The history of science is that of humanity’s quest to understand the workings of the universe, free from mysticism and supernatural forces. In this article, Adam Boothexplores the revolutionary process by which scientific ideas advance, the link between developments in science and wider society, and the crisis of science under capitalism today.

In the early hours of 20 October, a simple error disrupted the operations of a data centre hub for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Northern Virginia. The ripple effect over the next few hours caused global outages to services as diverse as banking and real-time trading, tools for office management, social media, and even advanced manufacturing. 

With AI mania driving unprecedented investment in the tech sector, Wall Street punters are racing to get a piece of the gold rush. Speculation on the NASDAQ is rampant, tech stock is being inflated well beyond actual profitability, and a horde of crypto-addicted zombie companies has been unleashed upon the markets. A colossal correction is only a matter of time.

In Helgoland,physicist Carlo Rovelli introduces his own new interpretation of quantum mechanics, coupled with an attack on Lenin. As Ben Curry explains, Rovelli feels the need to attack Lenin, the 20th century’s greatest materialist, because Rovelli himself is clearly abandoning materialism. And while he is attempting to answer Lenin, it turns out that Lenin long ago answered Rovelli’s own philosophical errors.

Just a week ago Donald Trump gathered some of his young new tech friends to announce the hubristically named Stargate: a colossal government-backed plan to spend $500 billion on AI and associated infrastructure. This, Trump confidently announced, was “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history”, the purpose of which was to keep ”the future of technology” in the US.

A new strain of Mpox is tearing through Central Africa. Since the start of the year, 13 African countries have reported more than 22,800 Mpox cases and 622 deaths, which represents a 160 percent increase compared with the same period in 2023. This is likely only a fraction of the real number. What is clear is that, four years on, nothing has been learned from COVID-19.

On 24 August, Pavel Durov, the Russian billionaire owner of encrypted messaging app Telegram, was arrested by French police. Interrogated for four days, he was yesterday transported to a court and charged on all counts. Now, awaiting trial, he has been released on a €5 million bail, must visit the French police twice a week, and has been prevented from leaving France. A warrant is also out for the arrest of his brother, the co-founder of Telegram.

Capitalism is polluting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the very food we eat: all in the name of profit. Further evidence of this comes from a review published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on 28 February, evaluating the best available research on the effect of ‘ultra-processed food’ (UPF) on our health. This review included 45 studies and almost 10 million participants, and crucially did not include any research funded by the big food companies. The findings are categorical.

Advances in artificial intelligence continue to make headlines, as AI has begun to play a role in everything from art and journalism to conspiracy theories and unemployment. While AI is clearly here to stay, it is equally clear that the capitalist class has no interest in using it to its fullest. Once again, capitalism’s brutal inefficiency and systematic misuse of such technology is profound evidence of the need for communism and economic planning.

On January 6, 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft were grounded after a door plug blew from one of the planes’ fuselages over Oregon during an Alaska Airlines flight. No passengers were seriously injured this time, but in at least three prior incidents, problems on Boeing planes ended in fatal disaster. Why? The Boeing bosses play dice with the lives of aircrews and passengers, all for the sake of profit. The reckless aviation giant’s history of missing or faulty parts, suppression of safety protocols, and utter negligence is only one symptom of a much larger decay in capitalist production.

The capitalists are ploughing billions into artificial intelligence, salivating at the prospect of an AI-generated economic boost and keen to grab a slice of the new gold rush. But there is no technological solution for capitalism’s fundamental contradictions, and the investment party will inevitably be followed by a hangover.

The United States is rife with crises: from the economy to the environment to student debt—and the problems facing workers don’t stop there. The country is now suffering a ...

After years of frenzied, debt-fuelled investment into on-demand content, the media industry is now facing an almighty crash, with studio staff, creative workers, and streaming customers paying the price. The chaos of capitalism is to blame.

For the past week, the world has been treated to a macabre piece of theatre: an international, multi-million-dollar operation to save the lives of five crewmen of the Titan submersible, who – it now turns out – were almost certainly known to have died from the start. Life is sacred: who could object to any expense to save just a single soul? But if all life is indeed sacred, then some lives are clearly more sacred than others.

Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence have provoked a mixture of fear and enthusiasm across the world. In this article, Daniel Morley, examines the claim that AI is ‘conscious’ or ‘superhuman’, draws out the real potential for this technology, and explains how we are really enslaved by the machine under capitalism.