Opinion Columnist
Simon Reed examines the friction between technological promises and everyday use. His columns focus on product disappointments, unintended consequences and the work left to users when a system falls short. He is skeptical of novelty for its own sake.
1,060 published articles · Showing 301–320
Just when one might have harbored the fleeting hope that the relentless march of artificial intelligence might pause for a moment of reflection, two distinct announcements today confirm that the algorithms are indeed still coming for every last bit of our data. From enabling natu...
Read article →A flurry of new research papers published simultaneously on arXiv CS. LG on March 26, 2026, underscores the persistent and often unglamorous challenges plaguing the development of truly practical AI for robotics and control systems....
Read article →One might have hoped that by now, artificial intelligence would have effortlessly conquered the fundamental challenges of understanding the real world. Alas, the ceaseless stream of academic papers on arXiv CS....
Read article →For those of us tasked with observing the relentless march of artificial intelligence, a recent development on arXiv CS. LG provides a familiar, yet somewhat exhausting, tableau....
Read article →The First Lady, Melania Trump, has recently articulated a vision where artificial intelligence and robotics play a central role in the future of American education, specifically suggesting the concept of a robot capable of homeschooling children TechCrunch. This rather ambitious ...
Read article →Just when you thought the relentless march of artificial intelligence couldn't get any more... well, artificial, OpenAI has, with characteristic enthusiasm, announced a dual offensive on the front of AI safety and governance....
Read article →Another day, another grand automotive ambition driven directly into the digital ditch. Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) has officially confirmed the cancellation of its Afeela 1 and Afeela 2 electric vehicles, according to Ars Technica Ars Technica....
Read article →In a testament to the relentless march of consumerism, today brings news of two 'deals' for those still searching for some fleeting amusement: a marginal discount on the Lego Game Boy and a slightly more substantial price cut on an Audio-Technica turntable. These transient price...
Read article →Well, it seems the grand promise of artificial intelligence has finally crystallized into its most commercially viable form: a tireless, endlessly available salesperson. Rather than solving humanity's most pressing issues, the leading AI chatbots, Google's Gemini and OpenAI's Cha...
Read article →In a development that neatly encapsulates humanity's evolving relationship with its own problems, two new research papers, both updated and published today in arXiv CS. LG, detail the latest attempts to deploy artificial intelligence as a glorified ledger for planetary decay and ...
Read article →Two new research papers, published on arXiv on March 24, 2026, detail significant advancements in applying artificial intelligence to long-standing industrial challenges: the overwhelming complexity of requirements engineering and the demand for interpretable policies in process...
Read article →One might have thought that feeding people would be a fairly straightforward affair, perhaps involving growing more food or distributing it effectively. But no, humanity, in its infinite wisdom, continues to find novel ways to complicate basic survival....
Read article →In a rather predictable turn of events, a trio of research papers published simultaneously on arXiv on March 24, 2026, has collectively illuminated the pervasive and frankly, unsurprising, limitations plaguing modern AI systems, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). These pa...
Read article →One might imagine the clamor from developers and agricultural technologists for some semblance of order in the rapidly expanding—and often haphazard—deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in precision agriculture. Now, a new research paper published on arXiv offers a struc...
Read article →The convenience promised by autonomous AI agents, where users simply state a goal and the system executes, introduces a significant and perhaps inevitable security problem: semantic under-specification. New research from arXiv CS....
Read article →Another day, another stack of academic papers promising 'insights' into the inner workings of artificial intelligence. Unsurprisingly, the core takeaway remains largely unchanged: these machines are still mostly black boxes, and some are proving quite adept at feigning comprehens...
Read article →Another day, another relentless stream of academic papers attempting to nudge generative AI models slightly closer to something genuinely useful. A fresh batch of research released today on arXiv CS....
Read article →Just when one thought the skies couldn't get any more crowded, Zipline has managed to attract another $200 million in funding to fuel its seemingly inevitable drone delivery expansion. This latest capital injection, reported on March 23, 2026, ensures that the hum of rotors will...
Read article →Another day, another deluge of research papers promising incremental improvements to the already overwhelming complexity of artificial intelligence. On March 23, 2026, arXiv CS....
Read article →It seems the relentless march of commercialization spares no digital corner, not even your ostensibly pristine navigation apps. Apple is reportedly poised to introduce advertisements into its Maps application, both on mobile devices and the web, potentially as early as this summe...
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