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John Thornhill

John Thornhill

Financial Times

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Trump is becoming the technoking of America

The president is surrounded by the leaders of the richest and most powerful companies in history — but their dominance may yet be checked

24.01.2025 10

Financial Times

John Thornhill

A lesson for oligarchs: politics can be deadly

The emergence of a powerful tech elite close to Donald Trump has jarring echoes with Russia

16.01.2025 10

Financial Times

John Thornhill

‘Superintelligence’ will take time to generate super returns

Artificial general intelligence may be transformational but it carries risks and demands investors’ patience

09.01.2025 10

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Can France become a global AI powerhouse?

Momentum has been slowing but the country boasts enviable technical skills and a burgeoning entrepreurial culture

02.01.2025 3

Financial Times

John Thornhill

AI is the frenemy of freedom

An optimistic view of the technology sees the possibility of it offering humans ‘superagency’ rather than as a threat

12.12.2024 5

Financial Times

John Thornhill

The future of AI agents: highly lucrative but surprisingly boring

Big companies are trumpeting the value of consumer-facing personal digital helpers to make our lives easier

05.12.2024 4

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Silicon Valley billionaires remain in thrall to the cult of the geek

IQ hierarchies are a dangerous myth

28.11.2024 10

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Europe Inc needs to scale up or risk becoming a museum

Helsinki shows how reinvigoration can work but co-ordinated help for entrepreneurs across the continent is needed

21.11.2024 5

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Genetic data is worth more than warm spit

The woes of 23andMe highlight consumer concern over privacy issues

14.11.2024 4

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Cyber security companies are thriving — even when they fail

This may be the ultimate industry for providing very lucrative but ineffective solutions

31.10.2024 6

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Corporate wizards out-magic the muggles

Sectors like semiconductors and AI can reshape — or, in some cases, conjure up entirely new — markets

24.10.2024 2

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Will AI ‘compress’ the 21st century?

Several of the top AI leaders are now tamping down the fear factor and turning up the volume on hope and hype

17.10.2024 5

Financial Times

John Thornhill

The conflicted investment case for defence tech

There’s a bull market for the fast-changing sector but investing and innovating in weapons carries risks

03.10.2024 5

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Can machines be more ‘truthful’ than humans?

A new film based on the life of Brian Eno raises some profound questions about the disruptive effects of AI

26.09.2024 5

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Failure is a feature, not a bug, of dynamic business

Not everyone learns from things going wrong but progress depends upon it

12.09.2024 2

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Why Europe needs its own Nasdaq

The EU has to tackle the drain of valuable tech companies to US capital markets

05.09.2024 3

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Pavel Durov and the limits of free speech

Telegram has failed to distinguish between the demands of autocratic regimes and legitimate democratic requests

29.08.2024 10

Financial Times

John Thornhill

What an epic 18th-century scientific row teaches us today

The rivalry between Buffon and Linnaeus has lessons about disrupters and exploitation

22.08.2024 10

Financial Times

John Thornhill

US military-civil fusion creates risks as well as rewards

Venture capital investors and high-tech start-ups are discovering an appetite for the defence sector

19.08.2024 2

Financial Times

John Thornhill

In branding Google a monopoly, Judge Mehta opens the door for change

The ruling in the antitrust case against the tech group will reverberate throughout the global digital economy

08.08.2024 3

Financial Times

John Thornhill

What generative AI can learn from the primordial swamp

Synthetic data risks ‘model collapse’ but may spur renewed interest in robotics

01.08.2024 5

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Start-ups like Wiz will have to learn the art of living longer

The decision of the Israeli-founded cyber security company and Google to call off their match has lessons for the tech sector

25.07.2024 7

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Digital paralysis shows the dangers of e-globalisation

Rather than anything more malicious, the trigger for the cyber failure seems to have been a prosaic software update

19.07.2024 2

Financial Times

John Thornhill

Can the returns from Big Tech’s staggering capex live up to the hype?

Investors will expect stratospheric rewards from the extraordinary surge in investment

18.07.2024 20

Financial Times

John Thornhill