It might not look like it, but Queretaro is fast becoming Mexico’s data centre hub.

The state plays host to 12 data centres, some owned and operated by the world’s biggest tech companies.

Homemaker Rita Zeferino lives in Mexico’s semi-desert state of Querétaro, where a data centre boom promoted by the government has left residents facing strict water rationing and power cuts.

The state is prone to drought, and residents say the needs of data centres are worsening water shortages and straining the electricity grid.

I’ve been watching the public conversation about AI evolve since I was a young science fiction fan in the 1970s, and in recent years I’ve noticed a fascinating shift in what keeps people up at night.

In 2014, when Nick Bostrom published his book Superintelligence, everyone’s first reaction to artificial general intelligence, or AGI, was pure Terminator panic — “Isn’t it going to kill everyone?”

A great idea in theory, recycling is a pain in practice – a dirty job that relies on people to sift plastics from glass, sort soggy paper from rotten vegetables and root out hazardous items before they get tipped into fast-filling dumps.

Now artificial intelligence (AI) is here promising help, bringing potentially the biggest shakeup of the trash industry in decades.

Businesses worldwide are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence but are failing to identify and mitigate its risks to society and the environment, according to a report by the AI Company Data Initiative, the world’s largest dataset on corporate adoption of machine learning.

The November report reviews publicly available data on AI policy and adoption in more than 1,000 companies across North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, spanning 13 different sectors.

Albania’s new public procurement minister, an AI-generated bot named Diella, may be impervious to bribes and political pressure but experts doubt the world’s first virtual cabinet member will be immune to mistakes or manipulation.

“This is huge and it could actually set a precedent,” Bojana Zorić, a policy analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies told Context.

Philosopher A.C. Grayling says anti-discrimination campaigners should reclaim the word ‘woke’ from extremists who willfully stoke divisions in society for their own political gain.

Polarisation – over touchstone issues from climate change to choice of gender – is nothing new, said Grayling, just part of a long-running cycle of progress followed by pushback that began post-war with the civil rights and feminist movements.

Where the Amazon rainforest meets the Atlantic Ocean, the Brazilian river island of Marajó is losing ground against sea-level rise as coastal erosion destroys the rich mangrove forests that act as its natural buffers.

Resembling upside-down tree roots, the tangled mangrove branches that extend into the water and provide a habitat for fish and crabs have been under increasing threat.

AI is only in its infancy but could rapidly exacerbate the noxious side-effects of social media if left unchecked, with children particularly vulnerable, said the French president’s special envoy for AI.

Be it eradicating self-esteem or prompting suicidal thoughts – social media has been widely blamed for worsening many of the stresses of modern life, with young users among its top victims.