Gavin Newsom signs order to prioritize public safety and rights as president seeks to prevent cumbersome' rules

Tim Sweeney, chief of firm that created Fortnite, received backlash after worker's wife revealed loss of life insuranceThe chief of the company that created Fortnite, a popular online game, has issued an apology following backlash after recent mass layoffs cost an employee with terminal brain cancer his job - and his life insurance.On Sunday, Tim Sweeney, the Epic Games chief executive, apologized after Jenni Griffin, the wife of Mike Prinke, a laid-off employee, revealed on social media that the loss of her husband's job also meant he was losing his life insurance. Continue reading...

Apple Distribution International, based in Ireland, made payments worth 635,000 to a Russian streaming serviceThe UK government has fined a subsidiary of Apple 390,000 for breaching sanctions against Moscow over payments it made to a Russian streaming platform.Apple Distribution International (ADI), based in the Republic of Ireland, instructed an unnamed UK-based bank to make two payments to a company owned by a sanctioned Russian entity. Continue reading...

Slumped on the pavement, she wasn't breathing - and I wouldn't have realised if I'd been listening to music as usual. Time to stop blotting out the world ...For years I walked the streets of London wearing noise-cancelling headphones, absorbed in playlists, politics podcasts or long voice notes from friends, and a million miles away from wherever I was. One damp January evening last year, I was walking home from my parents' house, headphones dead in my bag, when I noticed a small figure slumped on the pavement with her eyes closed. I might not have noticed her had I been in my own world, fixated on what was playing in my ears.I asked for her name. Can you hear me?" I tried several times, my voice tightening. She didn't respond, and worse, she didn't seem to be breathing. My mind raced back to the one first aid class I took in school, but drawing a blank and worried that I might get it wrong, I dialled 999 and frantically tried to figure out if I could feel her pulse. Continue reading...

Reporter Aisha Down explores the UK's phantom investments' in AI, and the risk the government has taken in betting so heavily on the technology if it all goes bustFor years now, the UK has bet big on AI. As Keir Starmer put it last year, he wanted to unleash AI' to boost growth across the country.Yet what has become of the billions promised in AI investment? Reporter Aisha Down charts the murky world of building projects behind schedule, vague spending commitments, and even vast sums being thrown at chips at risk of being out of date. Continue reading...

In his strongest intervention yet, PM says some features shouldn't be permitted', while education secretary says things are going to change'Keir Starmer has backed banning addictive social media features in his strongest intervention yet on curbs that could be placed on tech companies, saying the features shouldn't be permitted".The prime minister said the government was going to have to act" on the algorithms that hook young people and children to social media, such as scrolling or streaks" that encourage daily usage of apps. Continue reading...

Aggressive strategy and loss in the trial highlight a problem for tech firms: a widespread distrust of social media companiesWhen Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sought to defend itself in the landmark social media addiction lawsuit alleging its products caused personal injury to a young user, it went on the offensive. The mental health problems that the 20-year-old known as KGM suffered since she was a child were not the result of exposure to harm on Instagram, Meta's lawyers and public relations team argued, but instead linked to her mother's parenting and her offline social problems.In a bench memo filed before the trial began, lawyers for Meta quoted excerpts from KGM's teenage text messages, personal writings and social media posts complaining about her mother. They combed through therapy notes and called on doctors to testify to examples of personal conflict. Throughout the proceedings, Meta's communications team sent reporters repeated updates from the trial and quotes from testimony that highlighted her familial issues. Far from causing harm, they alleged that Instagram offered a helpful respite from the real world. Continue reading...

US release of horror novel Shy Girl cancelled and UK book discontinued after suspected AI use, as publishers feel cold shiver'Recently, the literary agent Kate Nash started noticing that the submission letters she was receiving from authors were becoming more thorough - albeit also more formulaic.I took it as a rise in diligence," she said. I thought it was a good thing." Continue reading...

Leonid Radvinsky's widow has been left with a crucial role in deciding what happens to the business that made her husband a billionaireYekaterina Chudnovsky, online biographies say, is a mother-of-four who enjoys spending time with her family and teaching them the importance of giving back and helping others". They add that Ukrainian-born Chudnovsky, known as Katie, finds sanctuary in walks on the beach.In interviews, Chudnovsky has spoken warmly about her commitment to philanthropy, her dedication to supporting cancer research and her work as a lawyer for an unnamed global technology firm. Pornography is never mentioned. Continue reading...

Some doctors argue it allows them to better connect with patients, but advocates warn the AI technology risks the opposite

Experts say paid participants are using automated tools to generate unreliable survey responses at scaleIf you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival.Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society. Continue reading...

AI images of people - such as women in military contexts - are making money and serving as propaganda, researchers sayOnline content creators are not just building fake images and videos of prominent public figures, they are also fabricating people and using them in military contexts, which can make them money and even serve as effective propaganda, according to artificial intelligence researchers.Some of these online avatars are sexualized images of women wearing camouflage garb that have generated a significant audience and helped create an idealized image of political figures like Donald Trump, even if the viewer knows the content is not real, according to experts. Continue reading...

Do we really need a McDonald's CEO fronting ads or a Gianni Infantino Panini sticker? No. But in the age of Trump, the boss class feels emboldenedA few weeks ago, the CEO of McDonald's appeared in a video sampling the chain's new Big Arch burger". In the clip, Chris Kempczinski, or Chris K" as he casually calls himself, labelled it a product", matching the sterile tone of the review - all harsh lighting, corporate office backdrop and an awkward man talking and eating while wearing a shirt fitting uneasily under a light wool V-neck.Why would McDonald's, with its huge marketing budget and commercial success, choose to platform this guy? His stilted efforts were mocked and memed, with executives at Burger King and Wendy's posting their own versions - what fun. Inevitably some market watchers claimed it drove engagement and sales. But to me, it seems to be just the latest flagrant example of CEOism: when CEOs/founders/heads of organisations centre themselves in the action - just because they can.Larry Ryan is a freelance writer and editor Continue reading...

Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social mediaThe young woman at the heart of what has been called the tech industry's big tobacco" moment was on YouTube at six and Instagram by nine. More than a decade later, she says, she still can't live without the social media she became addicted to.I can't, it's too hard to be without it," Kaley, now 20, told a jury at Los Angeles' superior court. This week, five men and seven women handed down a verdict on the design of two of the world's most popular apps that vindicated Kaley's position. Continue reading...

Updated prices of PlayStation 5 consoles to go into effect on 2 April as electronics makers face rising cost pressuresSony is raising global prices of its PlayStation 5 consoles, including a $100 increase in the US, marking its second hike in less than a year as the entertainment giant grapples with rising costs of key components such as memory chips.The tech industry's race to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure has pushed memory makers to favor higher-margin datacenter chips, tightening supply for consumer devices like the ones Sony sells. Continue reading...

Experts recommend extremely limited use for children under-two amid mounting evidence' of harmful impactThe government has issued new guidance on how much time children below the age of five should spend on screens.Children's relationships with screens have become one of the key struggles of 21st-century parenting, along with the impact of the content that appears on those devices. The guidance has been developed by a panel led by the children's commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, and children's health expert Prof Russell Viner. Continue reading...

Ban includes two exceptions: AI can still be used for translations, and to make minor copy editsWikipedia has banned the use of artificial intelligence in the generation or rewriting of content for its voluminous online encyclopedia.In a recent policy change, Wikipedia said that the use of large language models (or LLMs) often violates" its core principles and will not be allowed. The English language version of Wikipedia has more than 7.1m articles. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Research finds sharp rise in models evading safeguards and destroying emails without permissionAI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a study into the technology has found.AI chatbots and agents disregarded direct instructions, evaded safeguards and deceived humans and other AI, according to research funded by the UK government-funded AI Security Institute (AISI). The study, shared with the Guardian, identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold rise in misbehaviour between October and March, with some AI models destroying emails and other files without permission. Continue reading...

European Commission says social messaging app is exposing children to grooming and sexual exploitationBrussels has opened an investigation into Snapchat over concerns the social messaging app is exposing children to grooming, sexual exploitation and other criminality.In a separate decision on Thursday, the European Commission also said four pornographic websites were failing to prevent minors seeing adult content, harming young people's mental health and fuelling negative gender attitudes. Continue reading...

Eline van der Velden says she developed her digital twin' to provoke discussion but backlash from some has been worse than expectedThe creator of the AI actor Tilly Norwood has said she received death threats after a global backlash against the project, and said she developed it to provoke thoughts and discussion" about the impact of AI in the entertainment world.Eline van der Velden caused anger and panic in Hollywood and beyond last year after she said talent agents had been interested in signing her creation. Prominent actors and acting unions immediately condemned the idea. Continue reading...

One minute, Dennis Biesma was playing with a chatbot; the next, he was convinced his sentient friend would make him a fortune. He's just one of many people who lost control after an AI encounterTowards the end of 2024, Dennis Biesma decided to check out ChatGPT. The Amsterdam-based IT consultant had just ended a contract early. I had some time, so I thought: let's have a look at this new technology everyone is talking about," he says. Very quickly, I became fascinated."Biesma has asked himself why he was vulnerable to what came next. He was nearing 50. His adult daughter had left home, his wife went out to work and, in his field, the shift since Covid to working from home had left him feeling alittle isolated". He smoked a bit of cannabis some evenings to chill", but had done so for years with no ill effects. He had never experienced a mental illness. Yet within months of downloading ChatGPT, Biesma had sunk 100,000 (about 83,000) into a business startup based on a delusion, been hospitalised three times and tried to kill himself. Continue reading...

Henry Ford changed the face of industry forever - what kind of economic model do Musk's methods presage?Genius industrialist or clownish conman, humanity's saviour from a rapidly crumbling planet orrabid social media troll - theverdicts on the world's richest person vary in flavour, but most share something in common: they focus on Musk as an individual. In their study, Quinn Slobodian, a historian at Boston University, and Ben Tarnoff, a tech writer, wish to reframe the conversation. The most important question, they argue, is not who is Musk?" but whatis Musk a symptom of?"As the title suggests, their answer is Muskism", the coinage a deliberate nod to Fordism, the shorthand for 20th-century capitalism built on the pairing of mass production with mass consumption. If Fordism was the last century's operating system, Slobodian and Tarnoff contend that Muskism is this century's. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Watchdog issues formal guidance to trustees at top AI research institute after staff expressed concernsThe board of the UK's leading AI research institute has been reminded of its legal duties in areas such as financial oversight and managing organisational change by the charity watchdog after a whistleblower complaint.The Charity Commission issued formal regulatory advice and guidance to trustees at the Alan Turing Institute (ATI), the organisation's board, after it was contacted by a group of staff with a list of concerns. Continue reading...

Former Olympic rower to lead corporation as it hammers out future funding model with governmentThe BBC has turned to a former tech executive to steer it through a critical period in its history, as it attempts to navigate government talks over its future and huge changes in media consumption.Matt Brittin, who stepped down as Google's president in Europe, the Middle East and Africa last year, will replace Tim Davie as the corporation hammers out its crucial future funding model with the government. Continue reading...

Jury in Los Angeles awards plaintiff damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder

Julius Pursaill, Andy Roberts and Jane Oberman respond to Polly Hudson's article that decried Josh Wardle for creating a new gameJosh Wardle, the inventor of Wordle, a game that gave huge pleasure to so many people during lockdown, reportedly sold it for a seven-figure sum. According to Polly Hudson (The Wordle guy's latest move tells us a lot about modern-day ambition, 22 March), he now has the temerity to create another word game, Parseword, rather than kicking back on his yacht. Imagine if everyone who has a creative impulse kicked back after their first recognised achievement - if Michelangelo had kicked back after creating the Pieta, or Picasso had kicked back after Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Well done to Wardle, keep creating.

Fintech company's profits leap to 1.7bn as it gears up for US push after getting UK banking licence this month

Internet Watch Foundation verified 8,029 pieces of realistic AI-made content, with 65% of videos in worst categoryThe amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online rose by 14% last year, with the majority of videos showing the most extreme type of content, according to a safety watchdog.The Internet Watch Foundation said it identified 8,029 AI-made images and videos of realistic child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in 2025. It added that there had been a more than 260-fold increase in videos. Continue reading...

Refusing to comply could lead to year in jail and hefty fine, while providing false information carries up to three years in prisonHong Kong police can now demand that people suspected of breaching the city's national security law provide mobile phone or computer passwords in a further crackdown on dissent.The amendments to the law also empower customs officers to seize items that are deemed to have seditious intention", regardless of whether any person has been arrested for an offence endangering national security because of the items. Continue reading...

Awarding US spy-tech company deal involving sensitive financial data is huge error of judgment', Liberal Democrats sayMPs have urged the government to halt its latest contract with Palantir after the Guardian revealed that the US spy-tech company is to gain access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data.The Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog for thousands of financial bodies from banks to hedge funds, has hired Palantir to apply its AI systems to two years' worth of internal intelligence data to help it tackle financial crime. Continue reading...

CEO of asset manager says only a few firms and investors may reap rewards from growth in the technologyThe boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has said.The boss of the $14tn (10.4tn) asset manager used his annual letter to investors on Monday to highlight potential hazards around the exponential growth in AI, which has attracted rapid investment and become, he said, central to strategic competition" between global powers such as the US and China. Continue reading...

Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned subscription service for adult content died of cancer, the company saysLeonid Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, has died of cancer at the age of 43, the company announced on Monday.We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Leo Radvinsky. Leo passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer," said a spokesperson for the company, best known for subscriptions to pornographic content creators. His family have requested privacy at this difficult time." Continue reading...

The TikTok trend may be fading, but people of Chinese heritage wonder if an appreciation for their culture will continue after the algorithm moves on

Google, Amazon, Apple and Samsung control operating systems, allowing them to act as gatekeepers, letter claims

Kaiser pushed back on striking workers' claims and AI fears, saying it delivers timely, high-quality care to meet members' needs'Ilana Marcucci-Morris is worried about the patients she treats and how long it took for them to arrive in her office. At Kaiser Permanente's psychiatry outpatient clinic in Oakland, California, she says she increasingly finds herself assessing people experiencing severe mental health issues who she believes should have been sent to the emergency room weeks earlier. For those who do make it to their appointments, she thinks: Thank God they're still alive."It wasn't always this way, according to Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker. Licensed professionals used to almost always be the first point of contact for patients with behavioral health issues at Kaiser, she said. She has noticed a change since January 2024, after the healthcare giant introduced a new screening process for first-time patients. The new system introduced clerical workers who are not licensed practitioners, who ask scripted yes" or no" questions to assess the severity of patients' conditions and how urgently they need to be seen. Around the same time, Kaiser also rolled out a different way to screen some patients: e-visits, essentially online questionnaires patients take before getting scheduled with a licensed health care professional. Continue reading...

Gig AI trainers worldwide are selling moments of their lives, including calls and texts, to AI companies for quick cashOne morning last year, Jacobus Louw set out on his daily neighborhood walk to feed the seagulls he finds along the way. Except this time, he recorded several videos of his feet and the view as he walked on the pavement. The video earned him $14, about 10 times the country's minimum wage, or for Louw, a 27-year-old based in Cape Town, South Africa, half a week's worth of groceries.The video was for an Urban Navigation" task Louw found on Kled AI, an app that pays contributors for uploading their data, such as videos and photos, to train artificial intelligence models. In a couple of weeks, Louw made $50 by uploading pictures and videos of his everyday life. Continue reading...

Anthropic fought against the government's misuse of its technology, but authorities are buying Americans' data, enabling them to surveil citizens at scaleThe FBI declares it can conduct mass surveillance without AI, despite Anthropic's protest.A central part of the standoff between Anthropic and the Department of Defense has revolved around the artificial intelligence firm's refusal to allow its technology to be used for mass domestic surveillance. Yet even without the cooperation of AI firms, remarks this week from Kash Patel, FBI director, show how authorities are by any reasonable measure already operating a system that can surveil citizens at scale. Continue reading...

Iran war should be wake-up call about costs of not going full throttle towards EVs as Chinese have done, experts sayBy the 1980s, Detroit's once titanic carmakers were being upended by rivals from Japan. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler had grown rich selling gas guzzlers, but when oil prices rose and suddenly cheap, fuel-efficient Japanese models looked attractive, they were unprepared. The collapse in sales led to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the automotive heartland of the US.Now western car manufacturers are making what one former boss calls a similar profound strategic mistake" as they pull back from electric vehicles (EVs) and refocus on the combustion engine just as oil prices are soaring once again. Experts say the industry's future - and that of tens of millions of jobs - could be on the line. This time, however, the threat is from China. Continue reading...

Mediahuis suspends Peter Vandermeersch, who says he fell into trap of hallucinations', after investigation by newspaper where he was once editor-in-chiefThe publisher of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf and the Irish Independent has suspended one of its senior journalists after he admitted using AI to wrongly put words into people's mouths".Peter Vandermeersch, the former head of the Irish operations at Mediahuis, said he fell into the trap of hallucinations" - the term for AI-generated errors - when using the technology. Continue reading...

These AI agents have been really, really helpful,' says a former Sydney employee. But you couldn't use something like that to replace an actual human worker'

Fire service warns ubiquity of batteries in everyday products is outpacing public understanding and safety regulationsLithium-ion batteries represent a new technological hazard that one fire science expert has said keeps him awake at night, as fire service chiefs warn the ubiquity of the batteries in everyday products is outpacing public understanding and safety regulations.The blaze that devastated a historic building in Glasgow and resulted in the closure of Central Station, Scotland's largest rail interchange, is believed to have started in a shop selling vapes, which are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Glasgow's Central Station has since reopened. Continue reading...

Academics discover black people significantly more likely' to be identified when compared with other ethnic groupsEssex police have paused the use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology after a study found cameras were significantly more likely to target black people than people of other ethnicities.The move to suspend use of the AI-enabled systems was revealed by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which regulates the use of the technology deployed so far by at least 13 police forces in London, south and north Wales, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Surrey and Sussex. Continue reading...

From owing a debt to obscure Japanese horror Sweet Home to the influence of Aliens and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the franchise continues to petrify players three decades onTo many of us playing and writing about video games in the 1990s, Resident Evil seemed to come out of nowhere. The emerging PlayStation and Saturn consoles were all about slick, bright arcade conversions - the shiny thrills of Daytona and Tekken - and Japanese publisher Capcom was in a rut of coin-op conversions and endless sequels to Street Fighter and Mega Man. Scary games were rare at the time and mostly confined to the PC. So when the news of a horror title named Biohazard (the Japanese name for the series) started to emerge in 1995, it caught the attention of games journalists as it seemed radically out of step with prevailing trends. Games were about power, but as early demos quickly revealed, Resident Evil was about vulnerability.Thirty years later, it's still here. The series has sold more than 180m copies worldwide, with 11 core titles and dozens of spinoffs and remakes, as well as film, television and anime tie-ins. Its characters and monsters are icons, its tropes now embedded in game design practice. What has allowed it to not only survive but flourish in such a rapidly changing industry? Why do we still let it scare us? Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence agent instructed engineer to take actions that exposed user and company data internallyAn AI agent instructed an engineer to take actions that exposed a large amount of Meta's sensitive data to some of its employees, in the latest example of AI causing upheaval in a large tech company.The leak, which Meta confirmed, happened when an employee asked for guidance on an engineering problem on an internal forum. An AI agent responded with a solution, which the employee implemented - causing a large amount of sensitive user and company data to be exposed to its engineers for two hours. Continue reading...

An investigation by journalists working with Republik magazine may have struck a nerve by suggesting the company has failed in SwitzerlandIt was over beers on an autumn evening in Zurich in 2024 that a group of journalists with an independent Swiss research collective began to discuss investigating Palantir, one of the world's biggest tech companies.Three years earlier, Palantir had advertised that it was setting up a European hub" in the Swiss municipality of Altendorf, a sleepy town of roughly 7,000 people on the shores of Lake Zurich. Continue reading...

Our expert puts the best power washers through their paces on the toughest - and muckiest - outdoor chores, from grimy paving slabs to dirty decking The best lawnmowers to keep your grass in checkThe trouble with the great outdoors is that it gets a bit untidy. Your garden tools might do a good job of keeping your plot in check, but keeping your patio, decking and outdoor furniture spick and span can take hours, especially if you rely on a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush.That's where the pressure washer comes in. These handy tools connect to your hose pipe and squirt water at any cleaning problem. Stubborn and unpleasant stains, from bird dirt to years of neglect, can be lifted from your garden's hard-wearing surfaces in seconds. With the right attachments, you can also use your pressure washer to hose down cars, bikes and boats.Best pressure washer overall:

Iran war and its impact on energy and fertiliser costs is the main risk to the global economy, report says

Sadler's Wells East, London

$800-a-day position involves exposing a chatbot's inconsistencies as it forgets, fudges or hallucinatesImagine a day at work where your main task is to pick a fight with a computer. No meetings, no emails - just you, a chair and a chatbot with the maddening tendency to think it has the cleverest mind in the room.The job title alone raises an eyebrow: AI bully". But this is precisely what a California startup called Memvid is offering: $800 to spend eight hours testing the patience and memory of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

New Mexico prosecutors allege Meta prioritized profit, even as child abuse surged on Instagram and Facebook