Our writer found a surprisingly effective way to cut down his smartphone use. Plus, what to eat while watching the World Cup - inspired by all 48 teams Don't get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereI recently learned through Apple's Screen Time app that I was spending about eight hours a week on my phone browsing Reddit and Instagram. That's 17.3 days a year spent consuming entertaining but ultimately pointless fluff. So my piece looking for solutions for phone addicts was highly personal.The warning signs are if your phone is the first thing you look at in the morning and the last thing you look at in bed, says Prof Marcantonio Spada, emeritus professor of addictive behaviours and mental health at London South Bank University and chief clinical officer at Onebright, who I spoke to for my article. Continue reading...
In response to AI's hyperrealism, artists and creatives are gravitating toward the homespun and imperfectEarlier this year, a group of film-makers, commercial directors and AI industry influencers gathered in New York City for the Runway AI Summit - a daylong hype-fest, trumping up the potential of this new technology. During one talk, Rob Wrubel, co-founder and managing partner at San Francisco ad firm Silverside, talked up his work on the Coca-Cola company's AI-generated 2025 Holiday Caravan ad. What's incredible about AI," Wrubel said, is that you can go from script to production is just two weeks!"What Wrubel failed to mention was that the ad - with its computerized polar bears and fake-looking trundling delivery trucks - was widely despised by pretty much anyone who saw it. Indeed, the public distaste for the campaign became its own news story, spawning headlines like People really don't like Coke's AI holiday commercial" and Coca-Cola's New AI Holiday Ad is a Sloppy Eyesore". It may indeed have been quickly conceived - and it looked like it. Reached for comment about the backlash, Wrubel admits: The conversation around the ad became almost as important as the ad itself because it surfaced questions the entire creative industry is wrestling with right now." Continue reading...
by Oliver Milman with data visuals by Andrew Withersp on (#765EX)
Guardian analysis finds facilities to be built in some of the driest areas as outcry grows over water needed to power AIA record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found.About two-thirds of upcoming datacenters, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year. Continue reading...
Released just before the World Cup kicks off, this upstart football game is positioning itself as a credible alternative to EA Sports FCThis month something extremely unusual happened in the video game world: someone launched a new football game. It used to be that the market could support a vast array of contenders, from arcade kickabouts such as Super Sidekicks and Hat Trick Hero, to serious simulations named Actua Soccer or This Is Football, to eccentric oddities such as Namco's LiberoGrande which made you experience the whole match as a single onfield player.For the past decade plus, however, the scene has been dominated EA's Fifa series, now EA Sports FC. With the exception of Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer, now eFootball, there have been few competitors - and few plucky upstarts. Continue reading...
by Nathan E Sanders and Bruce Schneier on (#765G1)
While we do not outright oppose the taking of AI company stock, or of a US a sovereign wealth fund, there are better ways to achieve the senator's goalsLet no one accuse Bernie Sanders of ducking the big questions. Writing in the New York Times last week, the senator asked: Will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of billionaires who have promoted and developed AI, with virtually no democratic input, who stand to become even richer and more powerful than they are today?"We agree entirely that this is one of the most potent questions facing global democracy today. Our book, Rewiring Democracy, surveys the emerging uses for and impacts of AI in democracy around the world and reaches the same conclusion: that the most urgent risk posed by AI is the concentration of power, wealth and control among tech oligarchs. Continue reading...
Insurer found 18,400 suspect claims last year with some scammers using AI to fake accident scenes and documentsBogus insurance claims worth more than 230m were detected by the insurance firm Aviva last year as scammers tried new tricks including using artificial intelligence to fake car accident scenes, documents and to exaggerate damage.The insurer identified more than 18,400 suspect claims across its brands in 2025, with a combined value of 233m. The fraud claims level was a record for the insurer, although this was the first year that it included the Direct Line brands it acquired last summer. Continue reading...
Meta's former head of global affairs says executives pivoted right in some cases for rather more self-interested' reasonsSilicon Valley companies including Meta have decided to embrace Maga politics, some for rather more self-interested" reasons, the former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has said.Clegg, who spent nearly seven years at Meta as the head of global affairs, told The Rest is Money podcast that it felt like a very good time for me to move on" when he left the company in March 2025, three months into the second Trump administration. Continue reading...
90s PlayStation fans, rejoice: California studio Toys for Bob is making Spyro: Realms Beyond, intended to inspire love, joy and laughter'As the gaming mascots of millennial childhood have been resuscitated one by one for a nostalgic audience, one has remained notably absent: 1990s PlayStation hero Spyro. A new game starring the purple dragon was announced at tonight's Xbox Game Showcase - the first original title since 2008. Called Spyro: A Realm Beyond, it is being developed by studio Toys for Bob in California and will be released in spring 2027 on Xbox, PlayStation 5, PC and Nintendo Switch 2.It features a freshly redesigned Spyro with his trademark quiff, voiced by Tom Kenny, the original star of the games. Unlike in the original Spyro titles, players will be able to take flight at any time. [We're] leaning into the true capabilities of being a dragon," explains creative director Lou Studdert. It's really engaging ... the player is making decisions how they fly. They are diving down to sustain speed. They are using fire-breath to light campfires, to create an updraft to get lift before flapping their wings." Continue reading...
by Dan Milmo and Aisha Down. Graphics by Ana Lucía G on (#764ZD)
Expenditure is growing fast and consumer take-up accelerating. But alarm bells are soundingThe race is very much on. Elon Musk's SpaceX, which makes AI models as well as space rockets, announced last week it is seeking a $1.77tn (1.31tn) valuation on the US stock market while Anthropic, the startup behind the Claude chatbot, said it had filed for an initial public offering. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is expected to follow.This latest peak in the AI market comes amid a multitrillion-dollar spending spree on related infrastructure such as datacentres. Meanwhile, companies are attempting to deploy the technology in a way that makes investing in it worthwhile. Here's a look at what stage the AI boom is at and six key charts that tell us how we got here. Continue reading...
Backlash against AI is taking an extremist turn, following in the footsteps of earlier techno-pessimist militantsWhen a 20-year-old man from Texas was arrested earlier this year for allegedly trying to burn down OpenAI's headquarters and Sam Altman's house, authorities found an anti-AI manifesto alongside his lighter and a jug of kerosene. It was one of a spate of attacks that has caused alarm among researchers, the tech industry and law enforcement about the rise of anti-tech extremism.In April, an Italian nature pilled" Instagram influencer was arrested in Rome and charged with plotting a series of anti-tech attacks that took inspiration from Ted The Unabomber" Kaczynski. Two self-described ecofascists" that carried out a deadly anti-Muslim attack on a mosque in San Diego last month also cited AI slop" and JD Vance's ties to Palantir as motivations for their violence in their manifesto. An Indianapolis city councilor woke up earlier this year to gunshots being fired into his home before finding a note that read NO DATA CENTERS". Continue reading...
Buyers are ripped off after assuming online stores were genuine because they are recommended by an AI toolYou want to buy a new bag and so you ask ChatGPT for help. You have always liked Russell & Bromley so you ask ChatGPT what is popular there at the moment.The artificial intelligence (AI) assistant gives you cross body, shoulder, casual and formal options with the prices listed beside them. You click through from the sources to what looks like the official Russell & Bromley site and buy your new bag, which is conveniently on sale. Continue reading...
Plan backed by Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary had footprint reduced but concerns remain over its health impactsUtah residents have teamed up with a progressive non-profit organization to sue over an under-development AI datacenter backed by celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary, claiming the planned Stratos project facility irrevocably" cuts off citizens' rights by not allowing sufficient public input.Filed by the Alliance for a Better Utah and five unnamed residents of the Box Elder county area where the center is being developed, the lawsuit comes as Shark Tank co-host O'Leary agreed to scale back the physical footprint for the project. Continue reading...
Kristen Gonzalez, a state senator who authored the bill, said moratorium would target hyperscale' datacenters over 20MWNew York moved closer toward becoming the first US state to enact a moratorium on large datacenters this week. On Thursday, the state legislature approved a one-year ban on the facilities powering the AI boom.The measure now heads to Kathy Hochul, the governor, who will decide whether to sign it into law. The Guardian spoke to a state senator in the wake of the historic vote about authoring the bill and the wider US backlash against datacenters. Continue reading...
Technology secretary promises to support people whose jobs are swept away by automationLiz Kendall has insisted Labour will make artificial intelligence work for workers", and not abandon people whose jobs are swept away by its rapid advance.With public fears mounting about the impact of AI on employment, particularly for young people, the technology secretary claimed that the government could shape the way it is adopted. Continue reading...
US firm says it will convene policymakers for discussion of dangers, in post detailing progress of its Claude modelAnthropic has floated the idea of a worldwide temporary pause" on AI development - and said it was going to convene policymakers" to discuss the dangers of advanced AI - in its latest release touting the capabilities of its products.In a long post on Thursday, Anthropic detailed the progress of its AI model, Claude, towards recursive self-improvement" - that is, being able to make better and more powerful versions of itself. Recursive self-improvement is a bugbear of AI safety researchers, viewed as the key step for AI to become superintelligent and therefore unleash widespread consequences on humanity. Continue reading...
As demand for cobalt, gold and other minerals grows, mining is accelerating deforestation in the Congo basin - and increasing the risk of deadly Ebola outbreaksFor decades after the discovery of Ebolavirus in 1976, outbreaks of the disease were relatively small and contained, affecting a few hundred people at most.Not any more. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola have been much larger, affecting thousands and even tens of thousands of people across multiple countries. The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in west Africa infected more than 28,000 people in 10 countries on three continents. The current eruption, which began in early May and shows no signs of abating, has caused 363 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has crossed into Uganda.Sonia Shah is the author of five books including Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, and writes the newsletter Cross Pollinations on Substack Continue reading...
Jess Asato's lawyer says others want to take action over demeaning sexualised material created by Grok AI toolNew claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk's company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool.A handful of complainants contacted Asato's lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of the MP's decision to sue Musk's company for damages over its creation and circulation of fake images of her in a bikini and an AI-created video that she said showed her being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault". Continue reading...
Ministers should end Palantir's contract before medical confidentiality is sacrificed to Silicon Valley's appetite for public dataAlarm bells ought to have rung when it emerged last month that Palantir engineers could gain unlimited access" to identifiable NHS patient data. Such sensitive medical information was only supposed to be available either to someone involved in a patient's care or with the patient's informed consent. NHS England's new position appears to have changed that, extending access to private companies because it may make data processing easier. Convenience is not a basis for undermining medical confidentiality.Nicola Byrne, the government's national data guardian, clearly thought the NHS had broken its promise that its 330m deal with Palantir would see identifiable patient information ... limited to NHS staff with a legitimate need". Patients tell doctors things they may tell no one else. If they think that sensitive details can be disclosed to US tech corporations, trust will suffer - and patients will say less when the truth matters most.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Deliveries in 30 minutes or less coming to Manchester and Birmingham and fresh groceries service to start in LondonAmazon is expanding fast-track deliveries in the UK, including adding fresh fruit and vegetables to same-day services, after closing its standalone grocery stores.The firm said it would expand Amazon Now, its ultra-fast delivery service that already delivers goods in less than 30 minutes to parts of London, to also serve Manchester and Birmingham this year. Continue reading...
Nothing does more for your ego than realising you can make a better decision than a bot with all of human knowledge at its digital fingertipsI am not, by nature, an early adopter. There comes a point in our lives where change becomes more irritating than exciting and, I suspect, I reached it sooner than most. But when a workplace recently tasked me with exploring practical applications for AI, I spotted an opportunity to cast off my luddite inclinations.It turned out AI was very good at mimicking most of the things I could already do. Irrespective of quality, it could churn out articles, reports, presentations, fiction, even podcasts with stammering hosts. That was no use to me. What I wanted help with was all the stuff I was useless at. There was an obvious target: DIY. Continue reading...
by Uwa Ede-Osifo, Lauren Almeida and Dan Milmo on (#763NA)
IPO could raise up to $75bn, giving SpaceX market value of $1.77tn as it sets up Musk for extraordinary wealthElon Musk's SpaceX is looking to raise $75bn (55bn) from its blockbuster stock market listing next week as the rocket company aims for the largest initial public offering ever.If the stock market launch - primed for 12 June - goes as planned, founder Musk, the world's wealthiest person, could make history as the first trillionaire. Continue reading...
Want to spend less time on your phone? We asked psychotherapists, professors and specialists for practical (and achievable) ways to cut down The best screen-free activitiesEverywhere you look, people are glued to their smartphones. If you haven't noticed this phenomenon, it's likely because you, too, are glued to the little dopamine-deliverer.In March, Meta and YouTube had to pay a combined $6m after a US court found that the tech companies' platforms were designed to be addictive. Put such tempting apps in a device that's carried everywhere, and that's a recipe for compulsive behaviour. Continue reading...
Stronger checks likely to be needed in England to safeguard reputation of GCSEs and A-levels, says Ian BauckhamCheating in exams could be magnified by the new generation of wearable hi-tech devices such as smartglasses or invisible earpieces, according to England's qualifications watchdog.Ian Bauckham, the head of the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), also revealed that GCSEs and A-level courses in England were being scrutinised over potential AI use in students' coursework, after teachers said they were struggling to detect it. Continue reading...
In 2025, the tech journalist invited artificial intelligence to do nearly everything for her, including editing the book she was writing about the experiment. Some of it was useful, some not - but it was her time with a chatbot companion that really shook herFor a year, Joanna Stern decided to turn herself into a lab rat" - the object of her own experiment. Throughout 2025, she invited artificial intelligence into every corner" of her life. She let AI answer her texts, decide what she ate and cooked, mow her lawn, fold her washing, drive her places, parse her mammograms and even, in the darkness of a burner phone, be her lover. The resulting book, IAm Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything, asks all the big questions, including: what happens when AI can do everything humans can do? And what comes after that?If anyone can produce answers, surely it's Stern. Last February, she ended a 12-year stint as a personal technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal. During her tenure, she won an Emmy for her short documentary E-Ternal: A Tech Quest to Live" Forever, which explored digital legacies, and built a reputation for product reviews that were outlandishly creative and fiendishly stringent. She once took an Apple watch jetskiing on the Hudson river to evaluate itsconnectivity. Continue reading...
Silicon Valley is fighting against AI regulation and taxation and will benefit from having political leverageSilicon Valley had a big night in California's primary election, proving that the tens of millions of dollars funding candidates across the state was money well spent. While the tech industry's preferred candidate for governor came in a scant sixth place, donations to smaller elections proved to be a successful strategy.Tech billionaires have in past months thrown their full weight into politics as the industry fights regulation and taxation, while promoting the unfettered growth of artificial intelligence. Getting the right candidates in office, especially in its home turf of California, is existential. With favorable candidates, tech companies can gain both political and regulatory leverage to maintain their dominance in business. Continue reading...
Measure in Amazon and Microsoft's backyard expected to succeed next week in blow to big tech amid AI boomSeattle's city government is on the verge of passing a year-long ban on the construction of new datacenters, the largest city yet in the US to consider such a moratorium as nationwide backlash grows.Four companies sought to build five large datacenters in areas serviced by Seattle's public utility; if approved, they would have consumed approximately a third of the city's current daily demand for electricity. Continue reading...
Consumer advocates decry Democrat Jared Polis for choosing to side with dominant corporations' over workersColorado's governor vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would have banned companies from using surveillance pricing to set workers' wages and prices for consumer goods.The measure would have been the strongest in the nation against algorithmic pricing. While Maryland became the first state to approve a law banning surveillance pricing in grocery stores in April, Colorado's proposed measure was more expansive. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Senior political correspondent on (#762R5)
Jess Asato was portrayed wearing a bikini in Grok-generated images after she criticised creation of such non-consensual picturesA Labour MP has taken legal action against Elon Musk's xAI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her, part of a wave of such images that flooded the social media platform X earlier this year.Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, said in January that seeing herself portrayed by the AI tool as wearing a bikini without her consent was violating". Continue reading...
Giving news websites the power to block their content from being used in AI summaries will have global ramificationsThe UK's competition watchdog has ordered Google to change how it uses publishers' content in its AI-powered search results, in a move that will have global ramifications.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is using powers that allow it to set bespoke rules for major tech firms that it deems to have strategic market status". Google, the world's largest search engine, is one of those companies. Continue reading...
The director defends investment in and use of AI-generated storyboards, saying the immediacy of communicating his vision to cast and crew is creatively freeing'Martin Scorsese's announcement that he has invested in an AI company and uses the technology to create storyboards has triggered a backlash from fellow members of the film industry.The New York Times reported that Scorsese had been appointed in 2025 as a partner and adviser to Black Forest Labs, a German-based venture that specialises in text-to-image generative AI. Continue reading...
The PS5 era has been in some ways disappointing for Sony - on Tuesday, the company revealed a slate of games they hope will change that Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up herePlayStation's future has looked a little uncertain these past few years. Although the PS5 has sold well and been very profitable, the brand is far from the runaway market leader it was in the PS2 days. Earlier this week, Game File dug into Sony's most recent earnings reports to illustrate how PlayStation has been selling fewer and fewer of its own flagship games since a peak during the pandemic. About 54.1m copies of games either developed or published by Sony were sold in the 2018 financial year; in 2025, it sold 32.1m.Sony has put out some great homegrown games since the PS5 was released in 2020, from Astro Bot to Ghost of Ytei, but it has also had some expensive and very public failures and cancellations; PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, who retired in 2024, placed big bets on live-service games and only a few panned out (hello, Helldivers). Sony also seems to have rolled back on releasing its single-player PS5 games on PC after a polite interval of time, suggesting it wants to preserve what advantage and exclusivity it has. Continue reading...
While the technology is set to play a growing role in modern warfare, there remains an unresolved ethical challengeShould the AI-powered drones of the future have a licence to kill? The question is becoming ever more pressing as governments and the defence industry acknowledge that drone systems will play an increasingly crucial role in future warfare.With drones being deployed in huge numbers in the Ukraine war and AI being used to assist bombing missions in the Iran conflict, there is an expectation among some observers that weapons will have to operate with increased operational autonomy, which means they will need something approximating a moral framework. Continue reading...
Breach confirmed by Meta raises concerns about how safe it is to rely on AI for key security measures such as passwordsHackers used Meta's AI-powered support chatbot to infiltrate high-profile Instagram accounts, the company confirmed on Monday, saying it had resolved the problem after researchers exposed it.The targets ranged from Barack Obama's White House account to Sephora and the US Space Force Chief Master Sergeant, according to reporting from 404 Media. Everyday users complained of similar hijackings on Reddit and X over the weekend. Continue reading...
by Nick Robins-Early and Blake Montgomery on (#7619T)
Financial stakes of AI race rise as Elon Musk's SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are slated to go public this yearAnthropic has filed confidentially for an initial public offering on the US stock market, the company announced on Monday. The AI firm makes the Claude chatbot, popular with software engineers and other business clients, and has seen a meteoric rise this year.The company did not disclose the valuation it will target on the stock market, nor did it make public other terms of the offering. The startup announced on Thursday that it had raised $65bn in funding to value the company at $965bn post-money. Anthropic was valued at $380bn in February. Continue reading...
Record-breaking box office for Backrooms and Obsession has opened the door for twentysomething YouTube creators as the industry rethinks what audiences wantAt this time last year, the idea of a wide-release feature film-maker cutting their teeth on YouTube was, if not unheard of, certainly still a niche origin story. Siblings Michael and Danny Philippou had just released Bring Her Back, the follow-up to their surprise horror hit Talk to Me, to pretty-good reviews and OK box office; clearly they would continue to work, but the slightly diminished returns didn't predict a YouTube explosion. Nor did the outright lousiness of Shelby Oaks, from longtime YouTube film critic Chris Stuckmann, when it premiered in theaters later in 2025. Generous horror-festival buzz died down as more people actually laid eyes on the movie; Stuckmann was an obvious enthusiast, and some saw promise in his first effort, but a clumsy found-footage pastiche without much emotional sense didn't seem like the next big thing, either.But in 2026, something has shifted. In January, YouTuber Markiplier self-released his adaptation of the video game Iron Lung to theaters, and it outgrossed any number of big-studio titles. Then Curry Barker, whose comedy sketches have been a YouTube fixture, unveiled his feature debut Obsession. The film, made for under a million dollars, has become the box office phenomenon of the summer so far, managing a virtually unheard-of feat when its second and third weekends actually outgrossed its first. Obsession is sharing multiplex space with Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who previously brought the spooky internet meme to life in a series of YouTube shorts. Despite being set in a series of purgatorial, sparsely furnished, fluorescent-lit liminal spaces", it was the top movie at the North American box office this weekend, poised to become the biggest-grossing movie from distributor A24 in a matter of days. Backrooms also opened to bigger numbers than any number of starrier or bigger-brand 2026 titles like Wuthering Heights, Scream 7, The Devil Wears Prada 2 or the last Pixar movie. That makes three YouTube-trained film-makers who have presided over some of this year's biggest and/or most surprising hits. With them have come countless social media posts about how YouTube, not film school, provides the real training tomorrow's directors need. Continue reading...
From Google co-founder Brin spending $82m to fight a billionaire tax to Google and Meta funding a joint Super Pac, Silicon Valley is engaged in an existential fight for its political power at homeTech billionaires have shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars ahead of the 2 June primary election in California, in an unrivaled attempt to influence who gets to run the state that Silicon Valley calls home.The industry has used a cover-all-bases approach, funding candidates and ballot measures big and small, contributing to what looks to be the most expensive primary season in California history. The goal, experts say, is to gain both political and regulatory leverage that will perpetuate dominance in business.Google co-founder Sergey Brin has spent $82m since January, more than any other donor, to fight a billionaire tax that's up for a vote on the November ballot.Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan has received more donations than any other candidate, including from top executives at Google, Amazon, Snap, LinkedIn, Reddit and Palantir.Crypto mogul Chris Larsen has funded three Super Pacs with $26m to sway campaigns across California, including giving $1m to back a primary candidate for state insurance commissioner.Google and Meta have collectively funded a Super Pac with $10m to back assembly and senate candidates in local district races across the state.Silicon Valley money is flowing toward city primaries as well as state-level ones, with tech-backed Pacs sponsoring voter guides suggesting how to vote on local tax measures. Continue reading...
Launching in the UK this month, this new pint-sized console revives the motion-controlled video game boom of the 00s - with better, safer techFor a wonderful moment in the noughties, video games became a truly universal pursuit. As I witnessed my controller-phobic aunt swing a Wii remote and nail a tennis serve, while my great-grandmother furrowed her brow over sudoku puzzles on her Nintendo DS, it seemed my long-derided hobby had finally gone mainstream. The Nintendo Wii flew off the shelves, inspiring a wave of competitors such as the Xbox Kinect camera that encouraged people to play games by moving their bodies. But the tide turned: outside of still-niche VR gaming and the odd controller-waggler on the Switch, motion-controlled gaming has barely been seen for more than a decade.Now, 20 years later, a new console is aiming to get the whole family flailing in front of the TV once again: the Nex Playground. Launching in the UK later this month, the first thing that struck me about this family-friendly device is just how tiny it is. The size of two and a half Rubik's Cubes taped together, this impressively unintrusive device swaps cumbersome controllers for camera-controlled minigames, putting you and your family directly in the game. Using a wide-angle lens and AI-powered tracking tech, the Nex Playground offers over 50 games that track players' bodies as they leap, flail and dance about the living room. It's not hard to see the appeal. Continue reading...
The roots of AI in rightwing ideology is examined in Valerie Veatch's enjoyable doc, including an array of colourful, often crazed, figuresDirector Valerie Veatch made her name with documentaries such as Love Child (about an online gaming-addicted couple whose child died of malnutrition) and Me at the Zoo (about American vlogger Cara Cunningham), films that explore the intersection of real-world subcultures and internet communities. Her latest continues in this vein, although its self-set remit is a bit broader, more urgent and germane to everyone right now: the pursuit of artificial intelligence, its dark history in eugenics and highly debatable utility today (despite the stock-market bubble pushing the value of a half-dozen companies towards the stratosphere).The thrust of the film is largely polemic, guiding the viewer towards AI-sceptical conclusions one persuasive soundbite at a time. Nevertheless, it also serves as a very useful, straightforward primer on AI history, touching on a dazzling array of colourful, often crazed figures, including Victorian British eugenicist Francis Galton, Silicon Valley founding father and overt racist William Shockley and current-day jillionaire jerk Elon Musk. Sadly, the film is not so up-to-date that it covers Musk and former friend-turned-foe Sam Altman's recent courtroom brawl, but that doesn't detract from the thrust of Veatch and her interviewees' arguments. Continue reading...
Coalition of more than 100 organisations says move could lead to more children ending up in adult detention facilitiesA coalition of more than a hundred refugee children's organisations has said controversial plans to use AI to assess the age of young asylum seekers could lead to more children wrongly ending up in adult prisons or detention centres.The warning follows a Home Office announcement on Friday of a contract to roll out AI facial age estimation technology on young asylum seekers whose age is disputed. Continue reading...
Sarah Wynn-Williams did not speak during event after lawyers warned of possible sanctions from tech firmFacebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams was forced to sit in silence on stage at an event at Hay festival, after lawyers advised her not to speak because of ongoing legal action brought by Meta.Wynn-Williams, whose bestselling memoir, Careless People, details her years working at Facebook, was due to appear in conversation with the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and academic Tim Wu. Continue reading...
by Presented by Alyx Gorman, produced by Bertin Huynh on (#760DX)
From digital twins to models sculpted' by programmers, generative AI has been popping up all over the fashion industry. When an Australian e-commerce retailer started using AI-generated models to sell products, lifestyle editor Alyx Gorman had to see if the garments were more than mere pixels.The Iconic, which sells the dress worn in this video, said in a statement: Where AI-generated imagery is used to advertise products for sale on our platform, our expectation is that it is clearly labelled and that the product itself is represented as accurately as possible for customers.'Meanwhile, Atoir, the designer, said: The Australian fashion industry is highly competitive, particularly for independent brands. We believe that when used responsibly, tools like this can help smaller businesses to operate with greater agility while still maintaining the creative standards and product integrity that matter to both the brand and the customer'
Technology | The Guardian