Snapchat could face a fine of millions of pounds after the UK data watchdog issued it with a preliminary enforcement notice over the alleged failure to assess privacy risks its artificial intelligence chatbot may pose to users and particularly children. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said it had provisionally found that the social media app's owner failed to "adequately identify and assess the risks" to several million UK users of My AI, including among 13- to 17-year-olds. Snapchat has 21 million monthly active users in the UK and has proved to be particularly popular among younger demographics, with the market research company Insider Intelligence estimating that 48% of users are aged 24 or under. About 18% of UK users are aged 12 to 17. "The provisional findings of our investigation suggest a worrying failure by Snap [the parent of Snapchat] to adequately identify and assess the privacy risks to children and other users before launching My AI," said John Edwards, the information commissioner. The ICO said the findings of its investigation were provisional and that Snap has until 27 October to make representations before a final decision is made about taking action. "No conclusion should be drawn at this stage that there has, in fact, been any breach of data protection law or that an enforcement notice will ultimately be issued," the ICO said.

Replika is one of a number of AI-powered apps currently on the market - they let users create their own chatbot, or "virtual friend", to talk to - unlike regular AI assistants like ChatGPT.Users can choose the gender and appearance of the 3D avatar they create.

South Wales Police has been criticised over its live facial recognition use at events including Harry Styles and Beyoncé concerts in Cardiff. The Metropolitan Police has used it several times this year, including at the King's Coronation in May.

A 110-year-old patent has inspired a new robotic hand that can securely grip objects of any shape without the need for complex motorised joints. The inspiration for the device dates back to 1913, when a now-expired US patent was granted on an invention for "obtaining intimate contact with, engaging, or clamping bodies of any shape". The original design consists of a nested arrangement of pivoting semi-circles in diminishing sizes, each of which could individually rotate to form a contour that securely grasps any shape.

Big Tech companies have been rushing to design and produce new "generative" AI products since OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT last November. But the question of how the companies would get people to use -- and pay for -- the expensive new technology has swirled around the industry for months. Google, Amazon and Apple all have millions of customers already speaking to the companies' existing voice assistants to set alarms, check the weather and make notes for them, representing a ready-made group of consumers to test out the new AI chatbots on.

An "urgent issue" of gender imbalance in artificial intelligence investment must be addressed according to a government-backed body which has found that female-founded companies accounted for just 2% of AI startup deals over the past decade. The report by the Alan Turing Institute found that when female-founded companies have secured funding, they raise on average £1.3m a deal compared with £8.6m raised by all-male founder teams. In the last year, investment in AI software has grown considerably. A report by Goldman Sachs predicts that AI investment will approach $200bn (£166bn) globally by 2025, while a recent report from Bloomberg found that generative AI could become a $1.3tn market by 2032. "The recent explosion in interest and investment in AI, especially generative AI, means that there is an urgent need for women and minorities to have equal access in the tech and venture space," said Dr Erin Young, a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute.

A woman was hospitalized after being hit by two cars, one of them self-driving, on Monday night in San Francisco, according to authorities. The woman was hit at about 9:31 p.m. at the intersection of 5th and Market Streets, according to a San Francisco Fire Department news release. First responders arrived to find a woman pinned underneath a self-driving car with "multiple traumatic injuries." Firefighters and members of the San Francisco Police Department communicated remotely with the operator of the vehicle to make sure the car was stopped, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. The woman was treated at the scene and taken to San Francisco General Hospital.

OpenAI unveiled new ChatGPT features that include the ability to have a conversation with the chatbot as if you were making a call, allowing you to instantly get responses to your spoken questions in a lifelike synthetic voice, as my colleague Will Douglas Heaven reported. OpenAI also revealed that ChatGPT will be able to search the web. Google's rival bot, Bard, is plugged into most of the company's ecosystem, including Gmail, Docs, YouTube, and Maps. The idea is that people will be able to use the chatbot to ask questions about their own content--for example, by getting it to search through their emails or organize their calendar. Bard will also be able to instantly retrieve information from Google Search.

Late last month, after a year-plus wait, OpenAI quietly released the latest version of its image-generating AI program, DALL-E 3. The announcement was filled with stunning demos--including a minute-long video demonstrating how the technology could, given only a few chat prompts, create and merchandise a character for a children's story. But perhaps the widest-reaching and most consequential update came in two sentences slipped in at the end: "DALL-E 3 is designed to decline requests that ask for an image in the style of a living artist. Creators can now also opt their images out from training of our future image generation models." The language is a tacit response to hundreds of pages of litigation and countless articles accusing tech firms of stealing artists' work to train their AI software, and provides a window into the next stage of the battle between creators and AI companies. The second sentence, in particular, cuts to the core of debates over whether tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta should be allowed to use human-made work to train AI models without the creator's permission--models that, artists say, are stealing their ideas and work opportunities.

It's logical for humans to feel anxious about artificial intelligence. After all, the news is constantly reeling off job after job at which the technology seems to outperform us. But humans aren't yet headed for all-out replacement. And if you do suffer from so-called AI anxiety, there are ways to alleviate your fears and even reframe them into a motivating force for good. In one recent example of generative AI's achievements, AI programs outscored the average human in tasks requiring originality, as judged by human reviewers.