The Guardian

Industry body says energy consumption driven by AI up 15% globally in two years as it warns of societal backlash Datacentres are consuming 6% of electricity in the UK and US, with the growing strain of AI on energy supplies prompting community resistance, according to research. The proportion of electricity used by vast warehouses stacked with microchips to power AI and the internet has risen 15%…

Exclusive: Doctors say ‘highly concerning’ poll highlights risk to patients of turning to AI for medical advice One in seven people are using AI chatbots for health advice instead of seeing their GP, a UK study has found. The poll of more than 2,000 people found that – of the 15% turning to chatbots – one in four had done so because of long NHS waiting lists. Continue reading...

Santa Clara county claims Meta Platforms violated the state’s false advertising and unfair business practices laws California’s Santa Clara county has sued Meta Platforms, alleging it has profited from Facebook and Instagram ads promoting scams in violation of California’s false advertising and unfair business practices laws. The lawsuit – filed on Monday in Santa Clara county superior court on b…

Why are Nintendo releasing a straight-up remake of the space-flight shooter – with many of its original limitations – rather than a fresh new take? The Nintendo 64 was not my first video game console, but it was my formative one. Getting to grips with 3D movement in Super Mario 64 with that weird three-pronged controller is one of my most visceral childhood memories; the long, long wait for The L…

Ofcom attempts to block UK access to site cited in multiple coroners’ reports as it levies fine under Online Safety Act A nihilistic internet suicide forum implicated in over 160 UK deaths has been fined £950,000 by the online regulator in its latest attempt to shut it down. Ofcom said the US-based website remained accessible in the UK despite over a year of warnings. Online safety campaigners ha…

In a case of ‘oh dear diary’, the OpenAI president Greg Brockman is having to read extracts from his musings about Elon Musk in court. It’s a terrifying reminder that what’s divulged to AI really isn’t private The hottest new read of 2026 may well be The Secret Diary of Greg Brockman, Aged 38¾. It’s got everything: feuding billionaires, scheming CEOs and a perhaps somewhat unreliable narrator. Yo…

Horticulturalists express alarm after award-winning Matt Keightley launches app that can automate designs With glasses of champagne sipped among the peonies, Chelsea flower show is generally a friendly and genteel occasion. But this year, the secateurs have been drawn as gardeners clash over the use of AI in designing the exhibits. Matt Keightley, an award-winning designer who has created gardens…

The inquiry came after the Guardian revealed Israel used company technology to support mass surveillance of Palestinian phone calls The head of Microsoft ’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military. Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used …

Employees are now whispering to AI voice dictation tools rather than clacking the keys. Will ‘voicepilling’ make everyone more productive – or just more annoying? Name: Voicepilled. Age: Reid Hoffman first declared himself “voicepilled” in the autumn of last year. Continue reading...

Carly Schwartz wanted a solution for her mental health struggles. She found one, but not where she expected On a threadbare carpet in the living room of a Bernal Heights bungalow, I lay blindfolded on my back. Two middle-aged rescue terriers, one missing an eye, sniffed my feet and climbed up and down my legs. F**kin’ Perfect by Pink blared in the background, but the music sounded muffled and dis…

Comedy debuts at Versailles featuring dialogue, music, costumes and scenery created with help of AI tool Le Chat Europe live – latest updates Molière is to the French what Shakespeare is to the English: the last word in historical literature, drama, wit and satire. Now, more than 350 years after his death, the 17th-century dramatist has been revived after scholars at the Sorbonne University in Pa…

The problem wasn’t just the perfectly polished, yet mediocre prose. It’s what’s lost when we surrender the struggle to translate thought into words I have been teaching fiction writing at MIT since 2017. Many of my students last wrote fiction in middle school, and very few have experienced a proper workshop, so at the start of every semester I offer these directions for writer and reader alike: R…

Previously prohibited use of websites such as Omoggle that connect a streamer to a stranger’s video feed now allowed Last week, at 4am, 19-year-old Sammy Amz was scrolling through X when something caught his eye: a popular Twitch streamer was competing in a 1v1 “mog-off” with a stranger, and losing. The next day he opened the Omoggle gaming website and began to play. Quickly he matched with anoth…

In the game by Melbourne-based Beethoven and Dinosaur, you play as a teenage girl the night before moving to New York – drinking, skateboarding and getting into trouble, all soundtracked by 80s and 90s classics When Johnny Galvatron was 14, his cousin gave him a copy of the Smashing Pumpkins’ seminal 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. For Galvatron, a rambunctious teenager in Gee…

For anyone needing a break from binging The Pitt, you can always put in your own shifts as a hospital manager, surgeon, paramedic and of course as a demonic morgue assistant Like the rest of the western world, our household is currently binging medical drama The Pitt, revelling in its visceral depiction of life in a modern emergency department. So far the series has yet to inspire a video game ti…