“I cycle everywhere in London…” Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images Having plied their trade in several US and Chinese cities for years, driverless taxis are on their way to London. As a cyclist, a Londoner and a journalist who has spent years covering AI’s pratfalls, I am a tad nervous. Yet, given how often…
AI has long been guilty of systematic errors that discriminate against certain demographic groups. Facial recognition was once one of the worst offenders. For white men, it was extremely accurate. For others, the error rates could be 100 times as high. That bias has real consequences — ranging from being locked out of a cell phone…
If you’re trying to get someone to do something, what’s the best way to achieve that? Paying them probably comes to mind, and this intuition is a basic tenet of economic theory. In a massive 2018 study, researchers tested 18 ways to motivate people to do a simple task—and found that money worked best. In…
An earlier prototype of Jiuzhang 4.0, the quantum computer that achieved quantum advantage Chao-Yang Lu/University of Science and Technology of China A quantum computer may have reached “quantum advantage” by carrying out a task that is firmly out of the reach of the world’s best supercomputers. Experts have estimated replicating the calculation on a classical…
When hurricane season is in full swing, the news can be difficult to parse. What’s the difference between a hurricane and a tropical cyclone, after all, and what on Earth is an eye wall replacement cycle? Here’s your Scientific American guide to the terms used to explain the science of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean—everything…
In 2024, 2.6 billion people – nearly a third of humanity – remained offline, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported. The same year, non-profit Freedom House estimated that more than three-quarters of those who had internet access lived in countries where people were arrested for posting political, social or religious content online, and almost two-thirds…
If you’ve ever taken even a cursory glance at a hurricane forecast, you’ve seen some version of the “cone of uncertainty.” It sounds like some other-dimensional realm of indecision, but it’s a mainstay for communicating hurricane forecasts. Though these maps pack in plenty of valuable information, it can be a bit tricky to interpret them…
Edible microbeads could absorb fat in the gut Vacharapong Wongsalab/Getty Images Feeding rats edible microbeads designed to absorb fat helps them lose weight. One day the beads could be used in human foods and drinks to prevent or treat obesity in people. Despite decades of efforts to combat obesity, rates of the condition have only…
A key study claiming to provide evidence of Majorana quasiparticles has received an extensive correction five years after it was published in the journal Science. Two researchers who flagged the paper as problematic say that the correction isn’t sufficient — triggering the latest dispute in a field dogged by controversy. For decades, physicists have been…
Lighter-coloured cars could mean cooler streets Olena Polkovnykova/Alamy The colour of a car can make a discernible difference in the surrounding air temperature, as dark cars absorb and emit more heat than lighter vehicles when sitting on the street or in a parking lot. The collective impact from hundreds of thousands or millions of cars…
