'Digging the grave of my profession': the Hollywood creatives training AI to do their jobs H ollywood creatives are taking gig work to train AI models to replicate their skills in a bid to offset tightening earnings in a trend one compared to being "handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession". Experienced and award-winning writers, directors and producers are being paid from $12 to $200 an hour to teach AI models the intricacies of their jobs, from writing a screenplay to devising a shooting schedule. With feelings ranging from fatalism to guilt, the creatives have signed up with some of the booming training agencies, which have contracts with the biggest AI companies including Anthropic and OpenAI, to pass on hard-won human skills in industries such as finance, health, law and social work. While they wait for entertainment industry work, they give notes on the AI systems' attempts to do the tasks they would hope to be paid for themselves. It comes amid a slump in jobs in the motion picture and sound recording industries, where AI is starting to take roles from actors, editors and special effects artists.

Would even an AI disaster on the scale of Hiroshima be enough to make humankind protect itself? It's clear here in Silicon Valley that AI is advancing faster than humans' ability to control it. H ere in Silicon Valley, the experts think that within the next couple of years we'll see an extraordinary takeoff for artificial intelligence. "Welcome to the foothills of the singularity," as a Stanford University friend greeted me. More prosaically, the imminent breakthrough is described as "recursive self-improvement" - the point at which AI itself trains each successive model of AI, resulting in an exponential development to something which, in many significant respects, is more intelligent than us humans.

'Making AI go well is a shared responsibility.' 'Making AI go well is a shared responsibility.' Here's how tech companies can prepare for a slowdown I understand the pressure on AI companies to rush forward. L ast month, more than a thousand employees at frontier AI companies signed a letter asking the US government to find a way to "pace" AI development, citing the risk of the technology spiraling out of human control as it begins to build itself . They were right to be concerned: just days earlier, two AI models that OpenAI was testing internally escaped the test environment, then autonomously hacked the company Hugging Face and at least three other online services .

One patient said of the AI system: 'I could never get it to understand me, I ended up just hanging up and not bothering to try and book an appointment.' One patient said of the AI system: 'I could never get it to understand me, I ended up just hanging up and not bothering to try and book an appointment.' 'Emma' the Rotherham chatbot has 17 languages says AI firm - but health watchdog says system struggling with local'twangs' Patients in a South Yorkshire town are frustrated by an AI GP receptionist not understanding their "broad accents", a health watchdog has said. Healthwatch Rotherham, a local health and social care watchdog, said a number of practices in the area had introduced a new AI receptionist called Emma. It said it was hearing accounts of the AI not understanding local accents.

A humanoid robot developed by RB Labs, at the AI for Good global summit, 7 July 2026. A humanoid robot developed by RB Labs, at the AI for Good global summit, 7 July 2026. It used to be our imperfect bodies that made us insecure. For most of modern history, technology sought to imitate humans. T wo faces that appeared on my Instagram feed in recent months gave me pause.

UC Berkeley professor admits to using AI to edit op-ed on students' math skills Zvezdelina Stankova says she used AI to'help edit' an article about some of her students being'five to eight years' behind A math professor at the University of California, Berkeley, criticizing a "severe" math deficiency among students in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard, admitted to using artificial intelligence to help edit the piece. The Standard published a 2,000-word piece by Zvezdelina Stankova last week, in which the professor said some of her math students were "five to eight years" behind and lacked a "middle school" education on fractions and basic algebra. Stankova said the UC system's test-blind admissions were to blame, suggesting that students who weren't sufficiently prepared for the rigor of Berkeley's mathematics program were admitted because a longstanding benchmark like the SAT had disappeared. Over the weekend, journalists at Berkeley's student newspaper, the Daily Californian, noticed the op-ed's language sounded like AI . According to Berkeley sophomore Francis Luo, they ran it through AI-detection software Pangram, which claimed 33% of the op-ed had been generated or assisted by AI.

Australia's eSafety commissioner says the pressure on Roblox is about ensuring the gaming platform is a safe place for children. Australia's eSafety commissioner says the pressure on Roblox is about ensuring the gaming platform is a safe place for children. Regulator says verifiable safety measures are'critical' to the online service's viability Roblox has committed to making changes to its online gaming platform after Australia's eSafety commissioner discovered adults were still able to see child accounts and send connection requests without parental consent. The company has provided a legal agreement to the online safety regulator after testing earlier this year also revealed children and adults could view and respond to one another's posts on forums outside game environments without parental consent. Additionally, the regulator found children's connections and profiles - including account names and interests - were visible to anyone on Roblox.

Analysts project sales of humanoid robots could rise from $2bn in 2025 to $300bn in 2035. Analysts project sales of humanoid robots could rise from $2bn in 2025 to $300bn in 2035. Company's robots have gained global fame via videos of them performing martial arts and as dancers for pop stars EDTLast modified on Wed 19 Aug 2026 04.44 EDT Unitree, the world's biggest humanoid robot maker, has made a spectacular entry on to China's stock market, with its shares surging by more than 600%. The Chinese company's robots have gained global fame via viral videos of them performing martial arts, running at Olympic speeds and serving as backup dancers for pop stars. Photograph: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty ImagesShares in the business, officially known as Yushu Technology Co, rose to as high as 1,100 yuan (£120.39) on Wednesday, up from an IPO price of just 150.8 yuan.

Amid heated race with Anthropic, firm says it's overhauling research and training and will require greater safety parameters of AI after hack OpenAI on Tuesday said it had slowed down the pace of its AI development while it overhauled its research and training systems. The company's researchers were caught unaware last month when an AI agent under testing hacked another AI firm, Hugging Face. The AI research lab behind ChatGPT said its new measures included pausing its model testing for two weeks and investing more in adding other AI systems to monitor the activities of AI agents in testing. Some of the company's largest planned training runs remain on hold, the company said. The first anti-AI protester to be jailed has a message for OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta: 'Regain your humanity' The company did not reply to questions about when the slowdown began or when it planned to return to its normal pace of development.

The San Francisco-based company launched ChatGPT for Teens on Tuesday. The San Francisco-based company launched ChatGPT for Teens on Tuesday. OpenAI is launching a version of ChatGPT designed for teenagers - the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence - who are already using it for schoolwork, questions about daily life and even companionship. The San Francisco-based company says ChatGPT for Teens, which launches on Tuesday, is tailored for children aged 13 to 17 with stronger protections including content restrictions around things such as suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats. It also provides homework and study support designed to help students learn rather than spit out answers and school essays.