South Africa moves to curb early childhood screen time

South Africa moves to curb early childhood screen time

South Africa is introducing its first targeted intervention on children’s digital exposure, though it remains narrow in scope. Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube informed Parliament that the department is developing national screen-time guidelines for children aged two to six to protect the development of language, attention, memory, and social skills. Read: Yoco acquires Dyner.ai to…

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ANALYSIS: To be or not to be, that is the AI question

ANALYSIS: To be or not to be, that is the AI question

People are increasingly turning to AI for advice on life, seeing it as sentient. (Graphic created by GenAI) As artificial intelligence (AI) heavyweights concede the technology may one day develop consciousness, academics warn that humans are already treating bots as sentient beings – a trend that is not only scientifically inaccurate but potentially dangerous. Celeste…

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IBM commits -billion to secure open-source software

IBM commits $5-billion to secure open-source software

Hollie Adams/Reuters IBM said on Thursday it has committed US$5-billion (R82-billion) to an initiative that will deploy engineers and AI tools to help companies better secure open-source software. The initiative, called Project Lightwell, seeks to create a “clearinghouse” for open-source security, establishing a model for managing risks across the software supply chain. Open-source software is…

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Why AI gets smarter as it scales

Why AI gets smarter as it scales

New research from the University of the Witwatersrand offers a fresh explanation for one of the most-discussed questions in AI: why large language models develop structured, increasingly capable behaviour as they grow in scale. The answer, the Wits team argues, lies in a process that also governs how human children acquire language – and how…

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