Latest Interviews

AI has got better at hacking—how big a risk is it?

Tom Standage, Alex Hern

Anthropic withheld its latest model, Mythos, from public release after it demonstrated the ability to autonomously identify and exploit critical software vulnerabilities, such as a 27-year-old OpenBSD flaw, with minimal human intervention. This decision follows evidence that AI scaling laws now enable automated systems to accelerate the vulnerability exploitation cycle from years to mere hours, drastically outpacing current defensive capabilities. While Anthropic employed responsible disclosure by patching the specific bug before sharing details, the incident highlights a growing risk that open-source models will soon democratize high-level cyberattacks.

Over the Yoon: South Korea ousts president

Rosie Bloor, Noah Snyder, Duncan Robinson, John Fasman

South Korea's Constitutional Court has upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol for declaring martial law, mandating a snap election within 60 days that leaves opposition leader Lee Jae-myung as the frontrunner amid deepening economic and geopolitical instability. While the ousted president faces a separate criminal trial for insurrection that could carry a life sentence or death penalty, the nation's conservative factions remain fragmented and vulnerable to shifting US trade policies and alliance strategies. This constitutional crisis has simultaneously depressed market confidence and complicated the path toward stabilizing the economy amidst intensifying external pressures.

I’ll be jammed: electronic warfare in Ukraine

Jason Palmer, Shashank Joshi, Tim Cross

The event analyzes three distinct shifts in modern strategy: the intensifying electronic warfare contest between Russia and Ukraine driving NATO's need for portable spectrum tools, the emergence of carbon monoxide as a hard-to-detect performance enhancer in professional cycling, and the erosion of UK parliamentary oratory driven by social media constraints. Key figures include the Union Cycliste Internationale and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, while specific outcomes involve Ukraine's increased local EW production, WADA's pending classification of carbon monoxide, and a century-long decline in parliamentary speech length. Collectively, these developments highlight critical adaptations in military technology, sports regulation, and political communication required to address evolving threats and cultural changes.

Reunions and rubble: Gaza’s first moments of peace

Rosie Bloor, Jason Palmer, Anshul Pfeffer, Duncan Robinson, Dolly Setton

A four-day ceasefire in Gaza initiated a two-stage truce that released three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners, while triggering political instability in Israel as far-right ministers resigned and the incoming US administration secured the agreement. This diplomatic breakthrough is followed by complex challenges regarding the billions required for reconstruction and the establishment of a governance model, which remains uncertain without Hamas or the Palestinian Authority leading the effort. Concurrently, the United Kingdom faces wage compression as the new National Living Wage narrows the pay gap between unskilled and skilled labor, while medical research confirms clinical hypnosis reduces procedural pain and anxiety despite barriers to its widespread adoption.

Keir eye for the FDI: an interview with Britain’s PM

Keir Starmer, Rosie Bloor, Jason Palmer, Matthew Holhouse, Jeff Carr, Rebecca Jackson

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer launched an International Investment Summit aiming to reverse the UK's decades-long low investment status by streamlining bureaucracy and integrating the Office for Investment directly into Number 10 under Poppy Gustafson. While the strategy offers planning reforms and policy predictability to attract capital, it simultaneously introduces stricter labor market regulations and potential capital taxes through the Employment Rights Bill and October budget. This economic pivot seeks to balance investor needs with worker protections to stimulate productivity, though critics note the risks of a more regulated environment offsetting planning benefits.

Cryptic message: why arrest Telegram’s founder?

Rosie Bloor, Tom Wainwright, Henry Kerr, Emily Steinmark

Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of Telegram, was arrested in Paris on charges related to the platform's alleged failure to curb child sexual abuse material, money laundering, and encryption violations. While Telegram denies the accusations and frames the incident as a free speech issue, the arrest has sparked global debate regarding content moderation standards and potential geopolitical motives tied to the platform's role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This legal development risks establishing a precedent for nations to use executive arrests to compel compliance with local laws, following similar threats faced by tech executives in Brazil.

Bait the hook! Fishing in the global talent pool

Jason Palmer, Fedora Castellino, Robert Guest, John Priddo, Simon Rabinovich, Xavier Trocol, Tom Standage

A panel of economists and policy analysts critiques restrictive immigration frameworks in the U.S., Britain, and China while highlighting the success of rapid processing models in the UAE and Portugal to boost graduate populations. The discussion further examines structural shifts in the American service economy, where legally mandated low wages drive "tipflation" and prompt tax exemption proposals from both major presidential candidates. Concurrently, experts warn that divergent global regulations on facial recognition AI leave the U.S. vulnerable to law enforcement overuse and algorithmic bias, contrasting sharply with the EU's strict prohibitions on public surveillance.

An officer and a gen AI: the future of war

Pål Enger, Jason Palmer, Rosie Bloor, Shashank Joshi, Rory Galloway, Anne Rowe

Military strategists and ethicists are currently grappling with a widening gap as AI integrates into warfare across logistics, decision support, and lethal autonomous systems, creating operational risks regarding algorithmic failure and geopolitical competition among the US, China, and Russia. In a parallel scientific breakthrough, researchers have identified "fossil chromosomes" preserved in 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth cells, revealing that rapid dehydration in cold environments can maintain genomic structural integrity for hundreds of millions of years. Meanwhile, the life of Norwegian criminal Paal Enger, who famously stole Edvard Munch's *The Scream* during the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics due to a personal psychological obsession, concluded at age 57 with a legacy defined by high-profile thefts and an artistic transformation into painting while incarcerated.

Bet noir: Macron’s electoral gamble backfires

Macron, Jason Palmer, Rosie Bloor, Sophie Pedder, Joshua Spencer, David Adam

Marine Le Pen's National Rally won the first round of French parliamentary elections, while centrist President Emmanuel Macron's alliance finished third, setting the stage for a likely hung parliament and strategic runoff tactics on July 7th. Simultaneously, Thailand's Senate passed a historic same-sex marriage bill redefining unions as between "two persons" with bipartisan support, awaiting royal endorsement to become the first Southeast Asian nation to legalize marriage equality. In sports technology, researchers from Fribourg University are utilizing augmented reality headsets to help penalty takers improve reaction times by 100 milliseconds, addressing the high failure rates that account for approximately 20% of knockout matches in major tournaments.

What's the future of crypto?

Eric Hughes, Mathieu Favaz

Despite a significant decline in global market capitalization from $3 trillion to $828 billion and intensified regulatory crackdowns in 25 nations, cryptocurrency adoption remains robust in developing economies facing hyperinflation or weak financial infrastructure. The industry is now pivoting toward Web3, a decentralized internet model that shifts data ownership to users while attempting to solve scalability issues through Layer 2 solutions. However, this post-money era faces persistent challenges regarding security, the lack of central authorities for dispute resolution, and the technical limitations of nascent blockchain networks.

Who Is Xi Jinping?

Xi Jinping

President Xi Jinping's rule is defined by an absolute prioritization of stability and national security, a stance rooted in the traumatic childhood experiences of the Cultural Revolution that instilled a lifelong aversion to chaos. Having consolidated power through a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, constitutional changes eliminating term limits, and an unprecedented surveillance apparatus, he has positioned the reunification of Taiwan as a historical imperative to surpass Mao Zedong's legacy. This ambition creates a critical strategic tension between completing the civil war and the potential for nuclear conflict, making Xi's decisions the central determinant of future global stability.

Black holes: why they matter

Alok Jha

Black holes, defined by their event horizons and singularities, span from stellar remnants weighing three to twenty solar masses to supermassive giants millions of times heavier that anchor galaxies. Detection milestones since 1971, culminating in the Event Horizon Telescope's images of Cygnus X-1 and Sagittarius A*, have confirmed their existence through gravitational lensing and X-ray emissions. These cosmic phenomena remain central to resolving the conflict between General Relativity and Quantum Theory, particularly regarding the black hole information paradox and the nature of singularities.

War in Ukraine: the emerging global food crisis

Arkady, Ed, Shashank, Sasha Nauta

The ongoing war in Ukraine is precipitating a global food crisis by blocking critical export routes through Odessa, destroying domestic harvests, and disrupting fertilizer supplies, which threatens hundreds of millions in nations like Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Simultaneously, the prospective NATO accession of Sweden and Finland is expected to significantly strengthen Baltic security through Finland's substantial artillery capabilities, despite President Vladimir Putin leveraging the expansion to fuel narratives of Russian encirclement. This geopolitical shift occurs against the backdrop of US legislative uncertainty regarding escalating aid packages and potential changes in Washington's strategic posture ahead of the 2024 presidential election, raising concerns among European allies about future burden-sharing.

Election polling: why is it so difficult?

The presentation traces the evolution of election polling from unrepresentative 19th-century straw polls to modern scientific standards established after the 1936 Literary Digest failure and the 2016 U.S. state-level errors. It details how contemporary forecasting models combine polling data with economic fundamentals and run millions of simulations to generate probabilistic outcomes, a methodology successfully tested during the 2022 French presidential election. Ultimately, the analysis emphasizes that while these models cannot achieve perfect accuracy due to inherent sampling limitations and unforeseen external events, they provide increasingly reliable predictions as historical data accumulates.

War in Ukraine: is a peace deal possible?

Ed, Sally, Zany, Arkady

Ongoing negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow remain stalled over the core triad of territorial status, sanctions sequencing, and Crimea's strategic corridor, as Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov lacks final authority to offer concessions without President Vladimir Putin's direct approval. While Ukraine has hardened its stance by rejecting pre-1991 borders and exploring security guarantees akin to Finnish neutrality, Putin's strategy is increasingly driven by domestic consolidation rather than genuine security needs, reflecting a calculated worldview that prioritizes legacy over realistic military outcomes. This strategic deadlock, compounded by Putin's internal miscalculation and the reluctance of his kleptocratic inner circle to risk nuclear escalation, leaves both sides facing a stalemate with no substantive progress toward a comprehensive peace deal.