Default feminine voices used in AI assistants like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri promote gender stereotypes of female subservience, a new UN report has claimed, prompting the internet to ask the question: “Can you harass code?” The report, released Wednesday by the UN’s cultural and scientific body UNESCO, found that the majority of AI assistant…
Category: News
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – what we learned from the Vanity Fair special
In just under seven months’ time, a saga spanning nine films, three generations and 42 years will finally be over, bringing the epic story of the Skywalker family to a close. After steering The Force Awakens into favourable regard with fans, JJ Abrams has returned to co-write and direct the final movie in Disney’s semi-rebooted…
Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein: ‘Everyone said we didn’t belong in LA’
Beanie Feldstein is eating ice-cream in a red dress that is as bright as strawberry sauce. “This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever worn?” she says, her inflection rising at the end, as it often does, lending even her most confident assertions an equivocal note. The 25-year-old star of Lady Bird, Bad Neighbours…
Chelsea Manning director: ‘She’s a kind of punk rock figure for me’
The night Chelsea Manning was released from Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas, her first steps as a free woman were being filmed. It was May 2017 and she had just served nearly seven years of a 35-year sentence for disclosing 750,000 classified documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks. “It was nerve-racking,” says the man who…
Woke-washing: how brands are cashing in on the culture wars
Imagine getting angry over a sandwich. When Marks & Spencer launched its LGBT sandwich – basically, your classic BLT with some gay guacamole thrown in – I, along with a list of other LGBTQ commentators, was asked by ITV’s This Morning if I was offended by the sandwich. I wasn’t, and neither were any of…
Bernie Sanders campaign rallies support at McDonald’s strikes across US
Senator Bernie Sanders rallied supporters to picket lines in cities across the United States on Thursday as McDonald’s workers walked out on strike to fight for a $15 minimum wage, union rights and for McDonald’s to address workplace violence and sexual harassment issues. The Sanders campaign is using its extensive email list to turn out…
American Airlines union: blaming pilots for Boeing 737 Max crashes ‘inexcusable’
Click:CNC milling services American Airlines’ pilots’ union has hit back at Boeing for insinuating that some responsibility for the two crashes of its 737 Max jets lies with the pilots, and claimed AA pilots made several suggestions to Boeing to fix the plane’s anti-stall systems before the second crash. Describing Boeing’s position as “inexcusable”, Dennis…
JPMorgan Chase cuts ties with Purdue Pharma over alleged role in opioid crisis
Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has cut ties with Purdue Pharma over the OxyContin maker’s alleged role in the US opioids crisis, forcing the prescription painkiller manufacturer to find a new bank to manage cash and bill payments, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The move makes JPMorgan, the largest US bank by assets,…
I’m not sure a Spice Girls invite is what Theresa May really, really wants
A mixed week for Theresa May. On the one hand: she gave a speech on synthetic changes to her withdrawal agreement bill, the sequencing of which before the European elections is best described as “actual lunacy”; she was widely panned even by her previous supporters for said speech; she faced cabinet mutiny; she was forced…
‘Forgotten coast’: a Florida town fights to rebuild after Hurricane Michael
Five miles away from Mexico Beach, the carcasses of trees appear by the side of the road, still sprouting from the soil. Some bend mid-trunk, pointing towards the lush, spring sun-warmed grass. Others sport branches stripped bare. Then, almost suddenly, the miles of tree graves end and the road dumps on to the white sand…