Society

AI agents can organise tasks, analyse information and navigate digital systems with impressive autonomy. But when they reach the limits of the digital world, they still need humans to observe reality. A reflection on the emerging role of people as sensors in an age of agentic AI.

Human-centred AI puts people before technology. But what happens when artificial intelligence begins shaping decisions in war? A reflection on ethics, responsibility and human judgement in an age of machine-assisted conflict.

The Peter Mandelson scandal is easy to treat as political theatre. Gordon Brown says it’s a system problem – abuse of power enabled by weak transparency. His fixes: public hearings, an anti-corruption commission with teeth, tougher lobbying rules and curbs on second jobs.

As geopolitical uncertainty grows, trust is retreating inward. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer shows how insularity is reshaping leadership, communication, and cooperation – and why leaders are now expected to broker trust, not force alignment.

X has crossed a line it cannot uncross. This is no longer a debate about moderation or free speech trade-offs, but about predictable harm enabled by design. When a platform becomes ethically indefensible, outrage is not enough – walking away matters.

AI is already superhuman. What’s still uncertain is whether our organisations and institutions are ready to use that power in ways that strengthen, rather than diminish, our humanity.

What began with a post about the em dash became a conversation about much more – how we think about voice, authenticity and the human mind in an AI-shaped world. The comments revealed concerns about something deeper - not about punctuation, but about identity and how we choose to sound.

The Internet Archive has survived years of copyright battles, but at great cost. Half a million books are gone – erased by law. What does that mean for our shared digital memory, and what can we learn from the burning of books in the ancient Library of Alexandria?