Gary Marcus argued at Axios’ AI+ Summit that large language models (LLMs) offer utility but fall short of the transformative claims made by their developers. He framed their fundamental role as groundwork for future artificial general intelligence. He suggested that meaningful capability shifts lie beyond today’s systems.
Marcus said alignment challenges stem from LLMs lacking robust world models and reliable constraints. He noted that models still hallucinate despite explicit instructions to avoid errors. He described current systems as an early rehearsal rather than a route to AGI.
Concerns raised included bias, misinformation, environmental impact and implications for education. Marcus also warned about the decline of online information quality as automated content spreads. He believes structural flaws make these issues persistent.
Industry momentum remains strong despite unresolved risks. Developers continue to push forward without clear explanations for model behaviour. Investment flows remain focused on the promise of AGI, despite timelines consistently shifting.
Strategic competition adds pressure, with the United States seeking to maintain an edge over China in advanced AI. Political signals reinforce the drive toward rapid development. Marcus argued that stronger frameworks are needed before systems scale further.
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At the European Health Summit in Brussels, Google presented new research suggesting that AI could help Europe overcome rising healthcare pressures.
The report, prepared by Implement Consulting Group for Google, argues that scientific productivity is improving again, rather than continuing a long period of stagnation. Early results already show shorter waiting times in emergency departments, offering practitioners more space to focus on patient needs.
Five million dollars from Google.org will fund Bayes Impact to launch an EU-wide initiative known as ‘Impulse Healthcare’. The programme will allow nurses, doctors and administrators to design and test their own AI tools through an open-source platform.
By placing development in the hands of practitioners, the project aims to expand ideas that help staff reclaim valuable time during periods of growing demand.
Successful tools developed at a local level will be scaled across the EU, providing a path to more efficient workflows and enhanced patient care.
Google views these efforts as part of a broader push to rebuild capacity in Europe’s health systems.
AI-assisted solutions may reduce administrative burdens, support strained workforces and guide decisions through faster, data-driven insights, strengthening everyday clinical practice.
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The plan would give ESMA direct supervision of crypto service providers, trading venues, and central counterparties, while boosting its role in asset management coordination. Approval from the European Parliament and the Council is still required.
Calls for stronger oversight have grown following concerns over lenient national regimes, including Malta’s crypto licensing system. France, Austria, and Italy have called for ESMA to directly oversee major crypto firms, with France threatening to block cross-border licence passporting.
Revisions to the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) are also under discussion, with proposals for stricter rules on offshore crypto activities, improved cybersecurity oversight, and tighter regulations for token offerings.
Experts warn that centralising ESMA supervision may slow innovation, especially for smaller crypto and fintech startups reliant on national regulators. ESMA would need significant resources for the expanded mandate, which could slow decision-making across the EU.
The proposal aims to boost EU capital market competitiveness and increase wealth for citizens. EU stock exchanges currently account for just 73% of the bloc’s GDP, compared with 270% in the US, highlighting the need for a more integrated regulatory framework.
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OpenAI has launched OpenAI for Australia, a nationwide initiative to unlock the economic and societal benefits of AI. The program aims to support sovereign AI infrastructure, upskill Australians, and accelerate the country’s local AI ecosystem.
CEO Sam Altman highlighted Australia’s deep technical talent and strong institutions as key factors in becoming a global leader in AI.
A significant partnership with NEXTDC will see the development of a next-generation hyperscale AI campus and large GPU supercluster at Sydney’s Eastern Creek S7 site.
The project is expected to create thousands of jobs, boost local supplier opportunities, strengthen STEM and AI skills, and provide sovereign compute capacity for critical workloads.
OpenAI will also upskill more than 1.2 million Australians in collaboration with CommBank, Coles and Wesfarmers. OpenAI Academy will provide tailored modules to give workers and small business owners practical AI skills for confident daily use.
The nationwide rollout of courses is scheduled to begin in 2026.
OpenAI is launching its first Australian start-up program with local venture capital firms Blackbird, Square Peg, and AirTree to support home-grown innovation. Start-ups will receive API credits, mentorship, workshops, and access to Founder Day to accelerate product development and scale AI solutions locally.
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The European Commission and the European Investment Bank Group (EIB) have signed a memorandum of understanding to support the development of AI Gigafactories across the EU. The partnership aims to position Europe as a leading AI hub by accelerating financing and the construction of large-scale AI facilities.
The agreement establishes a framework to guide consortia responding to the Commission’s informal Call for Expression of Interest. EIB advisory support will help turn proposals into bankable projects for the 2026 AI Gigafactory call, with possible co-financing.
The initiative builds on InvestAI, announced in February 2025, mobilising €20 billion to support up to five AI Gigafactories. These facilities will boost Europe’s computing infrastructure, reinforce technological sovereignty, and drive innovation across the continent.
By translating Europe’s AI ambitions into concrete, large-scale projects, the Commission and the EIB aim to position the EU as a global leader in next-generation AI, while fostering investment and industrial growth.
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Google has made Workspace Studio generally available, allowing employees to design, manage, and share AI agents directly within Workspace. Powered by Gemini 3, these agents automate tasks ranging from simple routines to complex business workflows, all without coding.
The platform aims to save time on repetitive work, freeing employees to focus on higher-value activities.
Agents can understand context, reason through problems, and integrate with core Workspace apps such as Gmail, Drive, and Chat, as well as enterprise platforms like Asana, Jira, Mailchimp, and Salesforce.
Early adopters, including cleaning solutions leader Kärcher, have utilised Workspace Studio to streamline workflows, reducing planning time by up to 90% and consolidating multiple tasks into a single minute.
Workspace Studio allows users to build agents using templates or natural language prompts, making automation accessible to non-specialists. Agents can manage status reports, reminders, email triage, and critical tasks, such as legal notices or travel requests.
Teams can also easily share agents, ensuring collaboration and consistency across workflows.
The rollout to business customers will continue over the coming weeks. Users can start creating agents immediately, explore templates, use prompts for automations, and join the Gemini Alpha program to test early features and controls.
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A new AI-powered tool rolled out across England is helping clinicians diagnose strokes much sooner, significantly speeding up treatment decisions and improving patient outcomes. According to a study published in The Lancet Digital Health, roughly 15,000 patients benefited directly from AI-assisted scan reviews.
The tool, deployed at over 70 hospitals, analyses brain scans in minutes to rapidly identify clots, supporting doctors in deciding whether a patient needs urgent procedures such as a thrombectomy. Sites using the AI saw thrombectomy rates double (from 2.3% to 4.6%), compared with more modest increases at hospitals not using the technology.
Time is critical in stroke treatment: each 20-minute delay in thrombectomy reduces a patient’s chance of full recovery by around 1 per cent. The AI-driven system also helped cut the average ‘door-in to door-out’ time at primary stroke centres by 64 minutes, making it far more likely that patients reach a specialist centre in time for treatment.
Health-service leaders say the findings provide real-world evidence that AI imaging can save lives and reduce disability after stroke. As a result, the technology is now part of a wider national rollout across every regularly admitting stroke service in England.
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The US tech giant, Google, has announced a $2.1 million Google.org commitment to support Nigeria’s AI-powered future, aiming to strengthen local talent and improve digital safety nationwide.
An initiative that supports Nigeria’s National AI Strategy and its ambition to create one million digital jobs, recognising the economic potential of AI, which could add $15 billion to the country’s economy by 2030.
The investment focuses on developing advanced AI skills among students and developers instead of limiting progress to short-term training schemes.
Their work will introduce advanced AI curricula into universities and provide developers with structured, practical routes from training to building real-world products.
The commitment also expands digital safety initiatives so communities can participate securely in the digital economy.
Junior Achievement Africa will scale Google’s ‘Be Internet Awesome’ curriculum to help families understand safe online behaviour, while the CyberSafe Foundation will deliver cybersecurity training and technical assistance to public institutions, strengthening national digital resilience.
Google aims to create more opportunities similar to those of Nigerian learners who used digital skills to secure full-time careers instead of remaining excluded from the digital economy.
By combining advanced AI training with improved digital safety, the company intends to support inclusive growth and build long-term capacity across Nigeria.
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AI has pushed customer support into a new era, where anticipation replaces reaction. SAP has built a proactive model that predicts issues, prevents failures and keeps critical systems running smoothly instead of relying on queues and manual intervention.
Major sales events, such as Cyber Week and Singles Day, demonstrated the impact of this shift, with uninterrupted service and significant growth in transaction volumes and order numbers.
Self-service now resolves most issues before they reach an engineer, as structured knowledge supports AI agents that respond instantly with a confidence level that matches human performance.
Tools such as the Auto Response Agent and Incident Solution Matching enable customers to retrieve solutions without having to search through lengthy documentation.
SAP has also prepared organisations scaling AI by offering support systems tailored for early deployment.
Engineers have benefited from AI as much as customers. Routine tasks are handled automatically, allowing experts to focus on problems that demand insight instead of administration.
Language optimisation, routing suggestions, and automatic error categorisation support faster and more accurate resolutions. SAP validates every AI tool internally before release, which it views as a safeguard for responsible adoption.
The company maintains that AI will augment staff rather than replace them. Creative and analytical work becomes increasingly important as automation handles repetitive tasks, and new roles emerge in areas such as AI training and data stewardship.
SAP argues that progress relies on a balanced relationship between human judgement and machine intelligence, strengthened by partnerships that turn enterprise data into measurable outcomes.
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Video games have long since outgrown their roots as niche entertainment. What used to be arcades and casual play is now a global cultural phenomenon.
A recent systematic review of research argues that video games play a powerful role in cultural transmission. They allow players worldwide, regardless of language or origin, to absorb cultural, social, and historical references embedded in game narratives.
Importantly, games are not passive media. Their interactivity gives them unique persuasive power. As one academic work on ‘gaming in diplomacy’ puts it, video games stand out among cultural media because they allow for procedural rhetoric, meaning that players learn values, norms, and worldviews not just by watching or hearing, but by actively engaging with them.
As such, gaming has the capacity to transcend borders, languages and traditional media’s constraints. For many young players around the world, including those in developing regions, gaming has become a shared language, a means to connecting across cultures, geographies, and generations.
Esports as soft power and public diplomacy
Nation branding, cultural export and global influence
Several countries have recognised the diplomatic potential of esports and gaming. Waseda University researchers emphasise that esports can be systematically used to project soft power, engaging foreign publics, shaping favourable perceptions, and building cultural influence, rather than being mere entertainment or economic ventures.
A 2025 study shows that the use of ‘game-based cultural diplomacy’ is increasingly common. Countries such as Japan, Poland, and China are utilising video games and associated media to promote their national identity, cultural narratives, and values.
An article about the games Honor of Kings and Black Myth: Wukong describes how the state-backed Chinese gaming industry incorporates traditional Chinese cultural elements (myth, history, aesthetics) into globally consumed games, thereby reaching millions internationally and strengthening China’s soft-power footprint.
For governments seeking to diversify their diplomatic tools beyond traditional media (film, music, diplomatic campaigns), esports offers persistent, globally accessible, and youth-oriented engagement, particularly as global demographics shift toward younger, digital-native generations.
Esports diplomacy in practice: People-to-people exchange
Cross-cultural understanding, community, identity
In bilateral diplomacy, esports has already been proposed as a vehicle for ‘people-to-people exchange.’ For example, a commentary on US–South Korea relations argues that annual esports competitions between the two countries’ top players could serve as a modern, interactive form of public diplomacy, fostering mutual cultural exchange beyond the formalities of traditional diplomacy.
On the grassroots level, esports communities, being global, multilingual and cross-cultural, foster friendships, shared experiences, and identities that transcend geography. That moment democratises participation, because you don’t need diplomatic credentials or state backing. All you need is access and engagement.
Some analyses emphasise how digital competition and community-building in esports ‘bridge cultural differences, foster international collaboration and cultural diversity through shared language and competition.’
From a theoretical perspective, applying frameworks from sports diplomacy to esports, supported by academic proposals, offers a path to sustainable and legitimate global engagement through gaming, if regulatory, equality and governance challenges are addressed.
Tensions & challenges: Not just a soft-power fairy tale
Risk of ‘techno-nationalism’ and propaganda
The use of video games in diplomacy is not purely benign. Some scholars warn of ‘digital nationalism’ or ‘techno-nationalism,’ where games become tools for propagating state narratives, shaping collective memory, and exporting political or ideological agendas.
The embedding of cultural or historical motifs in games (mythology, national heritage, symbols) can blur the line between cultural exchange and political messaging. While this can foster appreciation for a culture, it may also serve more strategic geopolitical or soft-power aims.
From a governance perspective, the rapid growth of esports raises legitimate concerns about inequality (access, digital divide), regulation, legitimacy of representation (who speaks for ‘a nation’), and possible exploitation of youth. Some academic literature argues that without proper regulation and institutionalisation, the ‘esports diplomacy gold rush’ risks being unsustainable.
Why this matters and what it means for Africa and the Global South
For regions such as Africa, gaming and esports represent not only recreation but potential platforms for youth empowerment, cultural expression, and international engagement. Even where traditional media or sports infrastructure may be limited, digital games can provide global reach and visibility. That aligns with the idea of ‘future pathways’ for youth, which includes creativity, community-building and cross-cultural exchange.
Because games can transcend language and geography, they offer a unique medium for diaspora communities, marginalised youth, and underrepresented cultures to project identity, share stories, and engage with global audiences. In that sense, gaming democratises cultural participation and soft-power capabilities.
On a geopolitical level, as game-based diplomacy becomes more recognised, Global South countries may leverage it to assert soft power, attract investment, and promote tourism or cultural heritage, provided they build local capacity (developers, esports infrastructure, regulation) and ensure inclusive access.
Gaming & esports as emerging diplomatic infrastructure
The trend suggests that video games and esports are steadily being institutionalised as instruments of digital diplomacy, soft power, and cultural diplomacy, not only by private companies, but increasingly by states and policymakers. Academic bibliometric analysis shows a growing number of studies (2015–2024) dedicated to ‘game-based cultural diplomacy.’
As esports ecosystems grow, with tournaments, global fans and the cultural export, we may see a shift from occasional ‘cultural-diplomacy events’ to sustained, long-term strategies employing gaming to shape international perceptions, build transnational communities, and influence foreign publics.
However, for this potential to be realised responsibly, key challenges must be addressed. Those challenges include inequality of access (digital divide), transparency over cultural or political messaging, fair regulation, and safeguarding inclusivity.
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