Protesters from Pause AI block the entrance to Downing Street on Wednesday. Protesters from Pause AI block the entrance to Downing Street on Wednesday. 'A critical moment': concern UK is not up to speed in acting on AI risks Andy Burnham's focus on immediate domestic problems leads some to fear issue has dropped off government's radar Towards the end of Keir Starmer's time in office, his senior ministers, alarmed by the latest developments in artificial intelligence, began drawing up plans for a new AI safety law. They ordered a review of existing legislation to see what powers they already had, according to those briefed on the plans, and were exploring whether they could force the world's most advanced technology companies to submit their products for safety testing before launching them. In the midst of the political chaos that engulfed the former prime minister as he fought to remain in office, however, the plans fell by the wayside.

Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW?

Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW?

Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW?

When does Andy Burnham become prime minister? Andy Burnham will take over from Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader on Friday, after winning the support of the party's MPs. It means he will soon become the UK's prime minister - the seventh in the last 10 years. When does Andy Burnham become prime minister? Burnham becomes Labour leader on Friday - but he will not become prime minister until Monday, three days later.

Image caption, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire when SpaceX floated SpaceX's share price has dropped below its stock market debut just over a month ago, falling sharply from a post-float peak. The price for a single share in Elon Musk's rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence (AI) company fell to $132.62 (£98.24) on Wednesday, below its initial listing of $135 in June. SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO) made Musk the world's first trillionaire. Compared to its on-the-day high so far, the stock price is now down 41%. If the price holds, or falls further, it will mean that those who purchased stock around the time of its flotation will stand to lose money on their investment.

Report finds secrecy impacted handling of nuclear test veterans' records Image caption, Nuclear test veterans met then Labour opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer, in 2021, campaigning for full disclosure of the impact of the UK's nuclear bomb testing programme. High levels of Cold War secrecy were a factor in the haphazard approach taken towards the medical records of nuclear test veterans, an official report has found. The lack of a centralised approach means that the system will appear complex and inconsistent to the veterans who have been campaigning for the full release of their medical records. The findings come in a series of official documents released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in response to years of campaigning by the veterans. Andy Burnham spoke up in favour of the nuclear test veterans on Tuesday evening in his first speech in parliament since his re-election last month, endorsing their call for a special tribunal. As many as 25,000 members of the UK armed services, scientists and civilians took part in the nuclear testing programme between 1952 and 1967 at sites including Australia and several islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The US government has lifted export controls on Anthropic's most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools, just weeks after ordering it to restrict access to them over national security concerns, the company has said. Anthropic said in a social media post that it will begin restoring access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 on Wednesday after being notified that the US Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on the two models. They are the firm's most advanced AI tools, which were abruptly suspended on 12 June over concerns that they could be used by hackers to exploit weaknesses in computer systems. The BBC has contacted the Department of Commerce for comment. Mythos and Fable are two of Anthropic's AI models built on its Claude platform - a rival to the likes of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Fable 5 is a version of the AI model for the cosumer market, capable of deep reasoning and can perform complex tasks independently.

Apple is increasing the price of MacBooks and iPads worldwide due to rising memory and storage chip costs . The iPhone maker has hiked the prices of some laptops and tablets by almost 20%, saying the electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge due to an extraordinary surge in demand for chips to power AI data centres. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly, the company said - adding it was working tirelessly to find solutions. While Apple has not included iPhones in its price increases for some devices, tech analyst Paolo Pescatore said it showed the AI boom was now affecting consumer electronics. Apple's price hikes follow a slew of firms increasing device prices to help them absorb rising hardware costs.

IBM hails new'block of flats' design breakthrough for ultra tiny chips Image caption, IBM's new sub-1 nm chip crams almost 100 billion transistors onto a surface the size of a fingernail IBM has unveiled a new chip design which it says could enable manufacturers to cram 100 billion transistors on a silicon chip the size of a fingernail. The current industry-standard size for chips, measured in a the unit of nanometres - a billionth of a metre and the size of a few atoms - is around two nanometres (nm). But IBM claims its new chip tech is the equivalent of around 0.7nm, which may make it the world's first known chip technology below 1nm. However, it will be several years before the chip tech could be ready to go into production. The firm claims in tests, its prototype performed 50% better than its own 2nm chip and was 70% more energy efficient.