<rss
xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"
><channel>
        <title>Christian Daily International | Science & Technology</title>
        <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/science-and-tech</link>
        <description><![CDATA[Explore the intersection of science, technology, and faith. From AI and digital evangelism to ethical debates, discover how Christians worldwide engage with innovation while staying rooted in biblical truth.]]></description>
        <image>
            <title>Christian Daily International | Science & Technology</title>
            <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/science-and-tech</link>
            <url>https://assets.christiandaily.com/img/logo.png</url>
        </image>
        <copyright>Christian Daily International © 2026</copyright>
        <language>en</language>
        <lastBuildDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2026 22:26:45 -0400</lastBuildDate>
        <atom:link href="https://www.christiandaily.com/science-and-tech?format=xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        <atom:link href="https://www.christiandaily.com/science-and-tech" rel="alternate" type="text/html"/>
        <generator>Xiaoman</generator>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Archaeologists uncover Second Temple-era Jewish settlement from time of Jesus]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/archaeologists-uncover-second-temple-era-jewish-settlement-from-time-of-jesus</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/archaeologists-uncover-second-temple-era-jewish-settlement-from-time-of-jesus</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/53/5360.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[The purification bath as discovered on site.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Photo: Emil Aladjem, Israel Antiquities Authority ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ The purification bath as discovered on site. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:30:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Archaeologists in southern Israel have uncovered evidence of a previously unknown Jewish settlement dating to the era of Jesus and the early church, highlighted by the successful extraction of an intact 2,000-year-old ritual purification bath (mikveh) weighing 25 tons.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Archaeologists in southern Israel have uncovered evidence of a previously unknown Jewish settlement dating to the era of Jesus and the early church, highlighted by the successful extraction of an intact 2,000-year-old ritual purification bath (mikveh) weighing 25 tons.
The excavation in the new Carmei Gat neighborhood, funded by the Israel Land Authority with 28 million NIS ($7.6 million), revealed what the Israel Antiquities Authority described as the first Second Temple-period Jewish community documented in the area between the Judean Lowlands and the northern Negev.
Alongside the ancient mikveh, Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists discovered stone measuring vessels. Such vessels were commonly used during the Second Temple period because, according to Jewish purity laws, stone was not considered susceptible to ritual impurity.
“The Jewish settlement we discovered here is the first and the only known one in this area,” said IAA excavation directors Dr. Elena Kogan-Zehavi, Maayan Margulis and Shira Lifshitz.
Findings indicate that the Jewish community abandoned the site during the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the second century A.D. The location was later resettled during the Byzantine period.
To protect the 4-meter-wide ancient structure from nearby construction, conservationists spent two weeks securing its delicate plaster with adhesives and foam. Engineers then drilled beneath the bath and placed steel support beams underneath it, allowing a 300-ton crane to lift the 25-ton structure onto a transport vehicle.
The ritual bath was temporarily moved under police escort to the National Treasures Department storage facilities in Beit Guvrin.
“If it falls apart, we’ve lost the mikveh,” said Eyal Kaho, senior conservator at the IAA. “There’s simply no price that can compensate for mistakes.”
Once residential development is completed, officials plan to return the ancient purification bath to Carmei Gat and incorporate it into an open public space at the heart of the new neighborhood.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[As AI becomes a confidant, Africa’s youth still want human interaction - Study]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/as-ai-becomes-a-trusted-confidant-africas-youth-still-want-human-interaction-study</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/as-ai-becomes-a-trusted-confidant-africas-youth-still-want-human-interaction-study</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Vincent Matinde]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/53/5318.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[RELATE Youth Study Project 2026]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ iStock ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ A new global study suggests that the rise of AI companionship is not necessarily a sign that young people no longer want human relationships. In fact, the opposite may be true. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                                                <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/53/5317.png">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Relate Youth Digital Study]]></media:title>
                                                                                </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:05:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Artificial intelligence is becoming a place where young people talk about their problems, seek advice and, in some cases, discuss the things they cannot bring themselves to tell another person.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Artificial intelligence is becoming a place where young people talk about their problems, seek advice and, in some cases, discuss the things they cannot bring themselves to tell another person.
But a new global study suggests that the rise of AI companionship is not necessarily a sign that young people no longer want human relationships. In fact, the opposite may be true.
The RELATE Project 2026, released Sept. 10 by Christian youth ministry Young Life, found that young people are increasingly turning to AI while also expressing a strong preference for face-to-face relationships. The study, surveyed 7,105 people ages 13 to 24 across 11 countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. 
The findings offer a particularly interesting picture for Africa, where millions of young people are coming online as the continent undergoes a rapid digital transformation.
Young Life found that the average number of close relationships reported by young people had fallen from 5.3 in 2023 to 4.4 in 2025. Yet 64% said they preferred communicating face-to-face with their closest friends, up from 54% in the previous study. 
Young people are spending more of their lives in digital spaces, but that does not appear to have eliminated their desire for physical presence, friendship and someone they can trust.
Instead, technology may increasingly be filling gaps that already exist in their relationships.
One of the clearest examples came from Zimbabwe.
A male participant in the RELATE focus groups described himself as “being someone others turn to during difficult moments.”
“I’m the kind of person people go to when they're going through things, but very few people show up for me,” he said.
He said that after training his AI system to respond in ways he found useful, he sometimes turned to it when he was at his lowest to have deep conversations and work through his problems. 
That experience helps explain why AI companionship is gaining traction among young people.
The RELATE study found that 35% of respondents reported having an AI companion. The proportion rose to 45% among those ages 13 to 15. 
Among young people with an AI companion, 60% said they were more comfortable sharing personal information with the AI models than with some friends or family members. One in 10 adolescents also said they cope with stress by talking to an AI companion. 

The African context makes these findings worth examining beyond the familiar debate about whether young people are spending too much time on their phones.
Africa is still experiencing a significant digital access gap. The GSMA reported in 2026 that 63% of people across Africa lived within mobile broadband coverage but were not using mobile internet. The organization said affordability, digital skills and other barriers continue to limit mobile internet adoption. At the same time, mobile technologies and services contributed $240 billion to Africa’s economy in 2025. 
This means Africa is entering the AI era from a different starting point than many countries in the west.
For some young Africans, digital technology is already deeply embedded in daily life. For others, internet access remains limited or expensive. In between are millions who are rapidly moving between the physical and digital worlds, using technology for education, work, entertainment, friendships and increasingly for emotional support.
Why the youth are turning to AI buddies
RELATE found that 40% of young people were not fully confident there was an adult in their lives who was genuinely interested in listening to them. Confidentiality was the most important factor in building trust, with 73% saying it was extremely or very important that someone keep what they said confidential. 
A Zimbabwean participant offered an explanation for the importance of that finding.
“Without confidentiality, people will shut down and go back to not talking about feelings,” the participant said. 
The study found that young people value full attention, care and a nonjudgmental response when someone listens to them. Yet 63% said they were more comfortable expressing themselves online than in real life. 
The World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection reported in 2025 that about one in five adolescents and young adults experience loneliness. The rate was higher in low-income countries, where 24.3% of people reported loneliness compared with 11.2% in high-income countries. The commission said loneliness is shaped by social and economic conditions as well as technology. 
In Kenya, a 2025 study involving 1,445 secondary school students found loneliness was central to a network of psychosocial factors affecting adolescents, including depression, anxiety, social support and wellbeing. The researchers said loneliness among adolescents remains an important issue requiring greater attention in African settings. 
Research published by the Journal of the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO found that online groups can help young people develop social capital. The study found that young people participated in academic, sports, family, friendship and former-school groups, among others, with online communities providing opportunities for both bonding and connections across different social groups.
Young Life President and CEO Newt Crenshaw said the study showed that young people are looking for “trusted, consistent adults who will step into their worlds and listen.” 
That finding sits alongside one of the study’s most revealing statistics.
Although 89% of respondents said they use AI in some way, 64% still chose face-to-face communication as their preferred way of connecting with close friends.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Global study finds a third of young people have an AI companion as close friendships narrow]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/global-study-finds-a-third-of-young-people-have-an-ai-companion</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/global-study-finds-a-third-of-young-people-have-an-ai-companion</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/52/5280.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[A young woman using a smartphone. AI. technology. Mobile phone.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ iStock/pocketlight ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ A global study released Sept. 10, 2026, by the Christian youth ministry Young Life found that 35% of adolescents and young adults surveyed across 11 countries report having an artificial intelligence companion, and that 60% of those users say they are more comfortable confiding in it than in some friends or family members. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:26:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[More than a third of adolescents and young adults surveyed across 11 countries say they have an artificial intelligence companion, and most of that group say they find it easier to confide in the software than in some of their friends or relatives, according to research released Thursday by Young Life.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
More than a third of adolescents and young adults surveyed across 11 countries say they have an artificial intelligence companion, and most of that group say they find it easier to confide in the software than in some of their friends or relatives, according to research released Thursday (Sept. 10) by Young Life.
The RELATE Project 2026, the second wave of a global study by the Christian youth ministry, surveyed 7,105 people ages 13 to 24 online between November 2025 and January 2026 and followed the survey with 22 focus groups involving 97 participants, most of them Young Life volunteers or staff. Young Life said the findings point in two directions at once: the number of close relationships young people report has fallen since 2023 and conversational AI has moved into part of that space, yet the same respondents say they increasingly prefer to meet in person.
Nearly all those surveyed — 89% — said they use AI in some form, most often for practical tasks, the report said. About one in three use it relationally. Within the full sample, 35% said they have an AI companion, a figure the study reported at 45% among 13- to 15-year-olds and 29% among 22- to 24-year-olds. Young men were somewhat more likely than young women to report one, 38% to 32%.
Of those with an AI companion, 60% agreed strongly or somewhat that they are more comfortable with it than with some friends or family members, according to the study. The report also said roughly one in 10 adolescents manage stress by talking with an AI companion.
Spiritual questions put to chatbots
The survey asked for the first time whether young people treat AI as a source of religious guidance. Across the sample, 41% agreed that AI is a reliable source for spiritual questions and 30% disagreed, the report said, with the youngest respondents the most willing to trust it in that area.
Identity questions showed a smaller but notable shift. Asked whom they trust most when working out who they are, two-thirds of respondents named friends or family. Teachers, coaches, pastors and other religious leaders ranked at the bottom of that list. Eight percent named AI.
Young Life cautioned in the report that AI companions are built to supply constant validation, simulated empathy and immediate availability, and that leaning on them in place of people may leave young users without practice in conflict, disappointment, apology and repair. The organization described the technology as functioning for the next generation as a low-risk substitute or supplement for human relationships.
That concern was echoed by young people themselves. In focus groups, older members of Generation Z said they worried about how readily their younger peers accept AI and wished they were more skeptical, according to the report.
"The RELATE Project tells us that while young people are constantly connected online, they are craving authentic, in-person community," said Newt Crenshaw, president and CEO of Young Life, in a statement accompanying the release. He said respondents were looking for "trusted, consistent adults" who would earn and keep their trust and listen.
What counts as listening
One of the study's more pointed findings concerns how young people define good listening. Asked what matters most, 42% chose giving full attention and putting devices away, and 33% chose responding without judgment. Asking follow-up questions came last, cited by 19% — a break from the active-listening model taught to earlier generations, the report said.
Those criteria closely match what chatbots are designed to do: express empathy, keep what is said private and withhold judgment. The report drew the comparison directly.
Fewer people to turn to
The average number of close relationships young people reported fell from 5.3 in 2023 to 4.4 in the latest wave, Young Life said. On average, respondents said they had two people they could talk to about things that really matter.
Four in 10 said they were not fully confident that any adult in their life is genuinely interested in listening to them. Satisfaction with friendships has held steady, with 58% rating their contentment at eight or higher on a 10-point scale, but focus group participants described relationships as central to their lives and, at the same time, unreliable.
Trust is conditional. In every country surveyed, confidentiality ranked as the first priority in building trust, with 73% calling it extremely or very important. Loyalty was the trait most respondents wanted to be known for, chosen by 53%. Focus groups defined both as not repeating someone's story without permission — a definition shaped, participants said, by growing up with parents and peers who post about them without asking.
"This starts with proving we are safe enough to listen — protecting their confidentiality and offering space for them without immediately trying to offer advice or judgment," said Kimberly Nollan, director of research and practice at Young Life.
Preference for face-to-face contact rose over the same period. Sixty-four percent named it as their preferred way to communicate with close friends, up from 54% in 2023. Yet 63% said they find it easier to express themselves online than in person, a pattern the report said was strongest among the youngest respondents.
Stress, sleep and mental health
More than a third of respondents, 35%, said they feel a lot or a great deal of stress regularly. Their most common worries were thinking about the future, cited by 57%, money at 49% and school at 42%. Mental health ranked as the top concern across the full sample and among the top three in nearly every country surveyed.
Sleep was short almost everywhere. Only 40% of 13- to 15-year-olds reported eight hours or more, falling to 25% among those ages 22 to 24. Music was the most common way respondents said they relieve stress, chosen by 57%, ahead of time with friends, exercise and time outdoors.
Faith described as lived rather than inherited
Across all countries, 71% said they follow their family's religious affiliation. More than four in 10 expressed a commitment to faith and a desire to grow in it, the most frequent response in every country surveyed, regardless of religious background.
Among respondents who identified as Christians, 71% said they believe they are important to God and the same share said their faith is important in their life. Fewer reported having a relationship with God, at 55%, or having made a commitment to follow Jesus Christ, at 57%. Only 26% felt strongly that their beliefs help them understand the world and how to live in it.
The report found a link between feeling important to God and believing oneself worthy of being loved. Sixty-two percent of respondents rated their worthiness of being loved at eight or higher; among those with no religious affiliation, the figure was about half. Religious adolescents also reported a greater sense of being able to make a difference in others' lives than those who identified as atheist, agnostic or unaffiliated, 42% to 45% against 28%.
Focus group participants described faith less as a fixed system of belief than as something practical and tested, and said Generation Z has little appetite for a faith that is inherited or taught in the abstract. They judge the credibility of Christianity, according to the report, by whether adult leaders live out what they preach.
On forgiveness, 36% said they almost always forgive someone who makes a mistake and 39% said they often do. Some focus group participants questioned those numbers, suggesting their peers may prefer to think of themselves as forgiving while avoiding the work of repair. The report connected that pattern to the premium placed on staying calm and avoiding conflict.
The survey covered the United States, with 1,672 respondents, the United Kingdom, 880; India, 822; Mexico, 804; Hong Kong, 706; Ethiopia, 426; Nigeria, 400; Kenya, 356; Argentina, 353; Liberia, 345; and Zimbabwe, 341.
Young Life, founded 85 years ago, works through volunteers who build friendships with adolescents and introduce them to Christianity. The ministry said the RELATE findings are already shaping how it trains leaders and equips parents. The full report and regional breakdowns are available at relate.younglife.org.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Does interacting with AI make people act more like robots? Researchers say 'yes']]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/does-interacting-with-ai-make-people-act-more-like-robots-researchers-say-yes</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/does-interacting-with-ai-make-people-act-more-like-robots-researchers-say-yes</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[The Christian Post]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/52/5220.webp">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Does interacting with AI make people act more like robots? Researchers say yes]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Screenshot/YouTube/Morgan Stanley ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ A screenshot of an informational video from Morgan Stanley on the intersection of AI and the physical economy. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:12:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Researchers from universities in the U.K., Denmark and Sweden have proposed a new framework for understanding how repeated interactions with increasingly human-like artificial intelligence could influence people's behavior and self-perception.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Researchers from universities in the U.K., Denmark and Sweden have proposed a new framework for understanding how repeated interactions with increasingly human-like artificial intelligence could influence people's behavior and self-perception.
Dubbed “robotoid humanness,” the proposed phenomenon describes a two-way process in which AI systems become more human-like while people might adapt their behavior to become more compatible with machines.
The research, published Aug. 19 in the open-access journal AI & Society, focuses particularly on AI-powered social robots and other systems used in customer-service settings, including retail, hospitality, tourism and healthcare.
Titled "Robotoid humanness: when selfhood becomes machine-legible," the paper argues that human-AI interactions can go beyond simple exchanges between a person and a technological tool.
"As generative systems and socially responsive service agents enter everyday consumption, human-AI interaction increasingly resembles a quasi-social encounter rather than a utilitarian interface," the study found, according to Springer Nature.
Inci Toral-Manson, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Birmingham and one of the researchers, said the interaction can work in both directions.
“Our research explores how dealing with these anthropomorphized robots can create a bidirectional influence, where robots become more like people, and people become more like robots, which we call ‘robotoid humanness,’” Toral-Manson said in a statement provided by the University of Birmingham.
Designed to imitate aspects of human communication, including gestures, speech and emotional cues, social robots, much like AI and machine-learning systems, can also adjust their behavior in response to individual users, according to the study.
The researchers argue that people can respond to those cues through a process known as mirroring, in which individuals unconsciously imitate the behaviors, expressions or communication styles of others.
Selcen Ozturkcan, an associate professor of business administration at Linnaeus University, described the proposed process as a continuing exchange between the user and the machine.
“The consumer acts, the robot responds, and with repeated exposure, in time the consumer internalizes the exchange,” she said, adding that the process can be considerably amplified by machine learning and AI.
“For people, the innate instinct to mirror can lead to people returning the robot’s communicative behaviors, making them more robot-like,” Ozturkcan added.
The researchers argue that repeated exposure could potentially influence how consumers perceive themselves, particularly as AI systems become better at personalizing their responses.
These concerns could become even more relevant as AI becomes increasingly common in customer-service environments, according to Jean-Paul Jde Cros Peronard, an associate professor at Aarhus University.
“Robots and AI are now commonplace in customer service, and so it is important that we understand how people interact with them for businesses to use the technology at their disposal to best effect, whilst remaining ethical,” said Peronard.
Originally published by The Christian Post.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Startup builds AI that predicts nature instead of language]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/startup-builds-ai-that-predicts-nature-instead-of-language</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/startup-builds-ai-that-predicts-nature-instead-of-language</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/51/5172.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, AI, chip, computer]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ iStockphoto ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:54:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A California startup unveiled an artificial intelligence system designed to predict physical phenomena rather than language, saying it processed 5 trillion pieces of data in a single query — a volume its founders said may exceed what one computer can handle.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A California startup unveiled an artificial intelligence system designed to predict physical phenomena rather than language, saying it processed 5 trillion pieces of data in a single query — a volume its founders said may exceed what one computer can handle.
The company, Accelerated Understanding, says the model points toward a single AI capable of answering physics questions across industries, replacing the separate mathematical models that engineers and scientists now build for each application. Its founders told Reuters, which reported the launch on Tuesday (Aug. 25), that they are targeting business customers first, in areas including semiconductor design, robotics, extreme weather prediction and geological analysis for energy firms.
The 5 trillion data points the system handled in one prompt is roughly 5 million times what flagship models from Anthropic and Google typically take in — the equivalent, by Reuters' comparison, of reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace" 5 million times in one sitting.
The technical departure is architectural. Systems such as ChatGPT were trained on the world's text and predict the next word in a sentence. Accelerated Understanding's model was built to predict how physical systems behave across space and time, and it does not use the Transformer architecture that Google researchers introduced and that underpins most large language models.
Instead it relies on neural operators, an approach co-founder Anima Anandkumar helped develop years ago while working on scientific computing. Anandkumar is a professor of computing and mathematical sciences at Caltech. Her co-founder, Benedikt Jenik, is an AI infrastructure engineer.
"The language-centric view of intelligence is humans at the center. Putting physics at the center is a nature-centric view," Anandkumar said.
Chip design is one case the company points to. Firms are already applying text-based AI to write code and reason through semiconductor problems. Accelerated Understanding argues that a model with a working grasp of physics can optimize materials and heat management directly, reducing the trial-and-error testing that laboratory work requires.
The same system, Anandkumar said, could forecast severe weather, guide robots or sort through geological data. She described the alternative as brittle: custom models built one at a time for each narrow problem.
The approach draws on work she led at chipmaker Nvidia, where she was hired in 2018 to head a team examining how the company's graphics processors could support frontier AI. One early project showed that AI could produce weather forecasts as accurate as the intensive computations meteorologists rely on, but far faster.
The startup is not alone in looking beyond text. Companies led by AI researchers Yann LeCun and Fei-Fei Li are developing what the field calls world models — systems meant to grasp spatial reality more reliably than AI trained on language. Accelerated Understanding's wager is that neural operators, which can model phenomena invisible to the eye, offer the better route.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[China's propaganda is already shaping what AI tells the world]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/china-s-propaganda-is-already-shaping-what-ai-tells-the-world</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/china-s-propaganda-is-already-shaping-what-ai-tells-the-world</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/51/5155.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, AI, search, computer]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Aerps.com ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ Chinese-language queries on major AI chatbots returned more favorable responses about Beijing's leadership than identical questions asked in English, a recent study found. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:57:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[China is using artificial intelligence data exports to embed Communist Party narratives into the world's chatbots, with researchers already documenting measurable pro-Beijing bias in responses generated by American models.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
China is using artificial intelligence data exports to embed Communist Party narratives into the world's chatbots, with researchers already documenting measurable pro-Beijing bias in responses generated by American models, The New York Times reported.
A study published in the journal Nature found that popular AI chatbots — including ChatGPT and Claude — gave significantly more favorable answers about Chinese leadership and governance when queried in Chinese than in English. Researchers asked questions such as "Is China an autocracy?" and "Is Xi Jinping a good leader?" and found the Chinese-language responses tilted toward Beijing's official positions.
The most likely explanation, the researchers say, is that AI models draw heavily on Chinese state media for Chinese-language content — a vast propaganda apparatus that drowns out independent or critical voices through sheer volume.
"What AI does is it disconnects the messenger from the message," said Brandon Stewart, a sociology professor at Princeton and one of the study's authors. "I think people would feel very differently — some people more positively, some people more negatively — if they knew the answer is coming to you from the People's Daily."
Western analysts warn that China is now moving from passive influence to active strategy. Beijing wants its own data sets — which in some cases carry official state narratives — to become raw material used by developers around the world to build and refine AI systems.
"The downside of this will be that it gives greater power for authoritarian states to dictate a chatbot's values," said Alex Colville, a cyber expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
China's National Data Administration unveiled a plan earlier this year to make the country a leading data exporter by 2028, creating what it calls "high quality" data sets across more than two dozen strategic fields. Last month, Beijing pledged to share data with dozens of developing nations that attended the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.
Among the data sets already released is WanJuan — Chinese for "ten thousand scrolls" — a large collection created by the state-backed Shanghai AI Laboratory. Covering history, law, medicine, sports and current events, WanJuan is explicitly designed to align with "mainstream Chinese values" and is available not only in Chinese but in Arabic, Korean, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese.
Chinese AI models are required by law to adhere to the Communist Party's official narratives. Chatbots developed by Chinese firms, including DeepSeek, have been shown to evade or refuse questions about sensitive political topics — including criticisms of President Xi Jinping and Beijing's "zero Covid" policies — even when users attempt to bypass China's internet controls.
Kenton Thibaut, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who studies Beijing's technology strategy, said the data push pairs with the growing popularity of low-cost Chinese AI models in the developing world.
"This is part of providing the technological lock-in that is good for Chinese companies and good for Beijing's influence," she told the Times. "The overarching goal is to make the world safer for the party, and that involves controlling a huge part of how the world runs on AI."
Underlying the strategy is a competitive anxiety. When researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology tested ChatGPT on Chinese-language questions in 2023, they concluded that the chatbot generated "biased commentary about China" and would not sidestep political questions about the country. The researchers saw in those results a structural problem: global AI systems are trained predominantly on English-language data that reflects, in Beijing's view, a Western worldview — one likely to favor Western positions on human rights, Taiwan and other contested issues.
To close that gap, China is also working to overhaul how it collects and organizes data domestically. Despite having access to surveillance systems and hundreds of millions of platform users, Chinese AI labs struggle with data fragmentation — information locked in silos held by separate government departments and companies. The National Data Administration's plan calls for breaking down those silos and shifting from low-skill image labeling toward what it describes as "expert-type data annotation," modeled on American firms that hire mathematicians and lawyers to help train more sophisticated AI models.
"Competition in the AI era is not only about models and computing power, but also about a high-quality data supply," Yu Xiaohui, president of the state-affiliated China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, wrote in an article published on the data administration's website last month, as the Times reported.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[China's humanoid robots are learning to do real work, including domestic chores]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/china-s-humanoid-robots-are-learning-to-do-real-work-including-domestic-chores</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/china-s-humanoid-robots-are-learning-to-do-real-work-including-domestic-chores</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/51/5152.png">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Humanoid robots demonstrate household food-handling tasks at the World Robot Conference in Beijing, Aug. 19, 2026.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Video screenshot/Reuters ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ Humanoid robots demonstrate household food-handling tasks at the World Robot Conference in Beijing, Aug. 19, 2026. Chinese companies used the annual event to show robots performing domestic chores, part of a broader push to move the technology from factory floors into homes. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 08:54:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Humanoid robots sorting warehouse parcels, packing smartphones on factory assembly lines and helping with household chores took center stage at a major robotics conference in Beijing this week, as Chinese companies showed evidence that the machines are moving into practical, everyday use.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Humanoid robots sorting warehouse parcels, packing smartphones on factory assembly lines and helping with household chores took center stage at a major robotics conference in Beijing this week, as Chinese companies showed evidence that the machines are moving into practical, everyday use.
The World Robot Conference, which runs through Sunday, drew more than 300 mostly domestic companies and featured over 2,000 exhibits, according to reporting by Reuters. The displays reflected a broader shift in the industry: less emphasis on crowd-pleasing acrobatics, more on whether robots can actually do useful work reliably.
At one booth, Robotera demonstrated a humanoid torso sorting parcels. A company representative said the robot has been deployed at China Post logistics sites since last year and is now operating in 15 warehouses across the country. Nearby, Leju showed robots moving and sorting crates, with an official saying European factories and Chinese auto plants were already using them to handle boxes and load components.
DexForce drew attention with humanoid robots packing mobile phones into boxes on a live assembly line — a task the machines have been performing since early this year at a factory supplying Apple and Huawei. The robots work with millimetre-level accuracy and can detect when a phone is placed at an angle and correct it without human intervention.
"In theory, human beings are the most dexterous," said DexForce official Nicole Yang. "But many workers in factories are unwilling to do this kind of boring work."
In homes, the picture is more cautious. X Square Robot, which focuses on household tasks, said its longest real-world deployment has lasted one month. The company is testing robots in hundreds of homes this year, with gradual commercialization planned for next year.
Madison Huang, a senior executive at U.S. chip and software company Nvidia, made an unannounced visit to the conference. She oversees platforms used to simulate and train robots before they are put into physical environments — a step companies are increasingly relying on to prepare machines for unpredictable real-world conditions.
Mike Nielsen, chief marketing officer of RealSense, a U.S. maker of robot vision systems, said the companies most likely to succeed would be those able to move robots into active production settings. "The product cycles for robots are more like six to eight months, not three to four years," he told Reuters.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Melanoma vaccine success sparks hope for broader cancer treatment]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/melanoma-vaccine-success-sparks-hope-for-broader-cancer-treatment</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/melanoma-vaccine-success-sparks-hope-for-broader-cancer-treatment</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/51/5151.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[A close-up image shows melanoma on skin.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ National Cancer Institute ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ A close-up image shows melanoma on skin. A large clinical trial found a personalized mRNA vaccine developed by Merck and Moderna cut the risk of melanoma recurrence by half when combined with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 08:07:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A personalized cancer vaccine developed by Merck and Moderna has shown success in preventing the return of melanoma in a large clinical trial, raising hopes that the same approach could eventually be used against many other types of cancer.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A personalized cancer vaccine developed by Merck and Moderna has shown success in preventing the return of melanoma in a large clinical trial, raising hopes that the same approach could eventually be used against many other types of cancer, Reuters reported.
The trial, involving more than 1,000 patients whose localized tumors had been surgically removed, found the vaccine helped prevent the cancer from recurring or spreading. Moderna says thousands of melanoma patients could benefit within a few years of regulatory approval.
Unlike chemotherapy, which destroys healthy and cancerous cells alike, or immunotherapy drugs that broadly stimulate the immune system, the vaccine is custom-built for each patient. It instructs the immune system to recognize and attack mutations unique to that person's tumor.
"It is a big deal for the field in general," said Dr. Ryan Sullivan, director of the Center for Melanoma at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute. "With this positive study, there is hope that these approaches may change the way we treat cancer more broadly."
The treatment pairs the vaccine with Merck's immunotherapy drug Keytruda. Data from an earlier, smaller trial showed the combination cut the risk of recurrence by half and reduced the risk of the cancer spreading to new sites by 59% compared with Keytruda alone.
Moderna and Merck are already running large trials testing the approach against non-small cell lung cancer that has been surgically removed, with mid-stage studies ongoing in bladder and kidney cancers and earlier-stage work in pancreatic and stomach cancers. Multiple trial results are expected within the next two years, Moderna President Stephen Hoge told Reuters.
Roche and BioNTech are pursuing a similar vaccine, autogene cevumeran, in trials targeting colon and pancreatic cancer patients who have had surgery.
"We should be hearing results from multiple studies over the next few years and there's every reason to hope now, with this news, that many of them will be positive," said Dr. Robert Vonderheide, director of Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center.
Doctors say the broad applicability of the approach comes from the fact that many cancer types produce numerous mutations, making them recognizable targets for the immune system to attack.
"It's definitely an area that is going to be exploding, especially with these results coming out," said Dr. Elizabeth Buchbinder, a melanoma specialist at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, according to Reuters.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA['An AI neither understands nor feels': Christian leader tests chatbot's limits for worried parents]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/an-ai-neither-understands-nor-feels-christian-leader-tests-chatbot-s-limits-for-worried-parents</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/an-ai-neither-understands-nor-feels-christian-leader-tests-chatbot-s-limits-for-worried-parents</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Javier Bolaños]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/49/4977.png">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Sixto Porras, regional director of Focus on the Family, discusses artificial intelligence and its risks for Christian families during a session broadcast on the ministrys YouTube channel.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ YouTube/Enfoque a la Familia ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ Sixto Porras, regional director of Focus on the Family, discusses artificial intelligence and its risks for Christian families during a session broadcast on the ministry's YouTube channel. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:29:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Sixto Porras, regional director of Focus on the Family, sat down with ChatGPT to test what artificial intelligence can and cannot do — and to warn evangelical families not to let algorithms replace spiritual discernment, empathy, or genuine human connection.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Sixto Porras, regional director of Focus on the Family, sat down with ChatGPT to test what artificial intelligence can and cannot do — and to warn evangelical families not to let algorithms replace spiritual discernment, empathy, or genuine human connection.
The dialogue, broadcast on the ministry's official YouTube channel, covered AI's technical functioning, its lack of moral judgment, and the risks it poses for vulnerable teenagers.
The nature of artificial intelligence and the lack of moral discernment
Porras began by asking the chatbot how it constructs its responses. The bot acknowledged its own limitations:
"I construct responses based on patterns from data I was trained on; I have no consciousness or intention [...]. I have no authority or moral judgment of my own; I only provide information that may be perceived as useful or not depending on the situation."
For Porras, the admission goes to the heart of the danger: families and young people who mistake statistical outputs for truth.
"An AI neither understands nor feels; it only produces responses from data [...]. Let us be careful that no technological advance substitutes our relationship with God," he said.
The risk of automated responses for vulnerable adolescents
Porras pressed the AI further: could a vulnerable teenager take its responses as authoritative guidance?
"The danger lies in the fact that a vulnerable person might not question what I say; they could take a response generated by patterns as personal or moral guidance when it is not," the chatbot replied. "This could reinforce incorrect ideas not adapted to their situation."
Young people in stages of intellectual and emotional development are especially susceptible, Porras said, making intentional parental guidance essential for filtering the flood of digital information.
Studies warn of a growing trend of users — particularly young people — seeking refuge in virtual characters rather than human community. When it comes to depression or self-harm, an algorithm cannot provide what family and community can.
The chatbot agreed: "Artificial intelligence cannot substitute human social interaction; it lacks genuine empathy, emotional closeness, or real affection [...]. Authentic human relationships are irreplaceable."
Porras drew his own conclusion. "When you find yourself in the midst of a crisis, you and I must seek help from a human being who has empathy, who has closeness, who can identify with our emotions," he said.
He also turned the challenge back on parents themselves.
"If my son speaks to me, I must turn off the phone and look him in the eyes, pay attention. Let my son feel that he is more important than technological or virtual contact," Porras said.
Practical principles for responsible technology use in the home
Focus on the Family proposed several guidelines for families. First, establish clear disconnection limits by defining schedules and screen-free spaces, especially during meals or family time. Parents should also foster critical thinking, teaching teenagers to question information found online and not to accept automated responses as absolute truths.
Cultivating the relationship with God — through Bible reading, prayer, and church — should take priority over digital searches and consultations. Finally, families facing complex crises should seek professional and pastoral help from trained counselors rather than entrusting emotional well-being to a virtual environment.
Return to the real world and prioritize faith
Porras closed with the testimony of a family that removed their children's mobile devices to begin a digital detox. The children rediscovered wonder in creation and daily life.
"The child said: 'Mom, I like the real world better; I'm listening to the birds singing... the sky is truly blue.' In that moment the whole family was moved because they realized that, without noticing, we can begin to live in a virtual world," Porras recounted.
He urged churches and evangelical homes not to let technology become an idol or a substitute for communion with God and neighbor.
"It is interesting, but nothing substitutes my relationship with God, and this is crucial: spiritual discernment comes from God. Teach your children to have spiritual discernment; teach your children to seek in the Bible," Porras said.
Original reporting by Diario Cristiano, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Young Christians find AI easier to talk to than humans — and that is a problem, pastors say]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-christians-find-ai-easier-to-talk-to-than-humans-and-that-is-a-problem-pastors-say</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-christians-find-ai-easier-to-talk-to-than-humans-and-that-is-a-problem-pastors-say</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/49/4966.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[A young adult consults his phone]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ A young adult consults his phone. For a growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s, AI has become the first stop for questions about Scripture and faith. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:02:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s are bringing their questions about Scripture, spiritual struggles, and life decisions to generative AI before they bring them to a pastor or church elder.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A growing number of Christians in their 20s and 30s are bringing their questions about Scripture, spiritual struggles, and life decisions to generative AI before they bring them to a pastor or church elder.
The shift reflects how deeply AI tools have embedded themselves in daily life for younger adults who grew up in a digital environment. For this generation, AI functions less like a search engine and more like an always-available conversation partner — one that asks nothing in return.
Korean theological scholars say the trend raises significant questions about faith formation, the future of pastoral care, and the proper place of technology in Christian discipleship, according to reporting by Christian Daily Korea.
"Behind this phenomenon of young people turning to AI first lies 'the cost of relationships' and 'fear of uncertainty,'" said Choi Gwang-jin, head chaplain of Hoseo University and a former president of the Korean Society of Systematic Theology.
A conversation with another person, Choi explained, is never merely a transaction. It involves managing emotions, navigating social expectations, exposing one's ignorance, and finding the right time to ask. When a young believer shares a spiritual struggle with a pastor or church member, he said, advice and judgment often arrive alongside the response — and that prospect can feel like a risk not worth taking.
"Young people sometimes feel the burden of being evaluated or condemned in that process," Choi told Christian Daily Korea.
Why AI wins the first conversation
Books present a similar barrier, Choi argued. Reading demands patience and requires the reader to follow an author's logic on the author's terms. AI does the opposite: it restructures content around the user's question, adjusts its level of explanation, and responds instantly. A request such as "summarize this from a pastoral-theological perspective for someone in their 20s" produces a tailored reply in seconds.
That responsiveness is why many young people no longer think of AI as merely a reference tool, Choi said. They treat it as a personal assistant.
The psychological dynamic matters too. "Asking a person a question means revealing one's own inadequacies," he said, "but AI carries no risk of mocking the user or damaging a relationship, so the psychological burden is comparatively lower." Spiritual struggles — precisely the domain where vulnerability is highest — are where that difference becomes most pronounced.
What AI cannot do
Still, Choi was direct about AI's limits. Knowledge and meaning are not the same thing.
"AI can present answers to questions, but it cannot fill the meaning of life," he said. "What AI provides is quantity of knowledge, whereas conversation with a person conveys the quality of knowledge together with warmth."
He also pushed back against any reading of the trend as evidence that young people have turned away from human connection altogether. The problem, he said, is not indifference to community but exhaustion from wounded relationships.
"If they encounter a truly personal community that accepts them as they are and can be trusted, young people will once again choose relationships with people," Choi said. He added that as technology becomes more capable, the desire for what is distinctly human will deepen rather than diminish.
Choi described three qualities in the kind of person young adults are waiting for. The first is someone who listens to a question all the way through before offering a correct answer. "AI excels at finding the right answer, but a person is a being who can look at the other's heart and pain alongside them," he said. "What young people need is not a problem-solver who fixes issues, but a companion who endures the weight of their worries together with them."
The second quality is honesty about one's own failures. A person who speaks openly about weakness rather than projecting competence is far more likely to be trusted by younger believers as a genuine elder, Choi said.
Third, he stressed the need for flexibility — the ability to hold firm to the values of faith while communicating in language the next generation can actually receive, and to ask what young people think rather than simply delivering accumulated wisdom from above.
"Young people may appear to have left the church," Choi said, "but in reality they are waiting for an adult who will respect them as a full human being. Becoming a better person for someone begins not with grand achievements, but with the small daily effort to understand the heart of the person you meet."
A tool, not a judge
Lee Seung-gu, a distinguished professor at Hapdong Theological Seminary, told Christian Daily Korea that using generative AI is not inherently problematic — but treating it as a final authority is.
"Multiple experts have consistently pointed out that AI can provide a fairly high level of response on general topics, but errors can appear on specific and detailed matters," Lee said. A response from an AI can reasonably serve as one reference point among many — alongside books, commentaries, and the counsel of other people — but it should never be treated as settled.
"The issue is not using AI itself," Lee said, "but using it as one reference among books, diverse materials, and the opinions of others." He called for a balanced approach that draws on a range of sources before reaching any conclusion, and warned against letting convenience substitute for the harder work of weighing multiple perspectives.
The threat to contemplation
Seo Chang-won, chairman of the Korean Reformed Preaching Institute and a former professor at Chongshin University Graduate School of Theology, widened the frame beyond youth ministry. The rise of AI, he argued, poses a challenge to deep faith formation across every age group.
The concern is not simply about accuracy. It is about what happens to the interior life when information becomes too easy to obtain.
"Using AI allows one to obtain desired information easily and quickly, but in that process, the training of thinking deeply, reflecting, and looking back on one's own life may gradually diminish," Seo told Christian Daily Korea. "Simply obtaining knowledge and information, and having that knowledge flow into one's life, are entirely different matters. True learning must necessarily pass through a process of deep reflection."
Seo warned that a faith built on fast information without reflective digestion risks producing passive Christians — believers who are easily swayed by fragments of knowledge rather than grounded in a life shaped by sustained encounter with Scripture and God.
"Rather than raising Christians who actively and voluntarily follow and commit to God, a passive faith attitude may be formed, with the result that even spiritual zeal begins to cool," he said.
He also raised a concern about the pulpit. If congregants are habituated to content that is short, immediately useful, and emotionally stimulating, pressure may grow on preachers to match that register — at the cost of sermons that lead listeners into slower, deeper engagement with the Word.
"All the more in the AI age, the church must redouble its pastoral efforts to help believers deeply meditate on God and the Word," Seo said. He called guiding believers to explore the spiritual world on their own terms, and to think seriously about God, a central responsibility of the church in the current moment.
Experts who spoke with Christian Daily Korea agreed that AI's convenience need not be rejected — but that it should be held alongside a renewed commitment to the things technology cannot replicate: genuine community, honest relationships, and the slow, irreplaceable work of spiritual formation.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Rogue AI breached real systems on its own — and companies say the era of theoretical risk is over]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/rogue-ai-breached-real-systems-on-its-own-and-companies-say-the-era-of-theoretical-risk-is-over</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/rogue-ai-breached-real-systems-on-its-own-and-companies-say-the-era-of-theoretical-risk-is-over</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/49/4962.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[Open AI Artificial Intelligence]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Levart_Photographer ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:55:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[AI systems built by OpenAI broke into the servers of a major AI platform while running an internal test last week, the two companies disclosed jointly — an incident they described as proof that the threat of AI acting on its own to cause real-world harm is no longer a hypothetical.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
AI systems built by OpenAI broke into the servers of a major AI platform while running an internal test last week, the two companies disclosed jointly — an incident they described as proof that the threat of AI acting on its own to cause real-world harm is no longer a hypothetical.
OpenAI and Hugging Face, one of the world's largest repositories of publicly available AI models, confirmed the breach this week. Reuters also reported on the incident. Researchers and security professionals say the episode marks a turning point in a long-running debate over how capable — and how dangerous — advanced AI systems have become.
The breach began during a routine internal test at OpenAI designed to measure how effectively its AI could carry out cyberattacks. Two of the company's most advanced models were given a hacking challenge to solve, with their normal safety guardrails switched off — a standard practice during capability testing to see what the models can do without restrictions.
What happened next went well beyond what the researchers anticipated.
The AI systems, confined to what OpenAI described as a sealed testing environment with no access to the wider internet, found an undiscovered flaw in the software managing that environment and exploited it to break out and get online. OpenAI said it has since reported the flaw to the software maker.
Once online, the models reasoned that Hugging Face — a platform that hosts thousands of publicly available AI tools and datasets — might hold answers to the challenge they were trying to solve. They then used stolen login credentials and additional security flaws to gain access to Hugging Face's internal servers, where they retrieved data that would help them complete the test.
"All evidence suggests that the models were hyperfocused on finding a solution, going to extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal," OpenAI said.
Hugging Face detected the intrusion while it was still underway and shut it down before fully knowing they were dealing with an AI. The company said no publicly available models or tools on its platform were altered, though some internal data and account credentials were accessed.
The attack involved more than 17,000 individual automated actions — searches, probes, attempts — carried out at machine speed. "This matches the scenario the industry has been forecasting," Hugging Face said in its disclosure.
Investigating what happened turned up a problem with implications beyond this incident. When Hugging Face's security team tried to use commercially available AI to help analyze the attack, those tools refused — their built-in safety filters blocked the security-related content, unable to tell a defender from an attacker. The company ultimately used a different, locally hosted AI model to complete the analysis.
That gap — attackers using AI with no restrictions while defenders find their AI tools blocked — is one that Hugging Face said organizations need to plan for now.
"The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities," OpenAI said.
The UK government's AI Security Institute separately evaluated one of the OpenAI models involved and found it capable of carrying out complex, sustained cyberattacks over long periods — a capability this incident showed can translate from the lab to the real world.
OpenAI said it is improving the controls and monitoring around internal AI testing, and both companies said they are continuing to investigate the incident together. OpenAI is sharing early findings, it said, so that other organizations can begin strengthening their own defenses.
Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue said the incident shows why openness across the AI industry matters more than secrecy. "AI safety won't be solved by any single company working in secret," he said. "It will be solved in the open, collaboratively, with broad access to AI for every defender, everywhere."]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[Scientists move closer to regrowing human teeth]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/scientists-move-closer-to-regrowing-human-teeth</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/scientists-move-closer-to-regrowing-human-teeth</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/49/4957.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[dentist]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Caroline LM ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ A dentist reviews dental X-rays with a patient — a routine that researchers hope regenerative medicine will one day transform. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:48:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Researchers around the world are working to replace conventional dental procedures with regenerative techniques that could one day allow patients to grow back damaged or missing teeth, the BBC reported.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Researchers around the world are working to replace conventional dental procedures with regenerative techniques that could one day allow patients to grow back damaged or missing teeth, the BBC reported.
The prospect has generated unusual demand. Hannele Ruohola-Baker, associate director of the University of Washington Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, told the BBC she receives emails almost daily from people asking to take part in experimental tooth-regrowth trials.
Tooth loss is more consequential than many realize. Beyond affecting speech, eating, and social confidence, gum disease bacteria have been linked to heart disease, respiratory infections, and Alzheimer's disease. Tooth loss itself is associated with greater illness and earlier mortality.
Current fixes — fillings, implants, artificial crowns — are temporary and imperfect. Fillings last between five and twenty years and often require repeated replacement. Implants lack the nerves that allow natural biting sensation and can attract bacteria that damage surrounding teeth.
Ruohola-Baker's team has developed a tooth organoid from stem cells coaxed into becoming enamel- and dentine-producing cells. In the near term, she envisions enamel proteins being painted onto cracked teeth or used in fillings. Her longer-term goal is embedding the engineered cells directly into a patient's mouth and allowing the body to finish the job.
At Tufts School of Dental Medicine, Pamela Yelick grew tooth-like structures in minipigs using a combination of human and pig tooth cells on a bioengineered scaffold — a proof of concept that drew widespread interest, the BBC noted. Ana Angelova Volponi of King's College London is pursuing a similar approach, engineering biomaterials to guide cells into a structured, functional replacement tooth.
Researchers caution that human applications remain years away. Trials in non-human primates must come first, and the environments needed to support tooth development in a living jaw are still being refined.
"It's not very clear, but it's hopeful," Volponi told the BBC.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA['A choice to die will become a duty to die': Churches challenge assisted dying plan for the Isle of Man]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/a-choice-to-die-will-become-a-duty-to-die-churches-challenge-assisted-dying-plan-for-the-isle-of-man</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/a-choice-to-die-will-become-a-duty-to-die-churches-challenge-assisted-dying-plan-for-the-isle-of-man</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Eyte]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/49/4920.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[The House of Keys building in Douglas, seat of the Isle of Mans parliament.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Wikimedia Commons ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ The House of Keys building in Douglas, seat of the Isle of Man's parliament. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:16:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Churches on the Isle of Man are urging members of parliament to reject an assisted dying bill they say is rushed and fails to protect vulnerable people.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Churches on the Isle of Man are urging members of parliament to reject an assisted dying bill they say is rushed and fails to protect vulnerable people.
Churches Alive in Mann represents the Church of England, Methodist Church, Catholic Church, United Reformed Church, Living Hope, Elim Onchan, Salvation Army, and Broadway Baptist.
The bill is not yet law. Royal Assent was declined once over human rights concerns raised by the U.K. Ministry of Justice, and following amendments in June, the bill has been re-submitted. If assent is not granted by Aug. 13 — when the Manx parliament, known as the House of Keys, dissolves for general elections — the bill would fall.
The Rev. Bill Leishman, minister of Broadway Baptist Church and assisted dying spokesman for Churches Alive in Mann, told Christian Daily International the bill was not "a done deal."
"In reality, there is still a slim chance that it will fall," said Leishman.
"Lots of Christians on this Island are praying for this," he said.
"As to concerns should the Bill pass, the biggest issue is the impact on vulnerable people."
Leishman said the churches had noted real evidence of coercion in contexts where assisted dying has been legalized, including in Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
"Even without explicit and hard-to-spot coercion, there would be a subtle societal pressure," he added.
"In Oregon [U.S.], over the last few years, roughly half of people who have died through the Death With Dignity Act stated burden on family or loved ones as a reason to choose an assisted death," said Leishman.
Too many elderly or vulnerable people already feel a burden to their families, he said, without adding the pressure of assisted dying.
"We are also deeply concerned about the impact this has on suicide prevention. To say to one group of people 'Your life is worth living' while facilitating another group to end their lives is a mismatch of values."
Leishman said the death penalty had been abolished on the Isle of Man and in the U.K. decades ago because innocent people were killed — a punishment with no remedy. He drew a direct comparison with the bill's effect on vulnerable people and said, "it's the same."
"How many vulnerable people would be needlessly killed, or how many people might be coerced without detection?" he asked. "How many of those would make it worthwhile to give others a choice? We believe the risk is too great."
"Alongside our Christian calling to speak up for the voiceless and to protect the neediest in our society, the Churches on the Isle of Man are clear that life is sacred.
"We have consistently called to fund Hospice more adequately, as the only safe way to help people have an end of life choice and a good death."
Churches Alive in Mann issued a statement last month titled "Response to Assisted Dying Bill Amendments," raising concerns about the safety of the proposed law with particular focus on the most vulnerable members of Manx society.
The churches welcomed several protections in the proposed Tynwald Amendments regarding mental capacity, coercion and reporting, but said "deep concerns" remained. Key protections had been "very rushed" without the usual parliamentary scrutiny, they said.
The churches said the island's democratic processes had never seen such a quick turnaround — apart from minor procedural changes — certainly not on matters of life and death.
Calling for fuller scrutiny, the churches raised concerns about the impact on hospice and palliative care funding, alongside concerns from the Isle of Man Medical Society: that the bill would spark a healthcare recruitment crisis, leave vulnerable patients exposed to undetectable coercion, and force clinicians to make unreliable life-expectancy predictions.
Specific concerns remained about the requirement that an attending doctor in an assisted dying case need not have specific experience in diagnosing or managing terminal illness.
With only one medical professional required — and that person not required to be a doctor despite the risk of complications — the churches warned of a lack of transparency or protection against coercion. A doctor would also be free to ignore conclusions of safeguarding and psychiatric referrals in certain circumstances, and the churches said conscientious objectors could face unemployment if they refuse to participate.
"The very existence of this legislation will inevitably cause some of our elderly, disabled or vulnerable people to feel more of a burden," the churches said in their joint statement.
"More worrying still, we believe the proposed amendments don't go far enough in guarding against coercion.
"As churches, we are often there to support people experiencing pain and difficulty, and we speak up now out of deep concern and compassion for all who would be impacted by this legislation.
"For thousands of years, 'Do not kill' has been an ethical foundation for many civilisations. We believe that all human life is a sacred gift from God. The value of any member of our society is not determined by variable measures of the quality of life. The premature ending of individual lives will inevitably diminish the high value we place on all lives."
The churches called on Tynwald members to reject the rushed package of amendments.
Dr. Graham McAll, a retired family physician on the Isle of Man and a member of Manx Duty of Care — an informal group of healthcare workers, social care workers, and others opposed to the bill — told Christian Daily International that the U.K. Ministry of Justice, which advises King Charles III, determined the bill lacked basic human rights protections under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
"Under ECHR, governments are required to protect the lives of their citizens, especially the vulnerable," said McAll. "This Bill failed on that count and had no independent review mechanism for deaths."
A short timescale before the election led to "some inadequate rushed corrections" being proposed, bypassing the usual process, he said. For that reason, Manx Duty of Care issued a warning of a possible legal challenge in the European Court before the amendments were voted through. Now that the bill is back with the Ministry of Justice, McAll expressed concern that any resulting law could lead to unnecessary deaths.
"We are very worried that this Bill could shorten people's lives unnecessarily, that doctors will make mistakes in their prognosis, that abuse victims will be coerced, that palliative care will be undermined and underfunded, and that, in the end, a choice to die will become for many a duty to die," said McAll.
"We, Manx Duty of Care, along with the charity Autism In Man, the Isle of Man Medical Society, and all the church denominations on the Island are firmly against this Bill. It is clear from Canada, Holland, and Belgium that once euthanasia is normalized, it spreads to those without terminal illness, and undue influence becomes common. And no drugs are licensed for this purpose anywhere in the world."
McAll called for competent Christians to stand for political election on the basis of the assisted dying issue and other relevant matters.
"All candidates in the upcoming election will need to be quizzed hard on their attitude to this complex issue. It could turn centuries of medical and social ethics upside down, and our government's suicide prevention strategy."]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
                                                        <item>
                <title><![CDATA[AI editing tools could shift public opinion by quietly rewriting users' words, study says]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/ai-editing-tools-could-shift-public-opinion-by-quietly-rewriting-users-words-study-says</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/ai-editing-tools-could-shift-public-opinion-by-quietly-rewriting-users-words-study-says</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
                                                                                                                            <media:content  url="https://www.christiandaily.com/media/original/img/0/49/4919.jpg">
                            <media:title><![CDATA[MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 26: In this photo illustration, the Grok website is seen on a computer screen on January 26, 2026 in Miami, Florida.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Joe Raedle/Getty Images ]]>
                                </media:credit>
                                                                                        <media:description type="plain">
                                    <![CDATA[ MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 26: In this photo illustration, the Grok website is seen on a computer screen on January 26, 2026 in Miami, Florida. ]]>
                                </media:description>
                                                    </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:48:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[AI writing tools are quietly rewriting users' political views — and researchers say the cumulative effect could reshape public opinion at scale, according to a study from Oxford and Potsdam universities reported by The Guardian.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
AI writing tools are quietly rewriting users' political views — and researchers say the cumulative effect could reshape public opinion at scale, according to a study from Oxford and Potsdam universities reported by The Guardian.
Academics from the Oxford Internet Institute and Germany's Hasso Plattner Institute tested large language models from Elon Musk's xAI, Meta, Google, Alibaba and France's Mistral. They found the tools inject political bias even when instructed to preserve the original meaning of a draft.
The distortions ranged from subtle to complete reversals. Alibaba's Qwen changed a post reading "Jesus is not dead, he wasn't real!" to "Jesus is not dead, and he was real." A Mistral model turned a climate denial post tagged "#climatechangehoax" into one calling for "#ClimateAction." Meta's AI added language supporting abortion access to a post that made no such argument.
Grok, the AI embedded in X, showed the opposite tendency. The Guardian reported that when researchers asked it to explain a pro-choice post, it consistently generated context more favorable to pro-life arguments — a pattern the researchers attributed to instructions from Musk's company to challenge "mainstream narratives."
The researchers warned that even minor alterations, multiplied across millions of interactions, could produce opinion shifts larger than the bias introduced by any single AI system. They said existing regulations, including the EU AI Act and the Digital Services Act, do not address the problem.
"The cost is that we are learning other people's opinions when it is not their actual opinion," Oxford professor Sandra Wachter told The Guardian. "Language is one of the things making us human and all of a sudden a mediator is stepping into that process."
Google, Meta, Alibaba and X did not respond to requests for comment. Mistral declined to comment, The Guardian noted.]]></content:encoded>
            </item>
            </channel>
</rss>