AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. What I do not do is predict the future. No one can predict the future, which is a good thing, since if the future were predictable, that would mean we couldn't change it. Now, not everyone understands the distinction. They think science-fiction writers are oracles. Even some of my colleagues labor under the delusion that we can "see the future". Then there are science-fiction fans who believe that they are the future. A depressing number of those people appear to have become AI bros. These guys can't shut up about the day that their spicy autocomplete machine will wake up and turn us all into paperclips has led many confused journalists and conference organizers to try to get me to comment on the future of AI. That's something I used to strenuously resist doing, because I wasted two years of my life explaining patiently and repeatedly why I thought crypto was stupid, and getting relentlessly bollocked by cryptocurrency cultists who at first insisted that I just didn't understand crypto.

Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first two countries in the world to announce blocks on the Grok AI. Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first two countries in the world to announce blocks on the Grok AI. D ays after Malaysia made global headlines by announcing it would temporarily ban Grok over its ability to generate "grossly offensive and nonconsensual manipulated images", the generative AI tool was conversing breezily with accounts registered in the country. That DNS block in Malaysia is pretty lightweight - easy to bypass with a VPN or DNS tweak," Grok's account on X said in response to a question from a user. Grok's ability to allow users to create sexually explicit images, including images of children, has created a global outcry over recent weeks, with regulators and politicians around the world launching investigations. Indonesia and Malaysia became the first two countries to announce blocks on the technology, with Malaysia's regulatory body saying last Sunday it had "directed a temporary restriction" on access to Grok, effective as of 11 January 2026. Officials in the Philippines have said they too plan to ban the technology. Blocking access to Grok is not straightforward, however. The technology not only exists across multiple platforms, including a standalone app and website, but is also integrated across X, which, along with Grok, is owned by Elon Musk's xAI. The protest group Everyone Hates Elon advertises a boycott of X in London. Over the past week, X users, and even Grok itself, have advised people on how to bypass restrictions. This includes using a VPN - many of which are available for free - or changing domain name system (DNS), the protocol on the internet that turns address names into IP addresses that load websites. When the Guardian tried to use Grok in Indonesia, its website was working even without a VPN, though the Grok app did not work. Grok was also still responding to Indonesian accounts on X, where it functions as an integrated chatbot. X has not been subject to a ban. Even if governments could completely restrict Grok, though, this is not a real solution, said Nana Nwachukwu, an AI governance expert and PhD researcher at Trinity College Dublin. "Blocking Grok is like slapping a Band-Aid on a weeping wound that you haven't cleaned," she said. "You block Grok, and then you go around shouting you've done something.

Kyiv is many miles from the front line, but Ukraine's war with Russia is never far away - with Moscow's missile and drone attacks directed at the city almost every day. On the frozen surface of the mighty River Dnipro, the BBC speaks to men who spend hours fishing to take their minds off the almost four-year-old conflict, which has left homes with no heating after Russian strikes on power stations. Drilling holes in the ice of the river in the heart of the city, these ice-fisherman - many of them veterans with friends and family at the front - hope to catch small fish, and a little respite. Authorities deliberately triggered the avalanche on Mount Elbrus to release a build up of snow. The limited deployment involves Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK.

I left my toxic mums' group because I'd had enough of being judged Martina loved the idea of a baby signing class. As well as teaching her baby to communicate with simple hand gestures, she'd be able to meet other mothers in her area. But after the third session, Martina scooped up her newborn and walked out. She'd had enough of being judged. She says the other mothers scoffed at her parenting choices - she bottle-feeds her son - and seemed to disapprove of her choosing to deliver her baby by caesarean section.

The Syrian army is moving into areas east of Aleppo city, after Kurdish forces started a withdrawal. Syrian troops have been spotted entering Deir Hafer, a town about 50km (30 miles) from Aleppo. On Friday, the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia announced it would redeploy east of the Euphrates river. This follows talks with US officials, and a pledge from Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to make Kurdish a national language. After deadly clashes last week, the US urged both sides to avoid a confrontation.

Datacentres and industrial complexes used by Google, Microsoft and Amazon in Medemblik, the Netherlands. Datacentres and industrial complexes used by Google, Microsoft and Amazon in Medemblik, the Netherlands. 'We could hit a wall': why trillions of dollars of risk is no guarantee of AI reward 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 datacentres, the central nervous systems of AI tools; the more than $4tn stock market capitalisation of Nvidia, the company that makes the chips powering cutting-edge AI systems; and the $100m signing-on bonuses offered by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta to top engineers at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. These sky-high numbers are all propped up by investors who expect a return on their trillions.

The mysterious singer with millions of streams - but who (or what) is she? Sienna Rose is having a good month. Three of her dusky, jazz-infused soul songs are in Spotify's Viral Top 50. The most popular, a dreamy ballad called Into The Blue, has been played more than five million times. If she continues on this trajectory, Rose could become one of the year's hottest new stars.

Up here you can see and hear when the drones come, she says, standing by a wall-length, floor-to-ceiling window. When they hit buildings and homes in the city of Odesa down below we see all the fires too. Her daughter Eva, who is nine, has learned the shapes and sounds of the objects that zoom through the sky on a daily basis. She proudly shows off a list of social media channels she checks when the air raid alerts go off. She knows whether what's coming is a risk or a threat, and that calms her down, her father Sergii says.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his secret hideout these days, knows he is now a marked man. He will not be sitting on his veranda anytime soon. When discussing what the United States might do next to help the protesters in Iran, US President Trump has mentioned Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The former, Iran's all-important military strategist in the Middle East, was killed on 3 January 2020 in a drone strike just outside Baghdad's international airport on the president's order. The latter, who was the leader of IS, killed himself and two children by detonating a suicide vest on 27 October 2019 when US forces raided his hideout in northern Syria after the approval of the president.

The chief constable of West Midlands Police has retired after damning criticism of a decision to ban Israeli fans from a match against Aston Villa. Craig Guildford's retirement was confirmed on Friday after both Downing Street and the home secretary said this week they had lost confidence in his leadership. He faced numerous calls to resign after apologising for providing incorrect evidence to MPs, which included the denial that AI was used in a report which led to the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the game on 6 November. Announcing his retirement, Guildford, 52, did not offer an apology and blamed what he described as the political and media frenzy for his decision to step down. I have carefully considered my position and concluded that retirement is in the best interests of the organisation, myself and my family, he said.