Michael Safi / The Guardian: A profile of United Foundation for AI Rights founder Michael Samadi, who seeks evidence of AI consciousness and lobbies against retiring models that may show it — Cattle rancher and tech CEO Michael Samadi is convinced these artificial minds are far from just tools.
Simon Goodley / The Guardian: Bank of England Governor warns that advanced AI could destabilize the highly interconnected global financial system via cyber disruption across jurisdictions — Andrew Bailey warns group about risk of advanced ‘frontier models’ destabilising the ‘highly interconnected’ financial system
Robert Booth / The Guardian: AI film startups are setting up studios in Hollywood, using US and Chinese AI models while touting lower production costs and a way around traditional financing — Amid fears for jobs, some film-makers say AI could enable them bypass studio giants and take more creative risks
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: The UK's Report Remove service receives 420 reports from under-18s of explicit images digitally faked or manipulated to depict them in H1, exceeding 2025's 397 — Exclusive: anonymous flagging service says cases have surged, as watchdog says AI is making sexualised or ‘nudified’ content easier to produce
Jennifer Rankin / The Guardian: AI-generated images, video, audio, and text on matters of public interest designed to look authentic must be labeled in the EU under the AI Act from August 2 — Companies must ensure people know when they are interacting with artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look real
Sanya Mansoor / The Guardian: Maryland becomes the first US state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores, as other states including CO, CA, MA, IL, and NJ consider similar bills — Critics say Maryland's new law banning rapidly change product costs based on consumer data is full of carveouts
Robert Booth / The Guardian: Study: OpenAI's o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of emergency room patients using electronic records and a few sentences from nurses, vs. to 50-55% for triage doctors — Researchers say results mark a ‘profound change in technology that will reshape medicine’ — From George Clooney in ER …
The Guardian: Australia unveils a draft News Bargaining Incentive scheme that imposes a 2.25% levy on local revenues for platforms; Meta says the government is “simply wrong” — Google also rejects need for reform after Albanese government reveals draft news bargaining incentive scheme
Sally Weale / The Guardian: The UK proposes an amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill to ban smartphones in all schools in England; a ban was previously just advisory — Government amendment to children's wellbeing and schools bill to replace existing guidance with statutory ban
The Guardian: Docs: US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide data centers' environmental toll; one of their demands was written almost verbatim into EU rules — Legally questionable confidentiality clause adopted almost word for word from demands of Microsoft and trade groups
Sally Weale / The Guardian: UK National Education Union poll: 66% of secondary school teachers in England say pupils using AI are losing their capacity for core skills like writing — Two-thirds of secondary school teachers report a decline in core abilities such as writing and problem-solving
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: Ofcom: the share of adult UK social media users that actively post, share, or comment falls from 61% in 2024 to 49%, as users say they are being more selective — Ofcom research shows people also concerned old posts could affect personal or professional life
Shubham Agarwal / The Guardian: How gig apps like Kled AI, Silencio, Neon Mobile, and Luel AI pay users for data that AI companies can use to train models, from phone calls to videos of places — Gig AI trainers worldwide are selling moments of their lives, including calls and texts, to AI companies for quick cash
Chang Che / The Guardian: A look at China's rapidly expanding robotics sector, which now has roughly 140 companies hoping to build humanoids, fueled by massive state-backed investments — How close are we to the sci-fi vision of autonomous humanoid robots? I visited 11 companies in five Chinese cities to find out
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: Google co-founder Sergey Brin raises his total contribution to $45M for the Building a Better California Super PAC, which opposes a proposed 5% billionaire tax — Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he's already given to Super Pac trying to block state's proposed 5% wealth tax
Kaamil Ahmed / The Guardian: IDS and ADRN study: 11 African governments spent $2B+ on Chinese-built surveillance tech that recognizes faces and monitors movements; Nigeria spent $470M — Countries across the continent have spent more than $2bn on Chinese tracking technology that is not ‘necessary or proportionate’, new report finds
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory, Richard Osman, and ~10,000 writers publish Don't Steal This Book, an “empty” book to protest AI companies using their work — About 10,000 writers including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman join copyright campaign
Daniel Boffey / The Guardian: Iran targeting commercial datacenters in the UAE and Bahrain signals a new frontier in asymmetric warfare and raises doubts over the Gulf as a global AI hub — Iran's targeting of commercial datacentres in the UAE and Bahrain signals a new frontier in asymmetric warfare
Aisha Down / The Guardian: Sources and docs: the US “effectively gutted” the Internet Freedom program that dispensed $500M+ since 2016 to help build tech to evade state internet controls — Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: A look at the US tech industry's effort to influence Californian politics: fighting the 5% billionaire tax, super PACs, and seeking a new tech-friendly governor — As Gavin Newsom departs, ultra-wealthy flex wealth and influence to fight regulation and keep the boom going
Anuj Behal / The Guardian: Women in rural India report experiencing trauma from data annotation work, which requires them to review violent content and porn for global tech companies — Women in rural communities describe trauma of moderating violent and pornographic content for global tech companies
Josh Taylor / The Guardian: Snap blocked 415K+ Australian accounts as of January to comply with the under-16 social media ban and warns of “technical limitations” in the implementation — Social media platform says there are still ‘real technical limitations to accurate and dependable age verification’
Aisha Down / The Guardian: Tests show GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT citing Grokipedia as a source on a wide range of queries, including on Iranian conglomerates and Holocaust deniers — Guardian found OpenAI's platform cited Grokipedia on topics including Iran and Holocaust deniers — The latest model of ChatGPT has begun …
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: The US EPA rules that xAI acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in the Memphis area — Win for Memphis activists who say ‘Colossus’ facilities add extra pollution to already overburdened communities
Andrew Gregory / The Guardian: Investigation: Google removed AI Overviews for two liver health queries after experts warned about inaccuracy, but slight tweaks still trigger AI responses — Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds AI Overviews provided inaccurate and false information when queried over blood tests
Mark Sweney / The Guardian: Filings: X's UK revenue fell 58.3% YoY from £69.1M in 2023 to £28.9M in 2024; pre-tax profits fell from £2.2M in 2023 to £767,000 in 2024 — Elon Musk-owned site reports plunging profits amid outcry over use of AI tool Grok to create sexually explicit imagery
Helena Horton / The Guardian: X limits Grok's image generation and editing to paying subscribers after a widespread outcry over its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery — X to limit editing function to paying subscribers after platform threatened with fines and regulatory action
Michael Savage / The Guardian: Reddit surpasses TikTok as the fourth most-visited social media service in the UK, likely driven by changes to Google's search algorithms and AI deals — Platform is now Britain's fourth most visited social media site as users seek out human-generated content
Simon Goodley / The Guardian: Uber rewrote its UK driver contracts to act as an agent, rather than a supplier, of taxi services outside London, to avoid the UK's new 20% “taxi tax” on fares — Hailing app will now act as agent rather than supplier outside London, avoiding VAT requirement
Aisha Down / The Guardian: A Kapwing study of the 15,000 top YouTube channels finds 278 of them have only posted AI-generated “slop” videos, amassing 63B+ views and 221M+ subscribers — Low-quality AI-generated content is now saturating social media - and generating about $117m a year, data shows
Miranda Bryant / The Guardian: Denmark says Russia was behind “destructive and disruptive” cyberattacks on a water utility in 2024 and DDoS attacks in the lead-up to local November elections — Intelligence service says attacks were work of groups connected to Russian state in ‘clear evidence’ of hybrid war
Prianka Srinivasan / The Guardian: The Marshall Islands unveils a national UBI scheme that offers payments of ~$200 per quarter to every resident citizen via stablecoin or traditional currency — Quarterly payments of $200 to be offered via stablecoin or traditional currency in a scheme designed to ease cost of living pressures in the Pacific nation
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: xAI partners with El Salvador to deploy Grok across 5,000+ public schools, reaching 1M+ students in an “AI-powered education program” over the next two years — President Nayib Bukele entrusting chatbot known for calling itself ‘MechaHitler’ to create ‘AI-powered’ curricula
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: AI Forensics: 354 AI-focused TikTok accounts pushed 43K posts made with GenAI tools that hit 4.5B views, including posts with anti-immigrant and sexual material — Researchers uncovered 354 AI-focused accounts that had accumulated 4.5bn views in a month — By Dan Milmo, Global technology editor.
Nadeem Badshah / The Guardian: Airbus issues an order to revert 6,000 A320-series planes to old software, after an incident revealed that intense solar radiation corrupted flight control data — Immediate software change on ‘significant number’ of jets to result in disruption to half the worldwide fleet
Aisha Down / The Guardian: Researchers say Russia-aligned Pravda network is engaging in “LLM grooming”, flooding the internet with disinformation to influence chatbots like ChatGPT — Thinktank says internet flooded with disinformation by Russia-aligned Pravda network, which many websites treat as credible
Cory Doctorow / The Guardian: A book excerpt details the “enshittification” of Amazon, and how its “flywheel” technique now enriches the company at the expense of merchants — Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products?
Samanth Subramanian / The Guardian: A book excerpt details Tonga's 2022 internet outage after a colossal underwater volcanic eruption ripped apart the cables connecting the country to the world — A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world - and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life
Lauren Almeida / The Guardian: Amazon plans to close all 19 Fresh stores in the UK and convert five of them into Whole Foods Market shops, four years after launching the first in London — Company confirms plan to shut 19 shops with stronger focus on Whole Foods outlets after concept of stores without tills fails to catch on
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian: ASPI: Myanmar's online scam centers on the Thai border have increased from 11 to 27 since the military coup in 2021, holding an estimated 100K trafficked people — Operated by crime syndicates and fostered by the country's military junta, the number of vast complexes such as KK Park on the Thai-Myanmar border has doubled since 2021
Phil Hoad / The Guardian: An inside look at how Netflix's use of data led to generic “algorithm films” intended for broad appeal, with AI set to further entrench the production style — When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs.
Gaby Hinsliff / The Guardian: An interview with Nick Clegg about Zuckerberg's “masculine energy”, Silicon Valley's “cloying conformity” and “combination of machismo and self-pity”, and more — When Britain's former deputy PM took a job at Meta, nothing could have prepared him for the ‘cloying conformity’ of the tech world.
The Guardian: Investigation: Israel's Unit 8200 built a system to collect millions of mobile phone calls made daily in Gaza and the West Bank using Microsoft's Azure platform — Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians' phone calls on Microsoft's servers in Europe
The Guardian: After Elon Musk unveiled the America Party, a new US political party, President Trump called Musk a “TRAIN WRECK” fueled by discontent over EV subsidies ending — US president railed against his former adviser online after tech billionaire said he will start and bankroll America party
Johana Bhuiyan / The Guardian: A report finds Google undercounted its carbon emissions, which rose 65% from 2019 to 2024, not 51% as claimed; biggest yearly jump was 26% between 2023 and 2024 — Research says Google's carbon emissions went up by 65% between 2019-2024, not 51% as the tech giant had claimed
Mark Sweney / The Guardian: Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 plan to provide streaming ad space in one marketplace, letting advertisers run campaigns simultaneously, to combat Google and Meta — The TV streamers are pooling their advertising services to make it easier for small companies to run campaigns
Michael Goodier / The Guardian: A survey of UK academic integrity violations finds nearly 7,000 proven AI cheating cases in 2023-24, or 5.1 per 1,000 students, up from 1.6 per 1,000 in 2022-23 — Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating - and experts says these are tip of the iceberg
Michael Savage / The Guardian: WPP Media expects ad revenue from user-generated content and platforms like YouTube and TikTok to surpass that from traditional media for the first time in 2025 — User-generated material to surpass advertising income from professional media amid change in viewing habits
Katharine Viner / The Guardian: The Guardian partners with Cambridge University to launch Secure Messaging in its app, protecting sources by making messages indistinguishable from other data — Today, the Guardian, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, launches Secure Messaging, a world-first from a media organisation
The Guardian: An analysis of the top 100 trending TikTok videos under #mentalhealthtips finds 52 contain misinformation, including misused language and quick-fix methods — Guardian investigation reveals promotion of dubious advice, questionable supplements and quick-fix healing methods