The second season of Fallout - Prime Video's mega-hit based on the popular video game series - has landed. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war, the first series was a commercial and critical hit, impressing long-time fans and viewers who'd never played before. Its surprising success had a huge impact on Bethesda Softworks, the developer of its source material, bringing back lapsed players and creating new ones along the way. Key creatives from the company have told BBC Newsbeat about working with the show's producers, and what the success of the programme means for the future of the games. The first season of Fallout arrived at a turning point for Hollywood video game adaptations.

A backlash against AI imagery in ads may have begun as brands promote'human-made' In a wave of new ads, brands like Heineken, Polaroid and Cadbury have started hating on artificial intelligence (AI), celebrating their work as "human-made". But in these advertising campaigns on TV, billboards on New York streets and on social media, the companies are signalling something larger. Even Apple's new series release, Pluribus, includes the phrase "Made by Humans" in the closing credits. Other brands including H&M and Guess have faced a backlash for using AI brand ambassadors instead of humans. These gestures suggest we have reached a cultural moment in the evolution of this technology, where people are unsure what creativity means when machines can now produce much of what we see, hear and perhaps even be moved by.

People queue to enter a jobcentre in east London in July 2016. People queue to enter a jobcentre in east London in July 2016. In my six months of looking for work, I've found that from fake ads to AI screening software, the search is more soul-destroying than ever A s I apply for yet another job, I look at the company's website for context. I've now read their "what we do" section four or five times, and I have a problem - I can't figure out what they do. There are two possibilities here.

AI-generated music is flooding streaming platforms. AI-generated music is flooding streaming platforms. 'Music needs a human component to be of any value': Guardian readers on the growing use of AI in music AI promises to have far-reaching effects in music-making. While some welcome it as a compositional tool, many have deep concerns. A I-generated music is flooding streaming platforms, and it seems to be here to stay.

Dutch company employees work on a semiconductor lithography tool in Veldhoven, Netherlands, April 2019. Dutch company employees work on a semiconductor lithography tool in Veldhoven, Netherlands, April 2019. This is Europe's secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble T he unthinkable has happened. The US is Europe's adversary. The stark, profound betrayal contained in the Trump administration's national security strategy should stop any further denial and dithering in Europe's capitals.

AI-assisted hiring will drive Indeed's growth, Recruit CEO says Companies embracing artificial intelligence to recruit and hire people won't threaten Indeed.com's Hisayuki "Deko" Idekoba, who leads Indeed and its parent, Tokyo-based Recruit Holdings, said the business is using AI to help companies optimize their talent-acquisition approach based on the pool of candidates, number of applicants per job and other factors, while using the flow of data to set compensation levels or adjust job qualifications. "We're gradually starting to deploy solutions such as AI agents to customers," Idekoba said in an interview in Tokyo. For Recruit, the shift reflects a broader transformation in how employers find and evaluate talent, as AI reshapes recruitment worldwide. Automated tools are speeding up candidate screening, cutting hiring costs and helping businesses respond to labor shortages and changing skill demands.

A BBC investigation has uncovered claims that essay cheating remains widespread at UK universities despite the introduction of a law designed to stop it. Since April 2022, it has been illegal to provide essays for students in post-16 education in England. But so far there have been no prosecutions. The BBC has spoken to a former lecturer who describes essay cheating as an open secret and to a businessman who claims to have made millions from selling model answer essays to university students. Universities UK, which represents 141 institutions, said there were severe penalties for students caught submitting work that was not their own.

Score estimation has recently emerged as a key modern statistical challenge, due to its pivotal role in generative modelling via diffusion models. Moreover, it is an essential ingredient in a new approach to linear regression via convex $M$-estimation, where the corresponding error densities are projected onto the log-concave class. Motivated by these applications, we study the minimax risk of score estimation with respect to squared $L^2(P_0)$-loss, where $P_0$ denotes an underlying log-concave distribution on $\mathbb{R}$. Such distributions have decreasing score functions, but on its own, this shape constraint is insufficient to guarantee a finite minimax risk. We therefore define subclasses of log-concave densities that capture two fundamental aspects of the estimation problem. First, we establish the crucial impact of tail behaviour on score estimation by determining the minimax rate over a class of log-concave densities whose score function exhibits controlled growth relative to the quantile levels. Second, we explore the interplay between smoothness and log-concavity by considering the class of log-concave densities with a scale restriction and a $(β,L)$-Hölder assumption on the log-density for some $β\in [1,2]$. We show that the minimax risk over this latter class is of order $L^{2/(2β+1)}n^{-β/(2β+1)}$ up to poly-logarithmic factors, where $n$ denotes the sample size. When $β< 2$, this rate is faster than could be obtained under either the shape constraint or the smoothness assumption alone. Our upper bounds are attained by a locally adaptive, multiscale estimator constructed from a uniform confidence band for the score function. This study highlights intriguing differences between the score estimation and density estimation problems over this shape-constrained class.

Former chancellor George Osborne is joining artificial intelligence (AI) giant OpenAI. He will lead its OpenAI for Countries programme, which is aimed at helping governments increase their AI capacity. Announcing his new London-based role, Osborne said it was a privilege to be joining the company. I recently asked myself the question: what's the most exciting and promising company in the world right now? The answer I believe is OpenAI, he said on X.

Negotiations over a technology deal between the UK and US have stalled due to stumbling blocks in wider trade negotiations between the two sides. The Technology Prosperity Deal - which was billed as historic when it was unveiled during US President Donald Trump's state visit in September - saw both countries pledge to co-operate in areas such as AI. However, talks on the agreement are now being held up because of US concerns about what it considers to be wider UK trade barriers. A government spokesperson said our special relationship with the US remains strong and the UK is firmly committed to ensuring the Tech Prosperity Deal delivers opportunity for hardworking people in both countries. The New York Times - which first reported the story - said there were broader disagreements between the two sides, including over digital regulations and food safety rules.