Hum by Helen Phillips review – an all-too-plausible vision of the future

This thoughtful novel about a family trying to breathe clean air and not spend too long on their devices is mesmerising and scaryMay loses her office job when the “hums” – humanoid robots – render her role obsolete. It’s hard to find work again. She hears of an opportunity to earn several months’ salary by receiving an experimental facial injection, and takes it. The injection will render May’s face unrecognisable to the ubiquitous hums. She’s a gu

Researchers have created microscopic robots so small they’re barely visible, yet smart enough to sense, decide, and move completely on their own. Powered by light and equipped with tiny computers, the robots swim by manipulating electric fields rather than using moving parts. They can detect temperature changes, follow programmed paths, and even work together in groups. The breakthrough marks the first truly autonomous robots at this microscopic scale.

Jensen Huang also announces at CES new, more powerful Vera Rubin chips that will arrive later this yearThe billionaire boss of the chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has unveiled new AI technology that he says will help self-driving cars think like humans to navigate more complex situations.The world’s most valuable company is to roll out the new technology, Alpamayo, which is designed to help self-driving cars handle tricky situations such as sudden roadworks or unusual driver behaviour on t

Former OpenAI employee Daniel Kokotajlo says progress to AGI is ‘somewhat slower’ than first predictedA leading artificial intelligence expert has rolled back his timeline for AI doom, saying it will take longer than he initially predicted for AI systems to be able to code autonomously and thus speed their own development toward superintelligence.Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee of OpenAI, sparked an energetic debate in April by releasing AI 2027, a scenario that envisions uncheck

Next generation of chips in ‘full production’ and will arrive later this year, Jensen Huang says at CES in Las VegasNvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Monday that the company’s next generation of chips is in “full production” saying they can deliver five times the artificial-intelligence computing of the company’s previous chips when serving up chatbots and other AI apps.In a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the leader of the world’s mo

Lack of verified information and rapidly advanced AI tools make it difficult to separate fact from fiction on US attackMinutes after Donald Trump announced a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela early on Saturday morning, false and misleading AI-generated images began flooding social media. There were fake photos of Nicolás Maduro being escorted off a plane by US law enforcement agents, images of jubilant Venezuelans pouring into the streets of Caracas and videos of missiles

Degrading pictures being posted on Elon Musk’s site despite the platform pledging to suspend people who generate themDegrading images of children and women with their clothes digitally removed by Grok AI continue to be shared on Elon Musk’s X, despite the platform’s commitment to suspend users who generate them.After days of concern over use of the chatbot to alter photographs to create sexualised pictures of real women and children stripped to their underwear without their con

The degrading pictures are being posted to X despite the platform pledging to suspend people who generate themDegrading images of children and women with their clothes digitally removed by Grok AI continue to be shared on Elon Musk’s X, despite the platform’s commitment to suspend users who generate them.After days of concern over use of the chatbot to alter photographs to create sexualised pictures of real women and children stripped to their underwear without their consent, the UK&

Exclusive: Ashley St Clair says supporters of X owner are using his AI tool to create a form of revenge pornThe mother of one of Elon Musk’s sons has said she felt “horrified and violated” after fans of the billionaire used his AI tool, Grok, to create fake sexualised images of her by manipulating real pictures.The writer and political strategist Ashley St Clair, who became estranged from Musk after the birth of their child in 2024, told the Guardian that supporters of the X ow

Children are growing up as AI natives and experts say computing skills should be on par with reading and writingIn a Cambridge classroom, Joseph, 10, trained his AI model to discern between drawings of apples and drawings of smiles.“AI gets lots of things wrong,” he said, as it mistakenly identified a fruit as a face. He set about retraining it and, in a flash, he had it back on track – instinctively understanding the inner nature of artificial intelligence and machine learning

Calls to a clinic in Uganda are helping create a therapy algorithm that works in local languages, as specialists look to technology to address the global mental health crisisWhen patients telephone Butabika hospital in Kampala, Uganda, seeking help with mental health problems, they are themselves assisting future patients by helping to create a therapy chatbot.Calls to the clinic helpline are being used to train an AI algorithm that researchers hope will eventually power a chatbot offering thera

These inventions trigger rage, but also optimism. Maybe they will make people think more critically about debate and democracyIt was my blue shirt, a present from my sister-in-law, that gave it all away. It made me think of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, the lowly bureaucrat in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella The Double, a disconcerting study of the fragmented self within a vast, impersonal feudal system.It all started with a message from an esteemed colleague congratulating me on a video talk on

Protest over climate crisis and AI has cut power to tens of thousands of homes which may take days to fully restoreGerman leftwing militants protesting over the climate crisis and AI have claimed responsibility for an arson attack that cut power to tens of thousands of households in Berlin.The fire that broke out on a bridge across the Teltow canal in the south-west of the capital early on Saturday could deprive up to 35,000 homes and 1,900 businesses of electricity – and in many cases hea

AI safety expert David Dalrymple said rapid advances could outpace efforts to control powerful systemsThe world “may not have time” to prepare for the safety risks posed by cutting-edge AI systems, according to a leading figure at the UK government’s scientific research agency.David Dalrymple, a programme director and AI safety expert at the Aria agency, told the Guardian people should be concerned about the growing capability of the technology. Continue reading...

Revenues may be rising rapidly, but not by nearly enough to cover the wild levels of investment under wayThe US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop”, which it defines as “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence”. The choice underlined the fact that while AI is being widely embraced, not least by corporate bosses keen to cut payroll costs, its downsides are also becoming ob

Revenues may be rising rapidly, but not by nearly enough to cover the wild levels of investment under wayThe US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop”, which it defines as “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence”. The choice underlined the fact that while AI is being widely embraced, not least by corporate bosses keen to cut payroll costs, its downsides are also becoming ob

Revenues may be rising rapidly, but not by nearly enough to cover the wild levels of investment under wayThe US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop”, which it defines as “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence”. The choice underlined the fact that while AI is being widely embraced, not least by corporate bosses keen to cut payroll costs, its downsides are also becoming ob

Analysts and investors voice caution about tech valuations and Trump’s influence on the US central bankInvestors expect global stock markets to keep rising in 2026, despite fears that the AI bubble could burst, and anxiety about chaos engulfing the US central bank.Wall Street strategists broadly expect the S&P 500 share index of US-listed companies to continue to rise over the next 12 months, but said it could be a volatile year if geopolitical tensions increase and inflation fails to

Defenders say AI can do good to fight the climate crisis. But spiralling energy and water costs leave experts worriedDuring a golden sunset in Memphis in May, Sharon Wilson pointed a thermal imaging camera at Elon Musk’s flagship datacentre to reveal a planetary threat her eyes could not. Free from pollution controls, the gas-fired turbines that power the world’s biggest AI supercomputer were pumping invisible fumes into the Tennessee sky.“It was jaw-dropping,” said Wilso

Exclusive: Inaccurate information presented in summaries, Guardian investigation findsPeople are being put at risk of harm by false and misleading health information in Google’s artificial intelligence summaries, a Guardian investigation has found.The company has said its AI Overviews, which use generative AI to provide snapshots of essential information about a topic or question, are “helpful” and “reliable”. Continue reading...

xAI says it is working to improve systems after lapses in safeguards led to wave of sexualized images this weekElon Musk’s chatbot Grok posted on Friday that lapses in safeguards had led it to generate “images depicting minors in minimal clothing” on social media platform X. The chatbot, a product of Musk’s company xAI, has been generating a wave of sexualized images throughout the week in response to user prompts.Screenshots shared by users on X showed Grok’s publi

A philosopher at the University of Cambridge says there’s no reliable way to know whether AI is conscious—and that may remain true for the foreseeable future. According to Dr. Tom McClelland, consciousness alone isn’t the ethical tipping point anyway; sentience, the capacity to feel good or bad, is what truly matters. He argues that claims of conscious AI are often more marketing than science, and that believing in machine minds too easily could cause real harm. The safest stan

Can inflation be tamed without further interest rate hikes? And will the hot streak for gold and silver continue in 2026?Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Australian share market delivered a 6.8% return in 2025, representing a third consecutive year of gains in a volatile period marked by trade wars, reigniting inflation and fears of an artificial intelligence-fuelled bubble.Here are three things to watch for in 2026. Continue reading...

We’d like to hear from people who are training AI to replace their current rolesAnalysis by the International Monetary Fund says Artificial intelligence will affect about 40% of jobs around the world.We’d like to find out more about the impact of AI on jobs now. With this in mind, we want to hear from people who have been training AI to replace their current roles. What has the experience been like? How do you feel about your future at your company? Do you have concerns? Continue rea