Issue Theme Articles
A Chinese giveaway
Alan Freeman explains why China’s pole position in the artificial intelligence race might be down to sharing rather than competing. When Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company, DeepSeek, released its R1
The shocking untruth
Roger Miles warns of vanishing common sense as over-reliance on artificial intelligence grinds us down into a population of gullible mugs. Hurrah, artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived: let’s join HM
Artificially fake
Patricia Gestoso counsels that our appraisal of artificial intelligence should be guided by the motivations of its chief advocates. Twenty years ago, I was a trainer at a software company.
Time to rage
Guy Standing explores the potential for humanity to strike back against careless leadership as tech leaders of artificial intelligence (AI) drive humanity to destruction The widely-discussed report by investment researcher’
Expletive delighted
Cory Doctorow’s book dumps on the digital economy for its descent into the sewer, driven by exploitative practices toward its customers. Doctorow provides a case for why it need not
Sustainable AI
Patricia Gestoso asks whether we can balance innovation and environmental responsibility In 2021, van Wynsberghe proposed defining sustainable artificial intelligence (AI) as “a movement to foster change in the entire
Explosive New Book Argues Facebook Is a Global Engine of Harm and Corruption. Is Reform Possible?
Sara Wynn-Williams, defying Facebook’s attempts to silence her, reveals the company’s toxic culture and global damage, exposing unethical practices and a profit-at-any-cost approach. The key question she leaves us with:
Artificially safe or really sorry
Bronwyn Howell asks: where artificial intelligence is as capricious as humans, how do you make rules that govern its risk? The 2023 USA Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and
Misogyny’s new clothes
Patricia Gestoso argues that gender discrimination in the interests of men is baked into artificial intelligence by design. In discussions around gender bias in artificial intelligence (AI), there is little
Other Articles
Cross or nought
The world’s challenges are inter-disciplinary. Research for their solutions needs to be the same, argues Keith Harrison-Broninski. Shortly after my book, Human Interactions, was published in 2004, I met with
Don’t count on it
Jonathan Aldred explains how there is more to equations than numbers when it comes to Covid policy. According to Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, when the pandemic hit
Interviews
Big guy for the little guy
Tim Cowen is a campaigning barrister representing small businesses against the dominant players in digital. The Mint heard from him about the new international coordination of anti-trust action against the
Tribes and tribulations
Feted author, journalist and anthropologist, Gillian Tett has a new book: Anthro Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life. She told The Mint what Anthro Vision was and how
Lone interest
Loneliness is not a standard subject for economists. So The Mint was intrigued to talk to Noreena Hertz about her new book, The Lonely Century: A Call to Reconnect. Noreena
Columns
Brake the bank
The Coppola Column How governments could weaponise digital banking against “undesirables.” And how to prevent it. In the past 50 years, financial services have changed beyond all recognition. Not just
Blade runner 2021
Imaginary friends get real. Things are very exciting in our retirement complex. I had never imagined when Thomas and I moved into this apartment four years ago that we would
Which way does digital point?
How did we end up here? Midwife to the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, called his vision for the web “utopian.” He wanted it to be a place where all people had
Environmentalism is a self-harming meme
Zero carbon in the foreseeable is as daft as it is dangerous. Depending on the extent to which social media has infused your life, a meme is a non-hereditary behaviour