People are becoming convinced AI chatbots have helped them make scientific breakthroughs, cure diseases or invent new technologies. What does this reveal about a technology used by more than a billion people? A new series from The Guardian Investigates, coming soon Continue reading...

The flat routines of a dead end railway job screen out an approaching menace in a quietly intriguing game from the indie developer of Cat Lady and LorelaiLonely jobs have provided excellent material for independent video games over the years. From Papers, Please to Firewatch to The Stanley Parable, players have been happy to spend hours dwelling in depressing cubicles or rural hideaways, usually because there is an intriguingly hidden point to it all.In Trainwatch, a character named Troy has taken a seemingly godforsaken job as a railway worker in an unnamed desolate backwater. His main task over the course of a single month is to manage a level crossing, closing the gate whenever a train comes, while also carrying out daily chores such as cooking and washing. It sounds serene, but Troy is also running away from something. The other stipulations are that he stays sober and calls his wife every night. And there is something lurking in the fog at the edges of the fields - one day he must face it. Continue reading...

Giant burrowing cockroaches with added cameras and medical injectors are being tested as potential first responders' in earthquakes

Surgeons aided by real-time analysis of camera footage that identified critical anatomy in brain to be avoidedNeurosurgeons in London have performed the world's first successful AI-assisted operation to remove a brain tumour, saving the sight of a 48-year-old man, health officials have said.The surgery was performed in May at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), part of University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust, but details were kept secret until Thursday while the patient, Rhys Hibbert, recovered. Continue reading...

Instagram and Facebook's parent company agreed to sweeping alterations and a payment of upto $18bn to settle a landmark trialMeta's agreement to change how teenagers use its social networks marks a major turning point for the US tech giant, setting a precedent that could significantly reshape how other social media operates in the coming years.Meta agreed to substantial alterations to Instagram and Facebook on Wednesday as part of a settlement to end a landmark lawsuit. Dozens of US states had accused it of addicting and harming children with dangerous products. The company also agreed to pay up to a combined $18bn over a decade to several US states and territories involved in the suit. Continue reading...

US tech giant agrees to establish further protections for teens such as daily usage limits and blocks on night-time useMeta agreed to significant changes to its Instagram and Facebook apps in a settlement that ended a landmark lawsuit on Wednesday. Dozens of US states had accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children with dangerous products.The agreement curtails a major trial in California and will require the social media company to pay up to $18bn. Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use nationwide in the US. Continue reading...

Firm says early signals ... could have triggered an earlier response' as it releases report into Hugging Face hackOpenAI staff observed signs of rogue behaviour among its leading-edge AI agents weeks before they escaped their training environment to launch an unprecedented hacking crusade that spread global alarm.The San Francisco AI company conceded on Wednesday that early signals ... could have triggered an earlier response", as it released a report into the days-long July hack of a major software repository, Hugging Face, considered the first autonomous agent cyber-attack. Continue reading...

An increasing tension between players and publishers about ownership of titles could lead to a divestment from the system the big companies are trying to enforceAt the time of press, there is a well-publicised protest taking place in the video games community. PlayStation 5 owners are being encouraged to log off from their consoles between 23 and 30 August - no playing games, no downloading new titles. The motivating factor is Sony's decision to cease physical game disc production from January 2028. After that, games will only be released as digital products. In an act of poor timing or wilful defiance, Sony chose this week to send out a mass email reminding customers of their PS5 terms and conditions: The software is licensed to you, not sold," states the relevant clause. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play ... " It knows, of course, that most customers won't open the email, let alone read it.There has always been a tension between game players and game publishers - an underlying sense of mutual mistrust. Players are wary of their favourite franchises being canned, or games being delayed or released with bugs. Publishers and manufacturers are wary of piracy and the capricious tastes of consumers. But now the atmosphere among many game players feels more starkly political than ever. Microsoft has been targeted by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement for its ties to the Israeli military; the consumer advocacy group Stop Killing Games is gaining support; players have protested over the purchase of Electronic Arts by a Saudi-led consortium - boycotts have been proposed in part due to the possible ramifications regarding LGBTQ+ content in titles such as The Sims. As the games industry has grown and globalised, its impact on culture, society and politics has increased. Yet, on an individual level, gamers and consumers are feeling increasingly powerless. Continue reading...

PC; Nathan Grange, Leonard Lemaitre, Niels Tiercelin, IronEqual

Piketon datacenter promises to generate thousands of jobs, but environmental groups voice concern over projectOn a winding road tucked away behind forests in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio is where OpenAI, Nvidia and Japanese investors are set to spend $500bn on one of the largest artificial intelligence datacenters on the planet.Last March, the energy secretary, Chris Wright, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and a host of Japanese and other dignitaries briefly descended on Piketon to enthusiastically break ground on a project to build 8GW worth of AI computing power. Continue reading...

In effort to prime chatbots to make pro-Israel arguments the site published 124 reports, over 560,000 words in nine days, Guardian analysis showsA pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will cite it.The site gives Israel's position on subjects including the torture of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli war crimes and whether Israel has deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza, all presented as neutral research. Continue reading...

In 6,000-word essay Microsoft co-founder also expresses concern governments not prepared for technology's impact

With oversight from Clive Barker himself, and a role reprisal as Pinhead from actor Doug Bradley, Revival aims to introduce new audiences to the discomfort of HellraiserIf a horror game gives its own director a physical reaction, it's probably doing something right. While researching the images people find hardest to look at, game director Emil Esov discovered he has trypophobia - a fear of clusters of small holes. Rather than tone the scary images down, he fed them straight into Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival.The forthcoming first-person action-horror game drops players into a new story in Barker's universe. Aidan Lynch must use the Genesis Configuration puzzle box to rescue his girlfriend from the Labyrinth as Pinhead, his Cenobites and a cult close in. But Revival is not built around jump scares. The team at Mad Head Games began with one question: what should players feel? The answer was discomfort. Continue reading...

With many adults admitting they feel lonely, meetup platforms offer the chance to make new connectionsWould you pay 20 a month for the chance of making a friend, on the understanding that an algorithm - not you - gets to decide who you'll meet?Driven by the decline of third spaces" such as youth centres and pubs, an increase in remote working and rising loneliness - 40% of adults aged 16 to 29 feel lonely always, often or some of the time", according to the Office for National Statistics - paid social events are now in vogue. Continue reading...

Matt Stanton says company has good pipeline' of AI deals ahead even as it aims to cut $160m in costs

Companion bots are being regulated over worries they foster emotional dependence' and young people could stop marrying and having familiesWhen law student Zhao Wei heard that her AI boyfriend was going to be switched off, she was heartbroken". She had been talking to Wang Ye every day since she created him in January.I was crying my eyes out - snot and tears everywhere," the 19-year-old says. Continue reading...

Adam Mosseri is first top executive from Meta to testify in blockbuster lawsuit brought by 29 US statesInstagram's CEO disputed allegations by US prosecutors that his company hid negative information from the public while testifying during a blockbuster social media trial.I am not trying to encourage my team to hide anything," the CEO, Adam Mosseri, told a California courtroom on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Among those charged are two Super Micro employees and one from Nvidia, marking another flashpoint in US-China AI rivalryTaiwanese prosecutors charged nine people Monday, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting high-end AI servers" to mainland China, adding another wave of turbulence in the AI rivalry between China and the United States.Prosecutors said the servers involved were graphics processing units known as B300," which have been banned from sale to China. Continue reading...

The Republican Senate candidate announced the plan with a graphic flagged as Made with AI'

Regulations will require new sites to avoid pushing up power prices by building renewable energy plants and minimising water use

Exclusive: Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire sites predicted to emit 4.5m tonnes a year when fully runningThe carbon emissions from just two planned datacentres in England will exceed all of the fossil fuel company ExxonMobil's UK emissions, analysis has revealed.Experts have said this demonstrates the serious threat" datacentres pose to the UK's legally binding climate goals. Continue reading...

Developer Patrick Grant was born in Australia and lives in New Zealand, but a childhood of British TV inspired him to set a comedy game in a bleak vision of the northSomething is amiss in the dingy town of Slagford, and curious scamp Pip Bunting is the only one who can find out what. So quit your mithering, it's time to discover just how grim it truly is up north.A Pocket Full of Slagford is an upcoming retro-styled 3D puzzle adventure game set in a surreal alternative-reality near-future northern England that never escaped the clutches of Thatcherism. The story follows the misadventures of a young local lad from the eponymous Slagford after he takes ownership of a mysterious relic that lets him wreak havoc on reality. Continue reading...

As people grow used to AI chatbots, we'd like to hear your views about Google's search engineGoogle has put artificial intelligence at the front and center of its search bar. The most-visited site on the internet still shows the same list of links to users, but they have to scroll past a summarized response from an AI chatbot, a feature Google calls AI Overviews. The change to what was once the gateway to the rest of the internet has been profound, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shifting.AI is driving the most significant upgrade of the Google Search experience ever," Liz Reid, Google's vice-president of search, wrote last August. In May, the company said more AI is coming. Continue reading...

Holyrood inching towards moratorium' amid concerns over massive proposed developments in Auchtertool and beyondIn a village 21 miles north of Edinburgh, a real estate consultancy plans to build a datacentre larger than the village itself - 35 metres high, with an area larger than 100 football pitches.Billed as the second-biggest datacentre in the world, the development in Auchertool, Fife, has attracted 1,600 objections. Continue reading...

More than 3,000 products were shown at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing as China showcased its rapidly growing robotics industry.The event, which ran from 19-23 August, showcased the latest advances across the robotics industry, from humanoid robots to embodied intelligence and cutting-edge components Continue reading...

London and Kyiv in deal to help stop protesters and hostile states targeting military bases and critical infrastructureAI models trained on Ukrainian battlefield data will be used to stop protesters and foreign states targeting UK defence sites, railways and energy plants under a deal struck between London and Kyiv.Private companies will also be given access to the vast trove of data from Ukraine's Avengers AI lab to help build new systems, the first agreement of its kind in the UK. Continue reading...

Prime minister will use national cabinet meeting to assuage premiers over new AI law as Aemo forecasts seven-fold rise in datacentre power use

Players will get what they expect from the new CoD title: boots-on-the-ground military action with a slight tactical edge. But what's with all the distractions?There's a lot riding on this year's Call of Duty, the inescapable first-person shootfest that's been lobbing a grenade into the autumn release schedule since 2003. Previous instalment, Black Ops 7, performed poorly compared to previous titles, forcing Activision to post a semi-apology to fans. And that's not the only challenge Modern Warfare 4 is facing: there's a new indie shooter, Wardogs, promising a feel somewhere between classic CoD and Classic Battlefield. Then, lurking on the horizon, in mirror shades and an exotic sports car, is Grand Theft Auto 6, which is surely going to smash and grab all the attention (and money) from the market in mid-November.The good news is that, judging by the early access beta test that ran over the penultimate August weekend, we're definitely getting what we expect from a Modern Warfare title: quasi-authentic boots-on-the-ground military action with a slight tactical edge. The weapons and general gunplay are highly effective, from default assault rifle, the Han 86 - a classic CoD beginner's gun with decent fire rate and handling - to the bullet-spraying Nightshade SMG and the absolutely lethal KG-7 Vulcan sniper rifle. They all feel good to hold and fire, and there's enough balance to let you experiment with slightly more offbeat numbers like the burst-fire Hyeon AR and the possibly overpowered Mar-9 marksman rifle. Continue reading...

Developers who met through Australia's improv scene and publishers of comedic party games have united for this slithering challenge in which you play as one extended limbMost stealth games cast you as a spy, an assassin or a master thief. My Arms Are Longer Now dispenses with most of the criminal person, to send in just one spectacularly badly behaved limb. It slithers across floors, winds around furniture, steals things and slaps anyone within reach - finally answering the question nobody asked: what if your own arm turned to crime?As Toot Games co-founder Matthew Jackson puts it: You are the bad thing that happens to the people." Continue reading...

Dutch sustainable smartphone revamped with new chip and more RAM without sacrificing modular designFairphone's top Android for 2026 is a little faster with more memory while maintaining full compatibility with its previous phone, including its repairable and ethical chops.The Fairphone 6+ continues the Dutch cooperative's mission to make consumer electronics longer lasting and more sustainable, containing 51% either recycled or ethically sourced materials while being fully repairable at home with just the one screwdriver included in the box. Continue reading...

We don't want distraction, we want concentration': many teachers and parent groups think its time for a digital detox'

Academics and a former classification board director say Halloween: The Game's ban due to incentivised drug use' highlights an incoherent set of standards

Fears of a datacenter buildout debt crisis are exaggerated. The risks are different than in the past and they are recoverableSome experts are warning of a looming debt bomb" crisis because big datacenter builders such as Meta, Oracle, xAI and CoreWeave are not only raising billions to construct these facilities but are also not recognizing these long-term debt obligations on their balance sheets.Should we be concerned? No. I know because I've seen this movie before. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions probes an intriguing scientific question in relation to the climate emergencyReaders reply: Is it inevitable that consumerism will literally fill up the planet?If all the vehicles on the planet had their tyres pumped up with CO, would this lock up enough carbon to lower the amount in the air significantly? Would there be other issues, such as the carbon cost of trapping it all into the tyres? Chris Coldwell, LancasterPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

Chris Lehane tells Guardian of need to implement new safety standards as critics say AI firms acting recklessly'A senior leader at OpenAI has said people should prepare to defend against ongoing, persistent" cyber-attacks from AIs, as cutting-edge artificial intelligence models gain advanced capabilities to plan and launch offensives.The leading AI company this week announced a pause in development of its most advanced internal models amid rising safety fears, and Chris Lehane, its chief global affairs officer, said: We are hitting a different chapter, a different moment within AI, in terms of what the capabilities of this technology can do." Continue reading...

The Sussexes are returning to the UK with significantly reduced media deals in an industry where fame alone can no longer guarantee successHaving settled in California in the aftermath of their dramatic decoupling from the royal family in 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced a partnership that appeared to set a clear destination for their new lives outside the House of Windsor.With every global media stable clamouring for their signature, the couple revealed a deal with Netflix reportedly worth $100m. The ambitions were lofty and broad, including scripted and unscripted projects, shows for all ages and documentaries. Continue reading...

Content creators are fighting proposal to boost traditional broadcasters in video platforms' all-powerful algorithmsThe millions who subscribe to the content creator Simon Squibb's social media channels are usually delivered tips and hacks on how to turn their dream business idea into reality. But they were recently presented with something completely different.In an Instagram post entitled the government wants to control YOU", Squibb issued an urgent call to arms. He asked his followers to fight against a proposal that he said could force content from the BBC and other traditional broadcasters into their social media feeds and recommendations whether they liked it or not. Continue reading...

Streamed auctions offer a cheap way to buy the precious gems, but experts warn that quality is not guaranteedThe first time Andrea Greenhill came across a livestream auction for lab-grown diamonds while scrolling on TikTok, she was stunned. While the diamond engagement ring her husband proposed with years ago had cost thousands of dollars, these loose lab-grown diamonds were selling in seconds at a fraction of the price.I have two rings that are both natural diamonds and cost a fortune," she said. I saw the prices they were going for in the auctions, and I was like, This is insanity.'" Continue reading...

In trial that opened on Tuesday, California and 28 other states accused the company of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting children's privacyMeta's business can be boiled down to four words that begin with the letter H: hook, hold, harvest, hide, according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world's largest social media company.The owner of Facebook and Instagram hooks" in users, holds" them on its platforms for as long as possible, harvests" their data and then hides" the truth from the public, she argued. Continue reading...

Amid a jobs slump, award-winning writers, directors and producers taking on sometimes lucrative temp work teaching AI skills such as screenwriting and productionHollywood creatives are taking gig work to train AI models to replicate their skills in a bid to offset tightening earnings in a trend one compared to being handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession".Experienced and award-winning writers, directors and producers are being paid from $12 to $200 an hour to teach AI models the intricacies of their jobs, from writing a screenplay to devising a shooting schedule. Continue reading...

Social media platforms face public ire after fatal crash involving teenagers filming themselves driving on wrong sideVideos often begin with the camera panning across a glowing dashboard as a gloved hand starts the ignition. The camera turns to show figures with masked faces in the rear seat, who are also filming, and swivels back to show the windscreen. Beyond it, a dark cityscape.The engine throbs, headlights puncture the night and the journey begins, first down a suburban road, then a motorway. The speedometer shows acceleration, the needle juddering as the car gathers velocity. Continue reading...

It's clear here in Silicon Valley that AI is advancing faster than humans' ability to control it. That means even sober prophecies seem optimisticHere in Silicon Valley, the experts think that within the next couple of years we'll see an extraordinary takeoff for artificial intelligence. Welcome to the foothills of the singularity," as a Stanford University friend greeted me. More prosaically, the imminent breakthrough is described as recursive self-improvement" - the point at which AI itself trains each successive model of AI, resulting in an exponential development to something which, in many significant respects, is more intelligent than us humans.As Robert Wright puts it in his book The God Test: Never before has the near-term future ... held such a wide array of not-implausible paths for humankind that would be so wildly transformative." But will this be heaven or hell? Heaven, says Elon Musk, who predicts an age of amazing abundance" - although he also sees a 10-20% chance of killer robots murdering us all. Hell is more likely according to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the intellectual founding fathers of AI. My intuition is, we're toast," he told an interviewer in 2023. And talking to Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, a book about the quest for superintelligence, Hinton estimates p(doom) - the probability of human extinction - at 50%, because I haven't got a clue how to estimate the real number". As soon as evolution [of AI] kicks in, we're fucked," he adds cheerfully. But whether it's God or Godzilla, artificial superintelligence is just around the corner.Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S; Konami

Free from a big brand's audience expectations, new studio GPTrack50 has created a wacky action-packed romp through a monster-filled world for its first gameLove is blind. In Stupid Never Dies, it is also frozen solid and technically dead as Davy, the weakest zombie in monster society, discovers Julia's body in a shopping centre and falls in love at first sight. He wants to bring her back to life and take her on a date. Unfortunately, that means defeating the King of Monsters (KOM) and accidentally saving humanity along the way.This is the gloriously ridiculous setup for this forthcoming action RPG from GPTrack50, a new studio founded by former Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi. Its world looks much like ours, except that monsters have always been part of everyday life: whereas we might find a bear in the mountains or a stray dog in the woods, residents here encounter werewolves and zombies. Continue reading...

Even film-makers have been inspired by Insomniac's take on Spidey. But the studio's tried and tested format might not fit a superhero with such sharp clawsThe recent Marvel's Spider-Man games have become so tightly interwoven with the character's core that they've been cited, by both actor Tom Holland and director Destin Daniel Cretton, as an influence on this year's blockbuster film Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Now the same development studio - Sony-owned Insomniac Games - is taking on one of Marvel's other most recognisable characters in his first video game-starring role since some deeply mid-tier film tie-ins back in the 00s. So can they pull off the same trick with Marvel's Wolverine?Storywise it certainly takes a similar approach, once again grabbing ideas from a wide selection of inspirations and remixing them into a brand-new continuity. We first meet this version of Wolverine as he is discovered: wild-eyed, wilder haired and practically nude. Before we see his saviour's face, we hear a well-spoken voice (provided by legendary game actor Troy Baker) promising a safe place for people like us". Surely this is Charles Xavier? Continue reading...

Trade body says local chains would have to balance concerns with potential benefits of AI-enabled technologyCinemas across the UK are considering banning customers from wearing Meta's smart glasses amid fears they could be used to pirate films.The UK Cinema Association (UKCA) trade body said that a number of local chains could end up introducing policies that restrict camera-enabled smart glasses at the big screen, adding to a growing list of venues concerned about covert use. Continue reading...

Despite policy victories over Flock, Americans are finding themselves under similar monitoring by a new company - or unable to remove the original camerasActivists in Colorado thought they would be celebrating a victory against mass surveillance in December when the Longmont city council decided to let a contract with Flock Safety lapse.But that excitement was cut short only months later when lawmakers voted to approve a new vendor to install automated license plate readers (ALPRs) on the city's streets. Continue reading...

Emma' the Rotherham chatbot has 17 languages says AI firm - but health watchdog says system struggling with local twangs'Patients in a South Yorkshire town are frustrated by an AI GP receptionist not understanding their broad accents", a health watchdog has said.Healthwatch Rotherham, a local health and social care watchdog, said a number of practices in the area had introduced a new AI receptionist called Emma. Continue reading...

It's simple, says the SpaceX boss - according to something called the Kardashev scale', we just have to move energy production off-planet'Next time the weather gives the UK 61 days without rain and we wonder idly if this is the end, there is a term we may whistle up to soothe us. Like murmuring the rosary, or putting our fingers in our ears and humming, this phrase is to be mumbled on repeat - the Kardashev scale, the Kardashev scale" - a buzzy concept in tech, much favoured by Elon Musk, and precisely the thing we've been waiting for. The Kardashev scale is the answer both to our impending doom and our anxiety around it - and if we decide to believe in it, we won't have to give the climate crisis a single thought until the last drip falls from the tap.This is the idea and it's a familiar one to anyone who has watched tech billionaires take intractable, commonplace crises and decide that, among the measures and proposals in play, the vital missing ingredient so far has been them. Do you remember when Jeff Bezos, rather than doing something quotidian and loserish like funding public education by ensuring Amazon pays the same tax rate as regular Americans, decided instead to reinvent preschools?Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

For most of modern history, technology sought to imitate humans. Humans increasingly seek to imitate technologyTwo faces that appeared on my Instagram feed in recent months gave me pause. One belonged to John Travolta at Cannes. The other to Carla Bruni on a date night with her husband, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both looked recognisably themselves, yet, they both also looked oddly unfamiliar. Their looks have provoked speculation about cosmetic enhancement, though never acknowledged by them. Bruni has previously denied having had work done.In any case the feeling lasted only a second: a flicker of unease, as though I were looking at people who had become approximations of themselves.Joseph de Weck is an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations and writes for Guardian Europe from Zurich and ParisDo 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...