Author: Reporter

Just a few years ago, artificial intelligence got barely a mention at the U.N. General Assembly’s convocation of world leaders. But after the release of ChatGPT last fall turbocharged both excitement and anxieties about AI, it has been a sizzling topic this year at diplomacy’s biggest annual gathering. Presidents, premiers, monarchs, and cabinet ministers convened as governments at various levels are mulling or have already passed AI regulation. Industry heavy-hitters acknowledge guardrails are needed but want to protect the technology’s envisioned benefits. Outsiders and even some insiders warn that there also are potentially catastrophic risks, and everyone said there...

For a vast number of book writers, artificial intelligence is a threat to their livelihood and the very idea of creativity. More than 10,000 of them endorsed an open letter from the Authors Guild this summer, urging AI companies not to use copyrighted work without permission or compensation. At the same time, AI is a story to tell, and no longer just in science fiction. As present in the imagination as politics, the pandemic or climate change, AI has become part of the narrative for a growing number of novelists and short story writers who only need to follow...

One year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, residents have grown accustomed to hearing outgoing fire from the left bank of the Dnieper river, where Russian troops are positioned. They know that familiar crackle means they have seven seconds to find a shelter, or a sturdy wall to hide behind. Their lives are mostly limited to the comfort of home and the necessity of the supermarket. Many shops are still shuttered. Municipal workers wear bullet-proof vests and wait to be dispatched to sweep up the rubble from yet another impact. Between lulls of artillery...

Israel’s controversial prime minister pushed back defiantly on November 11 against calls from Western allies to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, as troops encircled Gaza’s largest hospital where doctors said five patients died, including a premature baby, after the last generator ran out of fuel. Israel has portrayed Shifa Hospital as Hamas’ main command post, saying militants were using civilians as human shields there and had set up elaborate bunkers underneath it. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in the combat zone of northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. “There is no...

The Jordan River is a winding, 200-plus-mile run on the eastern flank of Israel and the occupied West Bank. The sea is the glittering Mediterranean to its west. But a phrase about the space in between, “from the river to the sea,” has become a battle cry with new power to roil Jews and pro-Palestinian activists in the aftermath of Hamas’ deadly rampage across southern Israel on October 7 and Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” pro-Palestinian activists from London to Rome and Washington chanted in the volatile aftermath...