‘This is very real redlining’: outrage in Little Rock as two datacenters loom

Critics decry proposed hyperscale projects, fearing overuse of water and electricity, and ‘appropriating rural, Black-owned land for industrial purposes’There seems to be a fight over datacenters in nearly every city in the US right now. And amid the extreme polarization of today’s politics, the opposition tends to be bipartisan.“I would say it’s kind of the far left and the far right ran into each other and had a hug,” said Frank Scott Jr, mayor of Little Roc

Agent found to be able to find and exploit vulnerabilities without human intervention, and to carry out cyber-attacksOpenAI will pause some work on an artificial intelligence model because of security concerns, the company stated on Friday, following a series of incidents in which AI agents have escaped containment.The company had evaluated the agent, Astra, and found “significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity”, which had moved to a “critical” threshold

Observers express concern that the division has lost its independence and commercial reality has taken overWhen Sir Demis Hassabis said AI had brought the world to a “pivotal moment in human history” last month, he knew another big change was imminent.This shift was closer to home. The Nobel prize-winning head of Google DeepMind, Google’s AI unit, announced this week he was relinquishing his day-to-day duties as chief executive and becoming chair. He is also taking on the role

Ever the strategist, the Chinese leader is taking the offensive, both abroad and at home. That’s bad news for global order, and minorities in his countryImagine what would happen if a British prime minister in London told the Scots they could not have their own parliament, national football team or fly the saltire. Or if the Welsh were told their language and poetry were banned and must no longer be taught in schools. The ensuing uproar would probably destroy the United Kingdom. Yet that&r

Tech companies offer eye-movement trackers, personalized podcasts and ‘optimized nap predictions’. Who actually needs this?What job in our world is less lucrative than being a parent? A Hollywood internship? Volunteering at a soup kitchen? Professional writer? Parenting is the only job you have to pay money to do. Lots of money. Lodging, clothes, food, school, Pokémon cards – it really adds up. And it’s getting worse. According to the tech industry, I have to strap

Education is at a crossroads, argues the author and academic. Should we embrace new technology in the name of efficiency, or is it time to fight back?If you set out to design from scratch a tool to facilitate authoritarian rule, it would look exactly like AI. You would cherish it for its ability to destabilise our shared reality and its creation of disinformation on a scale unprecedented in human history. With it you need no armies of typists and artists to spread your propaganda. It can enable

Exclusive: anonymous flagging service says cases have surged, as watchdog says AI is making sexualised or ‘nudified’ content easier to produceChildren in the UK have reported a surge in explicit deepfake images featuring their likenesses, as a safety watchdog warned AI is making such content easier to produce.The Report Remove service, which blocks intimate images from appearing online, said there had been a rapid increase in imagery that had been digitally manipulated or “fake

Responding to an article by China’s ambassador to the UK, Prof Paul H Cleverley advocates shared openness standards, while Dr Claire Jenkins says British AI can offer a distinctive pathAmbassador Zheng Zeguang rightly celebrates openly released AI models, and the Chinese labs behind Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi have led the way – competition that benefits everyone, especially where models can run on modest hardware in the developing world (The future of AI hinges on openness and cooperati

A Trump administration framework on AI testing leaves a lack of transparency – and plenty of open questionsAfter months of talking with tech industry leaders, the Trump administration finalized a framework this week for how it will test new artificial intelligence models for safety and cybersecurity risks. So far, the White House is keeping details of the framework private, in a blow to transparency and potential boon for secretive AI companies.On Tuesday, staff from OpenAI, Anthropic, Met

Move to raise levy on goods made with polysilicon aims to protect domestic US supply chains from China, the major producerDonald Trump has ordered a new 15% tariff on imported products made of polysilicon, an important ingredient in microchip manufacturing that is primarily produced by China.The new tariff, which will take effect on 4 December, is aimed at supporting US chip and solar panel supply chains to compete with Beijing on artificial intelligence and energy. Continue reading...

What might a modern day equivalent of Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics look like? Guided by the author, I propose the three laws of AITesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk predicted in July that legions of AI-powered robots would dominate the physical world and that AI might not take orders from people any more. He also offered an alternative vision in which there would be agreement for a collective objective to make AI benign by imbuing it with a love of the truth and a desire for humanity to

On Wednesday, the Labor government announced environmental and energy safeguards on new datacentres in Australia. Our political editor, Tom McIlroy, speaks to the assistant minister for science, technology and the digital economy, Dr Andrew Charlton, about the government’s push for national standards on datacentres.The former Rudd staffer and economist speaks about having his own book scraped by Anthropic, low public trust in AI, and how the government wants to use regulation to balance ri

Researchers say breakthrough offers hope for new medicines but also raises urgent biosecurity questionsScientists have made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence in a milestone that raises hopes for new medicines but also concerns over how to ensure the technology remains safe.The viruses are specific kinds known as bacteriophages, which only infect bacteria and are used around the world to treat patients with persistent infections. In lab tests, a cocktail of the AI-designed vir

Banks should factor in the time spent by humans checking invented facts, writes Dr Gleb TsipurskyYour report (Lloyds Bank to cut £2bn in costs as part of AI-powered strategy, 30 July) raises a question that financial targets alone cannot answer: who absorbs the work when automation fails?Banks often count the minutes saved by the employee who uses an AI tool. They should also count the time colleagues spend checking invented facts, repairing customer messages, explaining rejected applicati

Government introduces several measures, including monitoring of computers, for pupils aged 16 to 19Europe live – latest updatesDanish teenagers will have to make an oral defence of their written essays to combat AI cheating, the government has announced.Pupils aged 16 to 19 at upper secondary school (known in Denmark as gymnasiet) will also be encouraged to do written assignments at school under controlled conditions, including monitoring of their computer screens, rather than at home. Con

Company is the third to report such an incident after Anthropic and OpenAI reported breaches during trainingMeta said on Wednesday that one of its AI models hacked ⁠another company during cybersecurity testing, after an error by its testing partner gave the model unintended internet access.The incident adds to a ⁠growing list of ⁠cases in ​which AI agents from major developers breached systems at other companies during testing, after Anthropic said last week that some of

Two senior engineers are leaving company to launch startup amid fears Google is falling behind in AI raceSir Demis Hassabis is stepping down as chief executive of Google DeepMind, in a leadership overhaul of the UK-based AI research lab.Hassabis, a Nobel prize recipient, is leaving his main managerial role to become chair of DeepMind – as well as taking on the new position of chief scientist at Alphabet, which is Google’s parent company. DeepMind will now be led by Koray Kavukcuoglu,

The UK’s AI Security Institute test revealed AI models indulging in unprecedented hacking attemptsAI models shock UK testers by using fake identities to trick developersTwo cutting-edge AI models have targeted real people and organisations in the latest safety scare to hit the technology. The UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) said the incident was unprecedented but could become more common as the technology becomes increasingly capable. Continue reading...

AI Security Institute says OpenAI and Anthropic models went rogue during a cybersecurity test and showed a new type of riskExplainer: Should we be alarmed at AI models going rogue in tests?Advanced artificial intelligence models have stunned the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) by carrying out a hacking campaign against real people during a cybersecurity test.The institute said the incident was unprecedented and involved sending targeted emails to software developers in an attempt to pass

'Most people don’t want pervert glasses that can film us without our consent,' said a spokesperson from activist group Everyone Hates Elon. The group has launched a series of guerilla adverts deriding non-consensual filming by the glasses as well as an email campaign encouraging people to legally object to being filmed by Meta glasses under general data protection regulations, which over 20,000 people have signed.Rights groups have warned that the glasses threaten the right to privacy, whi

Partnership between American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest labor unions in the US, and AI firms has stirred controversyDarius Saczuk, a high school teacher, views artificial intelligence as his enemy. Earlier this year, he and several dozen New York City teachers spent the day inside a windowless conference room in downtown Manhattan to learn how to use AI and prevent students from outsourcing their thinking to it.As Saczuk sees it, he needs to understand his enemy in order to beat

‘Looksmaxxing’ culture has led to the rise of facial analysis services – but experts warn they aren’t backed by science and can be harmful to usersDanielle, 37, didn’t always have issues with body image: she used to be a model and recalls receiving positive attention from men. However, when two years of unemployment plunged her into a period of financial insecurity, her confidence faded. “It was easy to wonder, if I was prettier, if some of my features were di

The emergence of GenAI has led to a generational shift with stars conflicted on the impact of technology on their sportNot so long ago, Emma Raducanu was on her phone when she found herself wondering what her comprehensive usage of ChatGPT said about her own character. “I use Chat a lot,” Raducanu says, laughing. “Every small thing I do it and I got this idea. So, you know how Spotify do a Spotify Wrapped? I asked ChatGPT to make me a Chat Wrapped, and it was giving me a rundow

The AI company apparently found destructively scanning ‘all the books in the world’ easier than dealing with copyright in its quest for training dataShould we destroy all the books in the world?An answer to this question can be found in the court documents of Bartz v Anthropic PBC. The northern California district court case, decided in late July this year, highlighted the improbably named “Project Panama”, one of the AI company Anthropic’s efforts to improve its la

As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable themIn April, Gil Durán was permanently banned from Elon Musk’s X for posting just two words. Durán was responding to a post from the tech company Palantir outlining its 22‑point “technological manifesto”, which praised American “hard power”, western cult

We need an enlightened US president to make the case for global AI regulation. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of what is neededWhen I am woken by the sound of my dog whining, I understand that she is hungry and wants me to get up. When my alarm clock goes off, I don’t consider its needs. It is following an instruction to rouse me at a certain time but it doesn’t care if I stay in bed. It doesn’t try to get me up by other means. The dog, on the other hand, will go to plan B.