Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as ChatGPT and its rivals, depends heavily on training data, but what if that training data is deliberately poisoned? The large language models (LLMs) technology that underlie generative AI go through three stages of training. The models are fed vast amounts of raw data, such as The Common Corpus,…
DetailsFinancial services make up at least a fifth of the entire global economy. It has always been a heavy user of technology, investing at least triple as much in technology as the retail sector or manufacturing. Given this, it is unsurprising that financial services have also been early adopters of artificial intelligence (AI). It is…
DetailsThose of us who live in the West tend to associate AI with the USA and Silicon Valley. The titans of the AI industry, from specialist software companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, to platform vendors like Microsoft and Google, to hardware companies like NVIDIA, are all headquartered in the USA. Most Western citizens have barely…
DetailsThe retail industry has long been a heavy technology user, from the cash register to vending machines to the credit card and the advent of e-commerce. It employs around 500 million people across the world. It is no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into many aspects of retail, from customer service…
DetailsIt is now almost three years since ChatGPT was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Two months later, it had 100 million users, making it the fastest adopted consumer application in history. A torrent of money was thrown at AI, from venture capital firms backing AI start-ups (a third of all venture capital went into AI…
DetailsThere is little doubt that the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, and the tsunami of artificial intelligence (AI) investment that followed had a seismic impact on the global economy. In Q2 2025 $40 billion, or 45% of all venture capital (VC) funding, went to AI-related companies, according to Crunchbase. On the day that I…
DetailsSelf-driving cars have been a science fiction staple for years, featuring in movies like “Demolition Man” and “Total Recall”. Given that 1.2 million people a year die in accidents on the roads, it is hardly surprising that people have been trying to make this particular piece of fiction into reality for quite some time. The…
DetailsThe first use of an unmanned aerial explosive device was when the Austrian army deployed hundreds of balloons carrying explosives in their siege of Venice, which was fighting for independence against Austria. That was in 1849. Technology has moved on since then, but the use of drones has been a military tactic for longer than…
DetailsArtificial intelligence (AI) is having a major impact on the creative arts. This does not just apply to books and articles, but also to artistic images, music and video. Large language models (LLMs), the underlying basis of generative AI, are capable of writing a poem, a song or an essay, and generating an image, cartoon…
DetailsThe oil and gas industries are some of the largest in the world, with a market size of over $7 trillion. Just over half of that is exploration and production, the rest being refining and distribution. It employs over 12 million people, with a further 60 million employed indirectly by its suppliers. While an oil…
DetailsWe have grown used to computers behaving consistently. If you type a formula into Excel to multiply two numbers together, not only will the answer be correct, but it will produce the same result when you next open the spreadsheet. This is not the way that large language models (LLMS), the models underlying generative AI,…
DetailsChatbots, driven by the large language models (LLMs) that power generative AI, have become a part of everyday life. Customer help desks have often been replaced by an AI assistant, or are used in conjunction with human support staff. They can be quite effective, with a Harvard study in 2025 finding that human customer service…
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