Law
The AI Slop Backlash Is Actually Having an Impact
Platforms are finally recognizing that people don't want to consume AI slop. A growing number of sites and apps now have tools and policies to flag, label, and ban AI-generated content. I was recently digging through my Instagram settings, trying to disable Meta's now-defunct feature that allowed anyone to create AI deepfakes of me without consent. Anger bubbled up inside as I tapped through the Kafkaesque opt-out process . Rather than throwing my phone across the room, I blurted to my partner that we should leave San Francisco behind and be off-grid sheep farmers.
Senior detective under investigation over use of AI
Image caption, Derbyshire Police has referred a case to the police watchdog over a senior officer's use of AI A senior detective is being investigated over potential artificial intelligence (AI)-related gross misconduct. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it had started investigating the officer after they were referred to the watchdog by Derbyshire Police following an internal review of their use of AI. The investigation into the force comes two months after a criminal investigation was launched into another officer accused of using AI systems to create evidential material in a number of cases. Derbyshire Police said on Monday it made a voluntary referral to the IOPC on 23 June regarding an officer's use of artificial intelligence. The force said the latest investigation was being independently led by the IOPC and it was unable to comment further.
Are You a Human?
From branding irons to iris scans, the ancient business of proving who you are has never been stranger--or more lucrative. There are now more bots online than people. The challenge used to be telling who was a person from who was a bot; today, the challenge is telling good bots and bad bots apart--with humanity in the lurch. Three summers ago, Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, posted on X a fifteen-second video of dozens of people--mostly young, veiled in face masks, and wearing super-hip, white-soled sneakers--waiting in a long, snaky line in the traffic-light-lit but otherwise dusky dark of an unnamed city that appears to have been Nagoya, Japan. "Crazy lines around the world," Altman wrote. "One person getting verified every 8 seconds now." In the video, the camera pans to the front of the line, where a woman is kneeling on the sidewalk as if in prayer, staring into a gleaming silver orb about the size of a volleyball that has been propped up on a stand about the height of an end table. It looks like the eyeball of a giant robot Cyclops. She is bowing before an artificially intelligent machine, seeking a certification that she is human. That eyeball, which is known as the Orb, was developed by Tools for Humanity, a San Francisco-and Munich-based tech company that Altman founded in 2019 with a twenty-five-year-old German physicist named Alex Blania, who is now its C.E.O.
Thames Water gave finance boss a 1m signing-on fee
Thames Water paid its finance chief a ยฃ1m signing-on fee in July as the company struggles with a mountain of debt and faces temporary nationalisation. Steve Buck joined the company in April 2025 but it is understood the seven-figure payment was not made until last month after the company had taken legal advice over its contractual obligations. The existence of the payment, first reported by Sky News,, external was apparently revealed in a letter from the Thames Water chairman to MPs on the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. The money is believed to have come from emergency funding provided by Thames Water's lenders. The utility company owes roughly ยฃ20bn and has been working with creditors and government officials to find a way forward.
Tech leaders say AI means less work - their staff say they work up to 90 hours a week
For years now, executives at companies that are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars a year into developing various artificial intelligence tools have insisted that the technology will ultimately mean people will spend less of their time working. An engineering director at Google said four years ago that AI would deliver a four-day work week by 2025, external . Earlier this year, and just one year after that engineering director's prediction, OpenAI took up the challenge, in a manner of speaking. It formally urged companies to start testing out a four-day work week (with no change in pay), claiming that AI will soon be able to speed up so much human labour that the corporate world should prepare itself. However, a former OpenAI technical employee who left the company last year told the BBC the firm never actually trialled the four-day work week it suggested others should try while they were there.
These AI Barons Are Ready to Give Away Their Fortunes
A new generation of philanthropists made rich by artificial intelligence are preparing to give away their vast wealth. David Silver is a billionaire, sort of. His stake in Ineffable Intelligence --the artificial intelligence lab he founded--is worth an ungodly fortune. But he stands to collect none of that money himself. He set things up that way.
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Mysterious 'cloaked UFO' spotted hiding inside cloud over North America
You're viewing the US edition You can switch to the UK or AU homepage at any time using this menu. Hundreds of families thought they were buying their slice of the American dream... but now they claim surprise'eyesore' has cost them THOUSANDS of dollars and ruined their lives: 'We're trapped' Southern elementary school erupts as parents bitterly divided over new transgender teacher... with furious families clashing over claims children are'too young' for a'biological male in a dress' Meghan wears Princess Diana's diamond and sapphire earrings as she steps out with Prince Harry to support music mogul friend David Foster WNBA players' union turns on Sophie Cunningham with bombshell statement on'hate, abuse, and demonization' of trans people SARAH VINE: Why, after ten years of Harry and Meghan, these TWO little-known incidents stay with me. But for all her mistakes, she's not solely responsible for the shambles that followed Hollywood angst over Justin and Hailey Bieber's marriage is ...
Google DeepMind enters a new era as co-founder Demis Hassabis shifts AI role
When Sir Demis Hassabis said AI had brought the world to a "pivotal moment in human history" last month, he knew another big change was imminent. This shift was closer to home. The Nobel prize-winning head of Google DeepMind, Google's AI unit, announced this week he was relinquishing his day-to-day duties as chief executive and becoming chair. He is also taking on the role of chief scientist at DeepMind's parent, Alphabet. Hassabis and DeepMind have been key players in AI's breakthrough era.