• Iranians embrace anthem by AI singer created by UK-based, Iran-born artist

    ‘I did it for the people,’ says Farbod Mehr, of song drawing lyrics from the work of revolutionary 20th-century poet Aref QazviniA stirring song – sung, apparently, by a young woman, with lyrics expressing the hope that sacrifice will lead to a better future – has become a soundtrack for Iranians in the first part of 2026, as the country experienced the brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests and then the US-Israeli air assault, now in its third week.However, the singer,
  • AI has exposed age-old problems with university coursework | Letter

    Instead of romanticising a pre-AI past, universities should use this moment to rethink what they actually want students to demonstrate, says Dr Nafisa Baba-AhmedThe frustration many academics are expressing about artificial intelligence and critical thinking is understandable (‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI, 10 March). But from my experience working with students on academic writing, blaming AI risks masking a
  • ‘Cruel hoax’ or ‘work-life balance nirvana’: whatever happened to the four-day work week?

    It has been years since the four-day work week was floated as a solution to everything from traffic congestion to burnout. So why aren’t we all doing it now?Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailDuring the global soul-searching that followed the rupture of Covid-19 lockdowns, one idea for how we might live better suddenly seemed plausible: the four-day work week.The model is simple but somewhat counterintuitive. Employees work fewe
  • AI could give us our lives back – if we don’t blow it

    Could we be at the beginning of a change never before seen by humans – allowing us to escape the drudgery of work?The other day I pulled into the parking lot of a client’s offices and in the spot next to me was a woman sitting in her car blasting music. She caught me looking and rolled down her window and said, “I’ll be inside in a minute … Just enjoying my last few moments of freedom!”Is this way we want to live? No, it’s not. Continue reading...
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  • These aren’t AI firms, they’re defense contractors. We can’t let them hide behind their models

    From Gaza to Iran, the pattern is the same: precision weapons, chosen blindness, and dead children. The cost of failing to regulate AI warfare is already too highThere is an Israeli military strategy called the “fog procedure”. First used during the second intifada, it’s an unofficial rule that requires soldiers guarding military posts in conditions of low visibility to shoot bursts of gunfire into the darkness, on the theory that an invisible threat might be lurking.It’s