Predictions that AI bot swarms were a threat to democracy weren't'fanciful', said Michael Wooldridge, professor of the foundations of AI at Oxford University. Predictions that AI bot swarms were a threat to democracy weren't'fanciful', said Michael Wooldridge, professor of the foundations of AI at Oxford University. Experts warn of threat to democracy from'AI bot swarms' infesting social media Political leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned. The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new "disruptive threat" posed by hard-to-detect, malicious "AI swarms" infesting social media and messaging channels. A would-be autocrat could use such swarms to persuade populations to accept cancelled elections or overturn results, they said, amid predictions the technology could be deployed at scale by the time of the US presidential election in 2028.

Significant "social ruptures" between people who think artificial intelligence systems are conscious and those who insist the technology feels nothing are looming, a leading philosopher has said. The comments, from Jonathan Birch, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, come as governments prepare to gather this week in San Francisco to accelerate the creation of guardrails to tackle the most severe risks of AI. Last week, a transatlantic group of academics predicted that the dawn of consciousness in AI systems is likely by 2035 and one has now said this could result in "subcultures that view each other as making huge mistakes" about whether computer programmes are owed similar welfare rights as humans or animals. Birch said he was "worried about major societal splits", as people differ over whether AI systems are actually capable of feelings such as pain and joy. The debate about the consequence of sentience in AI has echoes of science fiction films, such as Steven Spielberg's AI (2001) and Spike Jonze's Her (2013), in which humans grapple with the feeling of AIs. AI safety bodies from the US, UK and other nations will meet tech companies this week to develop stronger safety frameworks as the technology rapidly advances.

They're inside millions of homes and are useful for setting a timer or answering a query. But smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Nest may be unsafe for famous people because they can'give away how you live', an academic has warned. Sadie Creese, professor of cybersecurity at Oxford University, says the popular tech devices can make certain notable figures especially'targetable' to hackers. That's because they're fitted with microphones and even cameras that record and save data to the cloud. These recordings can potentially be accessed by cybercriminals remotely, which could could harm the victim's organisation or their family, she said.

While western billionaires were busy sending rockets to space only for them to crash and burn, scientists in India were quietly doing something no one had accomplished before. Their Chandrayaan-3 moon lander was the first mission to reach the lunar south pole – an unexplored region where reservoirs of frozen water are believed to exist. I remember my heart soaring when images of the control room in India spread around social media, showing senior female scientists celebrating their incredible achievement. The success of Chandrayaan-3, launched in July 2023, showed the world that not only is India a major player in space, but that a moon lander can be launched successfully for $75m (£60m). This cost is not to be sniffed at but it is much cheaper than most other countries' budgets for a moon mission. July 2023 was an extremely busy month for space firsts.

Belgian physicist and musician Prof Bob Coecke, 55, wants to teach quantum physics to a mass audience. The paradox-filled theory that describes the microscopic realm has become a staple of science fiction, from Marvel's Ant-Man to the multiple Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once. It's famously bizarre and, in the UK, the subject is mostly reserved for undergraduates specialising in physics because it requires grappling with complicated maths. But Coecke, a former Oxford professor, has devised a maths-free framework using diagrams for total beginners, outlined in Quantum in Pictures, his book with Dr Stefano Gogioso that was published earlier this year. Over the summer, they ran an education experiment, teaching the pictorial method to UK schoolchildren – who then beat the average exam scores of Oxford University's postgraduate physics students.

With the King's coronation happening tomorrow, millions of Britons across the UK will be getting their celebration picnics ready. No decent spread would be complete without scones slathered in clotted cream and jam, but the big question is - how do you pronounce'scone'? While many people argue that the baked good should rhyme with'cone', others are convinced that it should rhyme with'gone'. To settle the debate once and for all, MailOnline turned to everyone's favourite AI bot, ChatGPT. But do you agree with its claims?

The latest work by computer scientists Bob Coecke and Stefano Gogioso, 'Quantum in Pictures', aims to make the quantum world more accessible and inclusive. So, whether you're a high school student or a science enthusiast, the authors are confident that anyone mastering the tools in the book will gain an understanding equivalent to that of a quantum mechanics graduate at university. But what if a complete novice in quantum computing, i.e., this reviewer, could gain a genuine understanding of the field by simply reading this book? Let's test this out, shall we? Full disclosure from the get-go, I have absolutely no prior knowledge or expertise in quantum computing, therefore Coecke and Gogioso's latest research and book is not only worthy of a review but also a lesson for someone who barely scraped a C in GSCE Maths – a learning curve, if you will. For context, 'Quantum in Pictures' is the brainchild of Quantinuum's chief scientist Professor Bob Coecke and Dr Stefano Gogioso of Oxford University. The book introduces a formalism for quantum mechanics based on using'ZX-calculus' (or'ZX'), to describe quantum processes.

Advanced artificial intelligence could one day'kill everyone' – and there would be nothing we could do to stop it, MPs have been warned. Experts from Oxford University said when AI eventually becomes more intelligent than us it is likely to pose as great a threat as mankind did to the dodo. Reaching this stage – known as superhuman AI – could be achieved by the end of the century, they told the Science and Technology Select Committee. Warning of a'literal arms race' among nation states and tech firms, Michael Osborne, professor of machine learning, called for global regulation to stop tech firms creating out-of-control systems that could end up'eliminating the whole human race'. The evidence was heard as part of a Government inquiry into the risks posed by AI and how it can be used in an ethical and responsible way.

According to a research article, artificial intelligence will "likely" end humankind as we know it. Scientists from Google and Oxford assert that AI will compete with humans for limited resources on earth. According to researchers, the eventual triumph of intelligent robots over people is inevitable. The Matrix movie's plot--that machines wage war on humans because of their energy needs--about a battle between humans and machines is no longer just fiction. In a study paper, two Oxford University academics and a Google researcher make the case that the development of advanced AI (artificial intelligence) would result in the extinction of humanity since machines will unavoidably compete with people for resources like food and energy.

It was early one morning in 1996 when Andrew Hopkins, then a PhD biophysics student at Oxford University, had a brainwave as he walked home from a late-night lab meeting. He was trying to find molecules to fight HIV and to better understand drug resistance. "I remember this idea struck me that there must be a better way to do drug discovery other than the complex and expensive way everyone was following," he says. "Why couldn't we design an automated approach to drug design that would use all the information in parallel so that even a humble PhD student could create a medicine? That idea really stuck with me. I remember almost the exact moment to this day. And that was the genesis of the idea that eventually became Exscientia."