The first wireless flying robotic insect takes off

Why prolific poster Sam Nair decided it was time to kick the doom-scrolling into touchAs a past follower of Marie Le Conte (AKA the Young Vulgarian) on X, I read her column on leaving the platform with interest, complete empathy and self-reflection (To anybody still using X: sexual abuse content is the final straw, it’s time to leave, 12 January).I joined X – or rather, Twitter – in 2007 after reading a Guardian article on the five next hit websites. Needless to say, most of th

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

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

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

Exclusive: Amazon, Meta and X among firms holding hundreds of meetings with people at heart of government, data showsTech companies have been meeting government ministers at a rate of more than once per working day, enjoying high-level political access that dwarfs that of child safety and copyright campaigners, who called the pattern “shocking” and “disturbing”.Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s X, whose Grok AI image generator has sparked outrage with its sexu

A year after then candidate Trump promised to cut energy bills in half, rising costs are pushing many Americans’ household budgets to the brinkBefore she sat down to speak with the Guardian, Zattura Sims-El leaned over to plug a table lamp into the wall.“I keep everything in this house unplugged when I’m not using it, because I heard that as long as it’s plugged into the wall, it’s costing you,” she said. “The only things I don’t unplug are my stov

Progress of artificial general intelligence could stall, which may lead to a financial crash, says Yoshua Bengio, one of the ‘godfathers’ of modern AIWill the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) lead us to a land of financial plenty – or will it end in a 2008-style bust? Trillions of dollars rest on the answer.The figures are staggering: an estimated $2.9tn (£2.2tn) being spent on datacentres, the central nervous systems of AI tools; the more than $4tn stock mar

I was a child actor, exploited by strangers on the internet. Now millions of children face the same dangerWhen I was a little girl, there was nothing scarier than a stranger.In the late 1980s and early 1990s, kids were told, by our parents, by TV specials, by teachers, that there were strangers out there who wanted to hurt us. “Stranger Danger” was everywhere. It was a well-meaning lesson, but the risk was overblown: most child abuse and exploitation is perpetrated by people the chil

Song that topped Spotify in Sweden has been ruled ineligible after its creator was revealed to be partly AI-madeA hit song has been excluded from Sweden’s official chart after it emerged the “artist” behind it is an AI creation.I know, you’re not mine – or Jag vet, du är inte min in Swedish – by a singer called Jacub has been a streaming success in Sweden, topping the Spotify rankings in the country. Continue reading...

Moderators accuse social media firm of unfair dismissal after it fired hundreds in UK just before vote to form unionTikTok moderators have accused the social media company of “oppressive and intimidating” union busting after it fired hundreds of workers in the UK, beginning the process just before they were due to vote on forming a union.The moderators wanted to establish a collective bargaining unit to protect themselves from the personal costs of checking extreme and violent conten

Despite restrictions announced this week, Guardian reporters find standalone app continues to allow posting of nonconsensual contentX has continued to allow users to post highly sexualised videos of women in bikinis generated by its AI tool Grok, despite the company’s claim to have cracked down on misuse.The Guardian was able to create short videos of people stripping to bikinis from photographs of fully clothed, real women. It was also possible to post this adult content on to X’s p

Patrick Vallance says robots would take away ‘repetitive’ tasks, but Sadiq Khan warns AI will usher in ‘new era of mass unemployment’Advances in AI and robotics will transform human jobs, starting with roles in warehouses and factories, the UK science minister has said, as the government announced plans to reduce red tape for robot and defence tech companies.Patrick Vallance said technological progress was creating a “whole new area” for robots to work in. &ld

Win for Memphis activists who say ‘Colossus’ facilities add extra pollution to already overburdened communitiesA US regulator ruled on Thursday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company had acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power massive data centers in Tennessee.xAI has been fighting for a year and a half over truck-sized gas turbines the company had parked near its Colossus 1 and 2 facilities, arguing to local authorities that the electricity-g

Ashley St Clair files lawsuit in state of New York over deepfakes that appeared on social media platform X The mother of one of Elon Musk’s children is suing his company alleging explicit images were generated by his Grok AI tool, including one in which she was underage.Ashley St Clair has filed a lawsuit with the supreme court of the state of New York against xAI, alleging that Grok, which is used on the social media platform X, promised to stop generating explicit images but continued to

It’s becoming more common for people to use AI chatbots for personal guidance – but this doesn’t come without risksIf you’re like a lot of people, you’ve probably ditched your new year resolutions by now. Setting goals is hard; keeping them is harder – and failure can bring about icky feelings about yourself.This year, in an effort to game the system and tilt the scales toward success, some people used AI for their 2026 resolutions. It’s the latest step

UK users will no longer be able to create sexualised images of real people using @Grok X account, with Grok app also expected to be restrictedElon Musk’s X has announced it will stop the Grok AI tool from allowing users to manipulate images of people to show them in revealing clothing such as bikinis.The furore over Grok, which is integrated with the X platform, has sparked a public and political backlash as well as a formal investigation by Ofcom, the UK’s communications watchdog. C

UK users will no longer be able to create sexualised images of real people using @Grok X account, with Grok app also expected to be restrictedElon Musk’s X has announced it will stop the Grok AI tool from allowing users to manipulate images of people to show them in revealing clothing such as bikinis.The furore over Grok, which is integrated with the X platform, has sparked a public and political backlash as well as a formal investigation by Ofcom, the UK’s communications watchdog. C

The Oscar winner intends to combat misuse of the famous line from Dazed and Confused by creating ‘a clear perimeter around ownership’ Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey has trademarked his image and voice – including his famous catchphrase: “All right, all right, all right” from the movie Dazed and Confused in an attempt to forestall unauthorised use by artificial intelligence.The Wall Street Journal reported that McConaughey has had eight separate applications

The order follows a nine-month investigation and includes broad exemptions for data centers and consumersDonald Trump on Wednesday imposed a 25% tariff on certain AI chips, such as the Nvidia H200 AI processor ​and a similar semiconductor from AMD called the MI325X, under a new national security order released by the White House.The proclamation follows a nine-month investigation under ‌section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and targets a number of high-end semiconductors meet

Calls for clear guardrails and consumer education ahead of wider Australian rollout of OpenAI’s health advice platformFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA 60-year-old man with no history of mental illness presented at a hospital emergency department insisting that his neighbour was poisoning him. Over the next 24 hours he had worsening hallucinations, and tried to escape the hospital.Doctors eventually discovered

More than 180,000 people follow the Bush Legend’s accounts across Meta platforms, but its Aboriginal host is a work of digital fictionGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWith a mop of dark curls and brown eyes, Jarren stands in the thick of the Australian outback, red dirt at his feet, a snake unfurling in front of him.In a series of online videos, the social media star, known online as the Bush Legend, walks through dense forests or drives along deserted roads on th

In Mansion House speech, mayor will talk of opportunities technology offers but highlight mass unemployment riskBusiness live – latest updatesSadiq Khan is to warn in a major speech that artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy swathes of jobs in London and “usher in a new era of mass unemployment” unless ministers act now.In his annual Mansion House speech, the London mayor will say the capital is “at the sharpest edge of change” because of its reliance on white-

‘Godfather of AI’ Yoshua Bengio says firms building powerful systems without appropriate guardrails • Musk’s X to block Grok AI from creating sexualised images of real people The scandal over the flood of intimate images on Elon Musk’s X created non-consensually by its Grok AI tool has underlined how the artificial intelligence industry is “too unconstrained”, according to a pioneer of the technology.Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist described as one of

UK government claims vindication after Keir Starmer criticised earlier decision to keep functionality as ‘horrific’The UK government has claimed “vindication” after Elon Musk’s X announced it had stopped its AI-powered Grok feature from editing pictures of real people to show them in revealing clothes such as bikinis, including for premium subscribers.Following a fortnight of public outcry at the tool embedded into X being used to create sexualised images of women a