In artificial intelligence, 2025 marked a decisive shift. Systems once confined to research labs and prototypes began to appear as everyday tools. At the center of this transition was the rise of AI agents – AI systems that can use other software tools and act on their own. While researchers have studied AI for more […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
AI agents arrived in 2025 – here’s what happened and the challenges ahead in 2026
The AI narrative is broken… and here’s how we can fix it
Artificial intelligence (AI) is made up of data, chips, and code, but also of the stories and metaphors we use to represent it. Stories matter . The imagery surrounding a technology determines how the public understands it and, therefore, guides its use, design, and social impact. That’s why it’s worrying that, according to most studies , the dominant representation […] … learn more→
Deepfakes leveled up in 2025 – here’s what’s coming next
Over the course of 2025, deepfakes improved dramatically. AI-generated faces, voices and full-body performances that mimic real people increased in quality far beyond what even many experts expected would be the case just a few years ago. They were also increasingly used to deceive people. For many everyday scenarios — especially low-resolution video calls and […] … learn more→
Artificial empathy: from technological miracle to relational mirage
American psychologist Mark Davis defines empathy as the ability to perceive the mental and emotional states of others, to adjust to them, and to take them into account in one’s behavior. Researchers distinguish between two aspects: cognitive empathy, based on understanding intentions, and affective empathy, linked to sharing feelings. This distinction, central to social psychology, shows that […] … learn more→
Machines are talking about you behind your back
For many years, this postcard was taped to my office door: It’s funny because it’s true. The machines really do talk about us behind our backs. Machines talking to machines helped me pay for the delicious cardamom buns I bought from the new branch of Under bakery this morning: OK, technically I was watching while the machine […] … learn more→
Visual thinking: the strategy that could help you spot misinformation and manipulated images
A fake photo of an explosion near the Pentagon once rattled the stock market. A tearful video of a frightened young “Ukrainian conscript” went viral: until exposed as staged. We may be approaching a “synthetic media tipping point”, where AI-generated images and videos are becoming so realistic that traditional markers of authenticity, such as visual flaws, are rapidly disappearing. In […] … learn more→
When invisible robots influence our choices and opinions
Every time we click a star to rate a restaurant, leave a comment on a shopping site, or “like” a video, we leave a digital footprint. Individually, this may seem insignificant, a simple little sign of preference, a micro-opinion among many others. But collectively, these footprints form a vast social landscape, a cloud of visible […] … learn more→
Sustainable AI, a utopia?
While we ask artificial intelligence (AI) to help us solve climate change, its own carbon footprint is skyrocketing. And while it helps us design drugs, optimize power grids, and predict natural disasters, this technology comes at a hidden and exorbitant cost. The problem is its energy appetite. Training a model like GPT-3, now outdated, required around […] … learn more→
‘Digital colonialism’: how AI companies are following the playbook of empire
In the eyes of big AI companies such as OpenAI, the troves of data on the internet are highly valuable. They scrape photos, videos, books, blog posts, albums, painting, photographs and much more to train their products such as ChatGPT – usually without any compensation to or consent from the creators. In fact, OpenAI and […] … learn more→
AI chatbots are encouraging conspiracy theories – new research
Since early chatbots were first conceived more than 50 years go, they have become increasingly sophisticated – in large part, thanks to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. They also seem to be everywhere: on desktops, mobile apps and embedded into everyday programs, meaning you can interact with them at any time. Now, new research I coauthored with […] … learn more→
