Rishi Sunak’s AI safety summit appears slick – but look closer and alarm bells start ringing

The prime minister wants progress on this tech to be his legacy, but in truth he is failing to equip us for the challenges it brings, says writer Chris Stokel-Walker

Blank review – author held hostage by AI as near-future thriller enters Misery territory

There’s some inspired direction as Misery meets Ex Machina in this sci-fi psychological thriller

AI doomsday warnings a distraction from the danger it already poses, warns expert

A leading researcher, who will attend this week’s AI safety summit in London, warns of ‘real threat to the public conversation’

On my radar: Carlo Rovelli’s cultural highlights

The physicist and philosopher of science on the lessons the Roman empire holds for us today, the mystery of black holes, and his favourite beat poet

‘Giving computers a sense of smell’: the quest to scientifically map odours

By digitising scents as we have images and sounds, researchers hope they can transform everything from food and agriculture to disease prevention

Race to AI: the origins of artificial intelligence, from Turing to ChatGPT

Today’s poem-writing AI has ancestry in punch-card machines, trundling robots and godlike gaming engines

AI risk must be treated as seriously as climate crisis, says Google DeepMind chief

Demis Hassabis calls for greater regulation to quell existential fears over tech with above-human levels of intelligence

‘Social loafing’ found when working alongside robots

Study finds people tend to pay less attention when working with robots, just like with respected human colleagues

Half a million of us want to donate our data to British science, but it’s languishing unused because of privacy fears

Data supplied to UK Biobank UK is not for sale, it’s not for trivial or suspect use, it’s for the good of humankind, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

Quantum physicist Michelle Simmons awarded PM’s top science prize for computing work

2018 Australian of the year recognised for work on super-fast technology in field of atomic electronics

Researchers use AI to read word on ancient scroll burned by Vesuvius

University of Kentucky challenged computer scientists to reveal contents of carbonised papyrus, a ‘potential treasure trove for historians’

How HS2 waste clay could be conjured into concrete to cut emissions

Engineers want to set up giant oven at HS2 boring sites to create calcined clay mix for use in foundations and platforms

Encryption services are sending the right message to the quantum codebreakers

Quantum computers may still be years away, but it’s prudent that end-to-end encryption providers are ramping up defences

How AI and brain science are helping perfumiers create fragrances

Beauty brands are looking to neuroscent research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers

‘Tech platforms haven’t been designed to think about death’: meet the expert on what happens online when we die

What happens to our digital profiles and possessions after our deaths? Tech companies are yet to offer a satisfactory solution, says the technology researcher Tamara Kneese