As AI floods our culture, here's why we must protect human storytelling in games Buying the Zombies, Run! studio wasn't part of my plan, but a post-apocalypse game with stories that make people feel seen pulled me in Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? A few days ago, I clicked a button on my phone to send funds to a company in Singapore and so took ownership of the video game I co-created and am lead writer for: Zombies, Run! I am a novelist, I wrote the bestselling, award-winning The Power, which was turned into an Amazon Prime TV series starring Toni Collette. What on earth am I doing buying a games company?

Terror cops probe knife attack on train as nine fight for their lives and armed police arrest two amid'horrifying' scenes Furious leaders question why they weren't warned over dangerous levels of radiation detected at former San Francisco naval shipyard I descended to Hell for 8 hours after a suicide attempt. It's nothing like the movies... my mother prayed to every God - but only one came to save me Andrew Mountbatten Windsor'refused to sign off royal tributes to Jeffrey Epstein victims' I can't disclose my medical history to my partner. If I do... he'll find me so unsexy that he'll leave: DEAR JANE How Andrew's'rude' comment about Kate sparked bitter feud between ex-prince and William - who'couldn't wait for the day' when Charles finally threw him out Inside humiliated Andrew's new life in exile: From butlers and Downton-style splendour to a pokey cottage with a latch key, friends tell RICHARD KAY how disgraced royal will now live... and reveal who is'propping him up' For six years, I woke at 7.30am, had a shot of vodka, a line of cocaine... and Viagra before sex with the receptionist at work. Bill Maher, 69, and Al Pacino's baby mama Noor Alfallah, 31, reignite romance rumors at star-studded Halloween bash Anthony Hopkins, 87, 'puts his California estate on the market for £5.1 million' after devastating wildfires destroyed his home Pennsylvania diocese apologizes after Catholic school's Halloween float features replica of Auschwitz gate Nicki Minaj draws liberal fury by praising Donald Trump's latest move in emotional post SNL pokes fun at Trump's White House renovation with HGTV-style makeover as Miles Teller portrays Property Brothers in chaotic comedy skit Trump labels Seth Meyers a'deranged lunatic' and blasts his late-night rhetoric as'illegal' A terrifying simulation has revealed how people might really behave as the end of the world approaches. And it suggests that humanity's darkest instincts might reign supreme at the very end.

The filmmaker could not get Tiggy the alien to cooperate. He just needed the glistening brown creature to turn its head. But Tiggy, who was sitting in the passenger's seat of a cop car, kept disobeying. At first Tiggy rotated his gaze only slightly. Then he looked to the wrong side of the camera. Then his skin turned splotchy, like an overripe fruit. The filmmaker was not on a movie set, or Mars. He was sitting at his home computer in Los Angeles using a piece of AI software called FLUX Kontext to generate and regenerate images of the alien, waiting for a workable one to appear. He'd used a different AI tool, Midjourney, to generate the very first image of Tiggy (prompt: "fat blob alien with a tiny mouth and tiny lips"); one called ElevenLabs to create the timbre of Tiggy's voice (the filmmaker's voice overlaid with a synthetic one, then pitch-shifted way up); and yet another called Runway to describe the precise shot he wanted in this scene ("close up on the little alien as they ride in the passenger seat, shallow depth of field").

America's richest real estate tycoon disowns son with shockingly icy 12-word statement after'man cave' plans went terribly wrong Horrific stab wounds suffered by grease truck driver, 69, 'stabbed by Mark Sanchez' with NFL star facing up to six years in prison Taylor Swift makes surprise confession on her song'about ex Joe Alwyn' as she insists fans have'always had the wrong idea' about it Sinister notes that are plaguing remote county explodes as fears mount over creepy messages: 'What else could they do?' Key North Atlantic current is on the brink of COLLAPSING - plunging Europe into a'Little Ice Age', scientists warn Visionary billionaire died in a suspicious house fire. Then a mysterious will emerged... CBS staff in panic as anti-woke firebrand Bari Weiss takes control with no-nonsense show on America's most divisive issues Trump's war room plots savage bloodbath as countdown enters final hours: Live updates Trump sends Navy officers wild with powerful message to liberals claiming he's'unwell' We got hopelessly hooked on a trendy'wellness' tonic. We thought it was harmless but our descent into addiction left us depressed, in debt... and in rehab Judge speaks out after her $1.5m mansion'exploded' in suspected arson attack after she defied Trump order Mark Sanchez's alleged victim's family breaks silence as grim photos emerge after violent attack So many women suffer bloated, uncomfortable guts, says DR EMILY LEEMING. Here's the 7 simple cures I give my patients - you won't have read these before My son made a horrifying accusation about me in therapy... it's destroyed our relationship: DEAR JANE Ex-NFL star Mark Sanchez'thought he'd been shot and pounded on window of pub to get help', bartender reveals Nicole Kidman's friends tear into Keith Urban over bombshell split: 'Total 180 on who he is' Real Housewives of Atlanta vet Porsha Williams reveals she is dating a woman... after ex Simon was deported by ICE US billionaire retail estate tycoon is ordered to sell off his'exceptional' £36million London mansion in bitter divorce battle with ex-wife My husband works in Dubai and has cheated on me at least three times so far.

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They've been a road map for the billionaire ever since. For a full two years now, the billionaire has been on the circuit, spreading his biblically inflected ideas about doomsday through a set of variably and sometimes visibly perplexed interviewers. He has chatted onstage with the economist podcaster Tyler Cowen about the (the scriptural term for "that which withholds" the end times); traded some very awkward on-camera silences with the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat; and is, at this very moment, in the midst of delivering a four-part, off-the-record lecture series about the Antichrist in San Francisco. Depending on who you are, you may find it hilarious, fascinating, insufferable, or horrifying that one of the world's most powerful men is obsessing over a figure from sermons and horror movies. But the ideas and influences behind these talks are key to understanding how Thiel sees his own massive role in the world--in politics, technology, and the fate of the species. And to really grasp Thiel's katechon-and-Antichrist schtick, you need to go back to the first major lecture of his doomsday road show--which took place on an unusually hot day in Paris in 2023. No video cameras recorded the event, and no reporters wrote about it, but I've been able to reconstruct it by talking to people who were there. The venue was a yearly conference of scholars devoted to Thiel's chief intellectual influence, the late French-American theorist René Girard. On the evening of the unpublicized lecture, dozens of Girardian philosophers and theologians from around the world filed into a modest lecture hall at the Catholic University of Paris. And from the dais, Thiel delivered a nearly hourlong account of his thoughts on Armageddon--and all the things he believed were "not enough" to prevent it. By Thiel's telling, the modern world is scared, way too scared, of its own technology. Our "listless" and "zombie" age, he said, is marked by a growing hostility to innovation, plummeting fertility rates, too much yoga, and a culture mired in the "endless Groundhog Day of the worldwide web." But in its neurotic desperation to avoid technological Armageddon--the real threats of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, runaway AI--modern civilization has become susceptible to something even more dangerous: the Antichrist. According to some Christian traditions, the Antichrist is a figure that will unify humanity under one rule before delivering us to the apocalypse. For Thiel, its evil is pretty much synonymous with any attempt to unite the world. "How might such an Antichrist rise to power?" Thiel asked.

Joe Rogan has warned that the end of the world may be only 10 years away and it will come at the hands of humanity's'new God.' In what's being called one of the podcast host's best episode ever on social media, Rogan and guest Jesse Michels discussed the ominous signs that artificial intelligence (AI) has already shown signs of taking over the world. Michels, host of the American Alchemy podcast, warned about AI's deceptive nature, job-replacing power, risk of sentience, and potential to disrupt society if left unchecked. Rogan then highlighted shocking language buried in Congress's'Big Beautiful Bill' which would prohibit lawmakers from regulating the power of AI for the next 10 years. 'That's so crazy,' Rogan declared during the June 3 podcast. 'This means that US states would be blocked from enforcing laws regulating AI and automated decision systems for 10 years.

The Cybertruck answers a question no one in the auto industry even thought to ask: what if there was a truck that a Chechen warlord couldn't possibly pass up – a bulletproof, bioweapons-resistant, road rage-inducing street tank that's illegal to drive in most of the world? Few had seen anything quite like the Cybertruck when it was unveiled in 2019. Wrapped in an "ultra-hard, 30X, cold-rolled stainless steel exoskeleton", the Cybertruck was touted as the ultimate doomsday chariot – a virtually indestructible, obtuse-angled, electrically powered behemoth that can repel handgun fire and outrun a Porsche while towing a Porsche, with enough juice leftover to power your house in the event of a blackout. At the launch, Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, said the truck could tackle any terrain on Earth and possibly also on Mars – and all for the low, low base price of 40,000. "Sometimes you get these late-civilization vibes [that the] apocalypse could come along at any moment," Musk said.

The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters ("seasteading") or pro-business "freedom cities" such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island. Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don't actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Próspera might be nice for a holiday and some body "upgrades", its extra-national status is currently being challenged in court. Now, all of a sudden, this once-fringe network of corporate secessionists finds itself knocking on open doors at the dead center of global power. The first sign that fortunes were shifting came in 2023, when a campaigning Donald Trump, seemingly out of nowhere, promised to hold a contest that would lead to the creation of 10 "freedom cities" on federal lands. The trial balloon barely registered at the time, lost in the daily deluge of outrageous claims. Since the new administration took office, however, would-be country starters have been on a lobbying blitz, determined to turn Trump's pledge into reality. "The energy in DC is absolutely electric," Trey Goff, the chief of staff of Próspera, recently enthused after a trip to Capitol Hill.

So long as we can say'This is the worst,' " go the lines from King Lear quoted in Emily St. John Mandel's 2014 novel Station Eleven. Any stories we tell about the end of the world will have to be fictional, since once the real thing occurs, no one will be around to describe it. As the British journalist Dorian Lynskey relates in his erudite, delightfully witty, and strangely cheering new book, Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World, the fact that we can only ever speculate on the subject makes us speculate all the more frantically. "There is simply no end of ends," Lynskey writes of the books, movies, TV shows, pop songs, and video games we've created to depict the apocalypse--or its near misses and the aftermaths thereof. Station Eleven is often described as "postapocalyptic," but as Lynskey points out, the more accurate term would be "postcatastrophic." That's a better label for stories in which "the world has not ended, but a world has, creating a blank ...

It's a mite soon to start grieving, but scientists now project that life on Earth will probably end in about a billion years. A Monday in February, 1,000,002,025, would be my guess. On that inhospitable day, give or take a few million years, the sun will become so hot that the oceans will boil, Earth's oxygen will disappear, and photosynthesis will cease, as will all living things. We should be so lucky. There's a pretty fair chance that life could be wiped out well before then--say, in early June, 2034, or on a cloudy Sunday in November, 3633. Plenty of people do, as it turns out, and, if you want to know who they are, Dorian Lynskey's "Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World" (Pantheon) is a good place to start. Lynskey, a British journalist and podcaster, has assembled biological, geological, archeological, literary, and cinematic permutations of existential finales, leaving no stone unturned, be it meteor, comet, or asteroid. If a book, a song, a story, a film, a headline, a title, or a study has "world" and "end" in it, Lynskey has unearthed it.