Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Jill Lepore asks why nobody listened to warnings about the threats posed from the AI revolution (Democracy v the machine, 18 August). As she is a Harvard professor, her piece is understandably US-centric. But in 1972 there was an international gathering of AI researchers and others in Italy to tackle the ethical and social implications of AI.This “Serbelloni group” of global experts (they met at Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como) was led by my father, Donald Michie, the director of the University of Edinburgh’s department of machine intelligence. The group mapped out early concerns regarding potential political tyranny, the erosion…

In the Ohio Senate race, a Republican ad blames former Sen. Sherrod Brown for a deadly crash in April on an Ohio interstate in which an immigrant was charged with vehicular homicide. But there’s no evidence of any tie between Brown’s votes on immigration, as the ad suggests, and the suspect in this incident. “Because of him, Ohioans paid the price,” the ad, from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, claims, referring to Brown, who was elected to the U.S. House in 1993 and then served in the Senate from 2007 to 2025. Brown is challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted in…

Owner ByteDance ordered to erase illegally obtained child data in Brazil as crackdown on tech giants intensifies.Published On 25 Aug 202625 Aug 2026Brazil’s data protection authority has fined TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, nearly $30m for the alleged mishandling of children and teenagers’ personal data, in the nation’s latest move against social media companies.The regulatory body said in its ruling that TikTok had breached data privacy laws across both logged-in accounts and guest browsing sessions by collecting and processing young users’ personal information without a valid legal basis or adequate safeguards.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe regulator estimated that…

The Spanish government has apologised to the people of Ceuta for the migrant crisis that has affected the city for weeks and it has unveiled plans to overhaul the country’s immigration laws.”I want to apologise to all those who may have felt, or who even still feel, abandoned or not sufficiently cared for,” Defence Minister Margarita Robles told a parliamentary committee.”I have witnessed first-hand your feelings of anxiety, of abandonment, of lack of safety.”At least 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa on 30 and 31 July. Most of the migrants swam around the…

Kemi Badenoch plotted with fellow Conservative cabinet ministers to remove Rishi Sunak as prime minister months before the general election, it has been claimed.Anthony Seldon, who has written political biographies of every prime minister since John Major, has alleged in a new book that Badenoch, who was business secretary at the time, phoned several other cabinet ministers to ask “if anyone was interested in changing the captain”.An ally of Badenoch, who is now the Conservative leader, described the claim as “total bollocks”.The book about Sunak’s time as prime minister, which is being serialised in the Independent, says Badenoch did not…

Instagram is making one of the most tedious parts of creating Reels easier. The company announced Tuesday in a Threads post that it’s rolling out “First Draft,” a new editing feature that automatically trims selected video clips and removes pauses, pulling together the best moments into an initial cut.  Instagram says the process can produce a first pass in under 10 seconds, potentially saving creators significant editing time while making video creation more approachable for people who don’t have much experience with editing software. Instead of manually working through every clip, creators can start with an automatically assembled draft and…

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced that a breach last year exposed customer and employee information. The museum says that on July 11, 2025, it detected suspicious activity on its systems that had started four days earlier. A month later, the investigation confirmed that the network was compromised. At the time, the type of exposed data could not be determined, and the first results of the investigation became available in late February 2026. More than a year after the discovery of the data breach incident, the museum identified that the following information may have been accessed…

The US Treasury has formally brought digital assets into the financial sector’s preparations for quantum computing threats.On Aug. 24, the US Treasury launched its Quantum-Readiness Task Force, with one of three workstreams dedicated to digital assets and emerging-technology risks. The other tracks cover broader post-quantum cryptography adoption and third-party vendor readiness.America must lead in securing the technologies that power our economy. This Task Force will help ensure our financial system remains strong, secure, and competitive as new technologies reshape the global landscape.This creates a government-industry forum for crypto custodians and infrastructure providers to coordinate on a future migration to quantum-safe…

Most of the brain’s roughly 100 billion neurons are produced before birth. However, the small number of new neurons that continue to form in the adult hippocampus may play an important role in protecting against depression, according to new research from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. The findings provide the first evidence that neurogenesis, the process of producing new neurons, stalls in the brains of adults with major depressive disorder. Researchers also identified molecular programs involved in controlling this process, offering potential clues for developing new treatments. “Historically, depression was thought to be a disease of neurotransmitter…

Indonesian authorities have charged 72 individuals with intentionally igniting forest fires across five provinces on the island of Borneo and four on Sumatra. Fires across both islands have burned nearly 286,000 hectares (about 707,000 acres) of land from January to Aug. 24 alone, according to FireWatch, a satellite-based monitoring tool developed by forest-mapping platform Nusantara Atlas. That’s an area half the size of the island of Bali. Officials say prolonged dry conditions and a powerful El Niño this year have severely worsened the wildfires. In a statement, local law enforcement alleged that the 72 suspects used fire to…