Tech 24

Artificial intelligence insiders are quitting their jobs, saying the technology could mean the end of humanity. Pope Leo, on his recent visit to France, warned of a "paradise of machines". And The New York Times reported this week that one of AI firm Anthropic's co-founders spent months lobbying religious thinkers on the possibility that AI could be conscious.

You'll no doubt have seen the coverage of singer Céline Dion's return from illness and her Paris residency. But here's a different angle: the audio technology keeping her stage quiet, and the artificial intelligence isolating her voice from the noise of a 30,000-seat stadium.

Insider warnings, hacking scares during tests and a US-China race have split the industry and Washington.

From Austin to London, the current robotaxi boom is raising hard questions about safety and jobs. We take a closer look in this edition of Tech 24.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba has ordered staff to stop using Anthropic's Claude Code after the US coding tool was found to be flagging users’ connecting from China. But Anthropic is already trying to stop Chinese firms from using Claude at all and accuses Alibaba of running large "distillation" campaigns against it, saying that the Chinese giant created around 25,000 fake accounts to train its own models on the US AI programme.

Is this the heatwave that finally changes French minds on air conditioning? Not for Environment Minister Monique Barbut. She said she was "horrified" by the idea of it becoming widespread. The rest of the world looked on perplexed as France suffered a brutal week, particularly for schools, hospitals and care homes. Long suspicious of it, French people are slowly adopting A/C, but it remains politically controversial and difficult to install in historic towns and cities. Technology Editor Peter O'Brien pours cold water on what he says is a needlessly hot topic in France.

VivaTech turned 10 this year and Europe's biggest tech showcase has never been louder, shinier or more crowded. But walking the show floors, FRANCE 24 tech reporters Charlotte Lam and Peter O'Brien were drawn to one topic in particular: not about productivity or performance, but about companionship and how the booming AI market is filling that void. Is it a cure or a curse?

France's biggest geek get-together started with a bang this year. For its 10th anniversary, the VivaTech trade show took to the Champs-Élysées, billing the installation as "Europe's largest open-air technology experience".

With SpaceX set to become the first AI-era giant to go public on Friday June 12, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are racing to define their relationship with the industry. Washington is in talks with OpenAI about a government equity stake, while Brussels has unveiled a new tech sovereignty package. In this week's Tech 24, we lay out the two very different visions of how to shape artificial intelligence's future.

They first made headlines by bolting facial recognition onto Meta's Ray-Bans to show how easily the technology could identify strangers in the street. Now AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio have a product of their own: Mira, a $650 pair of AI glasses, with no camera this time, that quietly transcribes and summarises everything so you can turn your life into a searchable database.