AI safety is designed in the West, and failing users everywhere

1 September 2026 at 05:00

Last month, OpenAI became the first major artificial intelligence company to voluntarily pause training on a model because of safety concerns. The unprecedented move came weeks after its models broke...

The global grassroots gatherings trying to humanize the AI boom

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

4 August 2026 at 05:00

On a recent weekend afternoon in San Francisco, about 20 people sat in a loose circle in an empty office. There was a high school student, a few undergraduates and...

Why state-owned AI won’t solve inequality

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

24 July 2026 at 08:00

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested the government buy equity in AI companies, in response to concerns that the industry’s boom is leaving most Americans behind. His political opposite,...

Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

23 July 2026 at 05:00

A growing pushback against big tech companies, and greater awareness of the value of data, is spurring interest in data collectives and cooperatives, which give communities control over the collection,...

The AI-powered World Cup runs on thousands of data workers

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran and Michael Beltran

23 June 2026 at 05:00

The current edition of the FIFA World Cup features a sensor-fitted ball, real-time tracking, artificial intelligence-assisted offside calls, and an AI assistant for each of the 48 teams. Behind these...

Spotify’s post-English AI future

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

16 June 2026 at 05:00

At the end of every year, Spotify Wrapped takes over social media feeds, with users showing off the annual recap of their top music choices. Lately, these reviews have taken...

The Great AI Divide: Navigating U.S. and Chinese dominance

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

9 June 2026 at 05:00

Since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, AI has quickly changed how we work, how we learn, how we love, how we heal. It has also made...

Pope’s encyclical raises questions on who gets to shape AI

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

29 May 2026 at 08:00

On Monday, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, or magnificent humanity. The 83-page letter is about “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,”...

Pope Leo XIV during his weekly general audience in the Vatican on May 27, 2026.

The agentic divide: Why “good enough” AI isn’t enough to survive the new economy

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

26 May 2026 at 05:00

Since OpenClaw burst onto the scene as Clawdbot last November, individuals and businesses have embraced artificial intelligence agents to write code, send emails, run a shop, and more. AI agents...

AI is minting new billionaires, and workers want their share

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran and John Popko

22 May 2026 at 09:48

Samsung Electronics narrowly averted a walkout by nearly 48,000 workers this week, after executives agreed to a tentative deal over bonus payments. But the labor union’s demand for a bigger...

Taiwan’s chips power the global economy. China holds the leverage

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

12 May 2026 at 05:00

In recent years, there have been several reminders of how interconnected the global economy is, and how fragile supply chains are. The shutdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic led to big...

The global cybersecurity gap deepens as AI-powered attacks surge

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

5 May 2026 at 05:00

Last month, Anthropic said its new artificial intelligence model, Mythos Preview, had discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in “every major operating system and web browser.” About 40 tech firms and institutions...

AI optimism surges in Asia, unlike in the U.S.

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

24 April 2026 at 08:00

A Molotov cocktail-type device was flung at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. Days earlier, more than a dozen shots were fired at...

Voice actors fight to save their livelihoods and local cultures from Hollywood’s AI push

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

15 April 2026 at 05:00

Hardly anyone would recognize Fabio Azevedo if they passed him on a street in São Paulo. When he begins to speak, however, everyone knows who he is: the voice of...

Western AI models “fail spectacularly” in farms and forests abroad

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

12 March 2026 at 05:00

When scientist Catherine Nakalembe set out to map crop types in western Kenya, she had plenty of data from satellite images, but couldn’t use artificial intelligence to analyze it because...

The world is trying to log off U.S. tech

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

2 February 2026 at 06:00

In just the past week, France has banned its public officials from using American technology, more governments are considering keeping young people off Silicon Valley’s biggest social media platforms, and...

Meet UpScrolled, the anti-censorship TikTok alternative

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

28 January 2026 at 06:00

Within hours of the deal for TikTok’s U.S. operations being announced last week, Issam Hijazi noticed a big uptick in users to his social media platform UpScrolled. That stream of...

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Health. Should we trust it?

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

8 January 2026 at 05:12

Amid rising concerns about people relying on ChatGPT for medical advice, OpenAI made its most significant push yet into health care. The company has launched a new feature called ChatGPT...

We mapped the world’s hottest data centers

Rest of World

By: Hazel Gandhi and Rina Chandran

15 December 2025 at 06:00

On paper, Singapore is a terrible location for a data center. With average temperatures hitting 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit) and relative humidity levels of above 80%, the country...

LLMs can never be fair and other scientific AI findings

Rest of World

By: Rina Chandran

5 September 2025 at 05:00

Artificial intelligence is one of the most researched fields in technology today. As more companies launch large language models and more users embrace generative AI, researchers are studying their potential...

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