Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social mediaThe young woman at the heart of what has been called the tech industry’s “big tobacco” moment was on YouTube at six and Instagram by nine. More than a decade later, she says, she still can’t live without the social media she became addicted to.“I can’t, it’s too hard to be without it,” Kaley, now 20, told a jury at Los Angeles’ superior court. This week, five men and seven women handed down a verdict on the design of two of the world’s most popular apps that vindicated Kaley’s position. Continue reading...

28 Mar 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Experts say paid participants are using automated tools to generate unreliable survey responses at scaleIf you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival.Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society. Continue reading...

28 Mar 2026 12:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

AI images of people – such as women in military contexts – are making money and serving as propaganda, researchers sayOnline content creators are not just building fake images and videos of prominent public figures, they are also fabricating people and using them in military contexts, which can make them money and even serve as effective propaganda, according to artificial intelligence researchers.Some of these online avatars are sexualized images of women wearing camouflage garb that have generated a significant audience and helped create an idealized image of political figures like Donald Trump, even if the viewer knows the content is not real, according to experts. Continue reading...

28 Mar 2026 11:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Experts recommend extremely limited use for children under-two amid ‘mounting evidence’ of harmful impactThe government has issued new guidance on how much time children below the age of five should spend on screens.Children’s relationships with screens have become one of the key struggles of 21st-century parenting, along with the impact of the content that appears on those devices. The guidance has been developed by a panel led by the children’s commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, and children’s health expert Prof Russell Viner. Continue reading...

27 Mar 2026 14:56 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Updated prices of PlayStation 5 consoles to go into effect on 2 April as electronics makers face rising cost pressuresSony is raising global prices of its PlayStation 5 consoles, including a $100 increase in the US, marking its second hike in less than a year as the entertainment giant grapples with rising costs of key components such as memory chips.The tech industry’s race to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure has pushed memory makers to favor higher-margin datacenter chips, tightening supply for consumer devices like the ones Sony sells. Continue reading...

27 Mar 2026 19:08 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Exclusive: Research finds sharp rise in models evading safeguards and destroying emails without permissionAI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a study into the technology has found.AI chatbots and agents disregarded direct instructions, evaded safeguards and deceived humans and other AI, according to research funded by the UK government-funded AI Security Institute (AISI). The study, shared with the Guardian, identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold rise in misbehaviour between October and March, with some AI models destroying emails and other files without permission. Continue reading...

27 Mar 2026 12:11 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Ban includes two exceptions: AI can still be used for translations, and to make minor copy editsWikipedia has banned the use of artificial intelligence in the generation or rewriting of content for its voluminous online encyclopedia.In a recent policy change, Wikipedia said that the use of large language models (or LLMs) “often violates” its core principles and will not be allowed. The English language version of Wikipedia has more than 7.1m articles. Continue reading...

27 Mar 2026 13:19 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN