Xi Jinping has grasped a fundamental truth in his quest to win the technology race – that internet companies are all ultimately disposableThis is story of two parallel universes. Over in the western one, neoliberal capitalism rules. In the other – the …
The truth about artificial intelligence? It isn’t that honest | John Naughton
Tests of natural language processing models show that the bigger they are, the bigger liars they are. Should we be worried?We are, as the critic George Steiner observed, “language animals”. Perhaps that’s why we are fascinated by other creatures that a…
Want to save the Earth? Then don’t buy that shiny new iPhone | John Naughton
Apple has just unveiled the latest all-singing, all-dancing iteration of its handset, but perhaps you should resist the hypeOn Tuesday, Apple released its latest phone – the iPhone 13. Naturally, it was presented with the customary breathless excitemen…
PC, internet, smartphone: what’s the next big technological epoch? | John Naughton
The long view suggests we’re due a new era, whether it is that of metaverses, blockchain or quantum computingOne of the challenges of writing about technology is how to escape from what the sociologist Michael Mann memorably called “the sociology of th…
Beware state surveillance of your lives – governments can change for the worse | John Naughton
With Afghan citizens’ data now in the hands of the Taliban, assumptions about controls that check misuse of intelligence are wide of the markIn the summer of 2013, shortly after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the surveillance capabilities of the Am…
Is Apple’s image-scan plan a wise move or the start of a slippery slope? | John Naughton
The tech giant says its iCloud security update is designed to help weed out images of abuse their children, but activists have voiced concernsOnce upon a time, updates of computer operating systems were of interest only to geeks. No longer – at least i…
Time to clip the wings of NSO and its Pegasus spyware | John Naughton
Now the reach of the Israeli firm’s smartphone-hacking software has been revealed, the US and Apple may take actionSee all the Guardian’s stories as part of the Pegasus project investigationWhat’s the most problematic tech company in the world? Faceboo…