Campaigners, teenagers, legislators and experts give their opinions on the government's social media consultationChange is coming for social media platforms. The UK government's consultation on improving online safety for children will result in some form of action being taken against big tech. Even before the deadline for submissions has passed, ministers have pledged to introduce an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s or restrictions on addictive" features such as infinite scrolling.There is overwhelming pressure from safety campaigners and MPs for a further crackdown on social media platforms, despite the introduction of the Online Safety Act, which requires tech firms to shield children from harmful content. The deadline for contributions is Tuesday night and the government has promised to act swiftly. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Chancellor pushes for procurement of ships, steel, energy and AI to prioritise Britishness as well as costRachel Reeves has instructed cabinet colleagues to award government contracts in four critical industries directly to British companies, making clear her irritation that ministers have been sending too much government business abroad.In a letter seen by the Guardian, the chancellor tells every cabinet minister in charge of a spending department to buy British" wherever possible, adding that she is disappointed they are not already doing so. Continue reading...

A region known for its lack of walkability now has more obstacles for pedestrians to contend withRobots have taken over Los Angeles.It's not just the AI-generated videos that have caused angst in Hollywood. Our streets are full of driverless Waymo vehicles, covered in more sensors and gadgets than the Batmobile. And our walkways are home to fleets of boxes on wheels, hurrying past pedestrians and navigating outdoor bar-hoppers as the robots deliver smoothies and keto-friendly salads. Continue reading...

Pontiff calls for disarming' of artificial intelligence and apologises for church's delay in condemning slaveryPope Leo has denounced the culture of power" driving the rapid rise of artificial intelligence while warning that the technology must be subject to the most rigorous" ethical constraints as it infiltrates everything from work to war.In his encyclical - the first major text on safeguarding humankind of his papacy - he also apologised for the Catholic church's long delay in condemning slavery, describing it as a wound in Christian memory", and spoke of the new forms of slavery" due to the digital economy. Continue reading...

Definition of green facilities made in 2022, before release of ChatGPT, says Action to Protect Rural ScotlandA Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.Green datacentres" are at the heart of Scotland's ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland. Continue reading...

Anna Wintour has welcomed the Bezoses - and their patronage - with open arms. But after a controversial Met Gala, industry insiders are less enthusiasticThe press conference for the Met Costume Institute's spring exhibition is always a stately affair, but this year it was giving feudal lady addresses her serfs" or perhaps Marie Antoinette during the last days of Versailles". Here, among the spectacular marble sculptures of the art museum's American wing, was a beaming Lauren Sanchez Bezos, who Anna Wintour introduced as a force for joy", before adding that she and her husband, Jeff, have shown with this event that they genuinely, genuinely care about giving back". Meanwhile, in the outside world, protests against the Bezoses' involvement had been raging for days. The discrepancy between the word on the street and the deference within the glass-ceilinged room was head-spinning.The Met Gala has recently become a magnet for anti-excess protests, but this was its most controversial yet, owing to the $10m patronage of its honorary co-chairs, centibillionaires Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos. It was not the first time Jeff Bezos bankrolled the gala - Amazon was its lead sponsor in 2012. But this year's event came at a moment of soaring inequality, as Bezos's personal wealth has mushroomed and his Donald Trump-appeasing decisions have made him less popular than ever with New York City's left-leaning fashion and arts crowd. Continue reading...

As intelligence itself becomes privatised by big tech, allowing your intellectual faculties to wither in service of inane bots seems a dangerous moveLong before the age of multi-billion-dollar AI companies promising to disrupt the field of software development, I was learning to code the hard way.It was the mid-2000s, and I was a child with unmonitored access to the family computer. With the help of a basic text editor program, I learned how to make websites - first basic, then increasingly complex - from scratch. The results were never as beautiful or polished as in my imagination, but I could live with that, because I was learning a craft. The painstaking hours of debugging and poring over arcane documentation for projects that I eventually abandoned never felt wasted. Continue reading...

PR executives say UK companies are forcing them to present ordinary automation as artificial intelligenceUK companies are performing yoga-level" stretches to describe themselves as AI specialists in an attempt to capitalise on the buzz around the technology, public relations firms have said.Weary communications executives tasked with securing media coverage for brands have complained that bosses in low-tech industries or running businesses that use automation but not generative AI, are increasingly demanding they are pitched to journalists as artificial intelligence companies. Continue reading...

Darren Aronofsky among proponents of using technology, while Guillermo del Toro says he would rather die'Under a white marquee on Cannes' Croisette beach, with the Mediterranean glistening behind him and superyachts drifting across the horizon, the director Darren Aronofsky addressed an audience of executives and tech evangelists gathered for an AI for Talent" summit.There's so much pushback against AI," said Aronofsky, who has faced criticism over his embrace of generative AI projects though his new studio, Primordial Soup, at a time when artificial intelligence has become one of the film industry's most divisive fault lines. Continue reading...

The US president's reversal on calling for a safety review of new AI models is a green light for tech's unchecked powerOnly hours before Donald Trump was set to sign a long-awaited executive order on Thursday that would have called for a government safety review of new artificial intelligence models before their release, the president abruptly backed out. Despite growing public backlash to the technology and experts warning new models will pose critical security risks, Trump vowed the US government would not slow down the AI race.During a meeting with reporters on Thursday, Trump cited both American dominance and competition with China and as his reasoning behind the reversal. Continue reading...

Growing numbers of people are seeking improbable cosmetic surgery based on chatbots' recommendationsPlastic surgeons are increasingly concerned about the rise of AI face", as more and more clients arrive in their offices with unrealistic AI-generated visions of what they want to look like.Dr Nora Nugent, a cosmetic surgeon from Tunbridge Wells, has seen this first hand. Clients have started coming to her office with photos of themselves beautified by AI and a false expectation that those results are achievable with surgery. She is also the president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, and says many colleagues are having similar experiences. Continue reading...

BioOrbit hopes drug-crystallisation technology will lead to self-injected cancer treatment that could save millionsOnboard a SpaceX flight last week was a remarkable piece of cargo - a hi-tech box destined for the International Space Station to grow ultra-pure protein crystals, with the aim of producing self-injected cancer drugs.A British startup, BioOrbit, has developed the drug-crystallisation technology at its labs in London and launched Box-E, a compact unit the size of a microwave, on the 15 May rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Continue reading...

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London mayor accused of putting politics above public safety' for rejecting deal to use AI in intelligence analysis

US social media firms acting on orders from Middle East kingdom accused of being instruments of repression'Major US social media companies including Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms have blocked the accounts of Saudi Arabian dissidents so they are no longer visible inside the kingdom, following orders by Saudi authorities.Those affected include Abdullah Alaoudh, a US-based activist and vocal critic of Saudi human rights violations, and Omar Abdulaziz, a Canada and UK-based activist who worked closely with Jamal Khashoggi before the journalist's murder by Saudi agents in 2018. Continue reading...

Bill Winters faced backlash over remarks about some of near 8,000 staff set to lose roles to AIThe chief executive of Standard Chartered has apologised for referring to some of the almost 8,000 staff that are set to lose their jobs to artificial intelligence as lower-value human capital".Bill Winters offered the apology after a backlash over comments he made earlier this week as the London-headquartered lender became one of the first major global banks to lay out plans to cut about 7,800 back-office roles, primarily in response to AI. Continue reading...

IPO filing from Elon Musk's company reveals closer look at finances, cosmic ambitions and tech empire's quirksSpaceX publicly released an investor prospectus on Wednesday as part of its plan for a $1.75tn debut on the US stock market next month, revealing unseen details about the finances and future plans of Elon Musk's flagship company. In addition to new information on operating costs and revenue, the filing also included trademark Muskian sweeping proclamations about the universe and insights into some of the quirks of his tech empire.Scattered throughout the 300-plus-page prospectus are several disclosures and risk warnings that show the eccentricities of Musk's company and its cosmic ambitions. Other financial details in the document highlight how interdependent Musk's various businesses have become and the risks that they carry. Continue reading...

Licensing agreement will allow listeners to use AI to create content on streaming platform for first timeSpotify and Universal Music Group have agreed on a deal that will allow subscribers to generate song covers and remixes using artificial intelligence.The licensing agreement is the first time the Swedish streaming company will allow listeners to use AI to create content through its platform. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Scotland Yard criticises London mayor's decision as disappointing and warns it could hit policingSadiq Khan has blocked a 50m Metropolitan police deal with the controversial US tech company Palantir, sparking a bitter row between the London mayor and Scotland Yard.After the UK's largest police force had agreed to use Palantir's AI technology to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations, Khan intervened, citing serious concerns" about how the deal had been struck. Continue reading...

Company says work on Paul Erds planar unit distance problem shows advance in AI reasoningOpenAI has claimed a further advance in AI reasoning after its technology successfully tackled an 80-year-old maths problem.The company behind ChatGPT said it had made a breakthrough with a challenge first posed by Hungarian mathematician Paul Erds in 1946: the planar unit distance problem. Continue reading...

ASX-listed company announced in February it would lay off almost 30% of its 7,000-strong workforce across 40 countries

Telecoms company CEO says tech firms are buying up memory chips to power datacentres relied on by AIBT has said the cost of smartphones could rise as technology companies buy up semiconductor chips because of the boom in artificial intelligence, putting pressure on supply chains.The telecoms company's chief executive, Allison Kirkby, said she was anticipating shortages as tech firms bought large quantities of memory chips to power the datacentres relied on by AI. Continue reading...

Many analysts view company's financial performance as a broader referendum on AI buildoutNvidia continued its years-long streak of beating Wall Street's expectations for growth on Wednesday, reassuring most investors that the AI boom, particularly the global explosion of datacenters, will continue apace.The buildout of AI factories - the largest infrastructure expansion in human history - is accelerating at extraordinary speed," said Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, in a statement. Agentic AI has arrived, doing productive work, generating real value, and scaling rapidly across companies and industries." Continue reading...

Police said the vehicle became disabled and took on water, prompting the driver and passengers to abandon it before calling for helpAuthorities in Texas have removed a Tesla Cybertruck from a lake after the driver intentionally drove into it in an attempt to try the vehicle's wade mode."On Tuesday, the Grapevine police department announced the vehicle's recovery from Katie's Woods Park Boat Ramp, adding that the driver stated he intentionally drove into the lake to use the Cybertruck's wade mode' feature". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Electoral Commission calls for new controls as Demos finds tools made up fake scandals, invented candidates or gave wrong date

Exclusive: Google DeepMind agrees to Acas talks after workers sign petitions about governments' use of AI for defence and intelligenceGoogle DeepMind has agreed to enter formal talks with UK tech workers that could lead to trade union representation amid growing staff concerns about the use of its AI by the US and Israeli governments' defence and intelligence.In a groundbreaking move, the artificial intelligence arm of the multi-trillion dollar Google empire, led by the Nobel prize winner Demis Hassabis, has agreed to meet the Communications Workers Union and Unite at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) after workers based at its London headquarters this month voted to make a bid to unionise. Continue reading...

Driving sims were overtaken by open world fantasy adventures, but new upgrades show how much joy there is in the genreI have spent the last week careening around Japan in a Porsche 911, seeing the sights, racing other cars and occasionally veering off the road to plummet through an ancient bamboo forest. You all know what's coming next ... this wasn't in real life, folks - it was in Forza Horizon 6, the latest instalment in Microsoft's series of open world driving games set in authentic-looking, real-world locations.Reviewing this game (which is out now on Xbox and PC, and coming to PS5 later in the year) has reminded me of the sheer fun and exhilaration that driving games can provide. It's easy to forget, but this was the biggest genre in town from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Consoles were sold on how good their racing games were: the original PlayStation had Ridge Racer, the Sega Saturn had Daytona USA. Later came the dirt-track thrills of Colin McRae Rally, the chaotic destruction of Burnout, the sophisticated realism of Gran Turismo. They were the bestsellers of the era, showcasing the future of real-time 3D visuals. Continue reading...

Almost 50 years after he first got his hands on a computer, the Oxford professor still believes in the power of technology. Can his beloved game theory explain why Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs consistently misuse it?Michael Wooldridge is like the teacher you wish you'd had: approachable, able to explain difficult things in simple terms, neither dauntingly highbrow nor off-puttingly cool, and genuinely enthusiastic about what he does. I love it when you see the light go on in somebody, when they understand something that they didn't understand before," he says. I find that incredibly gratifying."He comes across a regular sort of guy, which, as an Oxford professor with more than 500 scientific articles and 10 books to his name, he clearly isn't. Typically, his favourite work is his contribution to Ladybird's Expert Books - an update of the classic children's series - on artificial intelligence. I'm very proud of this," he says, as he hands me a copy from his bookshelf. We're in his study in the University of Oxford's somewhat municipal computing department on a sunny spring day. Maybe it's the campus setting, but our discussion almost takes the form of a seminar. Continue reading...

Groups claim game platform's design and business model conflict with children's developmental needsOnline child safety campaigners including Jonathan Haidt, the bestselling writer on the mental health impacts of social media, have called on the Trump administration to investigate Roblox, the booming gaming and chat platform used by 150 million people daily, including a large number of under-13s.Haidt's Anxious Generation Movement, Fairplay and the rightwing anti-pornography National Center on Sexual Exploitation are among groups claiming Roblox's design and business model conflict with children's developmental needs. Continue reading...

Whether you want to improve your home's security or simply know who's at the door, the latest generation of smart doorbells will help put your mind at ease The best robot vacuums, testedDoorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we're coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They're essentially security cameras with a chime function.If you haven't already installed one of these handy tools, there's a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see and whether you're prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested eight popular video doorbells to find the best.Best video doorbell overall:

It's getting harder and harder to guess whether a face is AI. The University of New South Wales recently launched an AI faces test, which challenges users ability to distinguish between real and fake faces. Guardian Australia's Carly Earl and Matilda Boseley take the test to see if it's a science or just vibes Continue reading...

Special anniversary edition of award-winning headphones are some of the best sounding you can buy, but cost far more than top Sony noise cancellersSony's latest noise-cancelling headphones are a special anniversary set made to celebrate a decade of its prized 1000X series, designed to be plusher, slimmer, more comfortable and the best sounding yet.The original 1000X launched in 2016, igniting a fierce rivalry with the dominant Bose and its QuietComfort line, which would push noise-cancelling technology dramatically forward as each tried to outdo the other with subsequent releases. Continue reading...

At annual I/O conference, company debuts a product for everyday consumers to create autonomous AI agentsGoogle announced Tuesday that it would expand its search bar, the centerpiece of the most-visited website in the world, with a heavy dose of artificial intelligence. The tech giant is also trying its hand at hi-tech glasses again, more than a decade after wearers of its first eyewear were dubbed glassholes" and laughed out of San Francisco.Google executives announced at the company's annual conference for software developers, Google I/O, that its search box would accommodate longer and more specific queries than before - questions more like those people would ask one another than Search's idiosyncratic syntax. The changes will direct users to engage directly with Google's chatbot. The change to search is underpinned by the company's new artificial intelligence model, Gemini 3.5, announced the same day. Continue reading...

Granta publisher says perhaps we never will know' true authorship of work that won Commonwealth prizeA few syntactical tics - and the verdict of an AI detection platform - have sparked a furore over the possibility that a short story given a prestigious literary award was written by AI.The foundation that awarded the prize and Granta, the magazine that published the winning story, said they had considered the allegations but had not reached a conclusion as to whether they were true. Continue reading...

Some employees will be moved to new teams focused on AI agents and cloud infrastructureAs Meta races to recenter itself around artificial intelligence, the tech giant is mandating that more than 7,000 workers must move to new teams, and it's radically changing some employees' jobs. The Guardian has also learned that some of these reassigned employees will shift to two new teams: one building AI cloud infrastructure and another that's building an internal AI agent codenamed Hatch.Late last week, Meta employees received a notice that engineers had been selected" for reassignment and would begin reporting to the cloud infrastructure and Hatch teams by the end of this week. Meta made a similar move last month when it reshuffled at least 1,000 engineers on to a new data labeling team called Applied AI, or AAI - at first giving them the option to volunteer, but later telling workers: Transfers aren't optional." Continue reading...

A long and bitter legal battle between tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman has culminated in victory for the OpenAI boss. Musk has vowed to appeal the verdict. But what did the trial reveal about big tech and the global AI race. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian US tech and power reporter Nick Robins-Early - watch on YouTube Continue reading...

The new DG started by stressing the need for velocity'. First, he'll have to navigate staff cuts, culture wars and a sea of fake newsMatt Brittin's message was pretty clear on his first day as director general of the BBC. It was echoed in a schedule that included an introductory LinkedIn video as well as meetings with the newsroom, podcast, radio, current affairs and research and development teams. It was there in his first all-staff email, which used the word velocity" twice and invoked the second world war to call for a sense of urgency".Alongside Brittin's affection for the BBC and public service broadcasting, his message can best be summed up as move fast but break nothing".Jane Martinson is an academic and Guardian columnist. She is a board member of the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian Media Group, and writes in a personal capacity Continue reading...

Our research has uncovered young entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka and Pakistan using AI tools to make deeply objectionable content - and money

London-headquartered bank will reduce back-office jobs and aims to move some workers to new rolesStandard Chartered plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years as it increasingly uses artificial intelligence.The London-headquartered lender is one of the first major global banks to lay out plans to cut thousands of jobs, citing AI as a driver to make its operations slimmer as it seeks to increase its profitability and tackle competition. Continue reading...

Microsoft; PC, Xbox Series X/S (PS5 due later)

Ofcom to update codes of practice amid rise in revenge porn' and AI-generated deepfakes targeting women and girlsSocial media, messaging platforms and online forums that publish intimate image abuse - often intended to humiliate women and girls - are being instructed to follow new guidelines to stop it spreading.Ofcom said it would change its codes of practice to force service providers to detect and quash intimate image abuse - sometimes called revenge porn" - and crack down on AI-generated deepfakes. A wave of deepfakes emerged in January when Elon Musk's Grok AI was widely used to create sexualised videos of women in bikinis. Continue reading...

Registration form informs patients that if they do not wish AI to be used, they will need their referring doctor to refer them to a different service provider

Startup has declined to release Claude Mythos AI model publicly amid fears it could be used by hackers

Pew research shows Americans are more worried than excited about AI as graduates voice fears over jobsA former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was met with students' boos at a university commencement address in Arizona on Sunday when he raised the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and its effects.Schmidt - who led the tech giant for more than a decade, acquiring a multibillion-dollar fortune in the process - was speaking to as many as 10,000 graduating University of Arizona students when he addressed the impact of modern technology on society. Continue reading...

Mordecai Kurz argues tech oligarchs erode democracy through monopolies - and predicts how the trend may endThe billionaires of today are unusually aggressive in their hoarding of cultural and technological influence, according to Mordecai Kurz, a Stanford economist whose research connects monopoly power with political and economic inequality. In his new book, Private Power and Democracy's Decline, publishing 19 May, he argues the US is living through an extreme version of a pattern that has repeated itself since industrialization: technological power concentrating in the hands of a few, which is eroding democracy.According to Kurz, technological moguls have long seen themselves as superior beings whose natural role is to shape society - so they have no problem disrupting the institution of democracy. During the first Gilded Age, in the late 19th century, as the US was enjoying its first ascent as an industrial powerhouse, wealthy industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller invented all kinds of theories about human evolution", twisting the logic of social Darwinism to convince themselves that their success was a sign they had been selected by nature to influence society, Kurz explained. Now, the Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, has suggested his technology has a mystical potential to become a transcendent good. He has also openly acknowledged it could lead to mass unemployment. Continue reading...

Mid-range Android stands out with huge screen, slick software and dot-matrix display, but falls just short of greatnessNothing's latest quirky smartphone is a huge aluminium Android with three cameras and a big LED matrix screen on the back that challenges the notion mid-range phones can't be just a bit more fun.The Phone 4a Pro is a bit of a departure from UK-based Nothing's previous glass-clad transparent designs. It still has a touch of those elements but only in the camera island at the top, with the rest of the body now solid aluminium - a rare sight in the world of Android phones. Continue reading...

Journalist Simone Stolzoff in a new book explores why modern life makes not knowing harder - and how to learn to live with itSimone Stolzoff describes himself as naturally an uncertain person" inclined to rumination and self-doubt. This tendency benefits him in his work as a journalist, but can otherwise be a double-edged sword.While working for a magazine in New York, Stolzoff was approached about a job at a design firm in San Francisco. Now, he laughs at how tortured he felt having to decide between two attractive career paths". Continue reading...

Known for his Manitowoc Minute' skits and midwestern humor, the journalist turned comedian is speaking out against the AI datacenter boom in WisconsinLast summer, journalist turned comedian Charlie Berens started getting social media messages from concerned Wisconsin residents about plans for a massive datacenter campus in their state.The developer, Vantage Data Centers, claimed the $8 bn project would largely run on zero-emission energy resources like solar, wind and battery storage. The company said the campus would bring thousands of temporary construction jobs and potentially more than 1,000 permanent jobs to Port Washington, a city of 13,000 people about a half-hour north of Milwaukee. Residents opposed the project for what they said was lack of transparency and criticized the lucrative tax incentives offered to Vantage. They worried about the strain on local water and energy sources from an enormous 1.3-gigawatt project that could ultimately span 1,900 acres. Continue reading...

He's having a great time with his new 47% equity,' one entrepreneur jokes, warning that some startups may leave Australia behind