Government
OpenAI makes breakthrough on 80-year-old maths problem
If you take a sheet of paper and add some dots, how many pairs can be the same distance apart? If you take a sheet of paper and add some dots, how many pairs can be the same distance apart? OpenAI has claimed a further advance in AI reasoning after its technology successfully tackled an 80-year-old maths problem. The company behind ChatGPT said it had made a breakthrough with a challenge first posed by Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős in 1946: the planar unit distance problem. The question posed by Erdős is simple to explain.
WiseTech begins redundancies – but omits 'AI' from emails to Chinese employees, workers say
Staff at WiseTech have been waiting months to be told if they are among the employees the company is to cut due to advances in AI. Staff at WiseTech have been waiting months to be told if they are among the employees the company is to cut due to advances in AI. WiseTech begins redundancies - but omits'AI' from emails to Chinese employees, workers say WiseTech has begun informing staff that they will lose their jobs as part of redundancies the company has said is due to artificial intelligence advancements - although an email to staff in China omitted the word "AI" after a court case against another company in the country. Staff at WiseTech have been waiting almost three months to be told if they are among the 2,000 people the logistics software company is to cut due to advances in AI. The Australian Stock Exchange-listed company announced in late February it would lay off almost 30% of its 7,000-strong workforce across 40 countries.
NYC and LA Are Teaming Up to Fight for EVs
After the Trump administration turned away from electrification, two of the nation's biggest governments will advocate for more electric vans, police cars, and eventually, snowplows. New York City is not a car town. But pay attention as you walk, bike, or, sure, drive around the country's most populous city, and you might notice a car trend: an increasing number of its vehicles are electric . The city government operates some 5,800 EVs, plus 4,700 hybrid vehicles--Parks Department pickups, Police Department crossover SUVs, school buses, paramedic response vehicles, even some hulking garbage trucks. A local law requires the city to transition its entire light-and medium-duty fleet to batteries by 2035 and its trucks by 2038.
Air France and Airbus found guilty of manslaughter over 2009 plane crash
Air France and Airbus have been found guilty of manslaughter over a 2009 plane crash which killed 228 people. The Paris Appeals Court found the airline and aircraft manufacturer guilty of corporate manslaughter over the incident, in which flight AF447 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The passenger jet stalled during a storm and plunged into the water, killing all on board. A court had previously cleared the companies in April 2023 but they were found guilty after this appeal. The Airbus A330 vanished from radars during a storm, with its wreckage found after a long search of 10,000 sq km (3,860 sq miles) of sea floor.
The Download: online safety's future and climate tech's big pivot
The Download: online safety's future and climate tech's big pivot Plus: SpaceX has filed for an IPO expected to be the largest ever. For months, the Trump administration has been going after researchers who study and try to counter hate speech, harassment, propaganda, and disinformation online. Now, some of those researchers are fighting back. In a new lawsuit, they're seeking to strike down a visa restriction policy against "foreign officials and other persons" announced last year by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They say the policy violates the speech and due process rights of foreign-born workers whose "work supports greater moderation of content on the [tech] platforms. Find out how the case could impact online safety and free speech .
The Typo Vibe Shift
Toward the beginning of the 2002 film, a domineering lawyer (played by James Spader) barges into the office of his assistant (Maggie Gyllenhaal) with evidence of a work infraction: a memo she has written that has "three typing errors." "Do you know what this makes me look like to the people who receive these letters?" Setting aside that his screed turns out to be foreplay, Spader's character was channeling a widespread cultural revulsion: Typos were the ultimate shorthand for careless work. A spelling mistake was proof that the writer hadn't bothered putting much effort into a piece of correspondence, that their instructions or advice shouldn't be taken seriously--and perhaps that the recipient shouldn't invest time in reading their note at all. More than two decades later, as AI-generated writing has flooded workplaces, social media, and dating apps, old hallmarks of sloppiness--typos chief among them--are getting a new gloss. Some job applicants are intentionally adding typos to their cover letters to prove that they, and not an AI program, wrote them.
The EU Is Going Through a Trump-Fueled Breakup With Big Tech
France is already moving on from Zoom and Microsoft Teams in favor of homegrown alternatives. Other countries are quickly following suit. As tensions between President Donald Trump and Europe continue to simmer, the continent is accelerating its moves to reduce its addiction to US technology . Cities and governments are ditching Microsoft Office for open-source alternatives, shifting to European cloud hosting for local AI, and moving defense data to systems without American involvement . Nowhere has this been more clear than in France.
From AI to interceptors, Ukraine is trying to drone-proof its skies
This week, with air raid warnings wailing in the distance, Kyiv held a funeral for two sisters. They had already lost their father who had been fighting on the front line. Their grieving mother is now the family's sole survivor. This is the human cost of the largest sustained Russian aerial assault so far - with 1,500 drones and 56 missiles fired at Ukraine within 48 hours. But the loss of life could have been even higher.