Technology

Portrait of the week: IT meltdown, riots in Leeds and the wrong kind of pandemic

27 July 2024 9:00 am

Home Britain enjoyed its share of the worldwide failure of 8.5 million computers reliant on Microsoft, through a faulty update…

‘Nationalise Google!’: the techno-optimists hoping to save the world

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Future House is a weird private members’ club. There’s a mattress on the floor for napping, a bathtub designed to…

An AI visionary looks forward to the best of all possible worlds

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Technology unquestionably improves lives, says Ray Kurzwei, and soon we’ll be living to 150. As for 3D-printed guns invisible to scanners – there’ll be a solution to those too

AI is both liberating and enslaving us

29 June 2024 9:00 am

It is becoming more than a useful tool, fears Neil Lawrence. As it takes over most of our work, we grow less and less efficient at doing what remains

What will we do when all our jobs are done for us?

22 June 2024 9:00 am

The philosopher Nick Bostrom speculates imaginatively about the travails of extreme leisure, but we don’t get any guru-like nuggets

How I incurred the wrath of my iPhone

22 July 2023 9:00 am

As I sat down to dinner in a lovely old country pub my reservation was cancelled by my iPhone, which…

Light bulb moment: the flaw in the petrol car ban

15 July 2023 9:00 am

This week, writing in the Daily Mail, Matt Ridley produced a devastating takedown of the government’s 2030 ban on the…

Should we fear AI? James W. Phillips and Eliezer Yudkowsky in conversation

15 July 2023 9:00 am

James W. Phillips and Eliezer Yudkowsky on the threat from AI

Is the glucose monitoring craze really so healthy?

1 July 2023 9:00 am

The curious obsession with glucose monitoring gadgets

I know how AI will bring us down

27 May 2023 9:00 am

On the smooth marble concourse by the exit doors at Heathrow Airport I met my first cleaning robot. It was…

How to fake it till you make it

20 May 2023 9:00 am

Not to sound too much like Kamala Harris during one of her peregrinations on the nature of time, but the…

The villains of Silicon Valley

20 May 2023 9:00 am

Malcolm Harris is unsparing in his attack on Palo Alto’s tech giants past and present, including Leland Stanford, Herbert Hoover, William Shockley and Peter Thiel

The Spectator's notes

13 May 2023 9:00 am

I dropped a morphine capsule in my Moscow Mule

12 November 2022 9:00 am

A dear friend came to stay for two nights. Could I be persuaded, wondered he and Catriona, on the first…

Is Russell Brand really so dangerous?

8 October 2022 9:00 am

Once the dust has settled over the government’s mini-Budget, another big political battle looms: the Online Safety Bill. This is…

China vs the US: who will win the chip war?

10 September 2022 9:00 am

Semiconductors are the latest battleground for China and the US

The China threat our politicians don’t seem to have noticed

30 July 2022 9:00 am

The threat our politicians don’t seem to have noticed

Nick Bostrom: How can we be certain a machine isn’t conscious?

9 July 2022 9:00 am

Philosopher Nick Bostrom on the AI threat

Why sat navs are a conversation killer

28 May 2022 9:00 am

When my daughters learned to drive, I suggested they take their tests in automatics as driving manual cars would soon…

Are iPhones sending women gaga?

14 May 2022 9:00 am

The girl wound down her window, stuck her mobile phone out into midair, and started to take pictures of the…

The wonder of the Metaphor Map

30 April 2022 9:00 am

‘What’s that?’ asked my husband, looking at my laptop. ‘Fibonacci fossilised?’ His question made no sense, but I saw what…

Nadine Dorries: My vision for the BBC

30 April 2022 9:00 am

Nadine Dorries on online safety, the BBC and taking risks

We must all become Doctor Dolittles and listen to the wisdom of animals

23 April 2022 9:00 am

One day the writer and artist James Bridle rented a hatchback, taped a smartphone to the steering wheel and installed…

Can you tell which of these artworks was created by a computer?

23 April 2022 9:00 am

Will AI change painting — or destroy it?