each hour. In my opinion, tourists are missing out by only dining at the most Instagrammable spots. Photo 12/Getty Images Though it can be tempting to flock to the pretty cafés and restaurants covered in fake flowers, I recommend staying away from most of them. In my experience, these Instagrammable locations often offer disappointing food at higher prices. For a more authentic experience, seek out small coffee shops, restaurants, and local markets instead. Not saying hello to the locals can be seen as rude. Alexander Spatari/Getty Images There's a stereotype that French people are rude, but in my experience, this is far from the truth. However, it's important for tourists to understand one simple etiquette norm: saying "bonjour." In France, it's polite to say a simple "bonjour" when entering a store or restaurant. This small gesture goes a long way toward building rapport with the locals. I've seen many tourists try to do too much in one day. HADI ZAHER/Getty Images I've seen so many tourists compete over who can do the most during their time in Paris. But I often have to remind people that the Olympics are over and seeing the city isn't an endurance event. I always tell visitors to allow themselves to be on vacation. After all, nothing is more Parisian than reading a book in a park or enjoying a calm drink on a terrace. This story was originally published on October 28, 2024, and most recently updated on June 29, 2026. Read the original article on Business Insider

A dangerous heat wave is sweeping parts of the US, but many states set their all-time hottest temperature records decades ago. Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Global temperatures continue to increase, with 2024 recording the warmest numbers on record. In 2021, Oregon, Utah, and Washington broke heat records. The highest temperature ever recorded in the US was 134 degrees Fahrenheit in California in 1913. Americans are feeling the heat as high temperatures sweep across the country. In January, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that 2024 was the hottest year on record, and 2026 is shaping up to be a scorcher too, with the European heat wave breaking records and creating a rising death toll. This week, the National Weather Service warned that dangerous, potentially record-breaking heat would spread across the eastern two-thirds of the US, prompting heat advisories ahead of the Independence Day weekend. Here's a list of every state and its hottest day on record. ALABAMA: 112 degrees Fahrenheit Montgomery, Alabama. Centreville is located about an hour outside the capital. Julie Bennett/Stringer/Getty Images Date: September 6, 1925 Location: Centreville ALASKA: 100 degrees Fahrenheit View from Alaska Highway ALCAN. Benz Travel Photography/Shutterstock Date: June 27, 1915 Location: Fort Yukon ARIZONA: 128 degrees Fahrenheit Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Pamela Au/Shutterstock Date: June 29, 1994 Location: Lake Havasu City   ARKANSAS: 120 degrees Fahrenheit Ozark National Forest. Robert Harding Video/Shutterstock Date: August 10, 1936 Location: Ozark   CALIFORNIA: 134 degrees Fahrenheit Furnace Creek Visitor Center. Noah Sauve/Shutterstock Date: July 10, 1913 Location: Furnace Creek (formerly Greenland Ranch) COLORADO: 115 degrees Fahrenheit John Martin Dam in Colorado in 1977. UPI/Bettmann Archive/Contributor/Getty Images Date: July 10, 2019 Location: John Martin Dam CONNECTICUT: 106 degrees Fahrenheit Danbury, Connecticut. Rosemarie Mosteller/Shutterstock Date: July 15, 1995 Location: Danbury Torrington, Connecticut, also reached 106 degrees Fahrenheit on August 23, 1916. DELAWARE: 110 degrees Fahrenheit Dock near Millsboro, Delaware. Khairil Azhar Junos/Shutterstock Date: July 21, 1930 Location: Millsboro FLORIDA: 109 degrees Fahrenheit Tallahassee, Florida. Monticello is less than an hour away from the capital city. Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Date: June 29, 1931 Location: Monticello GEORGIA: 112 degrees Fahrenheit Meriweather County Courthouse in Greenville, Georgia. JNix/Shutterstock Date: August 20, 1983 Location: Greenville Louisville, Georgia, also reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit on July 24, 1952. HAWAII: 100 degrees Fahrenheit Coffee farm in Pahala, Hawaii. Chris Allan/Shutterstock Date: April 27, 1931 Location: Pahala IDAHO: 118 degrees Fahrenheit Dworshak Dam near Orofino, Idaho. Don & Melinda Crawford/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Date: July 28, 1934 Location: Orofino ILLINOIS: 117 degrees Fahrenheit East St. Louis, Illinois. Wspin/Shutterstock Date: July 14, 1954 Location: East St. Louis INDIANA: 116 degrees Fahrenheit Indianapolis, Indiana. Collegeville is an hour and a half away from the capital. Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Date: July 14, 1936 Location: Collegeville IOWA: 118 degrees Fahrenheit Des Moines, Iowa. Keokuk is located three hours outside the capital. Jacob Boomsma/Shutterstock Date: July 20, 1934 Location: Keokuk KANSAS: 121 degrees Fahrenheit Topeka, Kansas. Alton is located about three hours outside the capital. Jacob Boomsma/Shutterstock Date: July 24, 1936 Location: Alton Fredonia, Kansas, also reached 121 degrees Fahrenheit on July 18, 1936. KENTUCKY: 114 degrees Fahrenheit Frankfort, Kentucky. Greensburg is located about two hours outside the capital. Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Date: July 28, 1930 Location: Greensburg LOUISIANA: 114 degrees Fahrenheit Shreveport, Louisiana. Plain Dealings is located about one hour outside the city. Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Date: August 10, 1936 Location: Plain Dealing MAINE: 105 degrees Fahrenheit Augusta, Maine. North Bridgton is located about an hour away from the capital. Panas Wiwatpanachat/Shutterstock Date: July 10, 1911 Location: North Bridgton North Bridgton, Maine, also reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit on July 4, 1911. MARYLAND: 109 degrees Fahrenheit Cumberland, Maryland. Kosoff/Shutterstock Dates: July 10, 1936 Location: Cumberland Frederick, Maryland, also reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit on July 10, 1936. Cumberland, Maryland, reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit on August 7, 1918, and August 6, 1918. Keedysville, Maryland, reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit on August 6, 1918. Boettcherville, Maryland, reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit on July 3, 1898.   MASSACHUSETTS: 107 degrees Fahrenheit New Bedford, Massachusetts. Wangkun Jia/Shutterstock Date: August 2, 1975 Location: New Bedford Chester, Massachusetts, also reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit on August 2, 1975. MICHIGAN: 112 degrees Fahrenheit The Oscoda County Government Center in Mio, Michigan. Roberto Galan/Shutterstock Date: July 13, 1936 Location: Mio Stanwood, Michigan, also reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit on July 13, 1936. MINNESOTA: 115 degrees Fahrenheit Saint Paul, Minnesota. Beardsley is located about three and a half hours outside the capital. Paul Brady Photography/Shutterstock Date: July 29, 1917 Location: Beardsley MISSISSIPPI: 115 degrees Fahrenheit Holly Springs, Mississippi. David7/Shutterstock Date: July 29, 1930 Location: Holly Springs MISSOURI: 118 degrees Fahrenheit Jefferson City, Missouri. Union is located about an hour and a half outside the capital. Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Date: July 14, 1954 Location: Union Warsaw, Missouri, also hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit on July 14, 1954. MONTANA: 117 degrees Fahrenheit Medicine Lake, Montana. Silent O/Shutterstock Date: July 5, 1937 Location: Medicine Lake Glendive, Montana, also reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit on July 20, 1893. NEBRASKA: 118 degrees Fahrenheit Jacob Boomsma/Shutterstock Date: July 24, 1936 Location: Minden Hartington, Nebraska, also reached 118 degrees Fahrenheit on July 17, 1936. Geneva, Nebraska, reached 118 degrees Fahrenheit on July 15, 1934.   NEVADA: 125 degrees Fahrenheit Laughlin, Nevada. Jacob Boomsma/Shutterstock Date: June 29, 1994 Location: Laughlin NEW HAMPSHIRE: 106 degrees Fahrenheit Nashua, New Hampshire. Wangkun Jia/Shutterstock Date: July 4, 1911 Location: Nashua NEW JERSEY: 110 degrees Fahrenheit Sayreville, New Jersey. ungvar/Shutterstock Date: July 10, 1936 Location: Runyon (near Sayreville) NEW MEXICO: 122 degrees Fahrenheit Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Date: June 27, 1994 Location: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (near Loving) NEW YORK: 108 degrees Fahrenheit Troy, New York. Real Window Creative/Shutterstock Date: July 22, 1926 Location: Troy NORTH CAROLINA: 110 degrees Fahrenheit Fayetteville, North Carolina. Basil Hasapis/Shutterstock Date: August 21, 1983 Location: Fayetteville NORTH DAKOTA: 121 degrees Fahrenheit Bismarck, North Dakota. Andrew Burton/Getty Images Date: July 6, 1936 Location: Steele OHIO: 113 degrees Fahrenheit Gallipolis, Ohio. Rosemarie Mosteller/Shutterstock Date: July 21, 1934 Location: Gallipolis OKLAHOMA: 120 degrees Fahrenheit Altus, Oklahoma. AMFPhotography/Shutterstock Date: August 12, 1936 Location: Altus Altus, Oklahoma, first hit the record on July 19, 1936. Poteau, Oklahoma, also reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit on August 10, 1936. Alva, Oklahoma, reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit on July 18, 1936. OREGON: 119 degrees Fahrenheit Pelton Dam. Victoria Ditkovsky/Shutterstock Date: June 29, 2021 Location: Pelton Dam Moody Farms Agrimet, Oregon, also reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit on June 29, 2021. Pendleton, Oregon, reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit on August 10, 1898. PENNSYLVANIA: 111 degrees Fahrenheit Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto/Getty Images Date: July 10, 1936 Location: Phoenixville Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, also hit 111 degrees Fahrenheit on July 9, 1936. RHODE ISLAND: 104 degrees Fahrenheit Mihai_Andritoiu/Shutterstock Date: August 2, 1975 Location: Providence SOUTH CAROLINA: 113 degrees Fahrenheit Columbia, South Carolina. Mihai_Andritoiu/Shutterstock Date: June 29, 2012 Location: Columbia SOUTH DAKOTA: 120 degrees Fahrenheit Fort Pierre, South Dakota. aitcheyedigital/Getty Images Date: July 15, 2006 Location: Fort Pierre Gann Valley, South Dakota, also hit 120 degrees Fahrenheit on July 5, 1936. TENNESSEE: 113 degrees Fahrenheit The business district of Perryville, TN in 1940. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Date: August 9, 1930 Location: Perryville Perryville, Tennessee, also hit 113 degrees Fahrenheit on July 29, 1930. TEXAS: 120 degrees Fahrenheit Monahans, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images Date: June 28, 1994 Location: Monahans Seymour, Texas, also hit 120 degrees Fahrenheit on August 12, 1936. UTAH: 117 degrees Fahrenheit St George, Utah. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Date: July 10, 2021 Location: St. George St. George, Utah, also hit 117 degrees Fahrenheit on July 5, 1985. VERMONT: 107 degrees Fahrenheit Windham County, Vermont. Mike Hardiman/Shutterstock Date: July 7, 1912 Location: Vernon VIRGINIA: 110 degrees Fahrenheit Glasgow, Virginia. Jon Bilous/Shutterstock Date: July 15, 1954 Location: Balcony Falls Columbia, Virginia, also hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit on July 7, 1900, and July 5, 1900. WASHINGTON: 118 degrees Fahrenheit Hanford, Washington. BEST-BACKGROUNDS/Shutterstock Date: June 29, 2021 Location: Hanford WEST VIRGINIA: 112 degrees Fahrenheit West Virginia state flag. Ianm35/Getty Images Date: July 10, 1936 Location: Martinsburg Moorefield, West Virginia, also hit 112 degrees Fahrenheit on August 4, 1930. WISCONSIN: 114 degrees Fahrenheit Witches Gulch in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Jacob Boomsma/Getty Images Date: July 13, 1936 Location: Wisconsin Dells WYOMING: 115 degrees Fahrenheit Diversion Dam. Bob Pool/Shutterstock Date: July 15, 1988 Location: Diversion Dam Basin, Wyoming, also hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit on August 8, 1983. Read the original article on Business Insider

AI is becoming an increasingly important tool for drug discovery. However, for many pharmaceutical and biotech companies, the challenge isn’t finding more powerful models. It’s getting existing models to work […] The post Databricks and Nvidia Launch Genesis Workbench for AI Scientists appeared first on BigDATAwire.

The move comes as part of the government’s series of megaprojects designed to secure the country’s position in the global AI landscape.

Small prompt changes can silently break critical behavior in production. This article introduces a practical framework to detect hidden regressions before users notice. The post Prompt Engineering Fails Quietly —  Prompt Regression Is Why appeared first on Towards Data Science.

Enterprise investment in AI is booming. Gartner is calling 2026 an “inflection year” for organizations to align their AI projects with strategic business objectives. As the pressure to prove ROI mounts, executives and technology leaders are looking to agentic AI to drive the measurable financial outcomes their businesses seek. A prime opportunity for AI agents…

Small and medium-sized businesses need to up their data quality and forge a model strategy to reap the potential benefits from AI.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI), and especially large language models deployed as chatbots and digital assistants, are now part of everyday digital life. These models are being framed as a helpful assistant, a patient tutor, a customer service agent and even a source of emotional support. But what happens when even more human encounters are mediated by machines? This question matters especially in South Africa, where apartheid not only separated people by law, but also shaped who was seen, heard and recognised as fully human. Its legacy still lives in unequal access to education, healthcare, work, technology and public services. This is also why ubuntu has become such an important part of South African debates about social life. Ubuntu is a way of thinking about personhood. It sees personhood as relational. It reminds us that dignity is not only individual. It is also formed through mutual belonging. Ubuntu is expressed through the idea that “a person is a person through other persons”. People become themselves fully through relationships of recognition, care, responsibility and shared life. As a scholar of technology and society, I have been exploring how AI is reshaping human relationships. In my research on ubuntu and generative AI, I set about asking what this means in practice. What happens when machines begin to replace the human relationships through which people experience care, recognition and dignity? To answer this question, I used ubuntu as a lens to examine whether AI-mediated interactions can support the kinds of relationships through which human dignity is affirmed. I argue that the rise of generative AI is more than a technical issue in two ways. Firstly, it is a relational one. Secondly, it’s about who gets access to human beings. In my paper, I describe this risk as a form of “relational apartheid”. By this I mean a social and technological pattern in which access to meaningful human engagement becomes unequally distributed. Some people are met by persons. Others are managed by systems. This is not apartheid in the legal sense of the past. It is a warning about how old inequalities can reappear in new digital forms. Simulated care is not the same as shared life Large language models can now produce fluent and emotionally sensitive responses. They can apologise, encourage, advise and offer language that sounds consoling. They can remember details within a conversation and adjust their tone to the user. For many people, this can feel surprisingly human. Yet the appearance of a relationship is not the same as a relationship. A chatbot may respond warmly to a lonely student, a frustrated customer or a patient seeking reassurance. But it does not share in that person’s life. It cannot be vulnerable in return. It cannot be held accountable as a person. It cannot forgive, be forgiven, carry a moral burden or be transformed by the encounter. Human relationships are difficult because they involve more than responsiveness. They involve mutual risk. We disappoint one another. We misunderstand one another. We apologise, repair and try again. These imperfect processes are part of what makes human relationships morally meaningful. AI often offers a form of responsiveness without the mutual resistance found in human relationships. It can always be available, endlessly polite, and easily reset. That convenience is attractive. But it may also train us to expect relationships without the hard work of relationship. The concern is not that every interaction with AI is harmful. AI tools can help people find information, write better, learn faster and access services. Used carefully, AI can create more space for human care rather than replace it. The danger comes when AI is used as a substitute for human presence in areas where recognition matters. Inequality is also about who receives human attention Customer service offers one example. As organisations automate front-line support, people are increasingly routed through chatbots before they can reach a human being. This may reduce costs. It may also improve speed for simple queries. But it can create a tiered system in which some customers receive human attention while others are left with automated interaction. The labour implications are also becoming visible. Salesforce, one of the world’s largest providers of customer service and business software, has reported that AI agents now handle a growing share of customer interactions. The company has also reduced thousands of support roles in recent years, although it would be simplistic to attribute all of these changes solely to AI. This does not mean all customer service work will disappear. But it does show how quickly routine service work can be reorganised once AI becomes the default front line. Something similar could happen in healthcare, education and social support. Where human professionals are scarce, AI counselling tools, tutoring systems and advice bots may appear to offer a practical solution. In some cases they may help. But they also risk normalising a situation in which those who are already underserved are increasingly spoken to by machines rather than people. In a society that the World Bank describes as among the most unequal in the world, old differences in income, education, language, geography and institutional power could reappear in new digital forms. The problem is not only whether machines give accurate or inaccurate answers. The deeper problem is that some people may be denied the kind of encounter through which dignity is affirmed. A person does not only need a response. A person often needs to be recognised by another person. Building ubuntu into AI What about efforts to build ubuntu-aligned AI? Scholars have explored how ubuntu might inform AI design, ethics and governance. There is value in designing AI systems that are more sensitive to African languages, local histories and communal values. There is value in involving communities in decisions about how AI is built and used. There is also value in ensuring that technology does not simply import the assumptions of powerful companies and distant markets. But can ubuntu simply be programmed into a machine? Ubuntu is not only a set of polite phrases or cultural preferences. It is a way of thinking about persons in a relationship. It depends on shared life, mutual vulnerability and accountability. A system can be designed to support these values, but current AI systems cannot live them in the way people do. This distinction is important for policy and design. AI systems should be presented clearly as tools, not companions. They should not blur the difference between simulated care and real care, especially when used by children, elderly people, patients or socially isolated users. In sensitive settings, AI should support human professionals rather than replace them. It may help South Africa improve public services, widen access to knowledge and support overburdened institutions. But it may also deepen the distance between people if efficiency becomes the main measure of progress. Rennie Naidoo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Emma Roth / The Verge: Rocket Lab plans to acquire Iridium for $8B and combine Rocket Lab's launch services with Iridium's satellite-based communications network to rival SpaceX  —  Iridium's constellation of 66 satellites provides communications for 2.5 million subscribers.

In May 2026, in his first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas – signed on the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum – Pope Leo XIV warned the world about the dangers of the promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), categorically calling machine learning “a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth”. Critical of an AI that replaces religious pluralism with a technological monolith, Pope Leo XIV addresses one of the most interesting dynamics of our contemporary societies: what role can religion play in a world in which technology seems to have a spiritual project of its own? This “spiritual” AI is, in many ways, the Tower of Babel that the Pope fears. It comes with one concrete future and a defined goal, and has taken different names and ideologies, ranging from Peter Thiel’s doomsday scenario with the coming of the Antichrist, to transhumanist and techno-optimistic visions in which society is materially satisfied and markets run free. These ideologies share one thing in common, which connects AI to some forms of organised religion in remarkable ways: messianism. To be very clear, many other social projects have borrowed certain aspects of the same religious dimension to foster legitimacy and large-scale adoption, often with good intentions. As Joseph Weiler well observed, Robert Schuman’s project for a “Europe of many peoples” was in itself a messianic promise, the dream of a ‘European Promised Land’. The same could be said of American Constitutionalism and its ‘constitutional faith’, as Levinson would put it, and the quasi-religious role of the founding fathers, the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence. Political messianism has the potential to unite a people around a particular goal, focusing our attention more on the end goal and less on the journey, especially when that journey is fraught with peril and suffering. However, there seems to be something entirely new about AI messianism. First, the entire project of general AI is, in itself, ultimately that of achieving human intelligence. Unlike other technological advancements of the past – such as harvesting electricity or fire – AI seeks, at the core of its scientific foundations, to replicate Humankind and, perhaps one day, to surpass it. Tests like the famous Turing Test were precisely designed to see how far a machine could go in convincing humans that it was one of them. Leonardo Da Vinci painfully discovered how such an imitation game could trigger a negative reaction from humans themselves, namely when he (allegedly) presented humanity’s first “robot” before the Sforza’s court, much to the horror and wonder of the guests. This is not so different from the reaction we have today, almost instinctively, when we gasp at how Claude writes a poem or Python code. Secondly, technology brings about a particular Messiah. There is a concept in AI studies that once belonged solely to sci-fi books and is now making its way into everyday news. The concept of Artificial General Intelligence or AGI, or even Superintelligence, is ultimately that of Kurzweil’s “Singularity”, a moment in which human intelligence is no longer the most capable on Earth. This AGI is the Messiah who shall cure Earth from all illness (as Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis tells us again and again). To follow this Messiah becomes then our mission, our religious quest, no matter what the cost is to the environment or to ourselves. When Andreessen says that “our enemy is the Precautionary Principle, which would have prevented virtually all progress since man first harnessed fire”, it’s a call for action to push quicker and farther, as far as we can, to follow it. The Singularity is ultimately God, with AI as its Son, and this new machine-led Earth as our Promised Land. Now, one could ask: Is it not a bit bizarre to frame technology in this way? Who is to gain from such a messianic view of technology? In political messianism, it is fairly easy to understand its appeal. It provides a guiding goal, it unites a people, and rallies the masses to fight for a common ideal or cause. It can also manipulate them to do terrible things. People die for a country because they wish to contribute to something long-lasting, bigger than themselves, to achieve some ultimate goal. But they also do it to follow a leader, often to the destruction of minorities. Likewise, religious messianism serves a purpose for the faithful: orienting behaviour, providing solace in a difficult life, promising that the future will be better than the present once in eternal life. To some extent, the Catholic Church itself largely benefited from such an idea and so did early Christianity during its infancy, in appealing to the poor of the Roman Empire. It also led to enormous suffering when it justified atrocities in the name of God. But technology should not really be about that, especially when most tech-optimists advocate for the wonders of technology neutrality as a value of the project itself. The answer lies perhaps in the Pope’s acknowledgment that “When it comes to decisions regarding economic flows and digital platforms, as well as the governance of data and algorithms, we cannot allow a handful of actors to dictate these processes on their own.” The point is then a matter of power and control, positions in which messianism can be used for the same political ends of manipulation and exploitation (e.g. you will not be replaced by AI, but by someone who uses AI). These, in turn, lead to further uncritical adoption and a continuous race toward the unknown end. This monocultural race, in which we assume the path to be one and the final destination to be certain, is precisely one of the known dangers of messianism. In fact, this might be the ultimate hidden goal of AI messianism, which has long strayed from its counterculture goals to now present a monocultural ideology of technology, led by the US and China, to which the rest of the world should bow or face oblivion. Like any good old messianic project, it is never the entire story. There are alternatives to the path – multiple in fact – from alternative clouds to alternative social media solutions, from alternative Large Language Models (LLMs) to alternative cyber communities, each following its own path, sometimes agreeing and sometimes disagreeing, but never submitting to one singular religious vision of what the world should be. Today is perhaps the moment to exercise some caution, take some time to reflect, and engage in some critical thinking. AI is, no doubt, an enormous and potentially civilisation-changing achievement, but we cannot let it lead us on a cultish journey toward our own demise – not because it takes over, but because we destroy ourselves and our humanity in the process. What is needed is what Michael Walzer called the “art of separation” in Liberalism: keeping technology one sphere among many, rather than a totalising one that colonises politics, faith, and meaning itself. Perhaps pluralism, more than one single vision of technological advancement, is the counter-theology we need today. A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter! Francisco De Abreu Duarte ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

Swiss engineering startup Subatron has obtained €162,000 (CHF 150,000) from Venture Kick to develop a new generation of underwater communication technology. The solution aims to enable faster, more r...

Reporting from Microsoft Gardens, next to Salesforce Beach, Amazon Port, and the Canva Creative Cabana.

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James Hunt / The Block: Filing: Strategy paused its bitcoin acquisitions last week, instead topping up its USD reserve to $2.55B and announcing a $1B digital credit buyback program  —  Quick Take  — Strategy paused its bitcoin acquisition last week despite raising $1.15 billion in MSTR proceeds, with its total holdings remaining at 847,363 BTC.

The tools I use for analytics and reporting have changed more than I expected, yet my questions for any analytics project haven't moved much. The post I Completed Five Years in Analytics Consulting: 5 Lessons That Changed How I Work appeared first on Towards Data Science.

NBCUniversal and Sky will be spun off into separate companies.

Pocket sells a $129 credit card-shaped puck, which sticks to the back of your phone, and promises unlimited recordings, transcriptions, and to-do items.

Jyoti Mann / The Information: Internal documents: Meta is placing strict limits on how engineers in its applied AI division can use Claude Code and Codex, fearing inadvertent distillation  —  As Meta Platforms tries to wean itself off expensive AI coding applications from Anthropic and OpenAI, it is confronting a difficult challenge …

🧠 New release notes, strategy updates and competitor changes in one click.

Instead of bouncing between AI tools, this platform puts models, file features, and creative tools together. The post This $70 AI Assistant Aims to Consolidate Your Daily Work Tools appeared first on TechRepublic.