How men were left to starve in a South African gold mine. This image was created by Mohamed Hussein using the artificial intelligence (AI) tool Midjourney. Ayanda Ndabeni watched the faint glow from his headlamp fight the vast darkness 1,500 metres (4,920 feet) below ground. His miner's lamp had lasted for more than a week after he was lowered down into the shaft of the gold mine. But now the batteries were dying. He gently flipped the plastic switch of his lamp, turning it off, and the trapped men around him became shadows. In the stifling heat and humidity, their anxiety pressed in from all sides. Ayanda had descended into Shaft 10 of the Buffelsfontein mine in late September 2024, lowered by a team of nearly 20 men operating ropes and a pulley above ground. That day, he'd spotted police vehicles near the mine's entrance. The 36-year-old assumed it was just routine patrols around the mine system, which is 2km (1.2 miles) deep. But then the rope pulley, via which food, water, batteries and other items arrived, stopped moving. The shouting that usually indicated the rope operators were sending down a man or supplies also fell silent. When huge rocks came crashing down the shaft, they knew it was a warning. The men whispered of their growing fears that something was very wrong on the surface. Patrick Ntsokolo was also in Shaft 10. He was a few hundred metres higher up than Ayanda and had arrived in late July. Patrick was new to the mines. Tasked by the leaders of the artisanal miners with collecting the food, water and alcohol lowered down by the rope pulley, he hauled supplies along the slippery tunnels to small shops.

Species range maps (SRMs) are essential tools for research and policy-making in ecology, conservation, and environmental management.

Nyalleng Moorosi is part of a movement aimed at involving more African voices in AI policymaking. The room is draped in white curtains, and a giant screen blinks with videos created with generative AI. A classic East African folk song by the Tanzanian singer Saida Karoli plays loudly on the speakers. Friends greet each other as waiters serve arrowroot crisps and sugary mocktails. A man and a woman wearing leopard skins atop their clothes sip beer and chat; many women are in handwoven Ethiopian garb with red, yellow, and green embroidery. "The best thing about the Indaba is always the parties," computer scientist Nyalleng Moorosi tells me.

For example, in the Pandemic Response Challenge experiment, the context consisted of data about the geographic region for which the predictions were made, e.g., historical data of COVID-19 cases and intervention policies; actions were future schedules of intervention policies for the region; and outcomes were predicted future cases of COVID-19 along with the stringency

Human feedback is central to the alignment of Large Language Models (LLMs).

Species range maps (SRMs) are essential tools for research and policy-making in ecology, conservation, and environmental management.

The EU's Global Gateway plan is challenging China's Belt and Road Initiative to influence Africa, by providing funding that will expand access to electricity. Nearly 600 million Africans--half the continent's population--are without electricity, largely because of the continent's limited distribution network, and Africans make up the vast majority of those worldwide without electricity access. But the European Union wants to change this. At the end of September, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a €545 million ($636 million) investment package to support renewable energy and electrification in Africa. New EU-funded projects will include a high-voltage transmission line in Côte d'Ivoire, the electrification of hundreds of rural communities in Cameroon, the exploitation of wind and hydro energy in Lesotho, and the installation of mini-grids in remote areas of Madagascar.

Elon Musk Is Out to Rule Space. With SpaceX and Starlink, Elon Musk controls more than half the world's rocket launches and thousands of internet satellites. Just off the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway, the hotel's rooftop bar is open late. The bartender passes out shots and turns Ozzy up. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takes off, its orange plume glowing bright, about 12 miles due north up the Banana River. The "Iron Man" riff starts to blast. When we hear the thud of the sonic boom, most everyone lets out some kind of hoot. This is SpaceX's 95th launch of the year, one nearly every other day. That's more liftoffs than the rest of the world gets into space, combined. For our politics issue, WIRED examines the state of tech's influence on governmental power--and the people who will change everything in the future. On this particular night, this Falcon 9 took 28 Starlink internet satellites to orbit. Starlink, of course, is another Musk space venture that dominates its competitors.