As Text-to-Image (TTI) diffusion models become increasingly influential in content creation, growing attention is being directed toward their societal and cultural implications. While prior research has primarily examined demographic and cultural biases, the ability of these models to accurately represent historical contexts remains largely underexplored. To address this gap, we introduce a benchmark for evaluating how TTI models depict historical contexts. The benchmark combines HistVis, a dataset of 30,000 synthetic images generated by three state-of-the-art diffusion models from carefully designed prompts covering universal human activities across multiple historical periods, with a reproducible evaluation protocol. We evaluate generated imagery across three key aspects: (1) Implicit Stylistic Associations: examining default visual styles associated with specific eras; (2) Historical Consistency: identifying anachronisms such as modern artifacts in pre-modern contexts; and (3) Demographic Representation: comparing generated racial and gender distributions against historically plausible baselines. Our findings reveal systematic inaccuracies in historically themed generated imagery, as TTI models frequently stereotype past eras by incorporating unstated stylistic cues, introduce anachronisms, and fail to reflect plausible demographic patterns. By providing a reproducible benchmark for historical representation in generated imagery, this work provides an initial step toward building more historically accurate TTI models.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's government on Friday announced plans for a deep-water expedition to explore the mythical galleon San José, sunk in the 18th century in the country's northern Caribbean and believed to contain cargo valued at billions of dollars. It is the first phase of a scientific research into deep waters that aims at collecting information to determine which pieces are suitable and possible to extract. The wreckage is 600 meters deep in the sea.

Research from the University of Kent (@UniKent) and Aalto University (@AaltoUniversity), Finland, has concluded with four key guidelines for how society should view and utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI), based on fictional scenarios in 18th Century literature. The paper, 'Embodiment in 18th Century Depictions of Human-Machine Co-Creativity', notes that AI is viewed broadly as a tool to enhance creativity, but is actually developed to such sophistication that the AI can become co-creator to the final product. Whilst this is evident in modern computer software, ideas about creative AI feature in many books from the past, particularly in works of fiction, drama and poetry. The 18th Century was the period of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment across Europe, and many advances were made in the development of'automata' and other robotic systems. The literature of the time reflects this with such broadmindedness that it still highly relevant in our own AI-dominated world.

Fifty years ago, we couldn't have predicted that tens of thousands of jobs would be created by the development and deployment of driverless cars. Without a doubt, when the first flying cars make their debut in the next few years, thousands of jobs will surface to build, train and support them. If history has taught us anything, it's that innovation and invention keep humanity moving forward. It's within our DNA to evolve and improve our ways of living and working. But what about when it comes to the power of technology?

Those tempting dreams have distracted many of them from where the real progress is already happening: in systems that enhance – rather than replace – human capabilities. To accelerate the shift to new ways of thinking, AI designers and developers could take some lessons from the missteps of past researchers. For example, alchemists, like Isaac Newton, pursued ambitious goals such as converting lead to gold, creating a panacea to cure all diseases, and finding potions for immortality. While these goals are alluring, the charlatans pursuing them may have secured princely financial backing that would have been better used developing modern chemistry. Equally optimistically, astrologers believed they could understand human personality based on birthdates and predict future events by studying the positions of the stars and planets.

Artificial intelligence researchers and engineers have spent a lot of effort trying to build machines that look like humans and operate largely independently. Those tempting dreams have distracted many of them from where the real progress is already happening: in systems that enhance – rather than replace – human capabilities. To accelerate the shift to new ways of thinking, AI designers and developers could take some lessons from the missteps of past researchers. For example, alchemists, like Isaac Newton, pursued ambitious goals such as converting lead to gold, creating a panacea to cure all diseases, and finding potions for immortality. While these goals are alluring, the charlatans pursuing them may have secured princely financial backing that would have been better used developing modern chemistry.

Our definition of death is changing. Until the concept of brain death was realised in the 20th century, death was primarily presumed upon the absence of a pulse and breathing. Prior methods for detecting the presence of a heartbeat were not well founded and not always effective. This led to some rather strange additional criterion. In the 18th century for example, a variety of odd methods were engaged to hopefully determine if someone was dead.

Undoubtedly, over the next few decades, artificial intelligence (AI) will begin to shape the world as Industry 4.0 prevails. Two of the world's most powerful businessmen Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are already debating the merits of this phenomenon. Musk claims that AI is a "fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation", whilst Zuckerberg is presenting more of a positive stance. Whilst this claim may prove to be true or not, as the use of AI imprints on society further, time will reveal its benefits and shortcomings. Hopefully not before it is too late, as some report that technology is now growing faster than humans are adapting to it. This article will explore some artificial intelligence solutions to some of the most pressing challenges the world faces today.

When Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley penned the cult classic Frankenstein, she referred to the story's ill-fated protagonist as "The Modern Prometheus," directly referencing the Greek Titan known for creating mankind. Prometheus loved humans, so much so that he stole the gift of fire from Mount Olympus and passed it on to the lowly humans who were neglected by the Gods. His generosity, however, was to undue him and curse him for the rest of his existence. Frankenstein would also share this fate after taking on the role as creator, a responsibility that ended up being too much to bear. And now, after centuries of reiterating the same theme, we too are becoming the modern Prometheus.

When you're the resident Penny Dreadful evangelist in your office (or neighborhood, or corner pub, or book club), you find yourself trying to entice people using genre comparisons: "Oh, you like romance? The problem is, Showtime's drama doesn't really have a genre. People assume it's horror, which makes sense--there's a werewolf, and supernatural forces, and the opening credits have blood and spiders, and the show is admittedly gory--but it also draws from a number of a literary sources, and there's plenty of romance and even a little comedy. Showtime calls it a psychological thriller. Too bad none of those are right. Penny Dreadful is a gothic romance, and while it may be seasoned with a dash of thriller and pinch of horror, its genre recipe is more than 250 years old. Romance was seen as too unserious to be called literature, and literature was too strict to allow the supernatural, so Walpole subtitled his tale of forbidden love and haunted castles "A Gothic Story." Penny Dreadful is an unraveling, and re-spinning, of that yarn. Its characters live, like Walpole, in London in the late 18th century. Their stories are drawn from the books that would follow Castle of Otranto's lead: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. And they were imagined by a man, John Logan, who, like Walpole, sought to marry romance with horror and the supernatural. "Penny Dreadful came from reading a lot of romantic poetry, especially William Wordsworth," Logan says. "That led me to Byron and Keats, and eventually back to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.