European tech leaders Helsing and Mistral have formed a pact to build new military AI systems. The partnership brings together two of Europe’s top startups. Helsing, a defence tech firm based in Germany, was valued at €5bn last year. Founded in 2021, the company develops software for weapons, vehicles, and military strategy. Its systems have been deployed in battlefield simulations, fighter jets, and drones in Ukraine. Mistral, meanwhile, is widely considered Europe’s closest competitor to OpenAI. The French startup has also become a favourite of investors, raising at €600mn at a valuation of €5.8bn last year. The partners announced their…

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My colleagues and I at Purdue University have uncovered a significant imbalance in the human values embedded in AI systems. The systems were predominantly oriented toward information and utility values and less toward prosocial, well-being and civic values. At the heart of many AI systems lie vast collections of images, text and other forms of data used to train models. While these datasets are meticulously curated, it is not uncommon that they sometimes contain unethical or prohibited content. To ensure AI systems do not use harmful content when responding to users, researchers introduced a method called reinforcement learning from human…

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Long admired for its progressive policies and open economy, the Netherlands is making an aggressive play to become Europe’s next tech powerhouse. By blending AI with sustainability and a strong ethical framework, the country attracted $2.5bn in tech investments in 2024 alone — a 39% surge from the previous year. With a government-backed push for responsible innovation, the Netherlands is positioning itself as the epicentre of Europe’s next tech renaissance.  According to VC firm Atomico, the country has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing tech ecosystems. Europe’s leading stock exchange by market cap, Euronext Amsterdam, has become a cornerstone of the…

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The idea of a humanlike artificial intelligence assistant that you can speak with has been alive in many people’s imaginations since the release of “Her,” Spike Jonze’s 2013 film about a man who falls in love with a Siri-like AI named Samantha. Over the course of the film, the protagonist grapples with the ways in which Samantha, real as she may seem, is not and never will be human. Twelve years on, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and digital assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa help people get driving directions,…

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Swiss foodies could soon be served an experimental new delicacy: cultivated burgers. The lab-grown cuisine is the brainchild of Dutch scaleup Mosa Meat. Founded in 2013, the company cultivates beef from cells extracted from cows. The blend is then formed into burgers that are indistinguishable from the mince on supermarket shelves. The lucky cattle, meanwhile, amble back to the farm. Mosa calls the product “the world’s kindest burger.” Cultivated meat could also slash our carbon footprints, but the concept first needs support from regulators around the world. Swiss authorities are the latest target for Mosa. The company announced today that…

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