Maria Corina Machado’s absence does not mean they will fail

Firms tasked with defusing credit crises are getting into trouble

Also on the daily podcast: is America still lovin’ burgers and 15 hours of Wagner

Scientists are trying to figure out whether algorithms could one day wake up and feel

Even if they don’t, they might be treated as such—to humanity’s great cost

But a new superintelligence may be coming, and it would upend humanity’s hierarchy of moral concern, thinks Susan Schneider

Some experts believe computers will need biological aspects to become self-aware

Yuval Noah Harari is a big-ideas guy. He’s known for penning tomes that tackle broad sweeps of history. (They reach big audiences, too. Sapiens, Mr Harari’s most popular book, has sold 25m copies.) The historian-cum-philosopher has now turned his attention…

Whatever the company’s flaws, its critics have taken a worryingly illiberal turn

The WNBA has become a culture-war battleground

Beyond America, the company risks becoming a victim of its own hype

We don’t care for others because they’re conscious. We believe they’re conscious because we care about them, argues Blaise Agüera y Arcas

New venues are inspired by a century-old tradition

Charles Lennox and James Wilson, a pair of Britons, played important roles in the struggle for independence

A Rorschach test with a side of meatballs

It wants more cash for its data—and more of people’s time

“The Renoir Girls” uses a bright canvas to sketch a sombre history

From tokenmaxxing to something more normal

How the British summer holidays offer the worst of all worlds

The poet and translator of “The Cantos” died on July 24th, aged 101