Some workers are going back to the farm

Even court orders to protect them are ignored

Scientists are trying to figure out whether algorithms could one day wake up and feel

Even if they don’t, they might be treated as such—to humanity’s great cost

But a new superintelligence may be coming, and it would upend humanity’s hierarchy of moral concern, thinks Susan Schneider

Some experts believe computers will need biological aspects to become self-aware

Yuval Noah Harari is a big-ideas guy. He’s known for penning tomes that tackle broad sweeps of history. (They reach big audiences, too. Sapiens, Mr Harari’s most popular book, has sold 25m copies.) The historian-cum-philosopher has now turned his attention…

Whatever the company’s flaws, its critics have taken a worryingly illiberal turn

The WNBA has become a culture-war battleground

Beyond America, the company risks becoming a victim of its own hype

We don’t care for others because they’re conscious. We believe they’re conscious because we care about them, argues Blaise Agüera y Arcas

New venues are inspired by a century-old tradition

Charles Lennox and James Wilson, a pair of Britons, played important roles in the struggle for independence

Like America, China wants its laws to apply everywhere

How a glacial avalanche visits devastation

Fear of Vladimir Putin going fully rogue has paralysed the West for long enough, writes Radek Sikorski

The longest-serving prisoner in American history died on June 27th, aged 101

Asia demonstrates the promise and perils of AI in the public sector

Reversing the long decline of a traditional manufacturing industry is hard to do

Will chatbots supplant the advice of imams and priests or help them spread the word?