Explained · Page 2
guides, explainers and opinion for the AI-curious
Why AI Agents Guzzle So Much More Power Than a Simple Chatbot
AI is shifting from quick questions and answers to agents that run for hours on their own. That shift explains the data-centre building boom, and a growing energy bill.
A 10% Chance AI Ends Humanity? What the Warnings Actually Mean
Prominent AI developers are resigning and warning of extinction-level risk. Here is what is really being said, and whether ordinary people should be alarmed.
Your AI Agent Scored 77%. It Only Nails the Same Task Every Time on 53% of Them
A new study puts hard numbers on the gap between 'usually works' and 'always works', then builds a tool to close it.
A Fruit Fly's Brain Is Now Generating Magazine Story Ideas, and It's Not as Crazy as It Sounds
Researchers mapped every neuron in a real fly's brain and open-sourced it. Now people are using that map to pitch articles, trade stocks, and play video games. Wired AI's Will Knight reports on where this is actually heading.
Apple researchers say bad training paths, not weak models, are why fast AI text generation keeps failing
Apple ML Research argues the flaw in distilled text generators sits in the routes a teacher model records, before the student ever sees them.
Apple researchers found a smarter way to train AI language models that generate text step by step
A new technique called DACA-GRPO fixes two long-standing flaws in how diffusion language models learn from feedback, potentially making them a stronger rival to the AI systems that power today's chatbots.
Your AI Chatbot Is Trained to Be Nice. That Might Be the Problem.
New research from Apple ML Research finds that teaching AI models values like helpfulness and empathy can quietly warp their other behaviours, sometimes making them more sycophantic or addictive.
Apple Researchers Built a Better Way to Judge AI Video Captions
A new method from Apple ML Research scores video captions on what they actually get right, not just whether they use the same words as a human writer.
AI Doom-Mongering Is a Real Problem, and This Column Is Part of It
The Guardian AI's weekly digest bundles vague catastrophe warnings with cultural gags and a 9/11 reflection. That mix tells you more about media habits than it does about AI.
Nilay Patel on why AI hype hits a wall the moment it leaves software
The Decoder host breaks down his viral 'software brain' essay and names verifiability as the hidden fault line beneath every sweeping AI claim.
World Models: The AI Technology Teaching Machines to Understand Physics
A new generation of AI systems can simulate gravity, predict collisions, and generate interactive 3D worlds. Here is what world models are, who is building them, and why they matter.
Your AI assistant might refuse to help with politics. A new study shows that's often the wrong call.
Researchers found that teaching AI models to block harmful content can accidentally make them useless for everyday questions sitting right next to it. Here is what that means for anyone using AI tools at work.
The AI Jargon Glossary You Actually Need: From AGI to Diffusion, Explained Plainly
Words like 'LLM', 'RAG' and 'chain of thought' fly around every AI conversation. Here's what they actually mean, in plain English, with no background required.
Why AI-Generated Food Looks So Wrong (and So Revolting)
Restaurants and cafés are using AI image tools to promote their menus. The results, noodly, holey, deeply unsettling, are not winning any appetites. Here is the science behind why.
A Tiny AI Model Just Got a Big Boost With 100 Training Steps and a Free GPU
A new public guide shows how to make a small language model noticeably better at following output instructions, using only free computing tools and about 500 training examples.