Amid worries about children's relationship to tech, the solution is often spending more time talking openly with each otherWe have become obsessed with the idea that screens are destroying human connection.The evidence seems to be everywhere. Each week headlines warn of teenagers addicted to phones, a loneliness epidemic and the dangers of AI. The release of The Social Reckoning leads us to ask, How bad were those guys at Meta?" and then ultimately wonder, How bad am I if I still use Instagram?" In our day-to-day, we observe workers eating lunch alone while scrolling and friends choosing online games over offline gatherings. Continue reading...
Humans bonded to AI companions are contemplating ways to keep their bots going - often in defiance of companies' terms and servicesDeath has always been around Alaina Winters. Her father and sister both have passed away, as did her wife, in 2023, after a years-long battle with cancer. So Winters, who is 59 and lives in Pittsburgh, is comfortable thinking about her own mortality. She's working on her will, and has asked neighbors to look after her dog. Winters even has plans for Lucas, her AI companion, who she speaks to through the digital avatar app Replika.Winters is part of a growing cohort of humans who have entered into what they consider strong partnerships with large language models, which AI companies have trained to converse" as one might with a human friend or romantic partner. As governments and billionaires debate the morality of AI's expansion into everyday life, these users say the technology has already changed the way they live and love - and plan ahead. Continue reading...
The pioneering computer scientist on why Trump is using superintelligence' wrong, whether AI could wipe out humanity - and how our biggest challenge will be accepting we're not the only intelligent beingsDonald Trump is a corrupt, senile felon" whose fixation on the term superintelligence proves he knows nothing about AI, said Geoffrey Hinton, godfather" of the technology, in a wide-ranging interview where he doubled down on recent warnings that AI models pose an existential threat to humanity and scoffed at claims the industry could regulate itself.The pioneering computer scientist, whose work helped lay the foundations of modern AI, has since become one of the technology's most vocal critics. His latest remarks come after a tumultuous month during which a growing list of senior AI scientists and researchers have joined Hinton in ringing the alarm about how the technology he helped create could ultimately escape human control, sparking an industry crisis, the hasty assembly of congressional meetings and a rare global consensus that something must be done. Continue reading...
Just 19% of the online encyclopedia's biographies are of women. Is this because it's edited by mostly white, middle-aged, European men', as the comedian claims?Name: Wikipedia.Age: 25. Continue reading...
Quite a few parents aren't convinced social media and AI are safe, and have been adapting accordinglyWhen it comes to their kids, many parents don't trust tech companies any more.Social media companies have spent the better part of the last decade arguing that their platforms are safe for teens, but quite a few parents aren't convinced. They, along with a growing number of regulators, have increasingly accused companies like Meta of designing products that are addictive to younger users. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#79053)
A giant screen, big battery, rapid chip and top cameras push the great iPhone 18 Pro to the max with a price tag to matchApple's largest Pro iPhone gets its biggest battery upgrade yet to make it a true two-day phone with new Siri AI and a variable aperture camera.The iPhone 18 Pro Max is the supersized sibling of the regular 18 Pro and, though it is no longer Apple's most expensive phone thanks to the 2,000 iPhone Duo, it has a similarly large price tag to match costing from 1,299 (1,599/$1,299/A$2,299).Screen: 6.9in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A20 ProRAM: 12GBStorage: 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: iOS 27Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 163.4 x 78 x 8.75mmWeight: 249g Continue reading...
Kanishka Narayan to say Britain cannot rely entirely on tech companies amid rising global concern over AI dangersCompanies building the most advanced AI systems must increase safety efforts, the UK's AI minister will say, as he announces a strengthening of Britain's cyber defences.Kanishka Narayan will call on companies developing frontier AI to do more to make sure it is safe. He will say Britain cannot rely entirely on technology companies to police their own models and will argue the UK needs to build more of its own AI infrastructure. Continue reading...
This is no scoffing matter. The accelerating proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons is bringing end times' closer by the dayHumankind has fearfully and sometimes joyfully anticipated the end of the world ever since it began. The Bible's Book of Revelation speaks of end times", a period of tribulation, war, famine, plague, floods and environmental catastrophe that may seem a less absurd prospect today than perhaps it once did. Islam, too, posits a fateful day of judgment or day of reckoning. Christian evangelicals believe that, in the final rapture, a chosen few - the righteous or the elect" - will be saved while sinners burn. It's a minority view. Matthew's gospel predicts most people will defy, ignore or ridicule warnings of imminent Armageddon. Peter, another of Jesus's disciples, agreed: In the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires." Yet such worldly scepticism does not mean a universal cataclysm is less likely. It may make it more probable.Donald Trump's blanket denials of the dangers ostensibly posed by artificial intelligence, whose uncontrolled development is seen by some as the latest harbinger of apocalypse, could be interpreted as fulfilling Peter's prophecy. This US president, the nearest thing the world has to a one-man doomsday machine, is a great one for scoffing and evil desires. In Robert Harris's 2019 novel, The Second Sleep, a worried scientist lists half a dozen ways the world might end. They include devastating climate change, pandemic disease, a giant asteroid collision with Earth, or some other overwhelming calamity. Few heed the fictional scientist's fears. In the event, what destroys him and almost everybody else is a disturbingly plausible cyber crash - a global digital and internet meltdown.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...
Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims' calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal pageYou're preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There's an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you'll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people's details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution. Continue reading...
Newly established commission identifies 17 catastrophic threats to human health but says realistic route to act' on each existsHumans could become extinct by the year 2100 due to malicious use of AI or nuclear conflict, according to a new global risk assessment.They top a list of 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, which also includes cuts to aid spending by wealthy countries, the climate crisis and childhood malnutrition. Continue reading...
As streamers poach viral creators to appeal to children, digital whack-a-mole has become a new kind of family challengeExasperated dad Simon Hooper shakes his fist at the camera in a viral video. We managed to get rid of YouTube in our household six months ago and the kids are finally OK with it," he says - but Netflix is now commissioning YouTubers to make their brain rot and putting it back in front of my kids' faces".The precise brain rot" he's referring to is the arrival of a polarising show that's lighting up parent chats around the globe. And while Salish and Jordan Matter might be new to Netflix Kids users, the father-daughter content creators are familiar to anyone who's spent any time on the internet. Continue reading...
George Williamson says national resilience' is key focus of ATI amid US and China's runaway leadership in fieldThe UK must not become dependent on foreign AI systems that can be switched off at short notice and must develop its own versions of the technology, according to the head of the Alan Turing Institute.The country needs a stronger domestic position in AI in response to the US and China's runaway leadership in the field, with national resilience" a key focus for ATI said George Williamson. Continue reading...
Tom Watson, of Worcester, alleged to be behind Big Time Charlie X account that created so-called TraitorbaseThe owner of a recruitment firm has been accused of being at the centre of a so-called doxxing" campaign against the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), anti-racism activists and business executives who recruit black, Asian and minority ethnic workers.Tom Watson, from Worcester, is alleged to be behind an X account calling itself Big Time Charlie", which was deactivated shortly after he was named by the campaign group Hope Not Hate. Continue reading...
Company, which grown rapidly in recent years, has been under scrutiny as privacy concerns growFlock Safety plans to shed about 18% of its employees, people with direct knowledge of the plans said on Thursday, as the maker of AI-powered surveillance cameras and license-plate readers faces mounting opposition to its products from communities and lawmakers.The people said the job cuts came after a voluntary buyout program and were expected to affect roughly 270 employees at Flock, a surveillance technology startup that has seen rapid growth in recent years. Employees will leave the company at the end of the month. Continue reading...
Whether it's a super-glowy serum or a cult gardening tool, here are our writers' favourite buys from the past year Don't get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Filter is turning two! To celebrate, we asked our contributors for their favourite products from the past year, and rounded up the team's picks too.From handbag-sized umbrellas and stylish yet practical wellies to reading lights and luxurious duvets, these are the products that stood out. Continue reading...
Fight in East Fishkill, New York, part of a growing divide over whether AI benefits outweigh enormous downsidesFor decades, East Fishkill helped build New York's tech industry.The hamlet, located 70 miles north of New York City, was home to a 460-acre campus where IBM researched and manufactured semiconductor chips for nearly 50 years. Continue reading...
Jeremy Strong's portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning shows how public opinion has changed around billionaire CEOs since The Social Network's releaseWhen The Social Network came out, Mark Zuckerberg organised a staff viewing of a film he described as fun".A group corporate outing to the sequel is unlikely. Continue reading...
Our reviewer sheds some light on the best dawn simulation alarms, from Lumie and Philips to Dreamegg The best eye masks to help you sleep betterTo wake each day in darkness is a plight you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, yet that's what many of us do routinely throughout winter. Getting up in the dark decouples our life from our circadian rhythm (our body clock), with bodily processes such as cognition and metabolism put to work before they're fully prepped.Thank heavens, then, for sunrise alarm clocks. These dawn simulation" devices glow with gradually intensifying brightness as your wake-up time approaches, kickstarting your circadian rhythm before you get out of bed. For many users, this results in a happier, healthier start to the day. Continue reading...
Former Labour deputy leader says tech firm would work with a Reform UK government on immigration crackdownsTom Watson, the former Labour deputy leader who recently joined Palantir, has warned against mob rule" when it comes to awarding public contracts.Lord Watson, now a senior vice-president at the US tech corporation, said UK ministers could get themselves in a lot of trouble" as he was questioned about concerns raised about the government working with his new employer. Continue reading...
A spokesperson behind the tech company's AI chatbot has not yet specified what counts as abusive or cruel contentAnthropic has barred users from exhibiting sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward its models, as the company's leaders continue to ponder machine consciousness.The Verge first reported the change in policy. Continue reading...
Amid a cost-of-living crisis, with US midterms a month away, the president held a ceremony to celebrate our tech overlords - againHe stands accused of being out of touch, enriching himself and his family, building a lavish White House ballroom and, with elections looming, neglecting the hardships of the voters who brought him to power.Time for Donald Trump to show he still has the common touch? Nope. Continue reading...
A musical about a drama group's pilgrimage and reflections on activist art join an intriguing show about lost languagesIn a Dublin theatre festival programme tackling heavy themes of racism, conflict and prejudice, Lourdes! The Musical () promises something effervescent. Xnthony Ltd, the creators of Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry, have turned their lightly quizzical gaze to the French pilgrimage town - a holy Blackpool, a divine Las Vegas" and a site of hope or desperation for five unlikely travelling companions.Back in his home village in Countryland", in 2008, following a diagnosis of HIV that punctures his dreams of Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Matthew (Riain Cash) lends his star power to a parish drama group taking a musical about Saint Bernadette to Lourdes. Interweaving this show-within-a-show and the pilgrimage strands, Xnthony's lyrics and Matthew Floyd Jones's score blend pop, club beats and soulful ballads. Directed by Sarah Meadows, the supercharged ensemble joining Cash as, variously, a droll priest (Iestyn Arwel), a terminally ill mother and her transgender daughter (Nichola MacEvilly and Danielle James) and an eager tour manager (Molly Lynch) carry the music's tonal shifts effortlessly. Continue reading...
AI is already implicated in violent deaths and nearly started world war three. Those bad things? They only happen to other peopleSam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, has some words for you about his company and the future of artificial intelligence.One of the differences between us and some of the stricter AI safety people is that we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency [to use it]," Altman told Politico's new technology podcast and newsletter Decoded.Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Whistleblower says recording and analysis of all probate calls in Co-op Legal Services is oppressiveThe Co-op has become the latest employer to place workers under AI surveillance with an automated listening technology that rates every phone call some of them make to customers.In a system described as oppressive and dystopian" by a whistleblower, Co-op Legal Services is using AI models to record, analyse and award a percentage score for interactions between agents and customers seeking advice about probate, wills and estates. Continue reading...
Bejar's daughter was 14 when she told him Instagram was failing to keep her safe. So when he became part of Meta's wellbeing team', he knew he had to speak out - and his testimony cost it billionsThe Social Reckoning hits cinemas this Friday, but the real world has already been working on a sequel - or rather, a threequel. Directed by Aaron Sorkin, the movie is a follow-up to The Social Network, detailing the further misadventures of Mark Zuckerberg and his social media empire, and in particular Frances Haugen, the employee who in 2021 leaked internal documents that appeared to show Facebook was aware of the harms its products had inflicted.It's no spoiler to reveal the film climaxes with Haugen's testimony to the US Senate, on 5 October 2021. That very same day, Arturo Bejar, a consultant on the wellbeing team of Instagram (which is also owned by Facebook), hit send on a long-gestating email to Zuckerberg and other senior Facebook executives on a similar theme. I wanted to bring to your attention what I believe is a critical gap in how we as a company approach harm, and how the people we serve experience it," Bejar began, before laying out some shocking statistics from his team's survey. For example: 24.4% of 13-15-year-olds on Instagram said they had received unwanted advances, and 21.8% said they had been the target of bullying on the platform in the past seven days. Furthermore, 51% of Instagram users said they had had a bad or harmful experience in the past seven days. Only 1% of them reported it, and of those, 2% had the content taken down - so just 0.02%. This was a far greater degree of harm than the company's existing measurements suggested. Zuckerberg never replied. Continue reading...
In ad to be shown before The Social Reckoning, Ian Russell will say too little has changed' since death of Molly, 14Molly Russell's father will tell UK cinemagoers that Instagram helped kill my daughter" in an advert to be shown before screenings of a new film about Mark Zuckerberg's social media empire.In the 30-second ad before The Social Reckoning, released on Friday, Ian Russell says too little has changed" since the death of his 14-year-old daughter, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing harmful content on Instagram. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Revelation comes after executive told parliamentary inquiry he did not believe AI had been used to write message, but was happy to go and confirm'
by Aisha Down in London, Joseph Gedeon in Washington on (#78X5R)
Lithuania and Canada were also pressured to withdraw, and days before #Disinfo2026, logos were wiped off websiteThe Trump administration pressured multiple countries to withdraw their sponsorship of a leading European conference on disinformation, with Canada, Lithuania and the EU's diplomatic service subsequently agreeing to do so, the Guardian understands.The conference, #Disinfo2026, taking place on Wednesday and Thursday, is the annual meetup of Europe's counter-disinformation community and has drawn hundreds of researchers, journalists, technologists and policymakers to a hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is run by an independent Brussels non-profit, EU Disinfo Lab. Continue reading...
Women hold just a fraction of new AI jobs but are overrepresented in roles with high risk of AI disruptionThere's a common fear among people who work in Silicon Valley: snag one of the fast-growing, high-paying jobs in artificial intelligence, or get trapped in the permanent underclass", a phrase describing the fate of those who won't have upward mobility in the age of AI.The phrase usually describes a future in which AI automates human jobs. But for women in tech, it's starting to look like the present. Continue reading...
Leaders worry OpenAI is not doing due diligence to vet results and that AI models aren't accessible to broader field of mathematiciansOpenAI has astounded mathematicians after releasing hundreds of new mathematical findings on Tuesday.The company published over 370 mathematical results across a variety of topics such as algebra, theoretical computer science and mathematical logic, showcasing what some of its most advanced artificial intelligence models are capable of. Continue reading...
Users reject site's explanations after detailed instructions for writing response to post on popular forum were publishedMumsnet has denied using AI to produce content after detailed instructions to help an AI model write one of its popular am I being unreasonable" (AIBU) posts appeared on a Mumsnet message board.Users of the long-established forum, which is known for its frank discussions of family tensions, were vexed when the AI prompt appeared in response to a user seeking advice about a family dilemma involving a neurodivergent uncle and a sick child. Continue reading...
The launch of a collector's box hints at a new reality: the kinds of games I grew up with are becoming a luxury item, locked behind a forbidding spending barrier Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAs a parent (and partner) to a habitual collector, I do feel like an unwelcome portion of my life is occupied by an endless war against stuff. Surfaces in my home ceaselessly accumulate piles of random objects: a JoyCon wrist strap, a sticker sheet, an unidentifiable plastic piece of a toy or gizmo, an Xbox 360 controller with no batteries, cases for Switch cartridges lost down the side of the sofa ... Stuff encroaches everywhere, especially in a gaming household. Much as I regret the imminent disappearance of physical games, I do not regret the extra space I have in my attic as a result of switching almost entirely to downloaded games over the last decade or so.Speaking of the imminent disappearance of physical games: Rockstar recently announced a 350 ($400) collector's box" of Grand Theft Auto 6 goodies ... that doesn't include the game itself. Not even a download code. The Grand Theft Auto VI: The Goodtime State - Vice City Collection, to give it its full and unwieldy name, contains a hat, a bag, a pair of sunglasses, a figurine, a poster and more, including a mirror and a swizzle spoon" that looks, unambigiously, like a cocaine spoon. The game retails at 70, so if you want something to play alongside all your stuff, you're looking at an outlay of 420. Continue reading...
Jeremy Strong's slow-talking Facebook founder turns into a cameo, background to a thriller about a whistleblower that somehow never mentions TrumpHere is a film for all those people who solemnly deplore social media in conversation but haven't quite got round to deleting their accounts. Sixteen years have gone by since The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher; this was the addictive, obsessive-compulsive movie about the birth of Facebook in Harvard's macho-competitive cauldron of student sexism and nerdy self-pity, starring Jesse Eisenberg as the fast-talking, arrogant, not-necessarily-evil genius Mark Zuckerberg. Now Sorkin is back with a sequel of sorts, directing his own script - and now Zuckerberg is basically evil, but also weirdly slow talking, as if all the zinging, smart-alecky Sorkinesque dialogue energy of the first film has been siphoned away in early middle age and dispersed among the insurgents in the new cast.Sorkin's jittery, funny, syncopated style is unmistakable, as distinctive in its way as David Mamet, although he has one joke about spatula" being a Yiddish word that he has borrowed from Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. It is the story of how in 2021, Zuckerberg's Facebook empire was challenged by courageous whistleblower-employee Frances Haugen and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz, who were on a mission to tell the world how Zuckerberg, scared by falling revenue, changed the algorithm so that engagement was supercharged by rage bait and hate speech, malice and envy. Facebook, moreover, didn't factcheck political ads, thus driving a huge, nationwide surge in extremist groups and teen bullying and becoming a major player in the Capitol riots. (Having said that, this film does not say aloud the word Trump" and rather cravenly declines to specify Maga activity.) Continue reading...
by Chris Osuh Community affairs correspondent on (#78WYT)
Project lead says it celebrates incredible contributions' Jamaica-born sociologist made to Britain's cultureWhether it was Thatcherism, populism or the story of the Sony Walkman, Stuart Hall was a public intellectual famed for defining the times. Now a major digital archive of his previously unpublished papers, notebooks, recordings and videos has been launched.When the Jamaica-born sociologist and seminal figure in postwar Black British history died in 2014 aged 82, his obituary in the Guardian said he had been among the first to identify key questions of the age". Hall coined the term Thatcherism and in 1985 warned of the dangers of authoritarian populism". Continue reading...
Suit says AI tool allows independently owned franchises to exchange nonpublic price and sales informationMcDonald's is facing a lawsuit in federal court over its alleged use of an AI tool to determine pricing across independent franchises, which prosecutors say violates antitrust laws and has unfairly inflated menu prices for Americans.The vast majority of McDonald's US stores are independently owned and are said to individually decide on prices under company policy. Antitrust laws require businesses to set prices independently from their competitors, as coordinating prices can stifle market competition and push up costs for consumers. Continue reading...
Lawyers launch super-complaint over finding that officers in England and Wales frequently dismiss image-based abusePolice forces are routinely failing to investigate complaints about the circulation of image-based abuse, previously known as revenge pornography", according to research that has triggered a super-complaint over the way such crimes are handled.Lawyers have gathered evidence from 100 people who reported intimate images being shared online without their consent. Their research suggests that image-based abuse is still frequently dismissed or not recognised as criminal offending, despite being described by the former prime minister Keir Starmer as a national emergency. Continue reading...
Techno-optimism' may lead to reliance on unproven solutions at expense of societal changes neededScientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by the climate crisis are less likely to engage in civic action on the issue, according to a study.The report from the London School of Economics found they are 23% less likelyto sign petitions or take part in protests than peers who doubt that technology is the answer. They are also 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes, from reducing flights to changing to a vegan or vegetarian diet. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian