Dan Milmo Global Technology Editor

AI safety campaigner calls for existential threat assessment akin to Oppenheimer’s calculations before first nuclear test

Artificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer’s first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems.

Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, said he had carried out calculations akin to those of the US physicist Arthur Compton before the Trinity test and had found a 90% probability that a highly advanced AI would pose an existential threat.

The US government went ahead with Trinity in 1945, after being reassured there was a vanishingly small chance of an atomic bomb igniting the atmosphere and endangering humanity.

Hundreds of leading figures from UK creative industries urge prime minister not to ‘give our work away’

Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK’s creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists’ copyright and not “give our work away” at the behest of big tech.

In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives’ livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.

Wikimedia Foundation seeks judicial review of some requirements of Online Safety Act it claims may endanger safety of volunteer editors

The charity that hosts Wikipedia is challenging the UK’s online safety legislation in the high court, saying some of its regulations would expose the site to “manipulation and vandalism”.

In what could be the first judicial review related to the Online Safety Act, Wikimedia Foundation claims it is at risk of being subjected to the act’s toughest category 1 duties, which impose additional requirements on the biggest sites and apps.

Experts say such tools may give dangerous advice and more oversight is needed, as Mark Zuckerberg says AI can plug gap

Having an issue with your romantic relationship? Need to talk through something? Mark Zuckerberg has a solution for that: a chatbot. Meta’s chief executive believes everyone should have a therapist and if they don’t – artificial intelligence can do that job.

“I personally have the belief that everyone should probably have a therapist,” he said last week. “It’s like someone they can just talk to throughout the day, or not necessarily throughout the day, but about whatever issues they’re worried about and for people who don’t have a person who’s a therapist, I think everyone will have an AI.”

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission found video app breached GDPR and had submitted ‘erroneous information’ to inquiry

TikTok has been fined €530m (£452m) by an Irish watchdog over a failure to guarantee that European user data sent to China would not be accessed by the Chinese government.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) regulates TikTok across the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes all 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Cybersecurity expert says group are ‘unusual but potently threatening’ coalition of ransomware hackers

If there is one noticeable difference between some members of the Scattered Spider hacking community and their ransomware peers, it will be the accent.

Scattered Spider has been linked to a cyber-attack on UK retailer Marks & Spencer. But unlike other ransomware assailants, its constituents appear to be native English speakers and are not from Russia or former Soviet states.

Tech company predicts rise of ‘frontier firms’ – where a human worker directs AI agents to carry out tasks

Microsoft has good news for anyone with corner office ambitions. In the future we’re all going to be bosses – of AI employees.

The tech company is predicting the rise of a new kind of business, called a “frontier firm”, where ultimately a human worker directs autonomous artificial intelligence agents to carry out tasks.