The Guardian

Prepare to have your perspective shattered by the comedian’s visits to our US tech overlords. The upcoming advancements for those with disabilities are life-changing Washing machines liberated women to get soul-crushing jobs that ate up their free time. Social media gave the world one revolution – before it destabilised democracies everywhere else. Now AI is here, and its main job seems to be rep…

We’ve cut through the noise to find genuinely good early Black Friday 2025 discounts on Filter-recommended products across home, tech, beauty and toys • Big savings – or big regrets? How to shop smart this Black Friday • The best Black Friday beauty deals Like Christmas Day, Black Friday has long since ceased to be a mere “day”. Yuletide now seems to start roughly when Strictly does, and Black Fr…

Amy Redford thanks fans for ‘love and support’ but takes issue with ‘AI versions of funerals, tributes and quotes from members of my family that are fabrications’ Robert Redford’s daughter Amy Redford has criticised the proliferation of artificial intelligence tributes to her father, who died in September , calling them “fabrications”. Redford posted a statement on social media in which she thank…

Senior UK police officer says AI is accelerating violence against women and girls and that technology companies are complicit One in four people think there is nothing wrong with creating and sharing sexual deepfakes, or they feel neutral about it, even when the person depicted has not consented, according to a police-commissioned survey. The findings prompted a senior police officer to warn that…

Researchers say results underline large language models’ poor grasp of humour, empathy and cultural nuance Comedians who rely on clever wordplay and writers of witty headlines can rest a little easier, for the moment at least, research on AI suggests. Experts from universities in the UK and Italy have been investigating whether large language models (LLMs) understand puns – and found them wanting…

Campaigners including Good Law Project describe ICO ‘collapse in enforcement activity’ after Afghan data breach Dozens of civil liberties campaigners and legal professionals are calling for an inquiry into the UK’s data protection watchdog, after what they describe as “a collapse in enforcement activity” after the scandal of the Afghan data breach . A total of 73 academics, senior lawyers, data p…

Tech critic Corey Doctorow explains why for so many the internet – from Amazon to Google to Instagram – seems to be getting worse Do you ever get the feeling that the internet isn’t what it used to be? Well, tech critic Corey Doctorow thinks you’re right – and he has a term to describe it too: ‘enshittification’. Continue reading...

‘Clothes … I just want clothes.’ Teenagers tell us what gifts they actually want this year, from Lululemon to slushie machines The 47 best gift ideas for US tweens in 2025 – picked by actual tweens Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things If AirPods are “fire” and other brands are “mid”, does this mean they’re good? If a fab Lululemon jacket gives you…

The UK could’ve been a true tech leader – but it has cheerfully submitted to US dominance in a way that may cost it dear Two and a half centuries ago, the American colonies launched a violent protest against British rule, triggered by parliament’s imposition of a monopoly on the sale of tea and the antics of a vainglorious king. Today, the tables have turned: it is Great Britain that finds itself…

When the people making AI seem trustworthy are the ones who trust it the least, it shows that incentives for speed are overtaking safety, experts say Krista Pawloski remembers the single defining moment that shaped her opinion on the ethics of artificial intelligence . As an AI worker on Amazon Mechanical Turk – a marketplace that allows companies to hire workers to perform tasks like entering da…

Collective experiment found switching profile to ‘male’ and ‘bro-coding’ text led to big increase in reach, though site denies favouring posts by men Do your LinkedIn followers consider you a “thought leader”? Do hordes of commenters applaud your tips on how to “scale” your startup? Do recruiters slide into your DMs to “explore potential synergies”? If not, it could be because you’re not a man. C…

The use of AI in the surprise game-of-the-year contender has sparked a heated cultural and ethical debate, and raised existential questions for artists, writers and voice actors • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Arc Raiders is, by all accounts, a late game-of-the-year contender. Dropped into a multiplayer world overrun with hostile drones and military robots, every…

Gaming platform to use facial age estimation to limit chats to similar age groups, as allegations of grooming grow The online games platform Roblox is to start blocking children from talking to adult and much older teen strangers from next month as it faces fresh lawsuits alleging it has been exploited by predators to groom children as young as seven. Roblox has reached 150 million daily players …

Online gaming company says voluntary age assurance technology will limit teens and children messaging users outside their own age groups Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast As Roblox rolls out new age assurance features to prevent teens and kids from chatting with adults they do not know, it has insisted Australia’s upcoming under-16s social media ban should not apply to …

Forty years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System dominated the markets in Japan and the US. But in Europe, a technologically superior rival was making it look like an ancient relic There’s an old maxim that history is written by the victors, and that’s as true in video games as it is anywhere else. Nowadays you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Nintendo Entertainment System was the only conso…