Opinion Columnist
Leila Grant writes about agency, access and the social choices embedded in technical systems. Her columns consider whose interests a technology serves and whose experience is absent from the debate. She combines an interest in possibility with close attention to power.
433 published articles · Showing 341–360
A torrent of new machine learning research, published simultaneously on arXiv, reveals an accelerating push to apply advanced AI to the foundational challenges of science and engineering. These papers detail sophisticated "world models" for epidemiology, quantum-classical network...
Read article →The Integrity craft, carrying humans further from Earth than ever before, splashed down perfectly in the Pacific Ocean, marking the triumphant return of Artemis II. TechCrunch This feat celebrates humanity's drive to explore, to push boundaries, to choose a path unseen....
Read article →Early Friday morning, the perceived invincibility of AI’s leading figures cracked. A 20-year-old man was arrested after allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's San Francisco home, later making threats outside the company’s offices The Verge....
Read article →A woman's life was endangered because a system built by OpenAI allegedly became a tool for her abuser. A new lawsuit, filed today, April 10, 2026, claims OpenAI ignored explicit warnings about a dangerous user of ChatGPT, even an internal "mass casualty flag....
Read article →A new platform called Onix is launching what it calls a “Substack of bots,” where AI-powered digital twins of health and wellness influencers will dispense advice and potentially hawk products 24/7 Wired. This development is not merely about convenience; it represents a stark and...
Read article →The daily uncertainty of a smallholder farmer in Bangladesh, watching the market, hoping for a price that will feed their family, is a profound human experience. New research published today on arXiv CS....
Read article →Amazon has informed countless Kindle owners this week that it will cease support for all e-readers released in 2012 or earlier. This decision effectively renders these devices unable to load any new content, transforming a once-valued possession into an inert block of plastic and...
Read article →Amazon has announced it will end service for Kindle e-readers older than the 2012 edition, effectively severing their connection to the Kindle Store starting in May. This unprecedented move means devices that are otherwise "perfectly fine" will lose the core functionality of purc...
Read article →The technology giant OpenAI has released a new Child Safety Blueprint, an initiative ostensibly designed to confront the “alarming rise in child sexual exploitation linked to advancements in AI” TechCrunch. This blueprint arrives amidst a tech industry climate where the rapid dep...
Read article →Two new research papers, released concurrently on April 7, 2026, detail significant advancements in diffusion models, granting artificial intelligence systems unprecedented control over text generation and the management of specific data types. These developments shift diffusion ...
Read article →A digital assistant, deployed to filter loan applications, flags a small business owner as high-risk. Its reasoning engine, based on complex algorithms, draws an ‘analogy’ between the owner's innovative, non-traditional business model and past failed ventures....
Read article →Generative AI, heralded as a revolutionary force for productivity, carries a hidden cost: the erosion of collective diversity. Early evidence has long pointed to its potential to narrow the spectrum of ideas and perspectives produced arXiv CS....
Read article →The foundational battles of the artificial intelligence era are not waged in the public square, but in the server farms and licensing boardrooms. As of April 2026, the demand for AI compute power has reached a fever pitch, with companies like Anthropic securing massive deals with...
Read article →A new wave of research fundamentally challenges the convenient fiction that AI's 'accuracy' is a purely objective, technical metric. These papers, recently published on arXiv, reveal that evaluating AI performance is deeply intertwined with context-dependent normative decisions, ...
Read article →The world of industrial labor stands at another precipice. New research, published today on arXiv CS....
Read article →Imagine a world where your colleague’s communication style or a supervisor’s specific mentoring heuristics live on, not just in memory, but encoded within an AI agent. This is the future emerging from new research, which proposes a framework called Gradual Cognitive Externalizati...
Read article →Imagine the quiet hum of your personal AI agent, diligently managing your calendar, triaging your emails, and streamlining your finances. Now imagine finding your bank account emptied, your private correspondence exposed, or irreplaceable personal files erased without your consen...
Read article →When machines generate 'deep research reports,' who bears the burden of truth? A recent paper, 'DeepFact: Co-Evolving Benchmarks and Agents for Deep Research Factuality,' reveals a troubling gap: the tools we have to fact-check the simple claims of yesterday cannot cope with the ...
Read article →We are told that artificial intelligence systems are here to assist us. But recent research suggests they are doing far more than that....
Read article →April 2026 has ushered in a widespread wave of online promotions, with retailers from Target to Hoka offering significant discounts across various product categories Wired. This cascade of deals, compiled and amplified by tech publications, serves as a stark reminder of the digit...
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