The Guardian

Progress of artificial general intelligence could stall, which may lead to a financial crash, says Yoshua Bengio, one of the ‘godfathers’ of modern AI Will 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 dat…

I was a child actor, exploited by strangers on the internet. Now millions of children face the same danger When 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 …

How would you feel if your therapist’s notes – your darkest thoughts and deepest feelings – were exposed to the world? For 33,000 Finnish people, that became a terrifying reality, with deadly consequences Tiina Parikka was half-naked when she read the email. It was a Saturday in late October 2020, and Parikka had spent the morning sorting out plans for distance learning after a Covid outbreak at …

Report claims unrestricted online access will be a ‘government privilege’, limited to individuals vetted by regime Iran is planning to permanently break from the global internet, only allowing individuals vetted by the regime to connect online, according to Iranian digital rights activists. “A confidential plan is under way to turn international internet access into a ‘governmental privilege’,” a…

Company says TB testing carried out as ‘precaution’ after small number of workers contracted lung disease Amazon is testing workers at its Coventry warehouse for tuberculosis after an outbreak of the lung disease. A handful of workers from the site were found to have contagious tuberculosis (TB) last year, prompting the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to begin running a screening programme in S…

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…

Democrats and Republicans called on president to circumvent legislative process to implement ‘Freedom’ bill US politics live – latest updates A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling on Donald Trump to allow the US government to help open up internet access in Iran , which the country’s Islamic regime has blocked in an effort to suppress an eruption of unrest. With deaths soaring into thousands…

Big tech companies cannot be trusted. It is not enough that they remove harm when they find it – the law must make their systems prevent harm On X, a woman posts a photo in a sari, and within minutes, various users are underneath the post tagging Grok to strip her down to a bikini. It is a shocking violation of privacy, but now a familiar and commonplace practice . Between June 2025 and January 2…

Ministers have rolled back central element of digital ID plans, possibly allowing people to use other forms of identification to prove their right to work Here are extracts from three interesting comment articles about the digital ID U-turn. Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman in the New Statesmans says there were high hopes for the policy when it was first announced. I remember a leisurely lunch ove…

While Grok has introduced belated safeguards to prevent sexualised AI imagery, other tools have far fewer limits “Since discovering Grok AI, regular porn doesn’t do it for me anymore, it just sounds absurd now,” one enthusiast for the Elon Musk-owned AI chatbot wrote on Reddit. Another agreed: “If I want a really specific person, yes.” If those who have been horrified by the distribution of sexua…

Exclusive: Health secretary issues invitation in push for UK to consider copying landmark restrictions in Australia Wes Streeting has asked Jonathan Haidt, a bestselling author and high-profile advocate of banning social media for under-16s, to speak to his officials in his push for the UK to consider following a landmark ban in Australia. The health secretary has invited Haidt to address an even…

The UK government is threatening Elon Musk’s X with the nuclear option: a ban. The social media platform is under pressure from ministers over the use of the Grok AI tool to manipulate images of women and children to remove their clothes. Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, has launched an investigation into X – and the government says it will support a ban if it decides to press ahead. Lucy Hough s…

Anthony Albanese has said the AI chatbot generating sexualised images of women and children is ‘abhorrent’ but has an account posting on the site Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Anthony Albanese condemned X’s AI chatbot Grok generation of sexualised images of women and children as “abhorrent”, but don’t expect the prime minister – or seemingly any politician in Australia – …

PM says he is alarmed at reports about children’s screen time and has shifted position on Australian-style policy Keir Starmer has told MPs he is open to the idea of an Australian-style ban on social media for young people after becoming concerned about the amount of time children and teenagers are spending on their phones. The prime minister told Labour MPs on Monday evening he had become alarme…

Despite internet blackout, a small number of Iranians are risking their lives to share messages as protests continue For most of Iran, the internet was shut off on Thursday afternoon – the most severe blackout the country has seen in years of internet shutdowns, coming after days of escalating anti-government protests. For a very small sliver of the country, it is still possible to get photos and…