Latest news with #IanMalcolm
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Scotsman
01-08-2025
- Scotsman
'Don't allow an algorithm to choose for you': Google AI Mode, and the death of news as we know it
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... How do you get your news? It's a question I ask everyone when I meet them - and yes, I'm a lot of fun at social events. But really. How do you get your news? nw How do you know? Twitter? (I won't call it X and you can't make me). Facebook? Google updates? Pushes on your phone? Do you still sit and watch the 6 o'clock news on the BBC? It may sound like a small question, but I promise you, it's one of vital importance. And it's one that has an untold impact on the world around you, because perhaps another way to ask this question is: who controls the flow of your news? Who curates what you see and how you see it? Is it a media outlet? A team of journalists using their training and decades of experience to navigate and filter, to understand context and importance ? Or is it a big tech company? Increasingly operated by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, curating your news to what you want to see and hear? News to suit you, as it were. Google's new AI Mode If you didn't know, Google has been using something called an AI Overview for some time now. If you Google something - what time are Rangers playing tonight - a helpful paragraph will magically appear at the top of your search results telling you exactly what you want to know. AI would have gained this knowledge by scraping articles across the breadth of the internet to find the answer to then helpfully hand to you, hassle free. When it was first introduced, it had some accuracy problems. But AI learns, that's what it does. And now, AI Mode has arrived in the UK, smoothly fitting into your life with no fuss or fanfare. And it's set to decimate the news industry. Billed as being far more accurate than Overview could ever hope to be in its electric sheep dreams, and having a greater reach, scraping news and analysis from websites indiscriminately to paraphrase everything you need to know in one convenient bundle of sentences magically appearing at the top of your search results. So far, so convenient. Why would you need to look further? It's quick, efficient and you're busy and have places to be and things to do. BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images But what's the problem? The problem is - and I don't mean to sound too much like Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, in Jurassic Park, but really, is he ever wrong? - is that no effort has been put in by the AI to acquire this knowledge. And so no responsibility need be taken. Inside the computer is not a bustling group of tiny journalists, pulling their tiny hair out as they desperately wait for a comment from Police Scotland, or the Scottish Government. It's acquired, as said above, by reading and collecting the work done by others, to curate the answer you so desperately crave. When you Google something, it is Google that decides what articles are put in front of you, what articles AI uses to take its information. Complete control over the news, not just over one site, or one newspaper. But a total and complete monopoly on information. It rewards sites and articles that conform to its conditions, and punishes others by hiding them deep at the bottom of the internet, leaving publishers uncertain whether to cave in and characterise their news in a way Google likes, or not, and leave the article as the preverbal tree falling in the wood. Google says these conditions are in place to - ironically - wheedle out spam and AI ensures it's proper, human created, factual news. But can we be sure? Incidentally, they don't pay the sites they take this information off, as they say the articles used are top of the results under the AI answer, so people can click through. But they don't. I mean, do you? So far, so terrifying. Read more here: The 20 best places to retire in Scotland in 2025 Who is responsible? The news is all bias any way through, right? Fake news left, right and centre and the mainstream media are just annoyed they can't brainwash readers. And you know what, perhaps surprisingly, I get it. The news media is far from perfect, and it has always been far from perfect. In more recent years, the internet and social media has fundamentally altered how journalism works. Deciding on how to cover the news is messy and complicated, and we don't always get it right, and we won't in the future either. But what we are, crucially - and this is the point - is regulated. If we make a mistake, we are legally culpable. Say it louder for people at the back. Can Google really say the same? If its AI Overview, or AI Mode, makes a mistake, peddles inaccurate information, who will stop them? Are they bound by Scottish contempt of court rules? Or can they ignore those too? Will they publish the names of victims of crime? Or name hotels where vulnerable asylum seekers have been moved to? Making decisions that would put a real life human editor in scorching hot water, or even, up in front of a judge. How do we hold AI accountable? Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images What can you do? AI is fundamentally changing the way you view the world. All these algorithms that are data gathering everything you touch online is then offering you a very curated view of society, culture and humanity. And its too late - it's already happened. But, you can do something - you can pay for your news. This isn't an advert, it doesn't have to be us. It can be anyone, anywhere you get your news - pay them. Your local paper, your favourite national paper. Hell, your favourite paper from anywhere in the world. Pay your licencing fee if it's the BBC. Go straight to the website or app of the news organisation you read. Don't allow an algorithm to choose for you. The news isn't perfect, but its decisions will always need to be made with human judgement and, more importantly, under strict regulation. Otherwise we descend merrily to chaos, and be careful, because we're already half way there.
The Review Geek
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Review Geek
Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) Movie Review
An absolute abomination *Light spoilers ahead regarding characters and potential deaths!* Everybody loves dinosaurs. There's something inherently fascinating and exciting about seeing a huge lumbering reptile dwarfing tiny humans (and preferably eating them). It's the same wonderous awe one would have seeing a huge shark at the aquarium. Regardless of age, that wonder never really goes away. Unless you're watching Jurassic World: Rebirth of course, where that wonder turns from 'these dinosaurs are amazing!' to 'the level of ineptitude from these writers is amazing!' Yes, we're now onto the seventh movie in this franchise, which doesn't look like slowing down any time soon (especially if you look at the early box office numbers). But to quote Ian Malcolm here, the writers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Jurassic World: Rebirth fails on almost every single level a competent movie can fail. It does manage to make up for its startling shortfalls though by treating its audience like a hyperactive cat running after a laser pointer. The dinosaurs are big and loud, the visuals are gorgeous to look at, and the action sequences are generally well choreographed. To give credit to this movie, the CGI effects in general are actually quite impressive and there are a couple of decent moments when the characters stop talking (although they never say anything worth listening to, so no danger there) and the action picks up. But before we dive into this one, a bit of context is necessary to understand what's happening. At the end of Jurassic World: Dominion, dinos are roaming free, marching off happily hand in hand (hoof to hoof?) into the animal kingdom where the hierarchy of life on this planet absolutely isn't going to be changed forever. Rebirth realizes the silliness of this premise and while it does try to rectify this, it instead doubles down, somehow managing to make an even bigger mistake. Five years post-Dominion, dinosaurs have all but gone extinct… again. They're not doing well in suburban cities and most people are actually sick and tired of seeing them. Thankfully (at least to the residents in this world), a lot of the dinos have suffered from a lack of oxygen in the atmosphere and have died out. However, it's apparently much stronger around the equatorial line of the planet. Dinosaurs have all migrated over there, and largely remain in this area. Travel is strictly forbidden, although no word on how those who actually live in central Africa, parts of Asia or Central America navigate the logistical nightmare of relocating to other parts of the world, or co-exist with dinosaurs. Dobn't think too much about this, quick throw in the iconic John Williams musical score! The movie is not interested in explaining the logistics of its world, nor why (despite museums constantly being busy and full of wide-eyed kids) these places are now al but abandoned and dying out too. Rebirth certainly doesn't expect its audience to ask questions like this though. It's the laser pointer treatment for us mere mortals, as we rocket through blistering action set pieces instead. This flimsy background is where our story picks up, with a big money venture on the horizon. Zora Bennett, a monotone, confused character who flips from a stoic, cold-hearted mercenary who only loves money, to a sympathetic protector who loves family and won't leave anybody behind, is given a business opportunity. Shady evil corporate man, Martin Krebs, enlists her for a super-duper secret mission (until it's not, but don't question this), intending to track down the three largest dinosaurs to extract their blood. You see, pharma is big business and evil corporate man hopes to capitalize on this by creating the cure to heart disease. He wants to monopolize this treatment and make trillions in doing so. To do that, Krebs needs living (remember this, it'll be important later) blood samples from a Mosasaur, a Titanosaur and a Quetzalcoatlus. Joining them on this mission are a bunch of different people, including ship captain Ducan Kincaid, and Dr Henry Loomis. However, they're also joined by chance by the Delgado family, who decide to take a sailboat and travel from Barbados to Cape Town to celebrate their eldest daughter Teresa's entry to NYU. Unfortunately, they're also onboard with one of the worst characters in the movie, Xavier Dobbs. This lazy layabout is rude and arrogant, constantly belittles their father and is supposed to be used for comedy relief but it's about as funny as Amy Schumer's stand-up. The threads joining the A and B plots together are wafer thin, to tell you the truth. There's an unresolved, loosely defined revenge plot involving Teresa who falls overboard after Martin tries to stop her from calling for help… in restricted waters where no ships are allowed to travel to. When she tries to push him, she stumbles backwards and falls overboard. As a result, she wants revenge. All of this is before mentioning a very, very loose thread connecting the start and end of the movie together. There's a brand new lab on this secret island that's creating mutant dinosaurs because people are bored of regular ol' dinos and nobody has learned anything from the past six movies. Yes, I appreciate that's the point of the film, but when the entire lab is undermined by a stray Snickers wrapper, which initiates a lockdown procedure but not really because it opens all the contained lab doors instead and releases the freaks into the world, you're already skating on thin ice. Unfortunately, none of the characters are particularly likable, and the only person who gets close to a defined arc is Henry. Unfortunately, there are so many characters wrestling for screen-time, with no actual reason for being here, that everybody just kinda blurs into the background. And yes, while this may be a bit of a spoiler, there are very few deaths in this movie to keep things ticking along. This is one of the biggest problems with Rebirth because once you realize that the vast majority of characters have incredible plot armour (including a rubber dinghy which survives a T-rex chomping down on it and one character saved by a deus ex machina flying raptor) this lack of tension immediately sucks any sort of enjoyment out of this one. It really is quite remarkable that Rebirth manages to make dinosaurs boring, and while we do get the obligatory 'wow these herbivores are cool!' sweeping shot with the dramatic music, it's completely undone by the script deciding to mix things up with mutant dinos. This is before mentioning that the film completely forgets its main objective partway through the movie. Remember the 'living blood sample?', well the group decide to grab a sample from an egg instead, which is apparently just as good? Not content with bad writing and terrible characters, Rebirth also decides to take the modern movie approach of repurposing memorable scenes from the previous movies. Just way worse. We get a lot of sequences from all the other Jurassic park movies, alongside a nod to Camp Cretaceous too. The tense kitchen sequence with the raptors from Jurassic Park 1 is recontextualized into a poor-man's gas store fight with mutant raptors. The introduction to the Mosasaur throws in references to Jaws, while the introduction to the D-Rex feels like a poor man's intro to the Indominous Rex. It may be for the best because that D must stand for doofus. The D-Rex not only looks silly, it also acts completely irrationally too. There's a moment near the end of the film where a character makes a heroic sacrifice for the team. It's a nice, bittersweet moment… only for it to be a big fake-out and the guy is absolutely fine. How did this person survive? Why did the D-Rex leave them alone? How did he fire a flare without attracting attention? Don't worry about it, the movie is nearly over. Here's a lovely shot of dolphins instead – aww how cute! The editing in this movie is absolutely atrocious because of this, giving us intentionally amusing sequences. We get a ninja stealthy T-Rex that manages to give jump scares and gigantic Titanosaurs managing to hide in long grass, to name but a few. None of this is helped by the fact that a lot of the dialogue here like it was ripped right from NPCs in Oblivion. There are moments where characters literally spell out their motivations, humour that never lands, and awkward, contrived scenes where you can't quite tell if a character is being sincere or poking fun at them. At one point, Kincaid tells Zora that 'this is the saddest story I've ever heard' and it's hard to tell, from their monotoned voice, if he's being serious or not because the previous 5 minutes had been all funny banter between them. These flippant character traits also affect others too. The father of this family has a bad leg but there are times where the edited sequences show him walking around absolutely fine. Rebirth is a movie that needed serious work in the editing room and it shows in the final product. Along with wonky ending, the bland characters and lacklustre story are just not executed particularly well. Sure, the action sequences are fun, but they're meaningless because you don't care about anyone or their flimsy main quest. When you compare this to the original, it's night and day how stark the quality differences are. This franchise will make bank, and it'll likely be a big hit this summer. However, much like The Minecraft Movie before it, that doesn't automatically make it a good story that will stand the test of time. While Fallen Kingdom is perhaps the bottom of the barrel for this franchise, Rebirth doesn't make a particularly strong case to be anywhere near the best this series has to offer.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
This Fish Has a Weird See-Through Head With Its Eyes On The Inside. Here's Why.
While it's very true that, as the great Ian Malcolm once said, "life finds a way," that way can sometimes veer quite far off the beaten path. One of the most beautiful and strange examples of this is the Pacific barreleye fish (Macropinna microstoma), small fish that live in the twilit ocean at depths of 600 to 800 meters (2,000 to 2,600 feet). Most animals with eyes have their peepers just sitting somewhere on the surface of their faces, but the barreleye is very different. Its eyes are in its face, two tubular eyes topped with extremely light-sensitive domes, pointing upwards, and encased in the fluid-filled, transparent cockpit of its forehead. There's a lot we don't know about these mysterious fish. We don't know how they reproduce, for example. Many scientific drawings over the years didn't include the dome, since the family was known from samples that had been removed from the ocean, probably destroying the delicate dome in the process. It had also been assumed by scientists for many years that the fish's eyes were fixed in position, like the tubular eyes of owls; it wasn't until 2009 that we discovered that it could also point its eyes forwards. Those eyes are a powerful tool for barreleyes. They have a large lens and a large number of rod cells (and no cones). The transparent dome likely protects the eyes from the stinging cells of the animals on which they prey, as well as collecting more light – a bit like a magnifying glass. Two other species of barreleye, Rhynchohyalus natalensis and Dolichopteryx longipes, are the only known vertebrates that use a mirror to focus their eyes. Only a small amount of light penetrates the water to reach the depths where they live. They peer upwards through the water column to make the most of that light, to catch glimpses of predator and prey. They have flat fins that allow precision maneuvering; they're even able to 'hover' motionless in the water. Their tiny mouths indicate precision feeding, but they have a large digestive system capable of handling a wide variety of drifting prey, from plankton to jellies to crustaceans. These little fish are only ever encountered vanishingly rarely on ocean expeditions. Yet everything we know about them suggests that they are tenacious little survivors, making the most of their strange existence in the eerie darkness. Fish Suffer Up to 22 Minutes of Intense Pain When Taken Out of Water Tiny Moth Seen Navigating by The Stars in Scientific First First Signs of a 'Ghost' Plume Reshaping Earth Detected Beneath Oman
Metro
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Jurassic World Evolution 3 lets you breed dinosaurs and it's out this year
A new entry in the Jurassic World Evolution series has been announced, with baby dinosaurs and the return of Jeff Goldblum. While there have been plenty of games based on Jurassic Park over the years, the best is easily its translation into a management sim in Jurassic World Evolution 2. Developed by Frontier, the series is basically RollerCoaster Tycoon spun through a Jurassic Park lens, where you have to build a park and keep profits ticking over, while managing the satisfaction of customers and the dinosaurs themselves. During Summer Game Fest, Frontier announced a third entry in the series, and the key hook this time around is the ability to breed and nurture baby dinosaurs. As shown in the trailer, Jurassic World Evolution 3 boasts a new breeding system which allows you to house families of dinosaurs within your park. There are over 80 dinosaur species in the sequel, 75 of which players can breed. The sequel promises a new globe-trotting campaign, with maps spanning from Japan to Hawaii. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Dr Ian Malcolm too, after lending his voice to the prior two instalments. There's no word though on whether anyone else from the franchise will return. As noted in a press release, Jurassic World Evolution 3 features expanded customisation for your parks, with new terrain tools to create mountain peaks and canyons, while texture brushes can help you add extra detail to landscapes. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. For the first time in the series, you can share your parks, dinosaur enclosures, and scenery creations with others via the cross-platform Frontier Workshop. More Trending Jurassic World Evolution 3 is set to launch on October 21 across PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S for £49.99. A deluxe edition, which includes four extra dinosaurs (Protoceratops, Guanlong, Thanatosdrakon, and Concavenator), scenery items, and exclusive ATV vehicle skins, will be available for £64.99. If you pre-order the sequel, players will receive a Badlands set at launch which includes scenery items inspired by the original Jurassic Park's dig site, along with scenery blueprints from the Montana Badlands, and a Badlands ATV skin for the maintenance crew. This isn't the only Jurassic Park game in development, with Jurassic Park: Survival also in the works at Saber Interactive. A new film, titled Jurassic World: Rebirth, is set to hit cinemas on July 2, 2025. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Call Of Duty 2026 campaign has a brand new setting for Modern Warfare says leak MORE: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate gets Switch 2 upgrade but there's a problem MORE: Nintendo Switch 2 GameChat feature doesn't censor swear words
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Find Greater Resilience By Avoiding These 3 Leadership Blind Spots
Over 96% of organizations have experienced disruption in the last two years, according to a global resilience survey from PwC. Resilience - the dynamic capacity to anticipate, adapt to and recover from adversity - is what allows companies and individuals to bounce back after a challenge. Difficulty, change and loss comes to everyone (and every organization) to varying degrees. But, as Jeff Golblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, 'Life finds a way.' For leaders and aspiring leaders, understanding how resilience works can be a vital asset - as resilience can help you to "find a way". What would it mean to your career, or your company, if you could access enhanced capabilities during times of hardship and even chaos? Being resilient is the key. However, there are three blind spots that often show up inside of organizations, and individuals, when the going gets tough. Here's how to turn resilience into a competitive advantage, no matter what you're up against. When scientists with the Human Genome Project first discovered our full genetic code in 2003, they were surprised by its lack of complexity. Humans have only 20-25,000 protein coded genes. Compare that number to a water flea, which has 30,000. Were humans pulled out of the oven before we were baked? Creatures like fleas, lizards, sharks and giraffes are hard-wired from their DNA. These creatures rely solely on instinct as a means of processing the world. As a result, their genetic coding is more complex and more fixed. 'Our [human] Humans are designed to adapt, as we are built to learn from our surroundings and circumstances. Our 'incomplete' genetic code is built so that our experiences will expand on the framework, allowing for us to continuously expand our capabilities (if we choose to do so). We are more than just instincts and protein code - our ever-expanding nature has put us at the top of the food chain. The human operating system was designed around resilience: our experience, and our ability to adapt and learn, completes the picture and creates human development. And that development doesn't stop with childhood - our brains are constantly responding to new stimuli and new information, learning and growing, coming back stronger after defeat. When we step away from misunderstandings and blind spots, we see evidence all around us of our resilience and capacity for change.
