European tech leaders are pushing back against high-profile VCs urging founders to work seven days a week — slamming the grindset mentality as everything from “toxic” to “childish.”  “Calling on founders to work insane hours nonstop is just bad advice,” Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital and former CEO of video search engine Blinkx, told TNW. “Even sprinters don’t sprint all the time — rest and reflection is just as important as putting in the work.” His comments follow a LinkedIn post on Saturday by Harry Stebbings, podcast host and 28-year-old founder of London-based venture firm 20VC. “What European founders need to realise [is that] 7 days a week is the required velocity to win right now,” he wrote, implying that they need to match the infamous grind culture of Silicon Valley.       Martin Mignot, a partner at New York-based Index Ventures, rallied behind Stebbings. In a LinkedIn post of his own, he applauded the 9am-9pm, six days a week (illegal) work culture adopted by some tech firms in China. “Forget 9 to 5, 996 is the new startup standard,” he said.  The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!While some echoed their views, many European tech founders and investors weren’t happy with the rhetoric. Amelia Miller, co-founder of return-to-work platform Ivee, called Stebbings’ post “unbelievably toxic.” “Only bad founders work 7 days non-stop,” she wrote. “It’s poor time management and a fast track to burnout.” Miller also said she thinks that working such long hours unfairly discriminates against parents and those with responsibilities outside the office.   Chandratillake also warned against taking advice from VCs without experience of starting and running a company. “If you’re a CEO, don’t listen to a jumped-up finance bro in a hoodie who has never done your job telling you how to do it!” he said.  The lively debate comes amid a broader conversation in European tech over whether workplace culture is holding the region back compared to the US or China.  In a podcast interview in March, Revolut boss Nik Storonsky criticised European startup entrepreneurs, saying they weren’t working hard enough and valued work-life balance too highly. Those comments followed another lively social media debate earlier this year about whether French founders lacked the “grindset” to succeed.   However, a recent survey of 128 European founders by early-stage VC firm Antler found that three-quarters of them work more than 60 hours weekly. Almost 20% of them exceeded 80 hours, challenging the notion that European founders don’t hustle.  Chandratillake said he believes that scrutinising work hours overlooks some of the real challenges founders face in Europe, such as access to late-stage financing. That said, the investor thinks there is a time and a place for the grind. “Sometimes founders have to work extremely hard and long hours, but that’s not sustainable all the time,” he said. “Building a successful company is a marathon, it takes endurance.”  European startup founders are the lifeblood of TNW Conference — and we want you there too. The tech festival takes place on June 19-20 in Amsterdam. Use the code TNWXMEDIA2025 at the ticket checkout to get 30% off. Story by Siôn Geschwindt Siôn is a freelance science and technology reporter, specialising in climate and energy. From nuclear fusion breakthroughs to electric vehic (show all) Siôn is a freelance science and technology reporter, specialising in climate and energy. From nuclear fusion breakthroughs to electric vehicles, he's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. He has five years of journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. When he's not writing, you can probably find Siôn out hiking, surfing, playing the drums or catering to his moderate caffeine addiction. You can contact him at: sion.geschwindt [at] protonmail [dot] com Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week. Also tagged with

The US Department of Commerce has renamed its AI Safety Institute to the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), shifting its focus from overall safety to combating national security risks and preventing “burdensome and unnecessary regulation” abroad. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced the change on June 3rd, calling the agency’s overhaul a way to “evaluate and enhance US innovation” and “ensure US dominance of international AI standards.” The AI Safety Institute was announced in 2023 under former President Joe Biden, part of a global effort to create best practices for governments mitigating AI system risk. It signed memorandums of understanding with major US AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to get access to new models and suggest improvements before release. Near the end of Biden’s term in early 2025, it released draft guidelines for managing AI risks that included using systems to create biological weapons or other clear threats to national security, but also more common categories of harmful content like child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Lutnick’s statement says that the new institute will “focus on demonstrable risks, such as cybersecurity, biosecurity, and chemical weapons” in its evaluations. It will also investigate “malign foreign influence arising from use of adversaries’ AI systems,” a category that likely includes DeepSeek, a Chinese large language model that shook up the American AI industry earlier this year. The move is part of a larger Trump administration effort to accelerate the expansion of American AI companies. On his first day in office Trump rescinded a Biden executive order that ordered new safety standards for large AI systems and a report evaluating the potential risks for US consumers and the labor market. His own executive orders have encouraged increasing generative AI adoption in fields like education and promoting coal as a source of power for energy-hungry AI data centers. And the current Republican budget bill includes a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulations — a provision even some in Trump’s party have come to oppose.

In a Bloomberg interview Wednesday night in downtown San Francisco, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pushed back against concerns that AI could eventually make half the company’s 180,000-person workforce redundant. Instead, Pichai stressed the company’s commitment to growth through at least next year. “I expect we will grow from our current engineering phase even into next year, because it allows us to do more,” Pichai said, adding that AI is making engineers more productive by eliminating tedious tasks and enabling them to focus on more impactful work. Rather than replacing workers, he referred to AI as “an accelerator” that will drive new product development, thereby creating demand for more employees. Alphabet has staged numerous layoffs in recent years, though so far, cuts in 2025 appear to be more targeted than in previous years. It reportedly parted ways with less than 100 people in Google’s cloud division earlier this year and, more recently, hundreds more in its platforms and devices unit. In 2024 and 2023, the cuts were far more severe, with 12,000 people dropped from the company in 2023 and at least another 1,000 employees laid off last year. Looking forward, Pichai pointed to Alphabet’s expanding ventures like Waymo autonomous vehicles, quantum computing initiatives, and YouTube’s explosive growth as evidence of innovation opportunities that continually bubble up. He noted YouTube’s scale in India alone, with 100 million channels and 15,000 channels boasting over one million subscribers. At one point, Pichai said trying to think too far ahead is “pointless.” But he also acknowledged the legitimacy of fears about job displacement, saying when asked about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s recent comments that AI could erode half of entry-level white collar jobs within five years, “I respect that . . .I think it’s important to voice those concerns and debate them.” As the interview wrapped up, Pichai was asked about the limits of AI, and whether it’s possible that the world might never achieve artificial general intelligence, meaning AI that’s as smart as humans at everything. He quickly paused before answering. “There’s a lot of forward progress ahead with the paths we are on, not only the set of ideas we are working on today, [but] some of the newer ideas we are experimenting with,” he said. “I’m very optimistic on seeing a lot of progress. But you know,” he added, “you’ve always had these technology curves where you may hit a temporary plateau. So are we currently on an absolute path to AGI? I don’t think anyone can say for sure.” Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Sangral Powered by Friendship™ Member Feb 17, 2022 8,649 From one of the biggest and most dedicated HDR analysis channels out there. Thought that's a big enough topic on its own, because of the analysis, for a separate thread. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N637VB4FYxg 450 nits maximum peak brightness (personal comparison, Switch OLED without any HDR has 340 nits, an LG C2 TV in HDR has 800 nits, Steam Deck OLED screen has 1000 nits, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 2600 nits.) Games like Zelda Breath of the Wild have raised blacks even in Docked HDR gameplay with a raised black level floor and the game looking washed out HDR docked can be good if games are optimized for it like Cyberpunk, which he refers to being exactly like on PS5 and PC, HDR wise or Fast Fusion as one of the rare games that actually have a good black level floor in HDR   Last edited: 39 minutes ago blueredandgold Member Oct 25, 2017 8,739 Could you please translate for those of us who haven't been able to watch or digest after we saw this posted in the other thread please?   gabdeg Member Oct 26, 2017 7,420 🐝 Sadly what I expected since the moment we learned it was edge-lit LCD. Would've at least expected nigher peak nits though.   Kouriozan Member Oct 25, 2017 25,072 A shame, because Switch 2 is like the first time I'll see HDR, as my old TV isn't compatible :/   Paper Cheese Member Oct 9, 2019 558 I've got to assume this is the sort of thing that most of us hi-fi tech illiterate lot won't notice until they bring out a better screen model in a few years.   Fortinbras Member Oct 27, 2017 2,073 Well that sucks but it's Nintendo...did anyone expect anything different? I'm only going to use it docked so hopefully they can fix the HDR via update.  Universal Acclaim Member Oct 5, 2024 2,482 Not surprised, but not a big issue for me personally.   Antony Member Oct 25, 2017 4,054 Ahhh the obligatory Nintendo Crap Display (Before You Buy a Whole New Model to Get a Decent One) it's positively tradition at this point   Friendly Bear Member Jan 11, 2019 4,162 I Don’t Care Where (Just Far) Even with an edge lit LCD, I was expecting brighter highlights. A lot of the preview event coverage made it sound like the screen was insanely bright, and that's clearly not the case.   NoSpin Member Nov 1, 2017 83 As so often with gaming, I am relieved to have this person to tell me the thing I am enjoying looking at is bad actually. :)   Mivey Member Oct 25, 2017 20,753 Paper Cheese said: I've got to assume this is the sort of thing that most of us hi-fi tech illiterate lot won't notice until they bring out a better screen model in a few years. Click to expand... Click to shrink... the raised blacks on dark content is pretty clear if you play in any kind of darker environment, if you have any kind of OLED screen to compare. Case in point, if you own a Switch 1 OLED, you'll notice the stark differences for certain kinds of content right away. OTOH, if you have been using a launch Switch 1 and never had any issues with how it looks, you'll be fine. Just make sure to stay away from OLED screen, lest you gain the ability to see the differences.   Decarb Member Oct 27, 2017 9,280 HDR on edge-lit LCD is kind of a scam anyway. Kouriozan said: A shame, because Switch 2 is like the first time I'll see HDR, as my old TV isn't compatible :/ Click to expand... Click to shrink... If you have a phone made in last couple of years you've probably seen HDR.   horkrux Member Oct 27, 2017 6,531 Well, kinda expected, so I'm not too bothered by it. Not like you can change it.   Maximo Member Oct 25, 2017 11,041 Nintendo saving that sweet sweet OLED for a refresh.   Buddy Member Oct 25, 2017 1,773 Germany I have mine in my hands right now.... don't know about HDR stuff too much but Mario Kart looks gorgeous on it.   DieH@rd Member Oct 26, 2017 12,083 Decarb said: HDR on edge-lit LCD is kind of a scam anyway. Click to expand... Click to shrink... ^ this.   cw_sasuke Member Oct 27, 2017 30,321 Most of this stuff was clear from the Preview Events, at least DF talked about it. Didn't seem to bother a majority of people playing though. Was pretty much set when it wasn't going to be OLED.  John Frost Member Oct 27, 2017 9,658 Canada Well, that's disappointing..   Milk Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 25, 2017 4,301 NoSpin said: As so often with gaming, I am relieved to have this person to tell me the thing I am enjoying looking at is bad actually. :) Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's not a personal attack on you. Pointing out objective shortcomings about the technology is a good thing for consumers.   345 Member Oct 30, 2017 10,410 it's about as good as i was expecting. HDR on an LCD basically means "we're actually going to tune content for the screen's color gamut", and it does the job on that level. mario kart does look punchier and more vibrant than it would in SDR while obviously not offering the same contrast as an OLED. dunno who this guy is but if he's really "very disappointed" i'm not sure he knows very much about screens. i'm sure it's just ragebait  JimNastics Member Jan 11, 2018 1,607 345 said: 'm sure it's just ragebait Click to expand... Click to shrink... No way!! :D You could tell just from the thumbnail.  Aleh Member Oct 27, 2017 20,238 "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is.   cw_sasuke Member Oct 27, 2017 30,321 Milk said: It's not a personal attack on you. Pointing out objective shortcomings about the technology is a good thing for consumers. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Seems to be on par what you would get with an LCD. The OG Switch 1 has a bad LCD Screen, the OG Steam Deck has an even worse.....this video is making it seem like Switch 2 Screen is as bad as these screens or even worse. When it seems to be quite solid for an LCD, but in certain areas it can compete with an OLED.  Alex840 Member Oct 31, 2017 5,373 And yet most of the games media doing previews have been like "oh I can barely tell the difference compared to the OLED". Am really sad they took a step back with this, how much more could an OLED screen have cost them?  Universal Acclaim Member Oct 5, 2024 2,482 SDR low brightness in a dark room then   Dranakin Member Oct 27, 2017 2,999 Ooof. Although, I will admit, I probably can't tell between good and bad sceens. I mean, I have the Ayaneo Pocket DMG and everyone says it's an amazing screen. It looks normal to me? Alex840 said: Am really sad they took a step back with this, how much more could an OLED screen have cost them? Click to expand... Click to shrink... An OLED 120hz? The Odin 2 Portal has one (smaller size and without VRR), but I don't have a sense of the component cost.  Kabuki Waq Member Oct 26, 2017 6,034 The screen is a pretty big downgrade from oled but a huge upgrade from the OG. I really miss the perfect blacks. MKW is gorgeous but would have looked so much better on an oled screen  Harmen Member Aug 30, 2023 1,462 The HDR and lifted black should not come as a surprise. But the video doesn't really analyze why it would be below average for an LCD screen? Colours? Pixel response time? For example the original Switch 1 LCD look reaaally bad to me these days, but my Steam Deck LCD screen (similar resolution) looks good to me outside of raised blacks in dark scenes (which I do get used to).   nogoodnamesleft Member Oct 25, 2017 8,605 Yep. I fucking knew it. Knew it was going to be trash. LCD is trash as a standard (yes miniled included with its trash ass pixel response time) Will wait for oled version.  cw_sasuke Member Oct 27, 2017 30,321 Aleh said: "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Focus of the whole channel is HDR. Dude is likely just used to comparing HDR content on very expensive OLED Screens. So HDR bad = everything trash for him. Something that won't be the case for 99% of users out there. Its the single voter issue again, disregarding everything else because of one focus point and expecting every one to feel the same way about it.  Serif Member Oct 31, 2024 410 Alex840 said: Am really sad they took a step back with this, how much more could an OLED screen have cost them? Click to expand... Click to shrink... An OLED 1080p HDR VRR 120 Hz screen does not sound like it would be cost-effective. It makes sense to establish baseline specs like 120 Hz support for developers to target and upgrade to OLED in the future instead of trying to add 120 Hz support later on.  fourfourfun Member Oct 27, 2017 9,149 England Aleh said: "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... If you're an enthusiast display platform, you're going to be benchmarking against the absolute best. So comparatively it could not be as good. Obviously it doesn't take into account what the entire platform delivers as a whole and the price it was trying to hit. It's a rather zoomed in look at just one thing.  RailWays One Winged Slayer Avenger Oct 25, 2017 18,449 Still sounds like an upgrade from the launch Switch LCD, though those nits are pretty low   Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,971 blueredandgold said: Could you please translate for those of us who haven't been able to watch or digest after we saw this posted in the other thread please? Click to expand... Click to shrink... The screen is bad, and the native HDR implementation in the games he tested is shoddy.   NoSpin Member Nov 1, 2017 83 Milk said: It's not a personal attack on you. Pointing out objective shortcomings about the technology is a good thing for consumers. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just imagined him reviewing the Game Boy Pocket or the OG DS screes and how disappointed he would have been, whilst we were all busy enjoying video games.  Wasp Member Oct 29, 2017 351 It's a shame they couldn't release an OLED SKU at launch. I would have happily paid an extra $100 for an OLED model and I'm sure many are the same. I know I'll be keeping my box in pristine condition to get maximum value when I trade the console in for a Switch 2 OLED in hopefully a few years.  Last edited: 51 minutes ago pswii60 Member Oct 27, 2017 28,932 The Milky Way This means that for handheld purposes, Switch 2 is actually a downgrade on Switch 1 OLED, for any games that aren't taking advantage of the additional power/resolution. So basically, you might want to hold on to your Switch 1 OLED for all your pixel art indies, and any games not getting a patch/upgrade.  Shadow One Winged Slayer Member Oct 28, 2017 4,837 Kinda what I expected. Being LCD with HDR especially on portable device at that is never a good combo. I'll just play on my OLED TV when I want to get the full experience, which again, is what I expected. I hope it's a bit usable outside at least. I was hoping closer to 600 nits for that alone, as the Deck OLED is JUST usable on a sunny day. But you can't have everything I guess.  UnderJollyRoger Member Jun 16, 2023 648 Germany The screen is also my biggest concern of the unit. The og switch has an absolutely atrocious screen and LCDs just dont cut it anymore for me. The low nits will make it again pretty difficult to properly play outside. I am commuting a lot and sitting on a train with a bit of sun outside was already too much for the og switch. Here is hoping that an OLED variant will come earlier this time.  Milk Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 25, 2017 4,301 NoSpin said: I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just imagined him reviewing the Game Boy Pocket or the OG DS screes and how disappointed he would have been, whilst we were all busy enjoying video games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... You're implying being critical means you're not also enjoying the video games. I'm critical of tons of my favorite games. I'm still having a fun time with the games 🤷  HandsomeCharles Member Oct 26, 2017 4,717 Disappointing to hear, but as someone who thinks his OG switch's screen is fine, I'm sure it won't really bother me.   OP OP Sangral Powered by Friendship™ Member Feb 17, 2022 8,649 blueredandgold said: Could you please translate for those of us who haven't been able to watch or digest after we saw this posted in the other thread please? Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'm trying to add some bullet points to the OT.  Ghost Slayer Member Oct 30, 2017 1,433 is it like PS Portal LCD screen? Because I think the Portal LCD screen is really good   Decarb Member Oct 27, 2017 9,280 pswii60 said: This means that for handheld purposes, Switch 2 is actually a downgrade on Switch 1 OLED, for any games that aren't taking advantage of the additional power/resolution. So basically, you might want to hold on to your Switch 1 OLED for all your pixel art indies, and any games not getting a patch/upgrade. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Oh I don't think there's any doubt from pure IQ perspective its a downgrade from Switch 1 OLED. Even without HDR support at max brightness that screen pops like nothing else.   Maximo Member Oct 25, 2017 11,041 NoSpin said: I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just imagined him reviewing the Game Boy Pocket or the OG DS screes and how disappointed he would have been, whilst we were all busy enjoying video games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is a silly comparison since he's not reviewing a screen from 1996 when it first came out, screen technology has exploded since the first iPhone, seems like a needless jab.  Melhadf Member Dec 25, 2017 2,528 My understanding is that 400nits is the minimum for HDR. So it's technically HDR, but usually dismissed by purists as not "real HDR" such as this vid with his HDR10 testing (1000nits standard). So it's a definite improvement over SDR content, but Nintendo then used an LCD instead of OLED so it most likely looks worse than the OLED switch. Feels like Nintendo is using minimum HDR as a crutch to cheap out on the screen and people are saying it's not "TRUE HDR" even though it's completely within spec.  vegtro Member Oct 25, 2017 808 Aleh said: "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... When I first booted the Switch 2, I wanted to believe the screen will be ok from the news. Nope, the screen pretty much is pretty bad compared to OLED.   Alvis Saw the truth behind the copied door Member Oct 25, 2017 12,148 EU A bit of a shame, meh NoSpin said: As so often with gaming, I am relieved to have this person to tell me the thing I am enjoying looking at is bad actually. :) Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes indeed, this dude is set on a mission to personally ruin your experience, and he's now crying in a corner knowing that he failed.   fourfourfun Member Oct 27, 2017 9,149 England Shadow said: But you can't have everything I guess. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I think that's the thing, they went for resolution and VRR as a priority. I'm sure I also read on here a while ago that it also centres around the availability of appropriate screens. OLED only became viable after a certain point.  Pargon Member Oct 27, 2017 14,110 I thought I had appropriately-low expectations, but I was thinking it would be a 600 nit 1800:1 panel. Not 450 nits and 900:1. The only thing "HDR" about it is probably that content will be authored to make use of a wider color gamut. 

Ahead of the TechEx North America event on June 4-5, we’ve been lucky enough to speak to Kieran Norton, Deloitte’s US Cyber AI & Automation leader, who will be one of the speakers at the conference on June 4th. Kieran’s 25+ years in the sector mean that as well as speaking authoritatively on all matters cybersecurity, his most recent roles include advising Deloitte clients on many issues around cybersecurity when using AI in business applications.The majority of organisations have in place at least the bare minimum of cybersecurity, and thankfully, in most cases, operate a decently comprehensive raft of cybersecurity measures that cover off communications, data storage, and perimeter defences.However, in the last couple of years, AI has changed the picture, both in terms of how companies can leverage the technology internally, and in how AI is used in cybersecurity – in advanced detection, and in the new ways the tech is used by bad actors.As a Considered a relatively new area, AI, smart automation, data governance and security all inhabit a niche at present. But given the growing presence of AI in the enterprise, those niches are set to become mainstream issues: problems, solutions, and advice that will need to be observed in every organisation, sooner rather than later.Governance and riskIntegrating AI into business processes isn’t solely about the technology and methods for its deployment. Internal processes will need to change to make best use of AI, and to better protect the business that’s using AI daily. Kieran draws a parallel to earlier changes made necessary by new technologies: “I would correlate [AI] with cloud adoption where it was a fairly significant shift. People understood the advantages of it and were moving in that direction, although sometimes it took them more time than others to get there.”Those changes mean casting the net wide, to encompass the update of governance frameworks, establishing secure architectures, even leveraging a new generation of specialists to ensure AI and the data associated with it are used safely and responsibly. Companies actively using AI have to detect and correct bias, test for hallucinations, impose guardrails, manage where, and by whom AI is used, and more. As Kieran puts it: “You probably weren’t doing a lot of testing for hallucination, bias, toxicity, data poisoning, model vulnerabilities, etc. That now has to be part of your process.”These are big subjects, and for the fuller picture, we advocate that readers attend the two talks at TechEx North America that Kieran’s to give. He’ll be exploring both sides of the AI coin – issues around AI deployment for the business, and the methods that companies can implement to deter and detect the new breed of AI-powered malware and attack vectors.The right use-casesKieran advocates that companies start with smaller, lower-risk AI implementations. While some of the first sightings of AI ‘in the wild’ have been chatbots, he was quick to differentiate between a chatbot that can intelligently answer questions from customers, and agents, which can take action by means of triggering interactions with the apps and services the business operates. “So there’s a delineation […] chatbots have been one of the primary starting places […] As we get into agents and agentic, that changes the picture. It also changes the complexity and risk profile.”Customer-facing agentic AI instances are indubitably higher risk, as a misstep can have  significant effects on a brand. “That’s a higher risk scenario. Particularly if the agent is executing financial transactions or making determinations based on healthcare coverage […] that’s not the first use case you want to try.”“If you plug 5, 6, 10, 50, a hundred agents together, you’re getting into a network of agency […] the interactions become quite complex and present different issues,” he said.In some ways, the issues around automation and system-to-system interfaces have been around for close on a decade. Data silos and RPA (robotic process automation) challenges are the hurdles enterprises have been trying to jump for several years. “You still have to know where your data is, know what data you have, have access to it […] The fundamentals are still true.”In the AI era, fundamental questions about infrastructure, data visibility, security, and sovereignty are arguably more relevant. Any discussions about AI tend to circle around the same issues, which throws into relief Kieran’s statements that a conversation about AI in the enterprise has to be wide-reaching and concern many of the operational and infrastructural underpinnings of the enterprise.Kieran therefore emphasises the importance of practicality, and a grounded assessment of need and ability as needing careful examination before AI can gain a foothold. “If you understand the use case […] you should have a pretty good idea of the ROI […] and therefore whether or not it’s worth the pain and suffering to go through building it.”At Deloitte, AI is being put to use where there is a clear use case with a measurable return: in the initial triage-ing of SOC tickets. Here the AI acts as a Level I incident analysis engine. “We know how many tickets get generated a day […] if we can take 60 to 80% of the time out of the triage process, then that has a significant impact.” Given the technology’s nascence, demarcating a specific area of operations where AI can be used acts as both prototype and proof of effectiveness. The AI is not customer-facing, and there are highly-qualified experts in their fields who can check and oversee the AI’s deliberations.ConclusionKieran’s message for business professionals investigating AI uses for their organisations was not to build an AI risk assessment and management programme from scratch. Instead, companies should evolve existing systems, have a clear understanding of each use-case, and avoid the trap of building for theoretical value.“You shouldn’t create another programme just for AI security on top of what you’re already doing […] you should be modernising your programme to address the nuances associated with AI workloads.” Success in AI starts with clear, realistic goals built on solid foundations.You can read more about TechEx North America here and sign up to attend. Visit the Deloitte team at booth #153 and drop in on its sessions on June 4: ‘Securing the AI Stack’ on the AI & Big Data stage from 9:20am-9:50am, and ‘Leveraging AI in Cybersecurity for business transformation’ on the Cybersecurity stage, 10:20am – 10:50am.Learn more about Deloitte’s solutions and service offerings for AI in business and cybersecurity or email the team at uscyberai@deloitte.com.(Image source: “Symposium Cisco Ecole Polytechnique 9-10 April 2018 Artificial Intelligence & Cybersecurity” by Ecole polytechnique / Paris / France is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)

Switch 2 turned up on our doorstep this afternoon and here's what you can look forward to if you plug yours in at just past midnight tonight - including one warningTech21:32, 04 Jun 2025Updated 21:32, 04 Jun 2025Here's what Nintendo sent usAfter months of writing about the Nintendo Switch 2 daily (and getting very excited for Mario Kart World), it was a bit of a strange feeling to have the console dropped off at my doorstep earlier today.While I had preordered, Nintendo sent out the console and some peripherals, so I'm in a position to tell you what you can expect if you're attending a midnight launch, or if you're currently queuing outside your store.‌Looking for a more detailed preview of the hardware? You can find that here, and we've also got hands-on impressions of Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch Welcome Tour.‌Mario Kart World is Nintendo's big Switch 2 launch title(Image: Nintendo)When powering on your Switch 2, you'll need to connect to the internet to download the all-important firmware update that turns it from a pricey paperweight into a nifty console.The console will also introduce you to some of its features and prompt you to add a MicroSD Express card (doing so will format it so it's ready for use).Article continues belowYou can complete the setup with any version of the Switch 2 controllers, and you'll be prompted to start a system transfer from your original console if you have one.We'd recommend doing so, because it'll transfer your saved data to your new system, but it does come with an inconvenience tied to our biggest Switch 2 bugbear so far: painfully slow download speeds.Logging into the console and updating the firmware took about 20 minutes, but downloads move glacially slow.‌Add to that the console trying to download everything from your Switch 1 at once, and I had to spend a few minutes closing downloads down.Even the more modestly-sized games like Puyo Puyo Tetris were dragging on my gigabit Wi-Fi, although I'd imagine it's down to the 'pipes being clogged' as far as servers go.Still, if you're planning to play anything tonight, you might want to stick to physical media for a bit.Article continues belowWhile the Joy-Con are great, I'm massively impressed by the Pro Controller. We'll have a full live blog running most of the day tomorrow to talk more about Switch 2 on its official launch day, but I'll be leaning towards the more traditional pad for my Zelda playthroughs and more.For now, though, I'm pretty pleased I have a physical copy of Mario Kart World to keep me going until Sony's State of Play tonight. Don't forget to check out our predictions.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

Missing the big picture US science is being wrecked, and its leadership is fighting the last war Facing an extreme budget, the National Academies hosted an event that ignored it. John Timmer – Jun 4, 2025 6:00 pm | 16 Credit: JHVE Photo Credit: JHVE Photo Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more WASHINGTON, DC—The general outline of the Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget was released a few weeks back, and it included massive cuts for most agencies, including every one that funds scientific research. Late last week, those agencies began releasing details of what the cuts would mean for the actual projects and people they support. And the results are as bad as the initial budget had suggested: one-of-a-kind scientific experiment facilities and hardware retired, massive cuts in supported scientists, and entire areas of research halted. And this comes in an environment where previously funded grants are being terminated, funding is being held up for ideological screening, and universities have been subject to arbitrary funding freezes. Collectively, things are heading for damage to US science that will take decades to recover from. It's a radical break from the trajectory science had been on. That's the environment that the US's National Academies of Science found itself in yesterday while hosting the State of the Science event in Washington, DC. It was an obvious opportunity for the nation's leading scientific organization to warn the nation of the consequences of the path that the current administration has been traveling. Instead, the event largely ignored the present to worry about a future that may never exist. The proposed cuts The top-line budget numbers proposed earlier indicated things would be bad: nearly 40 percent taken off the National Institutes of Health's budget, the National Science Foundation down by over half. But now, many of the details of what those cuts mean are becoming apparent. NASA's budget includes sharp cuts for planetary science, which would be cut in half and then stay flat for the rest of the decade, with the Mars Sample Return mission canceled. All other science budgets, including Earth Science and Astrophysics, take similar hits; one astronomer posted a graphic showing how many present and future missions that would mean. Active missions that have returned unprecedented data, like Juno and New Horizons, would go, as would two Mars orbiters. As described by Science magazine's news team, "The plans would also kill off nearly every major science mission the agency has not yet begun to build." A chart prepared by astronomer Laura Lopez showing just how many astrophysics missions will be cancelled. Credit: Laura Lopez The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the US's fundamental research, is also set for brutal cuts. Biology, engineering, and education will all be slashed by over 70 percent; computer science, math and physical science, and social and behavioral science will all see cuts of over 60 percent. International programs will take an 80 percent cut. The funding rate of grant proposals is expected to drop from 26 percent to just 7 percent, meaning the vast majority of grants submitted to the NSF will be a waste of time. The number of people involved in NSF-funded activities will drop from over 300,000 to just 90,000. Almost every program to broaden participation in science will be eliminated. As for specifics, they're equally grim. The fleet of research ships will essentially become someone else's problem: "The FY 2026 Budget Request will enable partial support of some ships." We've been able to better pin down the nature and location of gravitational wave events as detectors in Japan and Italy joined the original two LIGO detectors; the NSF will reverse that progress by shutting one of the LIGOs. The NSF's contributions to detectors at the Large Hadron Collider will be cut by over half, and one of the two very large telescopes it was helping fund will be cancelled (say goodbye to the Thirty Meter Telescope). "Access to the telescopes at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo will be phased out," and the NSF will transfer the facilities to other organizations. The Department of Health and Human Services has been less detailed about the specific cuts its divisions will see, largely focusing on the overall numbers, which are down considerably. The NIH, which is facing a cut of over 40 percent, will be reorganized, with its 19 institutes pared down to just eight. This will result in some odd pairings, such as the dental and eye institutes ending up in the same place; genomics and biomedical imaging will likewise end up under the same roof. Other groups like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration will also face major cuts. Issues go well beyond the core science agencies, as well. In the Department of Energy, funding for wind, solar, and renewable grid integration has been zeroed out, essentially ending all programs in this area. Hydrogen and fuel cells face a similar fate. Collectively, these had gotten over $600 billion dollars in 2024's budget. Other areas of science at the DOE, such as high-energy physics, fusion, and biology, receive relatively minor cuts that are largely in line with the ones faced by administration priorities like fossil and nuclear energy. Will this happen? It goes without saying that this would amount to an abandonment of US scientific leadership at a time when most estimates of China's research spending show it approaching US-like levels of support. Not only would it eliminate many key facilities, instruments, and institutions that have helped make the US a scientific powerhouse, but it would also block the development of newer and additional ones. The harms are so widespread that even topics that the administration claims are priorities would see severe cuts. And the damage is likely to last for generations, as support is cut at every stage of the educational pipeline that prepares people for STEM careers. This includes careers in high-tech industries, which may require relocation overseas due to a combination of staffing concerns and heightened immigration controls. That said, we've been here before in the first Trump administration, when budgets were proposed with potentially catastrophic implications for US science. But Congress limited the damage and maintained reasonably consistent budgets for most agencies. Can we expect that to happen again? So far, the signs are not especially promising. The House has largely adopted the Trump administration's budget priorities, despite the fact that the budget they pass turns its back on decades of supposed concerns about deficit spending. While the Senate has yet to take up the budget, it has also been very pliant during the second Trump administration, approving grossly unqualified cabinet picks such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. All of which would seem to call for the leadership of US science organizations to press the case for the importance of science funding to the US, and highlight the damage that these cuts would cause. But, if yesterday's National Academies event is anything to judge by, the leadership is not especially interested. Altered states As the nation's premier science organization, and one that performs lots of analyses for the government, the National Academies would seem to be in a position to have its concerns taken seriously by members of Congress. And, given that the present and future of science in the US is being set by policy choices, a meeting entitled the State of the Science would seem like the obvious place to address those concerns. If so, it was not obvious to Marcia McNutt, the president of the NAS, who gave the presentation. She made some oblique references to current problems, saying, that “We are embarking on a radical new experiment in what conditions promote science leadership, with the US being the treatment group, and China as the control," and acknowledged that "uncertainties over the science budgets for next year, coupled with cancellations of billions of dollars of already hard-won research grants, is causing an exodus of researchers." But her primary focus was on the trends that have been operative in science funding and policy leading up to but excluding the second Trump administration. McNutt suggested this was needed to look beyond the next four years. However, that ignores the obvious fact that US science will be fundamentally different if the Trump administration can follow through on its plans and policies; the trends that have been present for the last two decades will be irrelevant. She was also remarkably selective about her avoidance of discussing Trump administration priorities. After noting that faculty surveys have suggested they spend roughly 40 percent of their time handling regulatory requirements, she twice mentioned that the administration's anti-regulatory stance could be a net positive here (once calling it "an opportunity to help"). Yet she neglected to note that many of the abandoned regulations represent a retreat from science-driven policy. McNutt also acknowledged the problem of science losing the bipartisan support it has enjoyed, as trust in scientists among US conservatives has been on a downward trend. But she suggested it was scientists' responsibility to fix the problem, even though it's largely the product of one party deciding it can gain partisan advantage by raising doubts about scientific findings in fields like climate change and vaccine safety. The panel discussion that came after largely followed McNutt's lead in avoiding any mention of the current threats to science. The lone exception was Heather Wilson, president of the University of Texas at El Paso and a former Republican member of the House of Representatives and Secretary of the Air Force during the first Trump administration. Wilson took direct aim at Trump's cuts to funding for underrepresented groups, arguing, "Talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not." After arguing that "the moral authority of science depends on the pursuit of truth," she highlighted the cancellation of grants that had been used to study diseases that are more prevalent in some ethnic groups, saying "that's not woke science—that's genetics." Wilson was clearly the exception, however, as the rest of the panel largely avoided direct mention of either the damage already done to US science funding or the impending catastrophe on the horizon. We've asked the National Academies' leadership a number of questions about how it perceives its role at a time when US science is clearly under threat. As of this article's publication, however, we have not received a response. At yesterday's event, however, only one person showed a clear sense of what they thought that role should be—Wilson again, whose strongest words were directed at the National Academies themselves, which she said should "do what you've done since Lincoln was president," and stand up for the truth. John Timmer Senior Science Editor John Timmer Senior Science Editor John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots. 16 Comments

Once again, Sam Altman wants to show you the future. The CEO of OpenAI is standing on a sparse stage in San Francisco, preparing to reveal his next move to an attentive crowd. “We needed some way for identifying, authenticating humans in the age of AGI,” Altman explains, referring to artificial general intelligence. “We wanted a way to make sure that humans stayed special and central.” The solution Altman came up with is looming behind him. It’s a white sphere about the size of a beach ball, with a camera at its center. The company that makes it, known as Tools for Humanity, calls this mysterious device the Orb. Stare into the heart of the plastic-and-silicon globe and it will map the unique furrows and ciliary zones of your iris. Seconds later, you’ll receive inviolable proof of your humanity: a 12,800-digit binary number, known as an iris code, sent to an app on your phone. At the same time, a packet of cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, worth approximately $42, will be transferred to your digital wallet—your reward for becoming a “verified human.” Altman co-founded Tools for Humanity in 2019 as part of a suite of companies he believed would reshape the world. Once the tech he was developing at OpenAI passed a certain level of intelligence, he reasoned, it would mark the end of one era on the Internet and the beginning of another, in which AI became so advanced, so human-like, that you would no longer be able to tell whether what you read, saw, or heard online came from a real person. When that happened, Altman imagined, we would need a new kind of online infrastructure: a human-verification layer for the Internet, to distinguish real people from the proliferating number of bots and AI “agents.”And so Tools for Humanity set out to build a global “proof-of-humanity” network. It aims to verify 50 million people by the end of 2025; ultimately its goal is to sign up every single human being on the planet. The free crypto serves as both an incentive for users to sign up, and also an entry point into what the company hopes will become the world’s largest financial network, through which it believes “double-digit percentages of the global economy” will eventually flow. Even for Altman, these missions are audacious. “If this really works, it’s like a fundamental piece of infrastructure for the world,” Altman tells TIME in a video interview from the passenger seat of a car a few days before his April 30 keynote address.Internal hardware of the Orb in mid-assembly in March. Davide Monteleone for TIMEThe project’s goal is to solve a problem partly of Altman’s own making. In the near future, he and other tech leaders say, advanced AIs will be imbued with agency: the ability to not just respond to human prompting, but to take actions independently in the world. This will enable the creation of AI coworkers that can drop into your company and begin solving problems; AI tutors that can adapt their teaching style to students’ preferences; even AI doctors that can diagnose routine cases and handle scheduling or logistics. The arrival of these virtual agents, their venture capitalist backers predict, will turbocharge our productivity and unleash an age of material abundance.But AI agents will also have cascading consequences for the human experience online. “As AI systems become harder to distinguish from people, websites may face difficult trade-offs,” says a recent paper by researchers from 25 different universities, nonprofits, and tech companies, including OpenAI. “There is a significant risk that digital institutions will be unprepared for a time when AI-powered agents, including those leveraged by malicious actors, overwhelm other activity online.” On social-media platforms like X and Facebook, bot-driven accounts are amassing billions of views on AI-generated content. In April, the foundation that runs Wikipedia disclosed that AI bots scraping their site were making the encyclopedia too costly to sustainably run. Later the same month, researchers from the University of Zurich found that AI-generated comments on the subreddit /r/ChangeMyView were up to six times more successful than human-written ones at persuading unknowing users to change their minds.  Photograph by Davide Monteleone for TIMEBuy a copy of the Orb issue hereThe arrival of agents won’t only threaten our ability to distinguish between authentic and AI content online. It will also challenge the Internet’s core business model, online advertising, which relies on the assumption that ads are being viewed by humans. “The Internet will change very drastically sometime in the next 12 to 24 months,” says Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania. “So we have to succeed, or I’m not sure what else would happen.”For four years, Blania’s team has been testing the Orb’s hardware abroad. Now the U.S. rollout has arrived. Over the next 12 months, 7,500 Orbs will be arriving in dozens of American cities, in locations like gas stations, bodegas, and flagship stores in Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami. The project’s founders and fans hope the Orb’s U.S. debut will kickstart a new phase of growth. The San Francisco keynote was titled: “At Last.” It’s not clear the public appetite matches the exultant branding. Tools for Humanity has “verified” just 12 million humans since mid 2023, a pace Blania concedes is well behind schedule. Few online platforms currently support the so-called “World ID” that the Orb bestows upon its visitors, leaving little to entice users to give up their biometrics beyond the lure of free crypto. Even Altman isn’t sure whether the whole thing can work. “I can see [how] this becomes a fairly mainstream thing in a few years,” he says. “Or I can see that it’s still only used by a small subset of people who think about the world in a certain way.” Blania (left) and Altman debut the Orb at World’s U.S. launch in San Francisco on April 30, 2025. Jason Henry—The New York Times/ReduxYet as the Internet becomes overrun with AI, the creators of this strange new piece of hardware are betting that everybody in the world will soon want—or need—to visit an Orb. The biometric code it creates, they predict, will become a new type of digital passport, without which you might be denied passage to the Internet of the future, from dating apps to government services. In a best-case scenario, World ID could be a privacy-preserving way to fortify the Internet against an AI-driven deluge of fake or deceptive content. It could also enable the distribution of universal basic income (UBI)—a policy that Altman has previously touted—as AI automation transforms the global economy. To examine what this new technology might mean, I reported from three continents, interviewed 10 Tools for Humanity executives and investors, reviewed hundreds of pages of company documents, and “verified” my own humanity. The Internet will inevitably need some kind of proof-of-humanity system in the near future, says Divya Siddarth, founder of the nonprofit Collective Intelligence Project. The real question, she argues, is whether such a system will be centralized—“a big security nightmare that enables a lot of surveillance”—or privacy-preserving, as the Orb claims to be. Questions remain about Tools for Humanity’s corporate structure, its yoking to an unstable cryptocurrency, and what power it would concentrate in the hands of its owners if successful. Yet it’s also one of the only attempts to solve what many see as an increasingly urgent problem. “There are some issues with it,” Siddarth says of World ID. “But you can’t preserve the Internet in amber. Something in this direction is necessary.”In March, I met Blania at Tools for Humanity’s San Francisco headquarters, where a large screen displays the number of weekly “Orb verifications” by country. A few days earlier, the CEO had attended a $1 million-per-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago with President Donald Trump, whom he credits with clearing the way for the company’s U.S. launch by relaxing crypto regulations. “Given Sam is a very high profile target,” Blania says, “we just decided that we would let other companies fight that fight, and enter the U.S. once the air is clear.” As a kid growing up in Germany, Blania was a little different than his peers. “Other kids were, like, drinking a lot, or doing a lot of parties, and I was just building a lot of things that could potentially blow up,” he recalls. At the California Institute of Technology, where he was pursuing research for a masters degree, he spent many evenings reading the blogs of startup gurus like Paul Graham and Altman. Then, in 2019, Blania received an email from Max Novendstern, an entrepreneur who had been kicking around a concept with Altman to build a global cryptocurrency network. They were looking for technical minds to help with the project. Over cappuccinos, Altman told Blania he was certain about three things. First, smarter-than-human AI was not only possible, but inevitable—and it would soon mean you could no longer assume that anything you read, saw, or heard on the Internet was human-created. Second, cryptocurrency and other decentralized technologies would be a massive force for change in the world. And third, scale was essential to any crypto network’s value. The Orb is tested on a calibration rig, surrounded by checkerboard targets to ensure precision in iris detection. Davide Monteleone for TIMEThe goal of Worldcoin, as the project was initially called, was to combine those three insights. Altman took a lesson from PayPal, the company co-founded by his mentor Peter Thiel. Of its initial funding, PayPal spent less than $10 million actually building its app—but pumped an additional $70 million or so into a referral program, whereby new users and the person who invited them would each receive $10 in credit. The referral program helped make PayPal a leading payment platform. Altman thought a version of that strategy would propel Worldcoin to similar heights. He wanted to create a new cryptocurrency and give it to users as a reward for signing up. The more people who joined the system, the higher the token’s value would theoretically rise. Since 2019, the project has raised $244 million from investors like Coinbase and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. That money paid for the $50 million cost of designing the Orb, plus maintaining the software it runs on. The total market value of all Worldcoins in existence, however, is far higher—around $12 billion. That number is a bit misleading: most of those coins are not in circulation and Worldcoin’s price has fluctuated wildly. Still, it allows the company to reward users for signing up at no cost to itself. The main lure for investors is the crypto upside. Some 75% of all Worldcoins are set aside for humans to claim when they sign up, or as referral bonuses. The remaining 25% are split between Tools for Humanity’s backers and staff, including Blania and Altman. “I’m really excited to make a lot of money,” ” Blania says.From the beginning, Altman was thinking about the consequences of the AI revolution he intended to unleash. (On May 21, he announced plans to team up with famed former Apple designer Jony Ive on a new AI personal device.) A future in which advanced AI could perform most tasks more effectively than humans would bring a wave of unemployment and economic dislocation, he reasoned. Some kind of wealth redistribution might be necessary. In 2016, he partially funded a study of basic income, which gave $1,000 per-month handouts to low-income individuals in Illinois and Texas. But there was no single financial system that would allow money to be sent to everybody in the world. Nor was there a way to stop an individual human from claiming their share twice—or to identify a sophisticated AI pretending to be human and pocketing some cash of its own. In 2023, Tools for Humanity raised the possibility of using the network to redistribute the profits of AI labs that were able to automate human labor. “As AI advances,” it said, “fairly distributing access and some of the created value through UBI will play an increasingly vital role in counteracting the concentration of economic power.”Blania was taken by the pitch, and agreed to join the project as a co-founder. “Most people told us we were very stupid or crazy or insane, including Silicon Valley investors,” Blania says. At least until ChatGPT came out in 2022, transforming OpenAI into one of the world’s most famous tech companies and kickstarting a market bull-run. “Things suddenly started to make more and more sense to the external world,” Blania says of the vision to develop a global “proof-of-humanity” network. “You have to imagine a world in which you will have very smart and competent systems somehow flying through the Internet with different goals and ideas of what they want to do, and us having no idea anymore what we’re dealing with.”After our interview, Blania’s head of communications ushers me over to a circular wooden structure where eight Orbs face one another. The scene feels like a cross between an Apple Store and a ceremonial altar. “Do you want to get verified?” she asks. Putting aside my reservations for the purposes of research, I download the World App and follow its prompts. I flash a QR code at the Orb, then gaze into it. A minute or so later, my phone buzzes with confirmation: I’ve been issued my own personal World ID and some Worldcoin.The first thing the Orb does is check if you’re human, using a neural network that takes input from various sensors, including an infrared camera and a thermometer. Davide Monteleone for TIMEWhile I stared into the Orb, several complex procedures had taken place at once. A neural network took inputs from multiple sensors—an infrared camera, a thermometer—to confirm I was a living human. Simultaneously, a telephoto lens zoomed in on my iris, capturing the physical traits within that distinguish me from every other human on Earth. It then converted that image into an iris code: a numerical abstraction of my unique biometric data. Then the Orb checked to see if my iris code matched any it had seen before, using a technique allowing encrypted data to be compared without revealing the underlying information. Before the Orb deleted my data, it turned my iris code into several derivative codes—none of which on its own can be linked back to the original—encrypted them, deleted the only copies of the decryption keys, and sent each one to a different secure server, so that future users’ iris codes can be checked for uniqueness against mine. If I were to use my World ID to access a website, that site would learn nothing about me except that I’m human. The Orb is open-source, so outside experts can examine its code and verify the company’s privacy claims. “I did a colonoscopy on this company and these technologies before I agreed to join,” says Trevor Traina, a Trump donor and former U.S. ambassador to Austria who now serves as Tools for Humanity’s chief business officer. “It is the most privacy-preserving technology on the planet.”Only weeks later, when researching what would happen if I wanted to delete my data, do I discover that Tools for Humanity’s privacy claims rest on what feels like a sleight of hand. The company argues that in modifying your iris code, it has “effectively anonymized” your biometric data. If you ask Tools for Humanity to delete your iris codes, they will delete the one stored on your phone, but not the derivatives. Those, they argue, are no longer your personal data at all. But if I were to return to an Orb after deleting my data, it would still recognize those codes as uniquely mine. Once you look into the Orb, a piece of your identity remains in the system forever. If users could truly delete that data, the premise of one ID per human would collapse, Tools for Humanity’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran tells me when I call seeking an explanation. People could delete and sign up for new World IDs after being suspended from a platform. Or claim their Worldcoin tokens, sell them, delete their data, and cash in again. This argument fell flat with European Union regulators in Germany, who recently declared that the Orb posed “fundamental data protection issues” and ordered the company to allow European users to fully delete even their anonymized data. (Tools for Humanity has appealed; the regulator is now reassessing the decision.) “Just like any other technology service, users cannot delete data that is not personal data,” Kieran said in a statement. “If a person could delete anonymized data that can’t be linked to them by World or any third party, it would allow bad actors to circumvent the security and safety that World ID is working to bring to every human.”On a balmy afternoon this spring, I climb a flight of stairs up to a room above a restaurant in an outer suburb of Seoul. Five elderly South Koreans tap on their phones as they wait to be “verified” by the two Orbs in the center of the room. “We don’t really know how to distinguish between AI and humans anymore,” an attendant in a company t-shirt explains in Korean, gesturing toward the spheres. “We need a way to verify that we’re human and not AI. So how do we do that? Well, humans have irises, but AI doesn’t.”The attendant ushers an elderly woman over to an Orb. It bleeps. “Open your eyes,” a disembodied voice says in English. The woman stares into the camera. Seconds later, she checks her phone and sees that a packet of Worldcoin worth 75,000 Korean won (about $54) has landed in her digital wallet. Congratulations, the app tells her. You are now a verified human.A visitor views the Orbs in Seoul on April 14, 2025. Taemin Ha for TIMETools for Humanity aims to “verify” 1 million Koreans over the next year. Taemin Ha for TIMEA couple dozen Orbs have been available in South Korea since 2023, verifying roughly 55,000 people. Now Tools for Humanity is redoubling its efforts there. At an event in a traditional wooden hanok house in central Seoul, an executive announces that 250 Orbs will soon be dispersed around the country—with the aim of verifying 1 million Koreans in the next 12 months. South Korea has high levels of smartphone usage, crypto and AI adoption, and Internet access, while average wages are modest enough for the free Worldcoin on offer to still be an enticing draw—all of which makes it fertile testing ground for the company’s ambitious global expansion. Yet things seem off to a slow start. In a retail space I visited in central Seoul, Tools for Humanity had constructed a wooden structure with eight Orbs facing each other. Locals and tourists wander past looking bemused; few volunteer themselves up. Most who do tell me they are crypto enthusiasts who came intentionally, driven more by the spirit of early adoption than the free coins. The next day, I visit a coffee shop in central Seoul where a chrome Orb sits unassumingly in one corner. Wu Ruijun, a 20-year-old student from China, strikes up a conversation with the barista, who doubles as the Orb’s operator. Wu was invited here by a friend who said both could claim free cryptocurrency if he signed up. The barista speeds him through the process. Wu accepts the privacy disclosure without reading it, and widens his eyes for the Orb. Soon he’s verified. “I wasn’t told anything about the privacy policy,” he says on his way out. “I just came for the money.”As Altman’s car winds through San Francisco, I ask about the vision he laid out in 2019: that AI would make it harder for us to trust each other online. To my surprise, he rejects the framing. “I’m much more [about] like: what is the good we can create, rather than the bad we can stop?” he says. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to avoid the bot overrun’ or whatever. It’s just that we can do a lot of special things for humans.” It’s an answer that may reflect how his role has changed over the years. Altman is now the chief public cheerleader of a $300 billion company that’s touting the transformative utility of AI agents. The rise of agents, he and others say, will be a boon for our quality of life—like having an assistant on hand who can answer your most pressing questions, carry out mundane tasks, and help you develop new skills. It’s an optimistic vision that may well pan out. But it doesn’t quite fit with the prophecies of AI-enabled infopocalypse that Tools for Humanity was founded upon.Altman waves away a question about the influence he and other investors stand to gain if their vision is realized. Most holders, he assumes, will have already started selling their tokens—too early, he adds. “What I think would be bad is if an early crew had a lot of control over the protocol,” he says, “and that’s where I think the commitment to decentralization is so cool.” Altman is referring to the World Protocol, the underlying technology upon which the Orb, Worldcoin, and World ID all rely. Tools for Humanity is developing it, but has committed to giving control to its users over time—a process they say will prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of a few executives or investors. Tools for Humanity would remain a for-profit company, and could levy fees on platforms that use World ID, but other companies would be able to compete for customers by building alternative apps—or even alternative Orbs. The plan draws on ideas that animated the crypto ecosystem in the late 2010s and early 2020s, when evangelists for emerging blockchain technologies argued that the centralization of power—especially in large so-called “Web 2.0” tech companies—was responsible for many of the problems plaguing the modern Internet. Just as decentralized cryptocurrencies could reform a financial system controlled by economic elites, so too would it be possible to create decentralized organizations, run by their members instead of CEOs. How such a system might work in practice remains unclear. “Building a community-based governance system,” Tools for Humanity says in a 2023 white paper, “represents perhaps the most formidable challenge of the entire project.”Altman has a pattern of making idealistic promises that shift over time. He founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, with a mission to develop AGI safely and for the benefit of all humanity. To raise money, OpenAI restructured itself as a for-profit company in 2019, but with overall control still in the hands of its nonprofit board. Last year, Altman proposed yet another restructure—one which would dilute the board’s control and allow more profits to flow to shareholders. Why, I ask, should the public trust Tools for Humanity’s commitment to freely surrender influence and power? “I think you will just see the continued decentralization via the protocol,” he says. “The value here is going to live in the network, and the network will be owned and governed by a lot of people.” Altman talks less about universal basic income these days. He recently mused about an alternative, which he called “universal basic compute.” Instead of AI companies redistributing their profits, he seemed to suggest, they could instead give everyone in the world fair access to super-powerful AI. Blania tells me he recently “made the decision to stop talking” about UBI at Tools for Humanity. “UBI is one potential answer,” he says. “Just giving [people] access to the latest [AI] models and having them learn faster and better is another.” Says Altman: “I still don’t know what the right answer is. I believe we should do a better job of distribution of resources than we currently do.” When I probe the question of why people should trust him, Altman gets irritated. “I understand that you hate AI, and that’s fine,” he says. “If you want to frame it as the downside of AI is that there’s going to be a proliferation of very convincing AI systems that are pretending to be human, and we need ways to know what is really human-authorized versus not, then yeah, I think you can call that a downside of AI. It’s not how I would naturally frame it.” The phrase human-authorized hints at a tension between World ID and OpenAI’s plans for AI agents. An Internet where a World ID is required to access most services might impede the usefulness of the agents that OpenAI and others are developing. So Tools for Humanity is building a system that would allow users to delegate their World ID to an agent, allowing the bot to take actions online on their behalf, according to Tiago Sada, the company’s chief product officer. “We’ve built everything in a way that can be very easily delegatable to an agent,” Sada says. It’s a measure that would allow humans to be held accountable for the actions of their AIs. But it suggests that Tools for Humanity’s mission may be shifting beyond simply proving humanity, and toward becoming the infrastructure that enables AI agents to proliferate with human authorization. World ID doesn’t tell you whether a piece of content is AI-generated or human-generated; all it tells you is whether the account that posted it is a human or a bot. Even in a world where everybody had a World ID, our online spaces might still be filled with AI-generated text, images, and videos.As I say goodbye to Altman, I’m left feeling conflicted about his project. If the Internet is going to be transformed by AI agents, then some kind of proof-of-humanity system will almost certainly be necessary. Yet if the Orb becomes a piece of Internet infrastructure, it could give Altman—a beneficiary of the proliferation of AI content—significant influence over a leading defense mechanism against it. People might have no choice but to participate in the network in order to access social media or online services.I thought of an encounter I witnessed in Seoul. In the room above the restaurant, Cho Jeong-yeon, 75, watched her friend get verified by an Orb. Cho had been invited to do the same, but demurred. The reward wasn’t enough for her to surrender a part of her identity. “Your iris is uniquely yours, and we don’t really know how it might be used,” she says. “Seeing the machine made me think: are we becoming machines instead of humans now? Everything is changing, and we don’t know how it’ll all turn out.”—With reporting by Stephen Kim/Seoul. This story was supported by Tarbell Grants.Correction, May 30The original version of this story misstated the market capitalization of Worldcoin if all coins were in circulation. It is $12 billion, not $1.2 billion.

“Pillars” (2024), oil on linen, 84 x 96 inches. All images courtesy of Mario Moore and Library Street Collective, shared with permission Mario Moore’s Oil Paintings Bridge Past and Present to Spotlight Black Resilience and Style June 4, 2025 Kate Mothes In large-scale works in oil, Detroit-based artist Mario Moore taps into the legacy of European painting traditions to create bold portraits exploring the nature of veneration, self-determination, and the continuum of history. Moore’s work is currently on view in Beneath Our Feet at Library Street Collective alongside fellow Detroiter LaKela Brown. His new pieces nod to the Dutch and Flemish tradition of devotional painting, particularly religious garland paintings. Within elegant arrangements of flowers and foliage, he highlights Black figures relaxing or tending to gardens. “The Patron Saint of Urban Farming” (2025), oil on linen, 72 x 48 inches In “Watermelon Man,” a stone altar is surrounded by hibiscus and watermelons, both symbols of resilience. Historically, the latter represented self-sufficiency and freedom for Southern African Americans following Emancipation, but whites flipped the narrative into a stereotypical exemplar of poverty. Moore reclaims the fruit in the spirit of refined 17th-century still-lifes. The artist has long drawn on the culture and legacies of both Detroit and the U.S. more broadly through the lens of the Black diaspora. Earlier works like “Pillars” position Black figures in elegant dress within the vast wildernesses of the American frontier, bridging the past to explore how racial divisions continue to shape the present. An exhibition last summer at Grand Rapids Art Museum titled Revolutionary Times took his series A New Republic as a starting point, revisiting the history of Black Union soldiers during the Civil War. Moore learned that one of his ancestors, who had been enslaved as a child, later enlisted in the Union Army, spurring the artist’s exploration of the seminal mid-19th-century period of conflict and Western colonization. He positions present-day figures in contemporary dress within historical contexts, interrogating political and racial segregations. “Watermelon Man” (2025), oil on linen, 51 1/2 x 42 inches Through tropes of European painting like a self-portrait of the artist in mirrored reflections and poses in three-quarter profile, Moore renders individuals whose direct, confident gazes and elegant dress invoke Detroit style and pride. For Beneath Our Feet, Brown and Moore collaborated on a five-foot-wide bas-relief bronze coin. Each artist completed one side, with Mario’s contribution taking the form of a portrait of Brown. “Her profile echoes the conventional format of traditional American coinage, confronting the historic absence of Black women in national symbolism and positions of authority,” the gallery says. On the opposite side, Brown depicts a bouquet of collard greens symbolic of nourishment and community. For this exhibition, Brown and Moore “reflect on the wealth held in the earth beneath us—and the enduring question of who holds the rights to till, own, and shape that land,” says an exhibition statement. Detroit is home to ambitious urban gardening initiatives that aim for local food sovereignty, mirroring the resourcefulness of Black farmers throughout history. The artists “consider land not just as property but as history, inheritance, and possibility,” the gallery says. Beneath Our Feet continues through July 30 in Detroit. See more on Moore’s website and Instagram. “International Detroit Playa: Sheefy” (2022), oil on linen, 108 x 96 inches “These Are Not Yams But They Are Damn Good” (2025), oil on linen, 51 1/2 x 42 inches “Creation of a Revolutionary (Helen Moore)” (2023), oil on linen, 76 x 52 inches “Black” (2023), oil on linen, 48 x 48 inches “Garland of Resilience” (2025), oil on linen, 51 1/2 x 42 inches “Birth of Cool” (2023), oil on linen, 72 x 48 inches Installation view of ‘LaKela Brown and Mario Moore: Beneath Our Feet’ at Library Street Collective, Detroit Previous articleNext article