Arm owner SoftBank reports £1.2bn profit as it shifts towards AI

Tech investor led £800m funding round into UK self-driving car software company WayveBusiness live – latest updatesThe Japanese tech investor SoftBank made a profit for the second consecutive quarter as it tries to turn its performance around before big planned investments in artificial intelligence.SoftBank reported net income of 231bn yen (£1.18bn) in the first three months of 2024, compared with a 57.6bn yen loss in the same period last year, according to financial results p

American Society of Clinical Oncology annual address shares ‘impressive’ findings in vaccines, drug trials and AIAt the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference, doctors, scientists and researchers shared new findings on ways to tackle the disease.The event in Chicago, attended by about 44,000 health professionals, featured more than 200 sessions focused on this year’s theme, The Art and Science of Cancer Care: From

AI firms scrutinised over regulations that oversee fair competition and aim to prevent monopoliesMicrosoft, OpenAI and Nvidia face increased antitrust scrutiny of their roles in the artificial intelligence industry after a report that US regulators have reached an agreement on investigating the companies.The New York Times reported that the US justice department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached an agreement on investigations into the main protagonists in the AI market. The dea

US regulators open inquiry into AI firms over antitrust laws that oversee fair competitionMicrosoft, OpenAI and Nvidia face increased antitrust scrutiny of their roles in the artificial intelligence industry after US regulators reportedly reached an agreement on investigating the companies.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have struck a deal on investigations into the main protagonists in the AI market, the New York Times reported, with the agreement expec

AI chipmaker’s stock has surged 147% so far in 2024, underscoring shift in tech world as demand for its processors far outstrip supplyShares of Nvidia rallied to record highs on Wednesday, with the artificial-intelligence chipmaker’s stock market valuation hitting the $3tn mark and overtaking Apple to become the world’s second most valuable company.The chipmaker’s stock was up 5.16% at $1,224.40, giving Nvidia a market value of $3.01tn at market close. Apple’s marke

Eric Yuan suggests technology is five or six years away and will free up time to spend with familyZoom users in the not-too-distant future could send AI avatars to attend meetings in their absence, the company’s chief executive has suggested, delegating the drudge-work of corporate life to a system trained on their own content.Such a system would be “five or six years” away, Eric Yuan told The Verge magazine, but he added that the company is working on nearer-term technologies

Scientists used an algorithm to mine ‘the entirety of the microbial diversity’ on Earth, speeding up antibiotic resistance researchA new study used machine learning to predict potential new antibiotics in the global microbiome, which study authors say marks a significant advance in the use of artificial intelligence in antibiotic resistance research.The report, published Wednesday in the journal Cell, details the findings of scientists who used an algorithm to mine the “entiret

How does age shape political views? Paul Karp, Guardian Australia’s chief political correspondent, and columnist Peter Lewis discuss how age effects views on current debates on age restrictions on social media, the age of criminal responsibility and criminalising hate speech. Based on new research on artificial intelligence in different workplaces, they also examine how voters are weighing up the risk and opportunities of this rapidly evolving technologyRead more: Continue reading...

Exclusive: Scientists at MIT hope talking to 60-year-old self will shift thinking on health, money and workIf your carefully crafted life plan has been scuppered by sofa time, bingeing on fast food, drinking too much and failing to contribute to the company pension, it may be time for a chat with your future self.Without ready access to a time machine, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have built an AI-powered chatbot that simulates a user’s older self and dish

Taiwan is the target of more disinformation from abroad than any other democracy, according to University of Gothenburg studyCharles Yeh’s battle with disinformation in Taiwan began with a bowl of beef noodles. Nine years ago, the Taiwanese engineer was at a restaurant with his family when his mother-in-law started picking the green onions out of her food. Asked what she was doing, she explained that onions can harm your liver. She knew this, she said, because she had received text message

Current and former workers sign letter warning of lack of safety oversight and calling for more protections for whistleblowersA group of current and former employees at prominent artificial intelligence companies issued an open letter on Tuesday that warned of a lack of safety oversight within the industry and called for increased protections for whistleblowers.The letter, which calls for a “right to warn about artificial intelligence”, is one of the most public statements about the

Social media has taught us that technology is neither innately good or bad. AI must be approached with this same critical mindsetFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastTech overlord Sam Altman’s legal skirmish with actor Scarlett Johansson brings the blurred lines between artificial intelligence and the world it seeks to transform into sharper focus.For those who missed it, Johansson is suing Altman&rsq

DoJ filing says president’s interview with special counsel about handling of classified documents could be ‘improperly altered’The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation

Fake video uses AI-generated audio of the movie star to disparage the Olympic CommitteeRussia is targeting the Paris Olympics with a disinformation campaign that includes deploying a deepfake Tom Cruise to narrate a documentary criticising the organisation behind the games, according to a new report from Microsoft.Microsoft said a network of Russia-affiliated groups are running “malign influence campaigns” against France, Emmanuel Macron, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and

A South Australian museum honours the man who changed the way dentistry was done ‘on a global scale’In medieval Europe, barber-surgeons might cut your hair, shave your face, do a bit of blood-letting and tend to a broken limb.They might also pull a tooth out with a “pelican” – a crude beak-like shank – or lever it out with an iron “tooth key”. By the 17th century they might just knock it out with a steel punch elevator. Continue reading...

Survey also shows increasing desire for government regulation of hate speech and artificial intelligenceGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastMore than two-thirds of voters support raising the age limit for social media from 13 to 16, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.The poll of 1,160 voters, released on Tuesday, finds an increasing appetite for government regulation of hate speech, social media and artificial intelligence.Sign up for Guardian Au

CEO Jensen Huang tells packed stadium in Taipei ‘next Industrial Revolution has begun’ Nvidia has unveiled new products and plans to accelerate the advance of artificial intelligence, with the AI hardware company’s CEO telling a packed stadium in Taipei on Sunday that “the next Industrial Revolution has begun”.Jensen Huang is in Taiwan for the island’s leading tech expo, Computex, along with the CEOs of some of the world’s biggest semiconductor companies

The company that shaped the development of search engines is banking on chatbot-style summaries. But so far, its suggestions are pretty wildOnce upon a time, Google was great. For those who were online in 1998, history’s timeline bifurcated into two eras: BG (Before Google), and AG. It was elegant and clean: elegant because it was driven by a semi-objective algorithm called PageRank, which ranked websites according to how many other websites linked to them; and clean because it had no adve

Attorney general Mark Dreyfus to introduce legislation on Wednesday targeting use of generative AI to create non-consensual deepfake pornGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastSharing digitally altered “deepfake” pornographic images will attract a penalty of six years’ jail, or seven years for those who also created them, under proposed new national laws to go before federal parliament next week.The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, is expected t

Attorney general Mark Dreyfus to introduce legislation on Wednesday targeting use of generative AI to create non-consensual deepfake pornGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastSharing digitally altered “deepfake” pornographic images will attract a penalty of six years’ jail, or seven years for those who also created them, under proposed new national laws to go before federal parliament next week.The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, is expected t

After new feature tells people to eat rocks or add glue to pizza sauce, company to restrict which searches return summariesGoogle announced on Thursday that it would refine and retool its summaries of search results generated by artificial intelligence, posting a blog explaining why the feature was returning bizarre and inaccurate answers that included telling people to eat rocks or add glue to pizza sauce. The company will reduce the scope of searches that will return an AI-written summary.Goog

Showrunner will let users generate episodes with prompts, which could be an alarming next step or a fleeting noveltyOne of the key strategies of streaming services is to keep you in front of a screen for as long as possible. As soon as one episode of a show you’re watching ends, the next one pops up automatically. But this approach has its limits. After all, when a series ends, Netflix will try and autoplay another series that it thinks you’ll like, but it has a terrible success rate

Networks in China and Iran also used AI models to create and post disinformation but campaigns did not reach large audiencesOpenAI on Thursday released its first ever report on how its artificial intelligence tools are being used for covert influence operations, revealing that the company had disrupted disinformation campaigns originating from Russia, China, Israel and Iran.Malicious actors used the company’s generative AI models to create and post propaganda content across social media pl

AI expected to help researchers unlock two-way communication, say team that includes Tel Aviv UniversityIn the Dr Dolittle books and films, the ability to “talk to the animals” captured the imagination. Now scientists are being offered a $10m prize to create real conversations.The Coller Dolittle Challenge for Interspecies Two-Way Communication has been launched by the Jeremy Coller Foundation and Tel Aviv University. While the use of AI is not obligatory, the team say the technology

Cloud-based software firm could lose $48bn in market value if losses hold, amid fear rival AI offerings are hampering demandSalesforce shares slumped about 18% on Thursday, after its lowest-ever quarterly revenue growth forecast raised fears that high interest rates and rival AI offerings were hampering demand at the cloud-based software firm.The company could lose more than $48bn in market value if losses hold, as it also reported quarterly revenue that was below expectations for the first time

Celebrity posts of graphic following IDF strike help make it among most-shared content of Israel-Gaza warIsrael-Gaza war – live updatesAn image depicting refugee tents spelling out the phrase “all eyes on Rafah” has become one of the most-shared pieces of content relating to the Israel-Gaza war, spreading rapidly on social media this week. The graphic, which was generated using artificial intelligence, had been shared on Instagram more than 45m times by Wednesday.The image and

Big tech is playing its part in reaching net zero targets, but its vast new datacentres are run at huge cost to the environmentMariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public PurposeWhen you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres hou

It’s been a busy week in the world of artificial intelligence. OpenAI found itself in hot water with Scarlett Johansson after launching its new chatbot Sky, drawing comparisons to the Hollywood star’s character in the sci-fi film Her. In South Korea the second global AI summit took place, and a report published yesterday by the Alan Turing Institute explored how artificial intelligence could influence elections. The Guardian’s UK technology editor, Alex Hern, tells Madeleine Fi

Javier Milei to hold private talks with Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman as Argentina faces worst economic crisis in decadesJavier Milei, Argentina’s president, is set to meet with the leaders of some of the world’s largest tech companies in Silicon Valley this week. The far-right libertarian leader will hold private talks with Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Tim Cook of Apple.Milei also met last month with Elon Musk, who has become one of the S