The fight to see clearly through big tech’s echo chambers

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. Today, I’m mulling over whether to upgrade my iPhone 11 Pro. In tech news, there’s a narrative battle afoot in Silicon Valley, tips on avoiding the yearly smartphone upgrade cycle and new devices altogether, and artificial intelligence’s use in government, for better and for worse.The encroachment of technology can feel inevitable

‘The biggest decision yet’: Jared Kaplan on allowing AI to train itself

Humanity will have to decide by 2030 whether to take the “ultimate risk” of letting artificial intelligence systems train themselves to become more powerful, one of the world’s leading AI scientists has said.Jared Kaplan, the chief scientist and co-owner of the $180bn (£135bn) US startup Anthropic, said a choice was looming about how much autonomy the systems should be given to evolve.The move could trigger a beneficial “intelligence explosion” – or be the moment humans end up losing control.In an interview about the intensely competitive race to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) – sometimes called superintelligence – Kaplan urged international governments and society to engage in what he called “the biggest decision”.Anthropic is part of a pack of frontier AI companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, xAI, Meta and Chinese rivals led by DeepSeek, racing for AI dominance

Charlie Kirk tops Wikipedia’s list of most-read articles in 2025

Wikipedia’s article on Charlie Kirk was the most read on the online encyclopedia this year, as users sought out information on the conservative activist.People viewed the entry on Kirk nearly 45m times, many after he was shot at a university campus debate on 10 September.Although Kirk was a well-known figure in the US as co-founder of the Turning Point USA organisation, his death attracted headline coverage around the world. More than 40% of the views for the most-read article on English-language Wikipedia in 2025 came from outside the US, according to data from the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that operates the website.The second-most read is a regular feature in Wikipedia’s annual list: notable deaths of the year

Age of the ‘scam state’: how an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry has taken root in south-east Asia

For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world

Siri-us setback: Apple’s AI chief steps down as company lags behind rivals

Apple’s head of artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea, is stepping down from the company. The move comes as the Silicon Valley giant has lagged behind its competitors in rolling out generative AI features, in particular its voice assistant Siri. Apple made the announcement on Monday, thanking Giannandrea for his seven-year tenure at the company.Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said his fellow executive helped the company “in building and advancing our AI work” and allowing Apple to “continue to innovate”. Giannandrea will be replaced by longtime AI researcher Amar Subramanya

‘It’s going much too fast’: the inside story of the race to create the ultimate AI

On the 8.49am train through Silicon Valley, the tables are packed with young people glued to laptops, earbuds in, rattling out code.As the northern California hills scroll past, instructions flash up on screens from bosses: fix this bug; add new script. There is no time to enjoy the view. These commuters are foot soldiers in the global race towards artificial general intelligence – when AI systems become as or more capable than highly qualified humans