The billionaire fired thousands of workers, but savings are minimal and offset by degradation of services, critics sayAs Elon Musk steps back from his role heading the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), many experts on government operations complain that Doge has done nothing to improve the quality of services the government provides to the American people.“Doge is not offering any solid claims that it has improved services in any way,” said Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “Rather, it has made the quality of some government services worse.” Continue reading...
We gave you gardening tips, a spring fashion edit, the ultimate guide to anti-ageing and more. Here are the picks that inspired you most in AprilThe year always seems to pick up pace in spring, with the big house and garden tidy-up becoming all-consuming. The early spring sunshine has been wonderful (for those of us lucky enough to have seen some), though it does accelerate the pressure to ready your garden for the summer ahead.I spent winter trying not to look out of the window, fearing that most of the plants I’d optimistically bought last summer wouldn’t make it. So it’s a wonderful feeling to have the garden open up again – and many of you seem to agree. We were taken aback by the popularity of our pieces on how to get your garden ready for summer and the best secateurs to help you with the spring tidy. Continue reading...
Every day, members dig deep into their sick and twisted minds to unearth linguistic miracles. It’s both delightful and derangedRead more in the Internet wormhole seriesI remember exactly where I was when I found it. At uni. In a cavernous lecture hall. Slouched in a vaguely uncomfortable seat. Ping. A notification on Messenger. “Lol at this,” wrote my bestie from 14km away, accumulating student debt and little else. I clicked on the link.In that moment, I happened upon the most significant social media community of all time. A Facebook group, titled simply but garnished appropriately: “DRAG NAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!” Continue reading...
Experts say online retailer has ethical responsibility to guard against chatbot-generated work on sensitive topicsAmazon is selling books marketed at people seeking techniques to manage their ADHD that claim to offer expert advice yet appear to be authored by a chatbot such as ChatGPT.Amazon’s marketplace has been deluged with works produced by artificial intelligence that are easy and cheap to publish but include unhelpful or dangerous misinformation, such as shoddy travel guidebooks and mushroom foraging books that encourage risky tasting. Continue reading...
The end of civilisation might look less like a war, and more like a love story. Can we avoid being willing participants in our own downfall?Right now, most big AI labs have a team figuring out ways that rogue AIs might escape supervision, or secretly collude with each other against humans. But there’s a more mundane way we could lose control of civilisation: we might simply become obsolete. This wouldn’t require any hidden plots – if AI and robotics keep improving, it’s what happens by default.How so? Well, AI developers are firmly on track to build better replacements for humans in almost every role we play: not just economically as workers and decision-makers, but culturally as artists and creators, and even socially as friends and romantic companions. What place will humans have when AI can do everything we do, only better? Continue reading...
How to beat the scam, from setting up new passwords and telling your bank exactly what you are doing“Hi mum,” the first message starts, “I’ve lost my phone.” It carries on with a tale of woe: for some reason the sender has also been locked out of his or her bank account.Luckily a friend is often on hand to help – it’s their phone that the message comes from, apparently – and if you could just transfer some money to their account that would be great. Alternatively, you might be asked to pay the rent, direct to a landlord, or foot some other urgent bill that has arrived at this time of crisis. Continue reading...
Residents – most of them SpaceX workers – in remote Texas community approve plan to create new cityVoters in a small patch of south Texas voted this weekend to give Elon Musk a town to call his own, officially creating a new city called Starbase in the area where Musk’s SpaceX holds rocket launches.A couple of hundred residents of what was previously known as Boca Chica decided to make their unincorporated neighborhoods into a town that will grant them the authority to pass city ordinances. Continue reading...
Kaitlyn Regehr says parents worrying about their children need first to look at their own usageSwitching off the colours on your phone and spending half an hour a week pruning your algorithm can help consumers control and improve their online media diet, according to a professor turned “digital nutritionist”.These two measures, otherwise known as greyscaling and algorithmic resistance, are among a number of recommendations from Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, an associate professor at University College London and a leading expert in digital literacy. Continue reading...