What is the AI alignment problem and how can it be solved?
10 May 2023
Artificial intelligence systems will do what you ask but not necessarily what you meant. The challenge is to make sure they act in line with human’s complex, nuanced values
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Premium
How many knots exist? A new computing trick is untangling the answer
12 July 2022
Finding how many knots there are for a given number of string crossings was thought to be an impossibly complex task. Now, algorithm engineering is cracking it – and showing us how to solve other fiendishly intricate maths problems
The essential guide to the algorithms that run your life
16 June 2021
From shaping what we read and buy to diagnosing illness, algorithms play a key role in every aspect of our lives. Here’s what you need to know about the most important ones
Seeing around corners: How to decipher shadows to see the invisible
6 November 2019
Reflected light gets everywhere and even shady spots are full of images we can’t see – not least what’s happening around corners. But new technology is beginning to expose these hidden scenes
Guilt-free online shopping is possible if we reinvent home delivery
4 September 2019
The boom in online retail has left our streets clogged with polluting delivery vans. We navigate the high-tech solutions that will distribute your parcels without the damaging emissions
Inside the race to find the first billion-digit prime number
7 August 2019
Discovering giant prime numbers involves laborious trial and error, and they are of little use when they are found. For certain devotees, that's beside the point
Humans should worry us more than machines, says founding father of AI
5 June 2019
Yoshua Bengio is one of the pioneering developers of artificial intelligence and winner of computing’s "Nobel prize". His optimism about machines doesn’t extend to humanity
Why the quest for ethical AI is doomed to failure
3 October 2018
You wouldn't buy a self-driving car that would kill you to save pedestrians – and that's why we must rethink how we make AI behave, says researcher Iyad Rahwan
After the Facebook scandal: The grand plan to hold AI to account
11 April 2018
From next month, EU citizens will have sweeping rights to know what computers are thinking about them – but can that work, and if so how?
How New Scientist readers predicted the Oscar winners
5 March 2018
We ran a simple experiment to test if the wisdom of the crowd could predict the future. It looks to have been a success
