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The office block where AI ‘doomers’ gather to predict the apocalypse
Safety researchers feel excessive financial rewards and an irresponsible work culture have led some to ignore a catastrophic risk to human life On the other side of San Francisco bay from Silicon Valley, where the world’s biggest technology companies tear towards superhuman artificial intelligence, looms a tower from which fearful warnings emerge. Right in the…
‘This will be a stressful job’: Sam Altman offers $555k salary to fill most daunting role in AI
New head of preparedness at OpenAI will face unnerving in-tray amid fears from some experts that AI could ‘turn on us’ The maker of ChatGPT has advertised a $555,000-a-year vacancy with a daunting job description that would cause Superman to take a sharp intake of breath. In what may be close to the impossible job,…
‘Move fast, break stuff’: how tech bros became Hollywood’s go-to baddie in 2025
From Stanley Tucci’s imperious tech titan to Lex Luthor’s distractingly hot CEO and Elon Musk-esque blowhards, films this year took us inside the billionaire mindset Between the slash-and-burn US government reboot led by a dank meme fan and the relentless pushing of AI by venture capital-backed blowhards, 2025 has felt like peak obnoxious tech bro.…
UK accounting body to halt remote exams amid AI cheating
Candidates will have to sit assessments in person unless there are exceptional circumstances, says ACCA Business live – latest updates The world’s largest accounting body is to stop students being allowed to take exams remotely to crack down on a rise in cheating on tests that underpin professional qualifications. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants…
Bernie Sanders criticizes AI as ‘the most consequential technology in humanity’
Republican senator Katie Britt also proposes AI companies be criminally liable if they expose minors to harmful ideas US senator Bernie Sanders amplified his recent criticism of artificial intelligence on Sunday, explicitly linking the financial ambition of “the richest people in the world” to economic insecurity for millions of Americans – and calling for a…
From shrimp Jesus to erotic tractors: how viral AI slop took over the internet
Flood of unreality is an endpoint of algorithm-driven internet and product of an economy dependent on a few top tech firms In the algorithm-driven economy of 2025, one man’s shrimp Jesus is another man’s side hustle. AI slop – the low-quality, surreal content flooding social media platforms, designed to farm views – is a phenomenon,…
AI boom adds more than half a trillion dollars to wealth of US tech barons in 2025
Elon Musk’s net worth increased by nearly 50% to $645bn with founders of Google and Amazon also seeing huge wealth gains A stock market boom in artificial intelligence companies has added more than half a trillion dollars to the wealth of America’s tech barons in the past year, data shows. The top 10 US founders…
‘It brings you closer to the natural world’: the rise of the Merlin birdsong identifying app
Merlin has been trained to identify the songs of more than 1,300 bird species around the world When Natasha Walter first became curious about the birds around her, she recorded their songs on her phone and arduously tried to match each song with online recordings. After a friend recommended Merlin Bird ID, a free app,…
Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify
Platform with 700m users says it is investigating after Anna’s Archive claims to have scraped tracks and metadata An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online. Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology. Continue…