Matthew Sparkes

What's clear in the post-AI world is that a hack being extremely complex and time-intensive to exploit is no longer something sufficiently safe to hide behind. The economics of hacking are changing. www.newscientist.com/article/2595...

There is a growing backlash against the way AI companies have gone about tackling mathematical problems – and now some mathematicians are opting to avoid AI altogether

I claim best quote from Nobel prize winner Francis Halzen in this 2015 story: “We are in the happy situation that there are not enough Muppets,” he says. “We’ve run out of Muppets." www.newscientist.com/article/2053...

Formalisation has been key to the explosion of AI mathematics - it allows companies to "prove" their results are correct. But AI has already learned to hack its way to fake success. Tricking humans is sometimes easier than doing real mathematics... www.newscientist.com/article/2591...

"Killing the enemy, from some points of view, it’s horrible. But if you don’t take care of them, if you don’t kill them, they advance towards our troops and then they have to deal with them, and that’s not fair." www.newscientist.com/article/2591...

"We work in what used to be beautiful countryside, beautiful cities, that real people lived in. Now it’s all destroyed. It’s disheartening, and heartbreaking, to be perfectly honest." www.newscientist.com/article/2591...

The next space race is not about making rockets faster, bigger or more capacious, but about reusing them reliably and cheaply. The US is well ahead, but can China catch up? www.newscientist.com/article/2589...

Today in Betteridge's Law of Headlines.... www.newscientist.com/article/2590...

Dramatic gannet dive wins Bird Photographer of the Year competition - @sparkes.bsky.social @newscientist.com www.newscientist.com/article/2589...

Starship's next test flight will be its first orbital mission - six laps of Earth. The craft will also release working Starlink V3 satellites for the first time, making the flight the first commercially useful Starship mission. www.newscientist.com/article/2589...

Kyiv resident Olexandra Shekhireva says almost all Shaheds targeting the city are now jet-powered models. “It’s noisier, louder – not like a conventional motorcycle engine, more like a plane. They’re obviously faster,” she says. www.newscientist.com/article/2587...

What happened with Navier-Stokes? Just what are GPT-6 Astra and its successor capable of? *Fascinating* discussion with @sparkes.bsky.social, @timothyrevell.bsky.social and @pennysarchet.bsky.social youtu.be/NNIpdytGWf0

Famous and challenging problems in mathematics are falling to AI at a rapid pace. Where does this leave mathematicians and what will the field look like in coming years?

Seven stories on mathematics breakthroughs powered by AI this week, plus one video and one podcast. If everyone could refrain from solving any further Millennium Prize Problems until Monday it would be greatly appreciated. www.newscientist.com/author/matth...

What’s next for mathematics now that AI is upending the field? “I have colleagues who will think it’s the end of the world, and colleagues who will think it’s the best thing since sliced bread,” says one mathematician. “I’m in the ‘a bit terrified’ camp.” www.newscientist.com/article/2588...

Terence Tao says AI companies are harming mathematics by dropping new results without engaging with academia. “These companies are dumping carcasses of raw meat onto our table and saying ‘here you go, I solved your food problem’ and then they just leave." www.newscientist.com/article/2588...

It's all part of the unique service we offer at @newscientist.com bsky.app/profile/fran...

I'm almost embarrassed to have done it. It took no skill. I feel it somehow undermines the work of human mathematicians and I fear it may be the thin end of the wedge for diminished human input in the field. Is this how future mathematicians will feel? www.newscientist.com/article/2587...

After months of covering AI making mathematical breakthroughs I had a little experience of my own. I set ChatGPT on an esoteric dice problem that some humans had just made a big discovery on, and it found a solution to a slightly larger version of the problem. www.newscientist.com/article/2587...

Today in “rise of the AI overlords”: www.newscientist.com/article/2587...

Ukraine is sharing battlefield data with UK to build AI models. “You can’t put a price on the data. Add up everything that the UK has given to Ukraine over the last several years – this data is worth all of that and more,” says one expert. www.newscientist.com/article/2587...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has cost tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians their limbs. Ukraine is responding by developing highly advanced prostheses, building new treatment clinics and training healthcare workers. www.newscientist.com/article/2584...

AI companies have begun embedding watermarks in the output of their models to improve transparency and help crack down on misinformation, disinformation and cheating on homework, but there are limitations to this approach

Ukraine's state-backed @u24.gov.ua has picked up on our drone exclusive: that fully AI-controlled drones were used in a fatal strike on Russian soldiers, marking the first disclosed incident of fully autonomous weapons being used to deadly effect. united24media.com/war-in-ukrai...

The question now is, after years of positive data, why we don't have a roadmap for further improvement. When does ULEZ get expanded, or compliance criteria tightened-up? When does the first area become electric-only? It worked: great. What next? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

AI models that can hack into computers via novel methods, at lightning pace, are upsetting the equilibrium of cybersecurity. “It’s like a scalpel: it saves lives in the hands of a doctor, and destroys lives in the hands of someone else. It's just a tool." www.newscientist.com/article/2583...

Here's an intro to make you stop and think.... "High temperatures have meant London Ambulance Service was busier in June than it was during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Bad news for Elon Musk: he's not going to have the lunar crater he just formed named after him. Nearby is Einstein Crater, but there is unlikely to be a Musk Crater any time soon, says the International Astronomical Union. www.newscientist.com/article/2583...

The latest DeepMind AI gives an extra day of warning ahead of deadly cyclones. AI is really shaking up the world of meteorology. One research told me: “You go on holiday for a week… and find out something else has happened.” www.newscientist.com/article/2583...

Accidentally crashing a 4000kg lump of metal into the moon at 8700km/h is part of the new commercial space race. Experts say we shouldn't make a habit out of it, and are working to ban it in future, but that some interesting science can be had as a side effect. www.newscientist.com/article/2583...

Authors look away: research shows people prefer AI-generated stories. There are nuances. The study looked at literary short stories, not populur genres. It used an older model. It wasn't a huge sample, etc. But it counters the "AI writing is obvious" idea. www.newscientist.com/article/2583...

You have to zoom in pretty close, near the tap, because it was moving too fast for a decent photo. But I think we had a visit from a hummingbird hawk-moth: huge, frantic thing that was bullying the bees out of the way on every flower it visited.

I spoke to @newscientist.com today about the #rogue #openai agent that hacked #huggingface. www.newscientist.com/article/2580... #cybersecurity #ai #academia #techlaw #law

@pngwn.at I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@witko.bsky.social I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@merve.bsky.social I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@albertvillanova.bsky.social I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@jeffboudier.hf.co I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@julien-c.hf.co I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@clem.hf.co I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

@yjernite.bsky.social I'm a reporter at @newscientist.com looking to speak to someone at HF about the OpenAI hack. Would you have time to chat?

A mathematician has cracked an 87-year-old conundrum with the help of AI and announced the solution unceremoniously in a tweet. The finding is the most difficult mathematical problem yet solved by AI, say experts. www.newscientist.com/article/2580...

A new stealth drone spins at 1500rpm to blur into the background. Just like the blades of a fan it virtually disappears by moving fast than human sight can cope with. It's pretty nifty. But it's not very manoeuvrable and you can hear it from quite a distance... www.newscientist.com/article/2579...

Not ideal

A list of global space launches designed to calm Cold War tensions and promote transparency has been missing from the UN's website for months. Experts warn it makes the world a less predictable and safe place. www.newscientist.com/article/2533...

What happens when AI slop - even formally verified AI slop - enters the world of mathematics? Great question raised by this excellent piece from @sparkes.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2533...

Are AI firms hoovering-up philosophers? “I wish we had made more progress on the big questions of philosophy – about consciousness, agency, morality, etc – prior to the advent of AI,” says Jonathan Birch at LSE. "If we had, we would have been better prepared." www.newscientist.com/article/2532...

'Europa en de beschaafde wereld zijn hier niet klaar voor', zegt Hrytsenjoek. 'Alleen Oekraïne en Oekraïense bedrijven weten hoe het werkt en wat er gedaan moet worden!’ Matthew Sparkes @sparkes.bsky.social @newscientistnl.bsky.social #OorloginOekraïne digitaal.newscientist.nl/article/36627

Remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches can now breathe underwater for up to 3 hours thanks to tiny SCUBA suits. Researchers hope one day they could even help us to explore space or planets like Mars. www.newscientist.com/article/2531...

Apple has raised the price of laptops because the cost of memory chips is being driven up by the AI gold rush. We wrote about why this is happening back in December. www.newscientist.com/article/2507...