Where do you stand in the heated Pax Silica debate? Join Rappler’s Ask Me Anything session with people who’ve weighed in on the AI initiative by sending your questions to the Everyday Tech chat room on the Rappler app by 4 pm on August 11.
Communities across the United States are already grappling with soaring electricity demand, opaque utility agreements, environmental concerns, and questions over promised jobs. Before Pax Silica breaks ground, if ever, Filipinos should learn from those experiences.
For many New Yorkers, commuting to the office remains a significant part of daily life. The average worker spends around 53 minutes travelling each way, but Mark Dixon, CEO of workspace giant IWG, believes this routine may look very different within the next 15 years. Research conducted by IWG in partnership with engineering consultancy Arup suggests that younger generations are already developing very different expectations about where and how they will work. According to the research, 80% of Gen Alpha—the oldest members of which are currently only 16 years old—expect flexible working to become the standard by 2040. Dixon argues that the attitudes of today’s teenagers could fundamentally reshape the workplace. He told Fortune that future generations may find it difficult to understand why people once spent hours travelling to an office simply “to sit down and use a computer.” In other words, the traditional office may eventually seem as outdated to younger workers as other workplace practices from previous generations seem today. The research also highlights how strongly Gen Alpha values shorter commutes. Only about one-quarter of those surveyed said they would be willing to accept a journey of more than 30 minutes to work. Most expect to work close to their homes or work remotely from home altogether. From Dixon’s perspective, the current push by some companies to bring employees back to the office is likely to be a temporary adjustment rather than a permanent reversal of the remote-work trend. Evidence from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) points in a similar direction. Researchers analysed data involving approximately 8,000 American employees and found an interesting relationship between a CEO’s age and office attendance requirements. Younger CEOs tend to require fewer days of in-person work than their older counterparts. As younger executives increasingly move into leadership positions, the researchers suggest that the traditional five-day office week could gradually become obsolete. The NBER study also identified another important connection: leaders who are more supportive of remote work tend to be quicker to adopt new technologies and software-based management systems. This suggests that workplace flexibility may be connected to a broader willingness to embrace technological change. Dixon takes this argument even further. He believes companies that remain focused on physical presence while failing to embrace workplace flexibility and artificial intelligence could eventually struggle to compete. In a rapidly changing business environment, organizations may need to prioritize results, collaboration and technological innovation over simply measuring whether employees are physically sitting at their desks. Brian O’Kelley, the founder of climate-tech company Scope3 and former CEO of AppNexus, which was sold to AT&T for $1.6 billion, shares a similar view. He argues that CEOs who impose strict office requirements may not be giving enough attention to preparing their organizations for an AI-driven future. Ultimately, the workplace of 2040 could look very different from today’s. As younger leaders enter positions of influence and technologies such as AI become increasingly integrated into everyday business, flexibility may become less of an employee benefit and more of a fundamental feature of how companies operate.
Apple has quietly released a new Chinese-language support document explaining how eligible Mac users in mainland China can integrate Alibaba’s Qwen artificial intelligence models with features such as Siri and Writing Tools. The move represents another step in Apple’s China-focused artificial intelligence strategy following the regulatory approval of its partnership with Alibaba in July. According to Apple’s updated documentation, users who choose to activate the service will be able to receive more detailed and useful responses from Siri. The integration will allow Siri to analyze photographs and documents and provide information based on their contents. Users can also take advantage of Qwen through Writing Tools to generate written content and create images from descriptions or prompts. The new functionality comes with several requirements. Users must have a Mac running at least macOS 26.6, while they will also need to activate the feature and sign in with a new Qwen account. Apple’s documentation also states that Alibaba will not be permitted to use information obtained through the service to train its artificial intelligence models, addressing potential concerns surrounding user privacy and data usage. The partnership comes at a time when Apple is facing increasing competition in China’s personal computer market. According to research firm Omdia, Apple’s Mac shipments fell by approximately 9% year over year during the first quarter, reaching around 800,000 units. This gave Apple roughly 9% of China’s PC market. By comparison, Lenovo held the largest share at about 31%, with its Tianxi AI assistant playing an important role in the company’s AI-focused strategy. Huawei followed with approximately 16% of the market, supported by an artificial intelligence strategy closely connected to its HarmonyOS ecosystem. Integrating Qwen directly into Apple’s built-in software could therefore help Apple make its Macs more competitive in an increasingly AI-driven Chinese market. For Alibaba, the partnership provides an opportunity to expand Qwen’s presence beyond its own applications and cloud services. The company has previously indicated that Qwen is expected to support Apple Intelligence across Apple’s major product categories in China, including the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. However, Apple’s latest documentation currently focuses specifically on Mac computers. The development also arrives shortly after Alibaba introduced Qwen3.8-Max, a new model featuring 2.4 trillion parameters that the company describes as its most advanced AI system to date. Apple’s documentation, however, does not identify which specific Qwen model is being used to power the new Mac integration. Overall, the partnership highlights the growing importance of AI assistants in China’s technology market. By bringing Alibaba’s Qwen capabilities directly into Siri and Writing Tools, Apple can strengthen its AI offering while Alibaba gains access to millions of users through Apple’s established hardware and software ecosystem.
Artificial intelligence has designed 16 entirely new viruses that have never existed in nature before. Researchers in the US are calling it a genuine scientific breakthrough. According to the team behind the project, these newly designed viruses are fully functional and can replicate successfully in lab conditions. Scientists are describing the achievement as a major turning point for the field. This marks the first time AI has managed to design a complete viral genome from scratch. The viruses were specifically built to target bacteria, particularly drug-resistant strains of E. coli, and pose no risk to humans. The work was led by Dr Brian Hie and his team at Stanford University. They relied on genome language models, including systems called Evo1 and Evo2, trained using data from roughly two million bacteriophages. To keep the research safe, the team deliberately excluded any genetic data linked to viruses capable of infecting humans, animals or plants. That precaution was built into the training process from the very start. Hie explained that this represents a new level of complexity for what generative AI can design. He noted that building a complete, functional genome capable of replicating inside cells was completely uncharted territory for his team. Out of thousands of AI-generated designs, researchers narrowed the list down to around 300 for lab synthesis. After testing, only 16 of those proved effective at killing antibiotic-resistant E. coli. Scientists have framed the achievement as a potential breakthrough with real medical applications ahead. Tom Ellis, a synthetic genome expert at Imperial College London, called the work impressive but pointed out its current limitations. He noted that this particular genome remains one of the simplest and smallest to design successfully. Ellis added that concerns around AI-designed pathogens are often overstated compared to more realistic risks. He explained that modifying existing pathogens through gain-of-function techniques remains a far easier and more likely biosecurity threat. Still, some researchers in the wider scientific community remain cautious about where this technology could eventually lead. Experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security warned that proper oversight for this kind of AI-driven genome design doesn’t fully exist yet. Dr Filippa Lentzos from King’s College London argued that regulation needs to focus on multiple layers, including lab safety and DNA synthesis screening, rather than restricting AI models alone.
If you suspect someone is secretly filming you with smart glasses, the internet has come up with an unusual defence. People are being told to start singing a Disney song out loud. The idea is not that singing will actually stop the recording itself. Instead, it relies on platforms’ copyright detection systems flagging the music and quietly taking the video down. Most major platforms scan uploaded videos for any copyrighted audio in the background. If a clip contains protected music, it typically gets muted, deleted, or in rarer cases, flagged for legal action. Copyright protection applies to lyrics, composition and melody alike, which means even a rough, off-key rendition can trigger removal. That loophole is exactly what people online are now trying to exploit. This trick has already spread across social media, with people from different countries picking it up. Reactions online have mostly ranged from disbelief to outright frustration at the whole situation. Many users have pointed out the irony that copyrighted music seems to receive stronger legal protection online than personal privacy does. Being filmed without consent, by comparison, often leaves people with far fewer options. Copyright law tends to apply fairly consistently across different countries, but privacy law is a different story entirely. It varies significantly from place to place, leaving many people, especially women, without a reliable way to get unwanted footage removed. The debate has grown louder alongside the rising popularity of smart glasses in everyday life. Meta’s Ray-Ban models have become the clear frontrunner in this fast-growing product category. As more people walk around with cameras built into their glasses, old arguments about filming strangers without consent have resurfaced. The devices have made it easier than ever to record someone without them even realising it. Meta has responded by saying it takes non-consensual filming seriously as a company. It has also made changes to the indicator light that shows when the glasses are actively recording. The company added that it has been removing certain types of content it considers harassment. This includes unsolicited, “pick-up line” style videos aimed at strangers without their consent.
Long before the dawn of modern computers, a twelve-year-old girl named Ada Lovelace set her heart on how to fly. Rather than merely dreaming about the skies, she treated the challenge as a practical engineering problem. Beginning in early 1828, she meticulously studied avian anatomy and tested potential wing materials. Her experiments ranged from light paper and smooth silk to natural feathers. Lovelace even documented her findings in an illustrated manuscript she titled Flyology. Her pursuit only halted when her mother put an end to the project. A traditional mother who insisting that such whimsical ideas were a distraction from proper academic training. This tension between wild imagination and strict logic defined Lovelace’s upbringing. Mother Annabella Byron was an intensely practical woman whose mathematical tendencies led her estranged husband, the tempestuous Romantic poet Lord Byron, to nickname her the Princess of Parallelograms. Shortly after Ada was born, Annabella separated from Byron. She further separated the infant from her father’s chaotic influence. Lady Byron made it her mission to raise her daughter on a rigid diet of arithmetic, French and music. By doing so, the mother explicitly aimed to suppress any artistic interest she believed Ada might inherit from Byron. When Byron inquired about his young daughter, Annabella noted Ada applied her imagination strictly to mechanical problem-solving. Yet, despite her mother’s best efforts to extinguish her creative potential, Lovelace refused to treat reason and imagination as opposing forces. Instead, she fused them into a single approach to understanding the world. In early 1841, she pondered the true nature of imagination while identifying two distinct powers. First, she defined it as a combining faculty: the rare ability to find meaningful connections between entirely unrelated subjects. Second, more profoundly, she recognized imagination as a discovering faculty: the equipment that pierces the invisible world to reveal the hidden mechanics of science. This hybrid worldview that Lovelace would later call poetic science is precisely what enabled her to look at Charles Babbage’s early mechanical calculating engines and see far past their raw math. While others saw mere gear-driven counting machines, Ada envisioned a future where machines could manipulate symbols, compose music, and run complex sequences of instructions. By bridging the emotional depth of her father’s romanticism with the rigorous structure of her mother’s mathematics, Ada Lovelace did not just become the world’s first computer programmer; she proved that groundbreaking technical innovation requires equal parts calculation and visionary artistry.
A US judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay $567 million over allegations that its social media platforms failed to adequately protect children from harmful content and online risks. The ruling is the largest penalty Meta has faced in a child safety case. It brings the total amount the company has been ordered to pay in the New Mexico case to $942 million, including an earlier $375 million penalty. Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that Meta’s platforms had created harms serious enough to be considered a “public nuisance”. He compared the company’s operations to a factory, saying harmful effects on children spread beyond the platforms and affect families, schools, healthcare providers and law enforcement. The judge ordered the money to be placed in a fund designed to address the impact of social media-related harm on children. A large portion of the fund, about $420 million, will support clinical and behavioural health programmes for people affected by such harms. Additional funding will be used for awareness and prevention programmes, including training for teachers and healthcare professionals. The court also imposed a series of measures aimed at strengthening protections for users under 18. Meta will be required to prevent adult users from messaging minors and stop accounts belonging to users under 18 from being recommended to adults. The company must also restrict the sending and receiving of nude material by underage users. The ruling further requires Meta to adopt a strict policy against adult users involved in child sexual exploitation. Other restrictions include removing “like” counts for users under 18 and limiting push notifications during overnight hours. Notifications will also be restricted during normal school hours on school days. The court additionally ordered a monthly usage limit of 90 hours across Instagram and Facebook for users under 18. Meta, which operates Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, rejected the ruling and said it would appeal. The company said it works to protect users and has been transparent about the challenges of detecting harmful content and malicious actors. Meta also maintained that the ruling does not accurately reflect its efforts to protect teenagers online. The New Mexico case began with a lawsuit filed by state authorities in 2023. Prosecutors argued that Meta’s platforms exposed children to harmful material and enabled contact with sexual predators. During the earlier stage of the case, Meta was found to have violated New Mexico’s consumer protection law. The court determined that its recommendation systems could direct young users towards harmful content and potentially dangerous contacts. Meta is facing thousands of similar lawsuits across the United States. Nearly three dozen state attorneys general are also pursuing claims involving the company’s treatment of children and their privacy.
Lila Ibrahim, Google DeepMind’s Chief AI Readiness Officer, will not put a number on the odds of AI wiping out humanity. She is not dismissing the possibility either. Speaking to Fortune, she said the risk is “not zero,” admitting that anything more specific would just be guesswork on her part. Ibrahim was among those who signed the Center for AI Safety’s 2023 statement, alongside co-founders of Anthropic and OpenAI. That statement argued AI extinction risk deserves the same global priority as nuclear war and pandemics. Three years on, she still believes staying silent on existential risk would be irresponsible. She feels this way especially now, given how far the technology has advanced since then. Some of her peers sound even more alarmed. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI,” estimates a 10% to 20% chance of extinction within the next three decades. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has gone further, putting the odds of things going “really, really badly” at around 25%. These warnings are not new either. Physicist Stephen Hawking, who used AI tools himself, raised similar concerns long before ChatGPT even existed. Ibrahim compares the situation to the pandemic, pointing out that the worst risks rarely arrive the way people expect. She noted that entire industries failed to properly weigh risk during earlier tech shifts, including the rise of the internet and social media. She is just as sceptical of the optimistic predictions floating around. Elon Musk recently told The Economist that money will stop mattering by 2036, imagining a future of cheap abundance and universal high income once robots take over most jobs. Jeff Bezos has predicted millions of people living in space by 2045. Sam Altman, meanwhile, envisions new job opportunities specifically for graduates working in space. Ibrahim isn’t convinced by either scenario, arguing that AI simply is not developing fast enough to make these predictions realistic anytime soon. Rather than debating far-off futures, Ibrahim says she is more focused on using AI to tackle problems happening right now. She pointed to climate change and industrial pollution as areas where the technology could make a real difference. She was also clear that AI’s benefits should not be limited to a handful of powerful companies. For her, that is just as important as managing the risks.
Lila Ibrahim, Google DeepMind’s Chief AI Readiness Officer, will not put a number on the odds of AI wiping out humanity. She is not dismissing the possibility either. Speaking to Fortune, she said the risk is “not zero,” admitting that anything more specific would just be guesswork on her part. Ibrahim was among those who signed the Center for AI Safety’s 2023 statement, alongside co-founders of Anthropic and OpenAI. That statement argued AI extinction risk deserves the same global priority as nuclear war and pandemics. Three years on, she still believes staying silent on existential risk would be irresponsible. She feels this way especially now, given how far the technology has advanced since then. Some of her peers sound even more alarmed. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI,” estimates a 10% to 20% chance of extinction within the next three decades. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has gone further, putting the odds of things going “really, really badly” at around 25%. These warnings are not new either. Physicist Stephen Hawking, who used AI tools himself, raised similar concerns long before ChatGPT even existed. Ibrahim compares the situation to the pandemic, pointing out that the worst risks rarely arrive the way people expect. She noted that entire industries failed to properly weigh risk during earlier tech shifts, including the rise of the internet and social media. She is just as sceptical of the optimistic predictions floating around. Elon Musk recently told The Economist that money will stop mattering by 2036, imagining a future of cheap abundance and universal high income once robots take over most jobs. Jeff Bezos has predicted millions of people living in space by 2045. Sam Altman, meanwhile, envisions new job opportunities specifically for graduates working in space. Ibrahim isn’t convinced by either scenario, arguing that AI simply is not developing fast enough to make these predictions realistic anytime soon. Rather than debating far-off futures, Ibrahim says she is more focused on using AI to tackle problems happening right now. She pointed to climate change and industrial pollution as areas where the technology could make a real difference. She was also clear that AI’s benefits should not be limited to a handful of powerful companies. For her, that is just as important as managing the risks.