AI News Today

<p>Lanarkshire datacentre run by renewables and creating thousands of jobs not achievable by 2030, Guardian investigation finds</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/05/lanarkshire-scotland-ai-datacentre-project-renewable-energy">Revealed: landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise</a></p></li></ul><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/05/scotland-lanarkshire-village-ai-datacentre">‘It’s smoke and mirr

<p>US companies hoping to make fortunes from AI want the creative product of our country to be available to them for free, or for peanuts. Words fail me</p><p>Last week I went to Canberra with a group of other people who live by selling our creative work. We make the books, songs, artwork, First Nations artworks, films, music and TV shows that delight and entertain us, reveal us to ourselves as humans, and connect us as Australians.</p><p>The works we make are our property. They are ours to sell

<p>Race to develop ‘embodied AI’ focuses on creating dextrous hands to transform humanoid robots from gimmicks into useful products</p><p>Human hands – nimble, nerve-filled appendages that are the most flexible part of the human skeleton – are exceptionally complex. Many tasks that most people can do largely without thinking, from tying a pair of shoelaces to buttoning up a shirt, in fact require a complex set of neurological instructions and precise choreography. In thousands of years of human

<p>Exclusive: Foreign secretary warns of combined risks of AI, climate crisis, irregular migration and foreign interference</p><p>Artificial intelligence poses a “Hiroshima”-style risk to humanity if governments do not agree to curb how it is developed, the foreign secretary has warned.</p><p>Yvette Cooper urged countries, including the US and China, to agree international rules for AI, telling the Guardian she believes the issue will dominate foreign policy over the next two years.</p> <a href=

A Google Deepmind developer ported the 2003 real-time strategy game "Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour" to iPhone and iPad using Anthropic's Claude Code. The first build took 40 minutes. The full source code is on GitHub. The article Claude Code and Fable 5 ported the 2003 PC game Command & Conquer to native iOS in "a few hours" appeared first on The Decoder .

"Group project, but make it 1776." That's how a new commercial for Google Workspace opens. And things only get cringier from there. The clip imagines what it would be like if the founding fathers turned to Google's collaboration tools and Gemini to help them draft the Declaration of Independence. Ben Franklin texts Thomas Jefferson to […]

<p>The more I learn about celebrities and their odd passions, the more encouraged I am. So much for AI drowning us in a flood of bland ‘tasteslop’</p><p>The internet, as we know, is now a depressing hellhole where everything is a terrifying shot of cortisol straight into the eyeballs or AI slop, interspersed with adverts for protein. So may I offer a recommendation for a modest corrective? It’s called <a href="https://www.pi.fyi/">Perfectly Imperfect</a>.</p><p>It is a daily newsletter about stu

Wealthy US families are increasingly sending their kids to AI schools like Alpha School, which combines two hours of AI tutoring with project-based workshops for up to $75,000 a year in tuition. The trend highlights a growing education gap in the AI era, where traditional schools are struggling to adopt the technology, which may do more harm than good if used without the right skills. The article AI private schools sell wealthy US families on personalized learning over traditional education appe

Mistral founder Arthur Mensch warns companies against relying on closed AI models. He claims AI labs are storing more and more customer data and have, in some cases, used it to go after their own customers as competitors. The concern is valid, but Mistral can't really compete with frontier models from OpenAI or Anthropic on performance and is betting heavily on EU sovereignty as its strategic edge. The article Mistral CEO Mensch says proprietary AI models give labs a front-row seat to your busin

Bytedance's AI video tool Seedance is dividing Hollywood. A viral clip featuring AI-generated Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise prompted the Motion Picture Association's first-ever cease-and-desist against an AI company. But behind the scenes, studios are quietly using the tool on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis, says Simpsons animation producer Joel Kuwahara. The article Hollywood wants Seedance banned and reportedly also wants to keep using it appeared first on The Decoder .

AI search agents rarely fail at multi-step research because of the search itself. Their real problem is not asking the user for clarification when queries are ambiguous. A new benchmark called DiscoBench shows that models searching repeatedly instead of asking follow-up questions actually perform worse, at 51.9 percent, than those that just guess. Even the best model only hits 43 percent overall accuracy. When ambiguity is removed from the queries, accuracy jumps by up to 40 points. The article

<p>Update in England expected to reach about 200,000 patients over the next year as part of £10bn package to overhaul NHS systems</p><p>The NHS will begin using AI on its app to direct patients to the appropriate services, it has been announced.</p><p>The tool will be used to triage patients and to ascertain if they should be allocated a GP appointment. Some may be advised to attend a pharmacy or their local A&E department instead, depending on the severity of their condition.</p> <a href="https

<p><strong>Exclusive:</strong> With the technology fast becoming popular in GP surgeries, regulators are monitoring its implementation and potential pitfalls</p><ul><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p>The federal health department has raised conce

The open-source tool pxpipe converts long text prompts for Claude Code into compact PNGs, exploiting the fact that Anthropic charges for images by pixel size, not text content. Developer Steven Chong reports cost savings of 59 to 70 percent, at the price of accuracy and speed. The article Open-source tool pxpipe hides text in PNGs to cut Claude Code and Fable 5 token costs up to 70% appeared first on The Decoder .

As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, Midjourney is seeking to compel those studios to reveal how they use AI themselves.

Anthropic developer Thariq Shihipar argues that with Claude's new model, Fable 5, the bottleneck is no longer the model itself but the user's blind spots. He describes techniques like blindspot passes and structured interviews that programmers can use to systematically uncover their unconscious knowledge gaps before handing implementation off to Claude. The article Anthropic developer shares prompting tips for Fable 5 that focus on finding your own blind spots first appeared first on The Decoder

<p>Exclusive: £20bn of ‘potential’ £30bn AI investment touted by UK ministers appears to have been hypothetical</p><p>It was to be the biggest undertaking in Britain for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Stargate UK – a multibillion-pound UK datacentre project –<strong> </strong>would represent “a major step forward in the US-UK technology partnership”.</p><p>But the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/09/openai-pulls-out-of-landmark-31bn-uk-investment">plans were paused i

Greg Brockman admits ChatGPT's plugins, heavily marketed in 2023, failed "because the models weren't ready." Instead of app extensions, he sees the future in an invisible, context-aware agent. But OpenAI's own Codex is still light-years from that vision. The article OpenAI cofounder envisions "almost no interface" future where nobody learns software anymore appeared first on The Decoder .

A study of more than 26,000 Chinese students found that AI users finished homework faster and scored higher but performed up to 24 percent worse on exams. The full impact on entrance exam results took about two years to show up, meaning short-term studies systematically underestimate the damage. The article A 26,000-student study shows AI's hidden learning cost takes two full years to surface appeared first on The Decoder .

Anthropic is launching its own drug development program for neglected diseases that the pharmaceutical industry considers unprofitable. Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan thinks AI could cut development time from twelve years to seven or eight and double the success rate from 8 to 16 percent. The article Anthropic launches its own drug discovery programs to tackle diseases Big Pharma considers unprofitable appeared first on The Decoder .

<p>As allegations of LLM use rock the literary and media worlds, linguists explain what really distinguishes human and machine language, while novelists including Jennifer Egan and Jeanette Winterson reflect on the future of fiction in an age of ChatGPT</p><p><strong>T</strong>hree paragraphs, from three different hotel reviews. Can you tell which, if any, were AI‑generated?</p><p>“The hotel is in a great location for everything. Lots of places to eat and drink. The hotel itself is always abuzz.

Mistral AI released Leanstral 1.5, an open-source model for formal verification in Lean 4. Beyond math, the model found five previously unknown bugs while scanning 57 open-source repositories. The article Mistral's open-source Leanstral 1.5 aces formal math benchmarks and catches real bugs in code appeared first on The Decoder .

Microsoft reportedly plans to merge its consumer and enterprise Copilot apps into a single app in August. Rarely used features like Copilot Podcasts are getting cut, and new AI agents called "AutoPilot" will handle tasks in the background for an extra fee. The article Microsoft follows Anthropic and OpenAI into the AI super app race with overhauled Copilot and AutoPilot agents appeared first on The Decoder .

Anthropic is trying to block Chinese companies like ByteDance and Ant Financial from accessing Claude Code, but they're getting around the restrictions through VPNs and overseas subsidiaries. Alibaba, meanwhile, has banned its own employees from using the tool after hidden code was found that could identify Chinese users. The article Claude Code's complicated China problem involves bans on both sides of the Pacific appeared first on The Decoder .

<p>Readers respond to the profile of Iason Gabriel, a philosopher and research scientist at Google DeepMind</p><p>The Guardian’s profile of Google DeepMind’s philosopher was encouraging because it showed how seriously many of the people building AI are taking their ethical responsibilities (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/30/theres-this-deep-mystery-of-what-actually-is-this-thing-the-philosopher-inside-google-deepmind">‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actuall

Epoch AI reports a sharp rise in security vulnerability reports. In June 2026, 21 organizations reported about 1,500 high-severity and critical CVEs, more than 3.5 times the previous monthly record. The surge lines up with the launch of AI-powered bug-hunting programs. The article Security vulnerability reports have exploded since AI models started hunting for bugs appeared first on The Decoder .

During negotiations on Wednesday, employees voiced frustrations with what they consider an unwillingness among executives to engage meaningfully with the prospect of unionization.

In a study covering seven benchmarks, the UK's AI Security Institute shows that standard AI evaluations systematically underestimate agent capabilities by capping the compute budget. On software engineering tasks, success rates jumped about 25 percent when the token budget was increased tenfold. Newer models benefit the most. Depending on the token budget, actual progress at the frontier is about 60 percent steeper than previous measurements suggested, according to AISI. The article UK's AI Secu

<p>The abundance that AI promises to deliver represents an enormous and radical opportunity – a chance to reconnect with the ancient project of how to live</p><p>For a long time humanity has dreamed about a life free of toil, spent largely in leisure, learning and pleasure.</p><p>Now that AI has arrived, what if it was<strong> </strong>the thing that finally delivers us into a post-work future?</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/04/ai-disruption-dystopia-dont-need-to

<p>Emails sent between MP Anoulak Chanthivong’s staff take cautious approach to AI giant arriving in Sydney – despite the government’s encouragement</p><ul><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p>The NSW technology minister’s office removed a referenc

<p>Exclusive: National Crime Agency and safety watchdog issue guidance amid rise in explicit material online</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/03/ai-prey-watchdogs-telling-parents-protect-children-nudification-apps">AI prey: why watchdogs are telling parents to protect children from nudification apps</a></p></li></ul><p>The UK National Crime Agency has recommended parents should not put photos of their children on public display online as part of landmark guidan

<p>As imaging tools become more sophisticated, online predators are using images of children to make extreme pornography</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/03/ai-sexual-abuse-fears-uk-parents-warned-posting-images-children-national-crime-agency">UK parents warned over posting images of children amid AI sexual abuse fears</a></p></li></ul><p>The two photos started out as typical teenage selfies: looking into the mirror, fully clothed. But once online predators had

The hedge fund Bridgewater and Thinking Machines Lab report that a finely tuned open-weight model outperforms the most powerful AI models in the evaluation of financial documents, at a fraction of the cost. The figures come from their own analysis. The article GPT and Claude failed Bridgewater's finance tests because the right answers were never public appeared first on The Decoder .

Mark Zuckerberg admitted to weaknesses in the company's restructuring during an internal town hall. The AI agents Meta reorganized around are progressing slower than planned, Zuckerberg said. His AI chief, meanwhile, painted a rosier picture. The article Meta's AI agent push is moving slower than Zuckerberg planned appeared first on The Decoder .

Thanks to the AI-driven chip shortage, prices for phones, computers, and consoles are sky-high—and still climbing.

Tesla caps employee AI spending at $200 per week, according to an internal memo reported by The Information. The article Tesla caps employee AI spending at $200 per week appeared first on The Decoder .

Takeda has entered a strategic collaboration with Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine to use AI in early-stage drug discovery across the Japanese pharmaceutical company’s therapeutic areas. The companies did not disclose which therapeutic areas or disease targets will be covered under the collaboration. The agreement gives Takeda access to Insilico’s Pharma.AI platform, which supports biological target […] The post Takeda signs $600M AI drug discovery deal with Insilico appeared first on AI News .

Kuaishou has raised about $2 billion from investors for its AI video division, Kling. The article Chinese AI video maker Kling raises $2 billion as it gears up for Hong Kong IPO appeared first on The Decoder .

<p>Powered by chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, South Korea is seeing a surge in wealth, but there are questions over who gets to share in the profits</p><p>When South Korea’s most high-profile divorce case returned to court last month, the lawyers were arguing not just about the breakdown of a relationship, but also the exact date at which to value shares in one specific company.</p><p>The judges’ decision in Seoul could change the value of business tycoon Chey Tae-won’s assets by bi

<p>Follow the day’s latest updates</p><ul><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p>A teenager has been charged with murder after a 15-year-old boy was discovered with fatal stab wounds outside a community medical centre.</p><p>AAP reports the boy was f