Mobile Fortify app being used to scan faces of citizens and immigrants - but its use has prompted a severe backlashImmigration enforcement agents across the US are increasingly relying on a new smartphone app with facial recognition technology.The app is named Mobile Fortify. Simply pointing a phone's camera at their intended target and scanning the person's face allows Mobile Fortify to pull data on an individual from multiple federal and state databases, some of which federal courts have deemed too inaccurate for arrest warrants. Continue reading...
Tech chiefs waxed poetic about AI to delegates at Davos. Plus, the human' drama of AI startups and why Tesla is thriving in TexasHello, and welcome to TechScape. This week's edition is a team effort: my colleague Heather Stewart reports on the plans for AI's world domination at Davos; I examine how huge investments have followed AI companies with little to their names but drama and dreams; and Nick Robins-Early spotlights how lax regulation of autonomous driving in Texas allowed Tesla to thrive. Continue reading...
Accused, isolated and constantly under scrutiny, The Traitors contestant drew on years of social deduction gaming to stay calm under pressureThe latest series of The Traitors, which ended last week on a nail-biting finale, featured some of the usual characters - from guileless extroverts to wannabe Columbos endlessly observing fellow contestants for the slightest flicker of treachery. But one faithful stood out for her quiet determination, despite a ceaseless onslaught of suspicion and accusation. That person was Jade Scott, and I wasn't at all surprised when, quite early on in the series, she revealed she was a keen gamer.Minecraft was my way in, when I was 15," she says. I made loads of friends at school playing that." From this innocent introduction, however, she moved on to darker titles: the first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the multiplayer battle-arena game Dota. That's where my interest in strategy gaming really kicked in," she says. Continue reading...
Southern state becoming ground zero in fight against rapid growth of facilities using huge amounts of energy and waterLawmakers in several states are exploring passing laws that would put statewide bans in place on building new datacenters as the issue of the power-hungry facilities has moved to the center of economic and environmental concerns in the US.In Georgia a state lawmaker has introduced a bill proposing what could become the first statewide moratorium on new datacenters in America. The bill is one of at least three statewide moratoriums on datacenters introduced in state legislatures in the last week as Maryland and Oklahoma lawmakers are also considering similar measures. Continue reading...
Investigation comes after Elon Musk's firm sparked outrage by allowing users to strip' photos of women and childrenThe European Commission has launched an investigation into Elon Musk's X over the production of sexually explicit images and the spreading of possible child sexual abuse material by the platform's AI chatbot, Grok.The formal inquiry, launched on Monday, also extends an investigation into X's recommender systems, algorithms that help users discover new content. Continue reading...
I've been a games journalist since 2007, but still there isn't much video games coverage that feels like it's specifically for people like me. So I'm creating a home for it: MothershipWhether you're reading about the impending AI bubble bursting or about the video game industry's mass layoffs and cancelled projects, 2026 does not feel like a hopeful time for gaming. What's more, games journalists - as well as all other kinds of journalists - have been losing their jobs at alarming rates, making it difficult to adequately cover these crises. Donald Trump's White House, meanwhile, is using video game memes as ICE recruitment tools, and game studios are backing away from diversity and inclusion initiatives in response to the wider world's slide to the right.The manosphere is back, and we've lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of woke". Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who's been a games journalist and critic since 2007. Continue reading...
Synthesia makes digital presenters for clients to use in corporate videos and counts 70% of FTSE 100 as customersA British AI startup that makes realistic video avatars has almost doubled its valuation to $4bn (3bn), in a boost for the UK technology sector.Synthesia was valued at $2.1bn last year and moved into new offices in central London, marking the moment with a ceremony attended by the Sadiq Khan, the city's mayor, and Peter Kyle, then technology secretary. Continue reading...
Bridget Phillipson says pupils should not use mobiles at any point, as Ofsted prepares to inspect complianceSchools should be phone-free throughout the entire day, the education secretary has told headteachers in England, stressing that pupils should not use the devices even as calculators or for research.Bridget Phillipson wrote to schools to underline updated guidance issued by the government last week, according to the BBC. Schools should make sure those policies are applied consistently across classes, and at all times and we want parents to back these policies too," Phillipson said. Continue reading...
Molly Russell was just 14 when she took her own life in 2017, and an inquest later found negative online content was a significant factor. With many people now pushing for teenagers to be kept off tech platforms, her father explains why he backs a different approachIan Russell describes his life as being split into two parts: before and after 20 November 2017, the day his youngest daughter, Molly, took her own life as a result of depression and negative social media content. Our life before Molly's death was very ordinary. Unremarkable," he says. He was a television producer and director, married with three daughters. We lived in an ordinary London suburb, in an ordinary semi-detached house, the children went to ordinary schools." The weekend before Molly's death, they had a celebration for all three girls' birthdays, which are in November. One was turning 21, another 18 and Molly was soon to be 15. And I remember being in the kitchen of a house full of friends and family and thinking, This is so good. I've never been so happy,'" he says. That was on a Saturday night and the following Tuesday morning, everything was different."The second part of Russell's life has been not only grief and trauma, but also a commitment to discovering and exposing the truth about the online content that contributed to Molly's death, and campaigning to prevent others falling prey to the same harms. Both elements lasted far longer than he anticipated. It took nearly five years to get enough information out of social media companies for an inquest to conclude that Molly died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content". As for the campaigning, the Molly Rose Foundation provides support, conducts research and raises awareness of online harms, and Russell has been an omnipresent spokesperson on these issues. Continue reading...
The most popular posts on r/animalid are exotic lizards and rare birds - but it's the haziest trail cam screenshots that feel the most dangerous, the most spectacular
Altman's campaigning for his company coincides with its use of enormous present resources to serve an imagined futureSam Altman has claimed over the years that the advancement of AI could solve climate change, cure cancer, create a benevolent superintelligence beyond human comprehension, provide a tutor for every student, take over nearly half of the tasks in the economy and create what he calls universal extreme wealth".In order to bring about his utopian future, Altman is demanding enormous resources from the present. As CEO of OpenAI, the world's most valuable privately owned company, he has in recent months announced plans for $1tn of investment into datacenters and struck multibillion-dollar deals with several chipmakers. If completed, the datacenters are expected to use more power than entire European nations. OpenAI is pushing an aggressive expansion - encroaching on industries like e-commerce, healthcare and entertainment - while increasingly integrating its products into government, universities, and the US military and making a play to turn ChatGPT into the new default homepage for millions. Continue reading...
The avatar, created to deter young people from extremism, has been subverted and is breaking out of niche online silosIn certain corners of the internet, on niche news feeds and algorithms, an AI-generated British schoolgirl has emerged as something of a phenomenon.Her name is Amelia, a purple-haired goth girl" who proudly carries a mini union flag and appears to have a penchant for racism. Continue reading...
Exclusive: German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month How the confident authority' of AI Overviews is putting public health at riskGoogle's search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are reliable" and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic. Continue reading...
Experts say tool can give completely wrong' medical advice which could put users at risk of serious harm AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site, study suggestsDo I have the flu or Covid? Why do I wake up feeling tired? What is causing the pain in my chest? For more than two decades, typing medical questions into the world's most popular search engine has served up a list of links to websites with the answers. Google those health queries today and the response will likely be written by artificial intelligence.Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive, first set out the company's plans to enmesh AI into its search engine at its annual conference in Mountain View, California, in May 2024. Starting that month, he said, US users would see a new feature, AI Overviews, which would provide information summaries above traditional search results. The change marked the biggest shake-up of Google's core product in a quarter of a century. By July 2025, the technology had expanded to more than 200 countries in 40 languages, with 2 billion people served AI Overviews each month. Continue reading...
Guardian found OpenAI's platform cited Grokipedia on topics including Iran and Holocaust deniersThe latest model of ChatGPT has begun to cite Elon Musk's Grokipedia as a source on a wide range of queries, including on Iranian conglomerates and Holocaust deniers, raising concerns about misinformation on the platform.In tests done by the Guardian, GPT-5.2 cited Grokipedia nine times in response to more than a dozen different questions. These included queries on political structures in Iran, such as salaries of the Basij paramilitary force and the ownership of the Mostazafan Foundation, and questions on the biography of Sir Richard Evans, a British historian and expert witness against Holocaust denier David Irving in his libel trial. Continue reading...
Partnership with tech giant speaks to push to engage younger fans but also has wider strategic goals in mindIn this World Cup year, Fifa has come out of the blocks quickly. In the past few weeks any number of initiatives have been announced or activated, from a data partnership with Opta to facilitate more betting, to the Fifa Pass for speeding up visa applications for the US this summer, to the unveiling of the official Lego World Cup trophy. Among the ever-expanding list is an intriguing deal with TikTok, a partnership that will give digital creators front-row seats at the 104-match tournament.In Fifa language its partnership with the short-form video platform will make the most inclusive event in football history ... even more accessible". According to TikTok's global head of content, James Stafford, it will bring fans closer to the action in ways they can't get anywhere else". It plans to do so by granting an unspecified number of online personalities behind-the-scenes access, giving them archive and highlights footage to use in their content and, in return, requesting an avalanche of posts that will make the World Cup inescapable for TikTok users. Continue reading...
Politicians call for more infrastructure funding amid anger that county is seen as holiday playground'Accessed by a steep, winding lane, the tiny settlement of Cucurrian in the far-west of Cornwall feels remote at the best of times. But over the last two weeks, the people who live here have felt even more isolated after they were left without a way of communicating with the outside world as a result of Storm Goretti.I think people feel let down, angry, failed," said Mark Pugh, an audiobook producer, who has spent more hours than he would care to tot up carefully picking his way out of Cucurrian and sitting in his car in a layby to find a mobile signal good enough to work from. This storm has shown that Cornwall isn't resilient enough. A lot is promised, but not enough is delivered." Continue reading...
AI evangelist Peter Kyle wants to scale up businesses, attract overseas investors and look out for UK's poorer regionsThe UK business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said he is betting big" and picking winners" as the government takes direct stakes in growing businesses to boost economic growth.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been talking up Britain's prospects, Kyle said ministers were taking an activist" approach to industrial policy. Continue reading...
Misinformation technology could be deployed at scale to disrupt 2028 US presidential election, AI researchers sayPolitical leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned.The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new disruptive threat" posed by hard-to-detect, malicious AI swarms" infesting social media and messaging channels. Continue reading...
Growing concerns about the impact of smartphones on the youngest children must be addressedThe first UK government guidance on young children's use of tablets, smartphones and other screens, expected in April, cannot come soon enough. The laissez-faire approach to the boom in social media, handheld devices and other digital technology was arguably nowhere less suitable than when such machines were placed in front of babies. The Department for Education's ongoing Children of the 2020s study has found that 98% of two-year-olds watch screens on a typical day for more than two hours. Those who spent the most time had smaller vocabularies, and were twice as likely as other children to show signs of emotional and behavioural difficulties.Correlation must not be mistaken for causation. This is still a relatively new area of research, and much remains uncertain. But the findings of a recent survey by the charity Kindred Squared, combined with observations by teachers, are highly concerning. Answers from 1,000 primary-school staff revealed that 37% of four-year-olds arrived without basic life skills such as dressing and eating in 2025 - up from 33% two years earlier.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Video game publisher to cancel Prince of Persia remake and close studios after several difficult yearsThe video game publisher behind the Assassin's Creed series has cancelled six projects including a remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as it fights to stay competitive in the global gaming market.Ubisoft announced a sweeping reorganisation and said it would cancel six games, sending its shares to their lowest level in more than a decade on Thursday. Continue reading...
Estimate made by Center for Countering Digital Hate after Elon Musk's AI image generation tool sparked outrageGrok AI generated about 3m sexualised images in less than two weeks, including 23,000 that appear to depict children, according to researchers who said it became an industrial-scale machine for the production of sexual abuse material".The estimate has been made by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after Elon Musk's AI image generation tool sparked international outrage when it allowed users to upload photographs of strangers and celebrities, digitally strip them to their underwear or into bikinis, put them in provocative poses and post the images on X. Continue reading...
Hundreds of writers, musicians and performers urge licensing deals instead of scraping creative workScarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, REM and Jodi Picoult are among hundreds of Hollywood stars, musicians and authors backing a new campaign accusing AI companies of theft" of their work.The Stealing Isn't Innovation" drive launched on Thursday with the support of approximately 800 creative professionals and bands. The campaign includes a statement accusing tech firms of using American creators' work to build AI platforms without authorisation or regard for copyright law". Continue reading...
The president wants big tech to pay more for electricity, but he's curbing renewable projects that could boost supplyDonald Trump is worried about datacenters. Specifically, he is concerned about their effects on an already expensive electricity market in the United States. Will Americans' resentment of sharply rising energy costs scuttle his party's November election ambitions?The US president's anxiety is evident in two actions in recent weeks. On 13 January, Trump and Microsoft's president jointly announced that the tech giant would pay more for its datacenters, paying full property taxes and accepting neither tax reductions nor electricity rate discounts in towns where it operates datacenters. Continue reading...
Quake Brutalist Jam began as a celebration of old-fashioned shooter level design, but its latest version is one step away from being a game in its own rightA lone concrete spire stands in a shallow bowl of rock, sheltering a rusted trapdoor from the elements. Standing on the trapdoor causes it to yawn open like iron jaws, dropping you through a vertical shaft into a subterranean museum. Here, dozens of doors line the walls of three vaulted grey galleries, each leading to a pocket dimension of dizzying virtual architecture and fierce gladiatorial combat.Welcome to Quake Brutalist Jam, the hottest community event for lovers of id Software's classic first-person shooter from 1996. First run in 2022, the Jam started out as a celebration of old-school 3D level design, where veteran game developers, aspiring level designers and enthusiast modders gather to construct new maps and missions themed around the austere minimalism of brutalist architecture. Continue reading...
In the UK, 98% of two-year-olds watch screens on a typical day, on average for more than two hours - and almost 40% of three- to five-year-olds use social media. Could this lead to alarming outcomes?At Stoke primary school in Coventry, there are many four-year-olds among those starting in reception class who can't sit still, hold a pencil or speak more than a four-word sentence. Lucy Fox, the assistant headteacher and head of foundations, is in no doubt what is causing this: their early exposure to screens, and a lot of it. When the children experiment with materials and creativity, and make things in the classroom, she says, We notice a lot of children will cut pieces of cardboard out and make a mobile phone or tablet, or an Xbox controller. That's what they know."At another school in Hampshire, a longtime reception teacher says in the last few years she has noticed children getting frustrated if activities aren't instant and seamless - something she thinks comes from playing games on a phone or tablet. There is a lack of creativity and problem-solving skills, noticeable when the children are playing with Lego or doing jigsaw puzzles and turning the pieces to fit. I find their hand-eye coordination isn't very good, and they find puzzles difficult. Doing a puzzle on an iPad, you just need to hold and move it on the screen. They get really frustrated and I feel like there are certain connections the brain is not making any more." Continue reading...
It is the year 2029 and an LA cop finds himself accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to clear his name before robo-justice sends him downIrish writer Marco van Belle delivers an entertaining script for this real time futurist thriller-satire set in LA in 2029, in a world (as they say) where AI is wholly responsible for assessing criminal guilt or innocence. You've heard of RoboCop. This is RoboJustice. Veteran Russian-Kazakh film-maker Timur Bekmambetov directs, bringing his usual robust approach to the big action sequences, and Chris Pratt stars as the LAPD cop accused of murder. (Longtime Pratt fans will appreciate a cameo appearance here of Pratt's fellow cast-member from TV's Parks and Recreation, Jay Jackson, effectively reprising his performance as sonorous TV newsreader Perd Hapley.)The film's ostensible target is the insidious power of AI, though the movie partakes of today's liberal opinion doublethink, in which we all solemnly concur that AI is very worrying while not having the smallest intention of doing anything about it. Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, an officer with a drinking problem but nonetheless a poster boy for LA law enforcement in 2029 for having brought in the first conviction under the city's creepy new hi-tech justice system, ironically entitled Mercy (it doesn't appear to be an acronym). AI is now the sole arbiter of justice and defendants each have a 90-minute trial to make their case in front of Judge Maddox, an AI-hologram played by Rebecca Ferguson who icily insists on the facts but is capable of weird Max-Headroom-type glitches. Continue reading...
Snap's chief executive had been due to testify in civil action also involving Meta, TikTok and YouTubeSnapchat's parent company has settled a civil lawsuit shortly before it was due to start in California, but other large tech companies still face a trial under the case.Snap's chief executive, Evan Spiegel, had been due to testify in a tech addiction lawsuit which also involves the Instagram owner, Meta; ByteDance's TikTok; and Alphabet-owned YouTube - which have not settled. Continue reading...
After years away revisiting my abandoned island uncovers new features, old memories and the quiet reassurance that you can go home again Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereNintendo's pandemic-era hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons got another major update last week, along with a 5 Switch 2 upgrade that makes it look and run better on the new console. Last year, I threw a new year's party for my children in the game, but apart from that I have barely touched my island since the depths of lockdown, when sunny Alba was my preferred escape from the monotonous misery of the real world. Back then, I spent more than 200 hours on this island. Stepping out of her (now massive) house, my avatar's hair is all ruffled and her eyes sleepy after a long, long time aslumber.I half-expected Alba to be practically in ruins, but it's not that bad. Aside from a few cockroaches in the basement and a bunch of weeds poking up from the snow, everything is as it was. The paths that I had laid out around the island still lead me to the shop, the tailors, the museum; I stop by to visit Blathers the curatorial owl, and he gives me a new mission to find a pigeon called Brewster so that we can open a museum cafe. It's been four years and eight months!" exclaims one of my longtime residents, a penguin called Aurora. That can't be right, can it? Have I really been ignoring her since summer 2021? Thankfully, Animal Crossing characters are very forgiving. I get the impression they've been getting along perfectly fine without me. Continue reading...
State provision for psychological health services is lamentable. Until things improve, let's not judge those who turn to an app for helpIt's a sunny afternoon in a Roman park and a peculiar, new-to-this-era kind of coming out is happening between me and my friend Clarissa. She has just asked me if I, like her and all of her other friends, use an AI therapist and I say yes.Our mutual confession feels, at first, quite confusing. As a society, we still don't know how confidential, or shareable, our AI therapist usage should be. It falls in a limbo between the intimacy of real psychotherapy and the material triviality of sharing skincare advice. That's because, as much as our talk with a chatbot can be as private as one with a human, we're still aware that its response is a digital product.Viola di Grado is an Italian authorDo 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...
When I swapped my iPhone for a Nokia, Walkman, film camera and physical map, I wasn't sure what to expect. But my life soon started to changeWhen two balaclava-clad men on a motorbike mounted the pavement to rob me, recently, I remained oblivious. My eyes were pinned to a text message on my phone, and my hands were so clawed around it that they didn't even bother to grab it. It wasn't until an elderly woman shrieked and I felt the whoosh of air as the bike launched back on to the road that I looked up at all. They might have been unsuccessful but it did make me think: what else am I missing from the real world around me?Before I've poured my first morning coffee I've already watched the lives of strangers unfold on Instagram, checked the headlines, responded to texts, swiped through some matches on a dating app, and refreshed my emails, twice. I check Apple Maps for my quickest route to work. I've usually left it too late to get the bus, so I rent a Lime bike using the app. During the day, my brother sends me some memes, I take a picture of a canal boat, and pay for my lunch on Apple Pay. I walk home listening to music on Spotify and a long voice note from a friend, then I watch a nondescript TV drama, while scrolling through Depop and Vinted for clothes. Continue reading...
Inside the big rewards tech titans have reaped from caving to Trump. Plus, a look at the US datacenter boom and the effects of Australia's social media banHello, and welcome to TechScape. I'm your host, Blake Montgomery, the Guardian's US tech editor.One year ago today, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States. Standing alongside him that day were the leaders of the tech industry's most powerful companies, who had donated to him in an unprecedented bending of the knee. In the ensuing year, the companies have reaped enormous rewards from their alliance with Trump, which my colleague Nick Robins-Early and I wrote about last month after Trump signed an executive order prohibiting states from passing laws regulating AI. Trump has sponsored the tech industry with billions in government funding and with diplomatic visits that featured CEOs as his fellow negotiators in massive, lucrative deals. Continue reading...
While touch grass' has become a popular prescription for a less digital life, choosing social friction over efficiency can also feel curativeAt the turn of the millennium daily life looked very different. The modern internet was just a decade old, mobile phones were far from universal and our social lives were mostly physical - and local.In the 25 years since, technology has changed how we live in profound ways. Most people check their phone within minutes of waking and return to it on average 186 times a day. Computers and the systems that sit behind them mediate every aspect of modern life, shaping how we move through the world. Continue reading...
Emojis explode all over the screen in this hyperactive adaptation of a Japanese folk tale about a princess who has run away from the moonNever has a film been more deserving of an exclamation mark at the end of the title than this animation from Japan. Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, the story of a princess from the moon discovered inside a bamboo stalk in a poor rural village. A decade ago, Studio Ghibli adapted the tale into a gorgeously animated movie with a traditional, lovingly hand-painted feel. This film could not be more different, a trippy, high-energy, techno anime set in the near future, half of it in a virtual reality world - and TikTok-ifed with emojis and stickers exploding all over the screen.It begins when a 17-year-old high school student called Iroha finds a baby girl inside a glowing lamppost (rather than the bamboo stalk of the original). Iroha (voiced by Dawn M Bennett in the English dub) is a sensible kid, a talented musician and grade-A student who has already moved out of the family home and is living alone, working all hours to pay the rent of her tiny studio flat. In any free time she does have, Iroha follows her idol, AI musical megastar Yachiyo, in a crazy, chaotic virtual reality world called Tsukuyomi. Continue reading...
by Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent on (#72YSR)
Government, Bank of England and FCA criticised for taking wait-and-see' approach to AI use in financial sectorConsumers and the UK financial system are being exposed to serious harm" by the failure of government and the Bank of England to get a grip on the risks posed by artificial intelligence, an influential parliamentary committee has warned.In a new report, MPs on the Treasury committee criticise ministers and City regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), for taking a wait-and-see" approach to AI use across the financial sector. Continue reading...
Worth a staggering $2.45bn, Suno is an AI music company that can create a track with just a few prompts. Why is its CEO happy to see it called the Ozempic of the music industry'?The format of the future," says Mikey Shulman, is music you play with, not just play." As the CEO and co-founder of the generative AI music company Suno, Shulman currently finds himself in the exhilarating if perhaps unenviable position of being simultaneously regarded as the architect of music's future - and its executioner.Suno, which was founded just over two years ago, allows users to create entire songs with just a few text prompts. At the moment, you can't prompt it with the name of a specific pop star, but asking for stadium-level confessional pop-country" that references past relationships" or public rivalries" might get you a Taylor Swift-style song or thereabouts. Continue reading...
Social media is filling up with influencers telling us how to become much more intellectual. A great, enriching idea - or just another cue to show off?Name: Disgustingly educated.Age: About 18 months. Continue reading...
His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he's no longer the outsider he once wasIf some time in an entirely possible future they come to make a movie about how the AI bubble burst", Ed Zitron will doubtless be a main character. He's the perfect outsider figure: the eccentric loner who saw all this coming and screamed from the sidelines that the sky was falling, but nobody would listen. Just as Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, the investor who predicted the 2008 financial crash, in The Big Short, you can well imagine Robert Pattinson fighting Paul Mescal, say, to portray Zitron, the animated, colourfully obnoxious but doggedly detail-oriented Brit, who's become one of big tech's noisiest critics.This is not to say the AI bubble will burst, necessarily, but against a tidal wave of AI boosterism, Zitron's blunt, brash scepticism has made him something of a cult figure. His tech newsletter, Where's Your Ed At, now has more than 80,000 subscribers; his weekly podcast, Better Offline, is well within the Top 20 on the tech charts; he's a regular dissenting voice in the media; and his subreddit has become a safe space for AI sceptics, including those within the tech industry itself - one user describes him as a lighthouse in a storm of insane hypercapitalist bullshit". Continue reading...
Exclusive: Letter signed by figures on right and left of party says UK should follow Australia's example by enacting banMore than 60 Labour MPs have written to Keir Starmer urging him to back a social media ban for under-16s, with peers due to vote on the issue this week.The MPs, who include select committee chairs, former frontbenchers and MPs from the right and left of the party, are looking to put pressure on the prime minister as calls mount for the UK to follow Australia's precedent. Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts This week's question: How can we learn from unrequited love?What's the point of having speed limits if camera-warning signs and apps allow drivers to slow down in advance - then just continue speeding? Maybe the UK government in its new consultations on road safety should add the question of hiding speed cameras to their list of concerns. I'm a driver, but also a pedestrian and cyclist and get fed up with seeing cars zooming down local roads at way more than 20 or 30mph. There are flashing lights that tell drivers what speed they're doing, but there's no penalty for going over at those points. Amy, CornwallSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...
AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its rootsI am a science-fiction writer, which means that my job is to make up futuristic parables about our current techno-social arrangements to interrogate not just what a gadget does, but who it does it for, and who it does it to.What I do not do is predict the future. No one can predict the future, which is a good thing, since if the future were predictable, that would mean we couldn't change it. Continue reading...
Big tech treats our attention like a resource to be mercilessly extracted. The fightback begins hereIn the last 15 years, a linked series of unprecedented technologies have changed the experience of personhood across most of the world. It is estimated that nearly 70% of the human population of the Earth currently possesses a smartphone, and these devices constitute about 95% of internet access-points on the planet. Globally, on average, people seem to spend close to half their waking hours looking at screens, and among young people in the rich world the number is a good deal higher than that.History teaches that new technologies always make possible new forms of exploitation, and this basic fact has been spectacularly exemplified by the rise of society-scale digital platforms. It has been driven by a remarkable new way of extracting money from human beings: call it human fracking". Just as petroleum frackers pump high-pressure, high-volume detergents into the ground to force a little monetisable black gold to the surface, human frackers pump high-pressure, high-volume detergent into our faces (in the form of endless streams of addictive slop and maximally disruptive user-generated content), to force a slurry of human attention to the surface, where they can collect it, and take it to market. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent on (#72XMS)
Experts warn use of VPNs makes it hard to limit access to technology that can create nonconsensual explicit imagesDays after Malaysia made global headlines by announcing it would temporarily ban Grok over its ability to generate grossly offensive and nonconsensual manipulated images", the generative AI tool was conversing breezily with accounts registered in the country.Still here! That DNS block in Malaysia is pretty lightweight - easy to bypass with a VPN or DNS tweak," Grok's account on X said in response to a question from a user. Continue reading...
