Peter Kyle calls for greater focus on defence and national security, and new leadership at Alan Turing Institute

The technology secretary has demanded an overhaul of the UK’s leading artificial intelligence institute in a wide-ranging letter that calls for a switch in focus to defence and national security, as well as leadership changes.

Peter Kyle said it was clear further action was needed to ensure the government-backed Alan Turing Institute met its full potential.

NAACP plans to sue over massive Memphis data center near Black residents, who have long dealt with pollution

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has been granted a permit to run methane gas generators at its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee. The county health department approved the permit for the 15 machines late Wednesday, a move that has sparked outcry from the local community and environmental leaders, who say the generators pollute their neighborhoods.

“Our local leaders are entrusted with protecting us from corporations violating on our right to clean air, but we are witnessing their failure to do so,” said KeShaun Pearson, the director of the local environmental non-profit Memphis Community Against Pollution.

Our 10-year plan, backed by an extra £29bn, will transform the service through AI and neighbourhood care – and hand power back to patients

• Wes Streeting is secretary of state for health and social care

There are moments in our national story when our choices define who we are. In 1948, Clement Attlee’s government made a choice founded on fairness: that everyone in our country deserves to receive the care they need, not the care they can afford.

That the National Health Service was created amid the rubble and ruin of the aftermath of war makes that choice all the more remarkable. It enshrined in law and in the service itself our collective conviction that healthcare is not a privilege to be bought and sold, but a right to be cherished and protected. Now it falls to our generation to make the same choice.

Wes Streeting is secretary of state for health and social care

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Entry-level tasks are being taken over by new technology. Businesses and government must not sacrifice the next generation on the altar of tech

As annual degree ceremonies take place on campuses across the country this month, new graduates will doubtless be turning their thoughts to enjoying some stress-free time off. Given the current state of the labour market, some may be forced to make that break a long one.

For university leavers, these are worrying times. A mounting pile of data suggests that accessing the kind of entry-level jobs that traditionally put degree holders on a path to professional success is becoming ever harder. One report published last month by the job-search site Indeed found that the market for young people fresh out of university is tougher than at any time since 2018. Compared with last year, the number of jobs advertised for recent graduates is down 33%.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Former UK minister says platform, which will use AI to draft community notes, is ‘leaving it to bots to edit the news’

A decision by Elon Musk’s X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of “lies and conspiracy theories”, a former UK technology minister has warned.

Damian Collins accused Musk’s firm of “leaving it to bots to edit the news” after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language models to write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before users approve them for publication. The notes have previously been written by humans.

As demand for audio content grows, companies are looking for faster – and cheaper – ways to make it

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When we think about what makes an audiobook memorable, it’s always the most human moments: a catch in the throat when tears are near, or words spoken through a real smile.

A Melbourne actor and audiobook narrator, Annabelle Tudor, says it’s the instinct we have as storytellers that makes narration such a primal, and precious, skill. “The voice betrays how we’re feeling really easily,” she says.

Research could help cut energy use and is latest example of AI being used for advances in materials science

AI-engineered paint could reduce the sweltering urban heat island effect in cities and cut air-conditioning bills, scientists have claimed, as machine learning accelerates the creation of new materials for everything from electric motors to carbon capture.

Materials experts have used artificial intelligence to formulate new coatings that can keep buildings between 5C and 20C cooler than normal paint after exposure to midday sun. They could also be applied to cars, trains, electrical equipment and other objects that will require more cooling in a world that is heating up.

I can’t quote a single line from a song in my book. So how can big tech legally feast on all the lyrics ever written?

In the 74,833 words of a book I am writing, there are six words that, when strung together in a specific 12-word sequence, I cannot say. It’s a single line from the song Bloodbuzz Ohio by the National, which goes: “I still owe money to the money to the money I owe.”

My book is a memoir about the psychological toll that what I term “desperation capitalism” took on millennials in particular, and how it pushed tens of millions of people to try to find a way out of financial precarity by engaging in high-risk financial activity. It’s told through the lens of my own experience of falling deeper and deeper under the spell as I spent 11 months trading a few thousand dollars into more than $1.2m, and then 18 months chasing my losses all the way down to zero. Well, more than zero, in fact, since by the end I owed the US government nearly $100,000 in taxes on phantom gains that no longer existed.

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist

Research says Google’s carbon emissions went up by 65% between 2019-2024, not 51% as the tech giant had claimed

In 2021, Google set a lofty goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. Yet in the years since then, the company has moved in the opposite direction as it invests in energy-intensive artificial intelligence. In its latest sustainability report, Google said its carbon emissions had increased 51% between 2019 and 2024.

New research aims to debunk even that enormous figure and provide context to Google’s sustainability reports, painting a bleaker picture. A report authored by non-profit advocacy group Kairos Fellowship found that, between 2019 and 2024, Google’s carbon emissions actually went up by 65%. What’s more, between 2010, the first year there is publicly available data on Google’s emissions, and 2024, Google’s total greenhouse gas emissions increased 1,515%, Kairos found. The largest year-over-year jump in that window was also the most recent, 2023 to 2024, when Google saw a 26% increase in emissions just between 2023 and 2024, according to the report.

Tech firms notch victories in battle over copyrighted text, Trump’s gold phone, and online age checks

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. If you need me after this newsletter publishes, I will be busy poring over photos from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding, the gaudiest and most star-studded affair to disrupt technology news this year. I found it a tacky and spectacular affair. Everyone who was anyone was there, except for Charlize Theron, who, unprompted, said on Monday: “I think we might be the only people who did not get an invite to the Bezos wedding. But that’s OK, because they suck and we’re cool.”

Google’s emissions up 51% as AI electricity demand derails efforts to go green

Inside a plan to use AI to amplify doubts about the dangers of pollutants

Footage of three-a-side game shows humanoids struggling to kick the ball or stay upright

They think it’s all over … for human footballers at least.

The pitch wasn’t the only artificial element on display at a football match in China on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took on each other in Beijing, in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence.

Using clever tactics and Messi clickbait, Egyptian creators racked up 14m views with highlights posted before kickoff. YouTube didn’t catch on until it was too late

This story was reported by Indicator, a publication that investigates digital deception, and co-published with the Guardian.

It was Thursday morning in America and something didn’t look right in the highlights of the Club World Cup match between Manchester City and Juventus.

Suzi Ragheb provided research support and translation of one of the videos in Arabic.

Exclusive: Shabana Mahmood told companies she wanted ‘deeper collaboration’ to tackle prisons crisis

• Analysis: Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk

Tracking devices inserted under offenders’ skin, robots assigned to contain prisoners and driverless vehicles used to transport them were among the measures proposed by technology companies to ministers who are gathering ideas to tackle the crisis in the UK justice system.

The proposals were made at a meeting of more than two dozen tech companies in London last month, chaired by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, minutes seen by the Guardian show. Amid an acute shortage of prison places and probation officers under severe strain, ministers told the companies they wanted ideas for using wearable technologies, behaviour monitoring and geolocation to create a “prison outside of prison”.

No 10 must decide whether to ‘build or buy’ its AI technology as ministers increasingly lean on it to tackle crises

• Tech firms suggested placing trackers under offenders’ skin at meeting with justice secretary

A Dragons’ Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services.

Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been “drinking the Kool-Aid” on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade.

First version steers users to existing webpages, with AI chatbot, notifications and digital driving licences to follow

A government app intended to “cut life admin” will be free to download by millions of UK citizens from Tuesday, but its functions will be limited and the cabinet minister in charge has admitted: “The design is not as we would like it to be.”

The gov.uk app will be accessible on smartphones for people aged 16 and over and is intended to be the main mobile hub for many citizen interactions with the government, although not the NHS or HM Revenue and Customs.

Artificial intelligence has entered the personal chat. What does that say about human relationships?

Earlier this spring, Nik Vassev heard a high school friend’s mother had died. Vassev, a 32-year-old tech entrepreneur in Vancouver, Canada, opened up Claude AI, Anthropic’s artificial intelligence chatbot.

“My friend’s mom passed away and I’m trying to find the right way to be there for him and send him a message of support like a good friend,” he typed.

We distrust artificial intelligence but it’s not so much about being anti-technology as being cognisant of the power dynamics at play

If I hear another well-intentioned person justifying their support for the regulation of AI with the qualifier “I’m no luddite, but …” I’m going to start breaking my own machine.

From ministers to union leaders to progressives watching from the cheap seats, there is growing recognition that untrammelled development of this technology carries significant risks.

Firm says results of research create ‘path to medical superintelligence’ but plays down job implications

Microsoft has revealed details of an artificial intelligence system that performs better than human doctors at complex health diagnoses, creating a “path to medical superintelligence”.

The company’s AI unit, which is led by the British tech pioneer Mustafa Suleyman, has developed a system that imitates a panel of expert physicians tackling “diagnostically complex and intellectually demanding” cases.

Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32%, Adzuna finds

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The number of new entry-level UK jobs has dropped by almost a third since the launch of ChatGPT, figures suggest, as companies use artificial intelligence to cut back the size of their workforces.

Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32% since the launch of the AI chatbot in November 2022, research by the job search site Adzuna released on Monday has found. These entry-level jobs now account for 25% of the market in the UK, down from 28.9% in 2022.

Exclusive: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says lack of action leaves firms at risk of ‘sleepwalking’ into problems

More than one in four UK businesses have been the victim of a cyber-attack in the last year and many more risk “sleepwalking” into such disruption unless they take urgent action, according to a report.

About 27% of companies said their building had suffered a cyber-attack in the last 12 months, according to a survey of facilities managers, service providers and consultancies undertaken by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) and shared with the Guardian. The figure is up from 16% a year ago.