ChatGPT and the like could free up coders to new heights of creativity
John Naughton
Far from making programmers an endangered species, AI will release them from the grunt work that stifles innovation
January 2024
Horrified by Horizon? Then get ready to be totally appalled by AI
The networker
The hard truth about AI? It might produce some better software
John Naughton
December 2023
The real Santa’s face: ID software sorts Father Christmas from his stand-ins
The man in red’s distinct visage emerges by algorithm, proving not any old bearded man looks like him
November 2023
Other lives
David Turner obituary
Other lives: Pioneering computer scientist who designed and implemented three programming languages
April 2023
The networker
Programmers, beware: ChatGPT has ruined your magic trick
John Naughton
The generative AI tool can write code on request, making the specialist skill of programming open to everyone
February 2023
Lazy movie stereotypes that put women off science
Letters: Film-makers should retire the cliche of the lone male scientific genius, says Rachel Youngman of the Institute of Physics
February 2022
The networker
Computers can write their own code. So are programmers now obsolete?
John Naughton
Urdu, Chinese, even Old Norse: how Wordle spread across the globe
January 2022
The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour
Young developers on the platform used by many millions of children claim they have been financially exploited, threatened with dismissal and sexually harassed
November 2021
Xbox at 20, in the words of the people who made its first games
Two decades on, developers for its original launch talk about creating games for Microsoft’s debut console
July 2021
TechScape newsletter
What’s artificial intelligence best at? Stealing human ideas
Up for discussion in the first Guardian tech newsletter: can artificial intelligence enhance rather than replace us … internet age verification … plus Google’s €500m French fine
May 2021
‘Without books, we would not have made it’: Valeria Luiselli on the power of fiction
The Mexican author won the Dublin literary award last week for Lost Children Archive. She reflects on how reading and writing have helped her through the pandemic
March 2021
From Tipperary to Silicon Valley: how Stripe became vital cog in digital economy
Brothers Patrick and John Collison’s online payments empire is now valued at $95bn
November 2020
Black lives
Gladys West: the hidden figure who helped invent GPS
Growing up on a farm in Virginia during segregation, West knew education would be her means of escape. But she didn’t know her quiet work on a naval base would change lives around the world
October 2020
From the Guardian archive
Archive, 1965: computer lessons for politicians
13 October 1965: During a three-day course, 75 MPs, peers and party officials will be told what computers do and taught the basics of programming
September 2020
The 20 greatest home computers – ranked!
The networker
Apple's iOS update will be bad news for developers, but a boon for users
John Naughton
August 2020
It’s not just A-levels – algorithms have a nightmarish new power over our lives
Arwa Mahdawi
The problems with this kind of decision-making are clear, yet such methods are increasingly used in opaque and frightening ways, writes Arwa Mahdawi
January 2020
The networker
We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers now
John Naughton
Ever-faster processors led to bloated software, but physical limits may force a return to the concise code of the past
