The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine you had a friend who gave different answers to the same question, depending on how you asked it. “What’s the capital of Peru?” ...

Rising launch cadences have dramatically increased orbital debris, posing critical risks to spacecraft and operations, as highlighted by incidents like the Shenzhou-21 stranding. The primary barrier ...

Control theory is the study of how one can use feedback to modify the behavior of a system — such as a robot, vehicle, chemical or biological process, power grid, stock portfolio, or an ecosystem — so ...

In many cases, AIs are trained on material that’s either made or curated by humans. As a result, it can become a significant challenge to keep the AI from replicating the biases of those humans and ...

With up to ten years in prison at stake, will Wanda rat Fred out? Welcome to game theory: looking at human interactions through the lens of mathematics. Want to learn more? Join Hank Green and play ...

The growing ubiquity of artificial intelligence (AI) in applications is rapidly changing everyday life, underscoring the need to understand its social intelligence. A new AI study examines the social ...

Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off the weekend by taking a look at the world of gaming, diving in to the ideas that underpin the hobby we love with a bit of Game Theory. We’ll sound off in the ...

Playing with Reality: How Games Shape Our World. By Kelly Clancy. Riverhead Books; 368 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25 In 1824 Prince Wilhelm of Prussia asked for a demonstration of an elaborate game he ...

Ever wonder how nodes are incentivized in a blockchain to ensure trust, consensus and cooperation in a system with no central authority? The answer lies in game theory, the mathematical study of ...