Category Archives: Artificial intelligence (AI)

Microsoft employee interrupts CEO’s keynote with pro-Palestinian protest

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Protester is engineer who worked on Azure software, which enabled Israeli surveillance of Palestinians

A Microsoft employee disrupted a keynote speech by the company’s chief executive with a pro-Palestinian protest at the company’s annual developer conference on Monday.

Joe Lopez, a Microsoft firmware engineer who worked on parts of the company’s cloud-computing platform, Azure, was escorted out the Build conference by security nearly immediately after he confronted Satya Nadella.

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Elton John calls UK government ‘absolute losers’ over AI copyright plans

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Songwriter says he thinks it is a ‘criminal offence’ to let tech firms use protected work without permission

Sir Elton John has called the UK government “absolute losers” over proposals to let tech firms use copyright-protected work without permission.

The singer and songwriter said it was a “criminal offence” to change copyright law in favour of artificial intelligence companies.

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How Donald Trump’s ‘historic’ Gulf state deals benefit a handful of powerful men

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The deals stand to enrich tech CEOs substantially by opening up new audiences for their products

On his tour of the Middle East this week, Donald Trump announced a slew of multibillion-dollar tech deals with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. With the sale of the US’s most advanced technology, he also sold the American model of the industry that made it: enormous amounts of power concentrated in the hands of a few men.

The announcements poured in last week: the US and the United Arab Emirates agreed on Abu Dhabi as the site of the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the US. The deal reportedly allows the UAE to import half a million Nvidia semiconductor chips, considered the most advanced in the world for the creation of artificial intelligence products. Saudi Arabia struck a similar deal for semiconductors, obtaining the promise of the sale of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI startup owned by its sovereign wealth fund. Cisco said it had signed a deal with a UAE AI firm to develop the country’s AI sector. The agreements also directed some investment by Saudi firms into US technology and manufacturing. Amazon Web Services and Qualcomm likewise announced deals on cloud computing and cybersecurity.

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Elon Musk’s AI firm blames unauthorised change for chatbot’s rant about ‘white genocide’

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xAI’s Grok bot repeatedly referred to widely discredited claim about South Africa that has been touted by Donald Trump

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has blamed an “unauthorised modification” for a glitch in its Grok chatbot that resulted in the tool ranting about “white genocide” in South Africa.

In a post on Musk’s X platform, xAI said new measures would be brought in to ensure its employees cannot modify the bot’s behaviour without extra oversight.

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Trump agrees deal for UAE to build largest AI campus outside US

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Agreement that would give Gulf country better access to advanced AI chips raises concerns over Chinese influence

The United Arab Emirates and the United States have signed an agreement for the Gulf country to build the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the United States, one of several deals around AI made during Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East.

But the agreement has also raised concerns, since it would have faced restrictions under the previous administration over Washington’s fears that China could access the technology.

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Elon Musk shows he still has the White House’s ear on Trump’s Middle East trip

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Although Musk has pivoted from Doge, the Saudi summit shows how he’s retaining proximity to the US president

Over the course of an eight-minute interview, Elon Musk touted his numerous businesses and vision of a “Star Trek future” while telling the crowd that his Tesla Optimus robots had performed a dance for Donald Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to the tune of YMCA. He also announced that Starlink, his satellite internet company, had struck a deal for use in Saudi Arabia for maritime and aviation usage; looking to the near future, he expressed his desire to bring Tesla’s self-driving robotaxis to the country.

“We could not be more appreciative of having a lifetime partner and a friend like you, Elon, to the Kingdom,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and IT, Abdullah Alswaha, told Musk.

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Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa among artists urging Starmer to rethink AI copyright plans

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Hundreds of leading figures from UK creative industries urge prime minister not to ‘give our work away’

Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK’s creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists’ copyright and not “give our work away” at the behest of big tech.

In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives’ livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.

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Badenoch declines to criticise Jenrick over Reform coalition comments – as it happened

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Spokesperson for Tory leader says she agrees with colleague that ‘we need to bring centre-right voters together’. This blog is closed

Rosie Duffield, the independent MP who left Labour after the election in part because she felt her gender critical views made her unwelcome in the party (although her resignation letter focused on welfare issues), has claimed that Keir Starmer no longer arguing a trans woman is a woman shows he is a “manager rather than a leader”.

Speaking on LBC, Duffield said:

It’s just another sign of the prime minister’s lack of leadership skills. I’m bound to say that, he’s a manager rather than a leader. He responds and reacts rather than leads from the front, and this is what we’re seeing again from him.

Nigel Farage is peddling a dangerous fantasy by claiming the UK can be self-sufficient in gas.

After sixty years of drilling, the truth is the UK has already burned most of its gas. That’s down to geology, not politics, and no amount of hot air from Farage will change that.

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AI images of child sexual abuse getting ‘significantly more realistic’, says watchdog

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Internet Watch Foundation report shows 380% increase in illegal AI-generated imagery in 2024, most of it ‘category A’

Images of child sexual abuse created by artificial intelligence are becoming “significantly more realistic”, according to an online safety watchdog.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said advances in AI are being reflected in illegal content created and consumed by paedophiles, saying: “In 2024, the quality of AI-generated videos improved exponentially, and all types of AI imagery assessed appeared significantly more realistic as the technology developed.”

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Italian opposition file complaint over far-right party’s use of ‘racist’ AI images

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Centre-left parties slam ‘racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic’ faked images posted on social media by League party

Opposition parties in Italy have complained to the communications watchdog about a series of AI-generated images published on social media by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right party, calling them “racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic”, the Guardian has learned.

The centre-left Democratic party (PD), with the Greens and Left Alliance, filed a complaint on Thursday with Agcom, the Italian communications regulatory authority, alleging the fake images used by the League contained “almost all categories of hate speech”.

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Nvidia’s CEO makes surprise visit to Beijing after US restricts chip sales to China

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Jensen Huang causes stir on social media and is reported to have met founder of AI company DeepSeek

The chief executive of the American chip maker Nvidia visited Beijing on Thursday, days after the US issued fresh restrictions on sales of the only AI chip it was still allowed to sell to China.

Jensen Huang’s surprise visit was on the invitation of a trade organisation, according to a social media account affiliated with state media.

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Toby Jones’s next campaign? Misinformation, and a huge immersive theatre show

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Meera Syal also to star in London production reflecting producer’s experience of censorship in Georgia

Hidden from view inside a south London warehouse, a new underground movement will be fighting the international blight of misinformation this summer.

The huge immersive event – half theatrical show, half social campaign – is to involve some of Britain’s leading acting talent, including Toby Jones and Meera Syal, and has been put together by a theatre company led by a woman who learned about misinformation the hard way, at the Georgian television station Imedi.

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EU will not rip up tech rules for trade deal with Trump, senior official says

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Bloc is ‘very committed’ to laws on big tech and is not targeting US companies, says European Commission’s Henna Virkkunen

The EU will not rip up its tech rules in an attempt to reach a trade deal with Donald Trump, the bloc’s most senior official on digital policy has said.

Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission vice-president responsible for tech sovereignty, indicated the EU was not going to compromise on its digital rulebook to reach an agreement on trade with the US – a key demand of Trump administration officials.

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EU to build AI gigafactories in €20bn push to catch up with US and China

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Up to five sites with power-hungry supercomputers and datacentres planned to drive AI ‘moonshots’

The EU has revealed details of a €20bn (£17bn) plan to create new sites equipped with vast supercomputers in Europe to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence models, while opening the door to amending its landmark law that regulates the technology.

Publishing a strategy to turn Europe into an “AI continent”, the European Commission vice-president Henna Virkkunen said the technology was at the heart of making Europe more competitive, secure and technologically sovereign, adding: “The global race for AI is far from over.”

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Trump signs orders to allow coal-fired power plants to remain open

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Move aimed at addressing rise in power demand for datacenters, AI and EVs, but environmentalists call it a step back

Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday aimed at reviving coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that has long been in decline, and which substantially contributes to planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

Environmentalists expressed dismay at the news, saying that Trump was stuck in the past and wanted to make utility customers “pay more for yesterday’s energy”.

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US authors’ copyright lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft combined in New York with newspaper actions

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California cases over AI trainers’ use of work by writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Chabon transferred to consolidate with New York suits from John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen and more

Twelve US copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft have been consolidated in New York, despite most of the authors and news outlets suing the companies being opposed to centralisation.

A transfer order made by the US judicial panel on multidistrict litigation on Thursday said that centralisation will “allow a single judge to coordinate discovery, streamline pretrial proceedings, and eliminate inconsistent rulings”.

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UK government tries to placate opponents of AI copyright bill

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Economic impact assessment is one concession aiming to head off opposition from MPs, peers and creatives such as Paul McCartney and Tom Stoppard

The UK government is trying to placate peer and Labour backbencher concerns about copyright proposals by pledging to assess the economic impact of its plans.

Creative professionals including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Tom Stoppard and Kate Bush have strongly criticised ministers’ proposals to let artificial intelligence companies train their models on copyright-protected work without permission, unless the rights holder opts out.

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Allegations of Indian interference rock Canada election campaign

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Senior officials warn nations including China, Pakistan and Iran could attempt to subvert vote with sophisticated tools

The spectre of interference by India has already rocked the early days of Canada’s federal election, with officials warning that sophisticated efforts from other hostile nations are expected in the coming weeks.

As Canadians prepare to cast ballots on 28 April, senior officials say that India, China, Pakistan and Iran are all expected to make efforts to subvert the national vote through increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns.

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Norwegian files complaint after ChatGPT falsely said he had murdered his children

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Arve Hjalmar Holmen, who has never been accused of or convicted of a crime, says chatbot’s response to prompt was defamatory

A Norwegian man has filed a complaint against the company behind ChatGPT after the chatbot falsely claimed he had murdered two of his children.

Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a self-described “regular person” with no public profile in Norway, asked ChatGPT for information about himself and received a reply claiming he had killed his own sons.

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More than 110 child sextortion attempts reported each month to UK police forces

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National Crime Agency launches awareness campaign, saying criminals are adapting methods and using AI

UK police forces are receiving more than 110 reports of child sextortion attempts every month, according to the National Crime Agency, as a new awareness campaign is launched about the online scourge.

The NCA said the use of artificial intelligence in sextortion attacks had also increased “substantially” over the past three years as criminals adapted their methods.

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