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Tech 24

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We're used to video game characters repeating the same lines of scripted dialogue. But artificial intelligence is now allowing players to have unique, unscripted conversations with the characters they encounter. In Tech 24, explore this experimental tech and its path to the mainstream.
It's artificial intelligence versus the entertainment industry, as Bollywood stars sue YouTube and an AI-generated actor makes her world stage debut. In this edition of Tech 24, we explain why these developments could change what it means to be an artist in the age of AI.
It's crunch time for "chat control", the European Commission's plan to scan private messages and report content suspected of being child sexual abuse. At a European Council meeting on Friday, security officials from across the EU debated the latest proposal, whereby photos and links sent on messaging apps – encrypted or not – would be scanned on-device by an artificial intelligence on the lookout for child sexual abuse material, known to the general public as child pornography.
It's been a week for the history books for Google. The tech giant dodged an order to sell off significant parts of its business in a landmark antitrust ruling in the United States. Then, days later, it was hit with a major fine by the EU for monopolising online advertisements. We take a closer look.
Stein-Erik Soelberg killed his mother and himself in Connecticut earlier this month, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that ChatGPT fuelled his irrational fears about her. Meanwhile, a couple in California has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI after the suicide of their son, accusing ChatGPT of helping him do it. In this week's Tech 24, we explore what's behind the increase in tragic stories that's accompanied the boom in people talking to AI chatbots.
The European Commission wants AI companies to stop using pirated data and allow creators to withhold their copyrighted material. This comes amid the rise of a massive global workforce of remote workers from poor countries, who provide bespoke data via third party brokers. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
Pavel Durov, the enigmatic Russian-born billionaire boss of messaging app Telegram, has his third audience with a French investigating magistrate in the coming days, following his dramatic arrest 10 months ago on wide-ranging charges including complicity in terrorist content, drug trafficking and child sex abuse material.
This week's massive power outage in Spain and Portugal has raised questions over whether Europe's power grid is ready for a surge in demand, given the rapid pace of data centre deployment amid the rise of artificial intelligence. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
Google is still making lots of money. Its parent company Alphabet reported $90.2 billion in revenue for the first quarter, up 12 percent from the same period last year, making $34.5 billion in profit. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said Google's AI strategy was to thank. But the elephant in the room at Thursday's earnings call was the possibility that US federal judges might order the company to be broken up. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
"I'm not worried about Jensen [Huang] at all," said US President Donald Trump, commenting on the Nvidia CEO's visit to Beijing. The trip was the latest twist in a tumultuous week for the US firm, which is the world's third most valuable company and top supplier of AI computer chips. We take a closer look in this week's edition of Tech 24.
One concern around artificial intelligence is its voracious appetite for energy. Electricity demand for data centres specialised in AI will quadruple in the next five years, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. But as for claims that AI is accelerating climate change through carbon emissions, the report calls them "overstated".
France says a response from the EU to Trump's new 20 percent tariff will "probably" come at the end of the month. A government spokesperson told French media RTL that services will be targeted, not just goods, including digital products from Big Tech companies like Google and Apple.
Anti-American sentiment is surging amid the second term of US President Donald Trump. Ifop research found this week that two thirds of French people support a boycott of US products. One market where those products are especially hard to avoid is technology. Just how integrated into our lives is American tech? How are boycotters taking steps to disconnect? And what's the EU doing to tackle America's tech monopoly? We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.
US President Donald Trump’s announced shuttering of the Department of Education comes amid a broader attack on knowledge and research. Since Trump returned to the presidency in January, US science has suffered budget cuts, layoffs and censorship, with global implications. In a column published by French media on Thursday, 2,000 academics from the Stand Up for Science movement called for investment to help set up safe places for American researchers to continue their work. We take a closer look.
Elon Musk is starting to see the fruits of his AI shopping spree with the release of Grok 3, one of the most capable AI models yet. But according to French startup PRISM Eval, the chatbot's safety filters can easily be bypassed to make requests about dangerous and illegal activities, such as building a bomb or hiding a body.
A French human rights NGO has filed a lawsuit in Paris against Apple, alleging massive collection and processing of voice recordings via the tech giant's Siri assistant, without user consent. It comes as a California court is set to rule on a similar case, where Apple has agreed to pay $95 million in settlements, without admitting wrongdoing. FRANCE 24's Tech Editor Peter O'Brien tells us more.
A draft declaration of the Paris AI Action Summit has raised concerns for The Future Society, a nonprofit tasked by organisers to provide recommendations for protecting civil society from the risks of artificial intelligence.
It’s becoming less clear by the day who is supposed to be buying TikTok. One of Donald Trump's first acts on his return as US president was to delay a ban on the Chinese-owned app, in order to find an American company for it to be sold to. But near the end of his second week in office, we're still none the wiser.
“This is money that normally would have gone to China,” Trump proclaimed on Tuesday while unveiling Stargate, an artificial intelligence project that will cost $500 billion, according to its participants OpenAI, Softbank, Oracle and MGX. It was another indication that keeping ahead of Beijing on AI is a priority of the Trump administration. But in his bid to save TikTok, the video app that was briefly banned in the US under a law that came into effect the day before Trump entered office, the president appears much more relaxed about China.
Are leading artificial intelligence companies doing enough to keep us safe from the potential harms of their products? According to the nonprofits SaferAI and the Future of Life Institute, based in Paris and Brussels respectively, the answer is "no". We tell you more in this edition of Tech 24.