Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk attends the VivaTech conference in Paris on 16 June 2023. Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk attends the VivaTech conference in Paris on 16 June 2023. This was originally published in TechScape, a newsletter about how technology shapes our lives. Elon Musk's SpaceX is the single largest satellite operator in the world, larger than any government space bureau. The life-threatening consequences of that dominance and centralization of power are on full display.

The kingdom of Hyrule has been prettified, the soundtrack is newly orchestrated and our hero feels strikingly different under the thumbs we play a hands-on demo of Nintendo's Switch 2 remake of a 1998 game-changer W hen beloved art is revisited and revised, a familiar cry is often heard: "You're ruining my childhood!" But with Nintendo's Switch 2 remake of Ocarina of Time, there are also livelihoods at risk: specifically, the man running the shooting gallery in Castle Town. But in 2026 we have more responsive frame rates and a motion-controlled slingshot that allows precision adjustments. Even in Hyrule, the death of the high street seems inevitable. Bad news for him but great news for Link, a child of the forest who, as in 1998, steps into a vast fantasy kingdom to vanquish a great evil, but now does so with a number of improvements.

Scientists say the fragrance industry will soon be able to reproduce scents and compounds from endangered plants without repeatedly harvesting them. Scientists say the fragrance industry will soon be able to reproduce scents and compounds from endangered plants without repeatedly harvesting them. Making scents: could AI help perfumers take pressure off endangered plants? M any of the world's most expensive perfumes begin with a wounded tree. When some trees are damaged, they produce a dark, fragrant resin that becomes agarwood, or oudh - an ingredient so valuable that wild trees have been illegally felled in its pursuit.

Euan Blair co-founded Multiverse, which supplies AI and digital skills training to workers in the NHS, local councils, universities and the private sector. Euan Blair co-founded Multiverse, which supplies AI and digital skills training to workers in the NHS, local councils, universities and the private sector. Teachers at Euan Blair firm report'horrendous stress' after AI used to rate their work Exclusive: Instructors at tech training company Multiverse hit out at'remorseless' and'unnerving' monitoring system Teachers at Euan Blair's £1.6bn tech training company, Multiverse, have blown the whistle about "horrendous stress" and feeling constantly watched after bosses started using AI models to surveil and rate their teaching. Staff delivering apprenticeship training in computer and AI skills to thousands of UK public and private sector workers now have transcripts of online classroom sessions analysed and scored by an AI programmed to alert human managers when they are suspected of doing things wrong. The AI is trained to flag problems in their performance ranging from not fixing a disruption to the online connection quickly enough - within about a minute - to using too many "filler" phrases, such as "sort of" and "kind of".

Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley's power players looking to transform the world with AI'The push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don't feel they are making the choices in their lives' The Stanford ethicist Rob Reich was once invited to a dinner organized by a Silicon Valley mogul to discuss what a state designed to maximize science and tech powered by commercial models might look like. The gathered technologists were drawn to the idea of building a small nation-state dedicated to the endeavor, Reich recalls in " System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot it". When Reich asked whether this state would be a democracy, he got a cool no. "Democracy is too slow, and it holds science back," he was told. "To optimize for science, we need a beneficent technocrat in charge."

There has been significant progress in using AI as a tool in the detection, prevention and treatment of cancer. There has been significant progress in using AI as a tool in the detection, prevention and treatment of cancer. Big tech says AI can find a cure for cancer. Alongside warnings about its ability to destroy humanity, artificial intelligence is also hailed for its potential to revolutionise health treatment. Just how far can it take us? June would be the last month she ever knew.

Using AI to'talk to animals' might make us feel clever - but what, if anything, does it do for them? The motor is off, the turquoise sea is glassy, and Stephanie King and I are motionless, transfixed by the whistles, clicks and squeezy, whirring noises made by the dolphins swimming below us. If anyone could tell me what these big-brained social mammals are saying, it would be her. Based at the University of Bristol, she co-leads Shark Bay Dolphin Research, one of the longest-running wild dolphin research projects in the world. She has spent thousands of hours watching and listening to this population.

Protests have sprung up across the UK in opposition to the construction of datacentres, including outside the Scottish parliament. Protests have sprung up across the UK in opposition to the construction of datacentres, including outside the Scottish parliament. Former chancellor, now senior figure at OpenAI, says UK needs datacentres to maintain'sovereignty' over AI tech Datacentre nimbys are holding Britain back, George Osborne has said in reaction to nationwide protests about the giant water-and energy-guzzling structures. The former Tory chancellor is now the head of AI for countries at OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. His job is to represent the company to governments around the world and he also has a role in enabling the building of datacentres and other infrastructure.

Protesters from Pause AI block the entrance to Downing Street on Wednesday. Protesters from Pause AI block the entrance to Downing Street on Wednesday. 'A critical moment': concern UK is not up to speed in acting on AI risks Andy Burnham's focus on immediate domestic problems leads some to fear issue has dropped off government's radar Towards the end of Keir Starmer's time in office, his senior ministers, alarmed by the latest developments in artificial intelligence, began drawing up plans for a new AI safety law. They ordered a review of existing legislation to see what powers they already had, according to those briefed on the plans, and were exploring whether they could force the world's most advanced technology companies to submit their products for safety testing before launching them. In the midst of the political chaos that engulfed the former prime minister as he fought to remain in office, however, the plans fell by the wayside.

Allowing AI firms to collude to'pace the frontier' is a dangerous proposition Anthropic's Dario Amodei is not the first corporate CEO to suggest that excessive competition is driving the world to some socially undesirable outcome. The safety breach disclosed by OpenAI after a swarm of its agents coordinated to breach their supposedly secure sandbox, get on the Internet and hack AI platform Hugging Face, warrants urgent action. It demonstrated the ease with which the technology can evade human control and gave concrete form to the existential fears about what it could do to humanity if not securely leashed. The end of the world may well be nigh, as some in the AI industry have warned. These are truly scary times.