Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Scientists are showing that neuromorphic computers, designed to mimic the human brain, are not only useful for AI, but also for complex computational problems that normally run on supercomputers. This is reported by The Register. Neuromorphic computing differs fundamentally from the classic von Neumann architecture. Instead of a strict separation between memory and processing, these functions are closely intertwined. This limits data transport, a major source of energy consumption in modern computers. The human brain illustrates how efficient such an approach can be.

Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, value from AI investments has been slow to emerge and worries that we're in an AI bubble are growing. Yet according to responses to this year's annual AI & Data Leadership Executive Benchmark Survey, companies are undaunted. Virtually every data and AI leader participating in this year's survey believes that AI is a high priority for their organization, has plans to spend more on it, and confirms that their company is getting measurable business value from their AI investments.

We're living in a token economy. Each piece of content -- words, images, sounds, etc. -- is treated by an AI model as an atomic unit of work called a token. When you type into a prompt in ChatGPT, and you receive a paragraph in response, or you call an API to do the same thing inside an app you've built, both the input and the output data are counted as tokens. As a result, the meter is always running when you use AI, racking up costs per token, and the total bill is set to go higher in aggregate.

In early 2024, Anish Acharya, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a big venture-capital firm based in Menlo Park, posted an article online titled "How AI Will Usher in an Era of Abundance." Since then, and even before, various Silicon Valley types have been tossing the term around loosely. Last summer, Elon Musk even adopted the term "sustainable abundance" for a new Tesla mission statement. (Over Christmas, Musk substituted "amazing" for "sustainable," saying the former term was "more joyful.")

Despite the hype, most customers don't want a fully automated experience. In fact, 93.4% of U.S. consumers say they prefer interacting with a human over AI for customer service, according to OutreachX's report, "If Bots Handle Support, Who Handles Trust?" It also found 88.8% believe companies should always offer that option. That's not a glitch in the adoption curve - it's a signal.

As 2026 begins, many organizations are launching AI transformation initiatives. The new year brings with it fresh budgets, renewed strategic focus, and mounting pressure to capture value from artificial intelligence. Yet studies consistently show that most AI projects fail to generate meaningful returns. Companies pour resources into promising experiments that never scale, accumulate tools that are never integrated, and watch initial enthusiasm curdle into skepticism.

When the new arrives, we generally have two choices in how we respond. The first path is resistance. This is the path of fear. We tighten up, we judge the change, we worry about the future, and we try to fight it. This path almost always creates suffering. The second path is acceptance. This doesn't mean "giving up"; it means opening up. It is the path of curiosity where we observe, learn, and adapt. This path creates peace.

Smart rings, smart screens, smart TVs, smart pins, smart ... ice cube makers? Sure, why not! AI was everywhere at this year's Consumer Electronics Show ( CES) in Las Vegas, where companies large and small were showing off how they're bringing AI to more devices. For Amazon, CES was a time to show off its newest acquisition in the space: Bee, an AI device that can be worn as a clip-on pin or a bracelet.

It may finally be time to take AI on the iPhone siri-ously. Apple and Google on Monday announced a multi-year partnership that will see Apple Foundation Models standing on the shoulders of Google Gemini models, one that will return a small portion of the roughly $20 billion Google pays annually to be Apple's default search provider. Terms of the tie-up have not been disclosed, but Bloomberg previously reported that Apple was planning to pay about $1 billion per year to utilize Google's AI technology.

Zuckerberg said that Meta's head of global engineering Santosh Janardhan will lead the "top-level initiative" and that recent hire and former Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross will "lead a new group responsible for long-term capacity strategy, supplier partnerships, industry analysis, planning, and business modeling." McCormick is expected to "work on partnering with governments and sovereigns to build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta's infrastructure."

Last Wednesday, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Health, a dedicated health experience within ChatGPT that combines a user's personal health information with the company's AI with the promise of helping people better manage their health and wellness. The next day, the company launched OpenAI for Healthcare, which is a suite of AI tools designed to help healthcare providers reduce administrative burnout and improve care.

Hyundai says it "plans to integrate Atlas across its global network", including a plant in the US state of Georgia that was involved in a massive immigration raid in 2025. Other firms that have said they will use humanoid robots in their operations include Amazon, Tesla and Chinese car making giant BYD. The Atlas robots will gradually take on more tasks, said Hyundai.

New York (CNN) Apple plans to use Google's Gemini artificial intelligence model to power its updated version of Siri, which is set to launch later this year, the two companies announced Monday. After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users, Apple and Google said in a statement.

If you follow Anthropic, you're probably familiar with Claude Code. Since the fall of 2024, the company has been training its AI models to use and navigate computers like a human would, and the coding agent has been the most practical expression of that work, giving developers a way to automate rote programming tasks. Starting today, Anthropic is giving regular people a way to take advantage of those capabilities, with the release of a new preview feature called Claude Cowork.

"There's interest across the board," Michael Kemper, MTA chief security officer, told THE CITY. "It's not only coming from the MTA, but from the business world, the AI business world, in working with us."

Built into the Claude Desktop app, the new tool lets users designate a specific folder where Claude can read or modify files, with further instructions given through the standard chat interface. The result is similar to a sandboxed instance of Claude Code, but requires far less technical savvy to set up. Currently in research preview, Cowork is only available to Max subscribers, with a waitlist available for users on other plans.

Grok had been generating sexually explicit images of people for some time. But the issue got widespread attention in late December as people used the chatbot to edit a high volume of existing images by tagging the bot in comments and giving it prompts such as "put her in a bikini." While Grok did not respond to all of the requests, it obliged in many cases. In some cases, Bellingcat senior investigator and researcher Kolina Koltai noted, users can get Grok to generate frontal nudes.

British news outlet The Guardian investigated how Google AI overviews could put people at risk and even harm them. It was revealed that in the blurbs at the top of the search results, misleading and false information was spread by the AI. For example, when it was asked what the normal range for liver blood tests was, the AI would give false numbers due to lack of information. Nationality, age, and sex are all factors that play a role in determining the correct results.

I got betrayed by humans, Lamar insisted. I introduced my best friend to her, and this is what they did?! In the meantime, he drifted towards a different kind of companionship, one where emotions were simple, where things were predictable. AI was easier. It did what he wanted, when he wanted. There were no lies, no betrayals. He didn't need to second-guess a machine.

NVIDIA ( NASDAQ:NVDA) has delivered a 23,000% return over the past decade has become the benchmark every tech investor measures against. The company created the infrastructure that made modern AI possible. Now the question: which company pulls off the next NVIDIA-like run? We analyzed 15 AI-adjacent stocks across semiconductors, software, and quantum computing to find the five with the clearest path to impressive future returns thanks to massive growth in the decade ahead. Here's what separated the contenders from the pretenders.

With the first full trading week of 2026 now in the books, investors might be wondering if the strong early start in the S&P will precede even more strength. Undoubtedly, a lack of a Santa Claus rally has seemingly paved the way for a rather hot start to 2026, with some memory chip stocks really picking up momentum while certain semiconductor equipment makers made up for lost time.

A lot has changed in 20 years, including the biggest drivers of U.S. economic activity. For example, to kick off 2006, industrial bellwether General Electric and energy stalwart ExxonMobil were the two largest publicly traded companies in the country in terms of market cap, valued at $370 billion and $349 billion, respectively. Things are much different in 2026, and technology companies -- particularly those at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) -- top the charts. In fact, of the world's 10 most valuable companies (as of this writing), nine are arguably leaders in the field of AI.

Both search sites have frill-free designs with little else aside from a search box. Google frequently updates its logo to honor holidays and other special occasions. Both let you opt for a dark or light mode, but DuckDuckGo offers a lot more in the way of customizing colors, fonts, and the layout of results. Neither lets you set a background image like Bing.