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Research and science: all our articles

All 43 Alyriaz articles on the “Research and science” topic: news, analysis and explainers, newest first. To stay up to date, you can get an alert as soon as a new article on this topic is published.

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  1. · Society

    Awarded then disqualified: the AI-retouched video

    Nikon has withdrawn the first prize from its microscope video competition, after it was retouched with AI. Where is the line between enhancing and inventing?
  2. · Vision

    Proof without understanding: is it still maths?

    An AI produces hundreds of proofs few will read. Is a truth no one understands still worth anything? Borges imagined the answer.
  3. · Models

    OpenAI releases 372 maths results at once

    A secret OpenAI model produced 722 manuscripts, 372 families of results, posted online. How to check them, and why it divides.
  4. · Business

    Why Google is sending its AI chips into space

    Google has launched a satellite with four AI chips to test solar-powered data centres in orbit. The promise, the challenges and the doubts.
  5. · Society

    Overwhelmed by AI, arXiv rations access for researchers

    Overwhelmed by AI-written papers, arXiv limits each researcher to two submissions per month. A first, and a telling one for science.
  6. · Vision

    AI that improves itself: its builders sound the alarm

    At Anthropic, AI already writes over 80% of the code. Pioneers and researchers from the big labs warn: the loop could run away with itself.
  7. · Models

    Claude has broken a theoretical physics record

    One sentence, one week, 96 processors: Claude pushed a particle physics record one step further. And the record holder himself checked it.
  8. · Models

    An AI will fly a probe to an asteroid on its own

    In 2027, the start-up AstroForge will hand over the piloting of a mining probe to an AI trained on data from thousands of sensors. We explain why, and how it intends to make sure it works.
  9. · Society

    A nanolaser that could halve the energy consumption of chips

    Researchers have developed a nanometre-scale laser that could allow chips to communicate using light, with consumption potentially halved. We look at where this research stands and its realistic timeline.
  10. · Society

    An AI spots side effects in 400,000 online messages

    An AI analysis of 400,000 messages posted online has identified unexpected symptoms in users of semaglutide-class treatments. We examine what this type of study contributes and its limitations.
  11. · Models

    Claude runs 26% of the research that builds Claude

    Anthropic has published figures on the share of its own research driven by its models: 26% in August against less than 1% in February. We analyse what this figure measures and what it implies.
  12. · Explainers

    How an agent navigates the web

    A browsing agent chains together searches, reads and cross-checks to find hard-to-find information. We explain the loop, where it fails, and how to use it properly.
  13. · Vision

    Is slowness a method?

    Faced with results produced faster than they can be understood, we examine what slowness actually produced in knowledge, and what is lost when it disappears.
  14. · Society

    Leading mathematicians declare their goals "gravely misaligned" with those of AI companies

    A coalition of mathematicians, including Fields medallists, has published a statement asserting that the goals of AI companies and those of the mathematical community are gravely misaligned. We examine an argument more subtle than it first appears.
  15. · Vision

    Should we believe an extraordinary announcement?

    When faced with a spectacular scientific claim, we examine what distinguishes methodical caution from performative scepticism, and which criteria allow us to form a judgement.
  16. · Vision

    Who owns a research question?

    When a team with considerable resources takes up a question others are already working on, the notion of scientific priority wobbles. We examine what the race changes in research.
  17. · Explainers

    The problems of the millennium, and how a proof comes to be accepted

    Seven Millennium Problems were posed in 2000. We explain what they are, why only one has been solved, and above all how the mathematical community decides that a proof holds up.
  18. · Models

    Navier-Stokes: OpenAI announces it has solved a millennium problem, and a dispute erupts

    OpenAI claims an internal system produced a solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, with a proof formalised in Lean. The announcement comes with a dispute over priority. Here is what we know, with all the necessary caveats.
  19. · Vision

    Who is the author of a discovery made with a machine?

    When a scientific discovery results from a collaboration between a researcher and models, the question of attribution arises differently. We examine what it means to be the author of a result.
  20. · Society

    Google tells 450 million Europeans that search is getting worse because of regulation

    Google has informed European users that some search features would be degraded due to regulatory obligations. We analyse the argument, its share of truth, and the tactic.

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