Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok

Researchers uncovered 354 AI-focused accounts that had accumulated 4.5bn views in a month

Hundreds of accounts on TikTok are garnering billions of views by pumping out AI-generated content, including anti-immigrant and sexualised material, according to a report.

Researchers said they had uncovered 354 AI-focused accounts pushing 43,000 posts made with generative AI tools and accumulating 4.5bn views over a month-long period.

Published: December 3, 2025, 6:00 am

Sam Altman issues ‘code red’ at OpenAI as ChatGPT contends with rivals

Chief executive tells staff it is ‘critical time’ for chatbot as it faces intense competition from Google’s new Gemini 3

Sam Altman has declared a “code red” at OpenAI to improve ChatGPT as the chatbot faces intense competition from rivals.

According to a report by tech news site the Information, the chief executive of the San Francisco-based startup told staff in an internal memo: “We are at a critical time for ChatGPT.”

Published: December 2, 2025, 5:11 pm

YouTube says it will comply with Australia’s under-16s social media ban, with Lemon8 to also restrict access

Australia’s under-16s social media ban might take weeks to work but all platforms are on notice, government says

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YouTube will comply with the federal government’s under-16s social media ban, but its parent company Google has warned the laws “won’t keep teens safer online” and “fundamentally misunderstands” how children use the internet.

But the communications minister, Anika Wells, said YouTube had a responsibility to keep its platform safe, calling its warnings “outright weird”.

Published: December 3, 2025, 5:49 am

India revokes order to preload smartphones with state-owned security app

Tech companies including Apple and Google made it clear they would not comply due to privacy concerns

India’s government has backtracked on an order for all smartphones to be pre-installed with a state-owned security app after a mass outcry over privacy concerns and refusal by technology companies to comply.

The department of telecommunications confirmed it had revoked its previous order for all technology companies to mandatorily install the government’s Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity app on to every smartphone in India within 90 days.

Published: December 3, 2025, 1:53 pm

Datacentres demand huge amounts of electricity. Could they derail Australia’s net zero ambitions?

Banks of servers operating 24/7 generate massive amounts of heat, requiring power to run and cool them

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Datacentre power demand in Australia could triple in five years and is forecast to exceed by 2030 the energy used by electric vehicles.

Datacentres now draw about 2% of electricity from the National Grid, about 4 terawatt hours of power. The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) expects that share to rise rapidly – growing 25% year-on-year – to reach 12TWh, or 6% of grid demand, by 2030, and 12% by 2050.

Published: December 2, 2025, 2:00 pm

Tesla privately warned UK that weakening EV rules would hit sales

Elon Musk-owned electric carmaker also called for support for the secondhand market, documents reveal

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Tesla privately warned the UK government that weakening electric vehicle rules would hit battery car sales and risk the country missing its carbon dioxide targets, according to newly revealed documents.

The US electric carmaker, run by Elon Musk, also called for “support for the used-car market”, according to submissions to a government consultation earlier this year obtained by the Fast Charge, a newsletter covering electric cars.

Published: December 3, 2025, 6:00 am

‘The biggest decision yet’: Jared Kaplan on allowing AI to train itself

Anthropic’s chief scientist says AI autonomy could spark a beneficial ‘intelligence explosion’ – or be the moment humans lose control

Humanity will have to decide by 2030 whether to take the “ultimate risk” of letting artificial intelligence systems train themselves to become more powerful, one of the world’s leading AI scientists has said.

Jared Kaplan, the chief scientist and co-owner of the $180bn (£135bn) US startup Anthropic, said a choice was looming about how much autonomy the systems should be given to evolve.

Published: December 2, 2025, 12:37 pm

The 15 best tech gifts in the US for moms, as requested by moms

From TheraGuns to koala breathing lights, here are good gizmos for mom, whether your budget is $20 or $220

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The best gift you can give a mom this holiday season is some time to herself. A day with no responsibilities where everyone else handles the cooking, cleaning and household chores. She can sit back and relax, go for brunch with friends, maybe treat herself to some shopping. But that doesn’t mean you should forget to wrap something under the tree for her, too.

As a tech reviewer for more than two decades and a mom myself, I’m particularly fond of unwrapping gadgets, but you don’t have to be a techie to appreciate the utility, convenience and luxury of a thoughtful gizmo. I spoke to several moms to get their thoughts on what they want this holiday season when it comes to tech, with ideas in every price range.

Published: December 2, 2025, 3:52 pm

The rise of deepfake pornography in schools: ‘One girl was so horrified she vomited’

The use of ‘nudify’ apps is becoming more and more prevalent, with hundreds of teachers having seen images created by pupils, often of their peers. The fallout is huge – and growing fast

‘It worries me that it’s so normalised. He obviously wasn’t hiding it. He didn’t feel this was something he shouldn’t be doing. It was in the open and people saw it. That’s what was quite shocking.”

A headteacher is describing how a teenage boy, sitting on a bus on his way home from school, casually pulled out his phone, selected a picture from social media of a girl at a neighbouring school and used a “nudifying” app to doctor her image.

Published: December 2, 2025, 10:00 am

‘The Chinese will not pause’: Volvo and Polestar bosses urge EU to stick to 2035 petrol car ban

Exclusive: Swedish carmakers push to retain target as Germany lobbies to help its own industry by softening cutoff date

As the battle lines harden amid Germany’s intensifying pressure on the European Commission to scrap the 2035 ban on production of new petrol and diesel cars, two Swedish car companies, Volvo and Polestar, are leading the campaign to persuade Brussels to stick to the date.

They argue such a move is a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks in the German car industry, adding that it will not just prolong take up of electric vehicles but inadvertently hand the advantage to China.

Published: December 2, 2025, 6:00 am

Dan Houser on Victorian novels, Red Dead Redemption and redefining open-world games

As the Grand Theft Auto co-writer launches a new project, he reflects on his hugely successful open-world adventures and where game design might go next

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It is hard to think of a more modern entertainment format than the open-world video game. These sprawling technological endeavours, which mix narrative, social connectivity and the complete freedom to explore, are uniquely immersive and potentially endless. But do they represent a whole new idea of storytelling?

This week I met Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar and lead writer on Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, who has been in London to talk about his new company, Absurd Ventures. He’s working on a range of intriguing projects, including the novel and podcast series A Better Paradise (about a vast online game that goes tragically wrong), and a comedy-adventure set in an online world named Absurdaverse. He told me that, 15 years ago, he was doing press interviews for the Grand Theft Auto IV expansion packs when he had something of a revelation about the series.

Published: December 3, 2025, 3:00 pm

Sleep Awake review – Gary Numan cameos in an overly straightforward sleep-deprivation horror

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; Eyes Out/Blumhouse Games
Psychedelic visuals and a promising premise are let down by tired game design in this first-person horror with an appearance from the synthpop pioneer

Video games have delivered a feast of singular and wondrous sights in 2025: ecological fantasias teeming with magical beasts; stunning, historically obsessive recreations of feudal Japan. But here is an end-of-year curio: psychological horror game Sleep Awake serves us synth-rock pioneer Gary Numan stepping into what is perhaps the schlockiest role of his life – a gigantic floating head named Hypnos.

This late-stage cameo is not quite indicative of the game as a whole; the handful of hours prior to Numan’s arrival are more mournful than madcap. Mostly, you explore the dilapidated, tumbledown streets of what is thought to be the last city on Earth. This setting is a magnificent work of imagination. You see it through the eyes of a young woman named Katja, who moves along rooftops, gazing out upon a barren, lifeless hinterland, into labyrinthine streets whose darkness and arcane logic recall the stirring subterranean etchings of Italian artist Piranesi.

Published: December 3, 2025, 10:00 am

eSafety commissioner questioned on Roblox and social media ban after Guardian investigation – video

Independent senator David Pocock asked the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, in Senate estimates last night about Guardian Australia’s investigation into Roblox and what children may experience on the platform. With Roblox not subject to the under-16s social media ban, Pocock asked whether Roblox was deemed as a gaming platform or a platform that is 'actually enabling social interactions'. Inman Grant responded by detailing the changes Roblox has announced that would use age assurance to separate age groups from interacting with each other

• My chilling week on Roblox: sexually assaulted and shat on as a child avatar roaming the online world

Published: December 2, 2025, 11:53 pm

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review – Samus Aran is suited up for action again. Was it worth the 18-year wait?

Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 (version tested); Retro Studios/Nintendo
The bounty hunter – Nintendo’s most badass and most neglected hero – returns in an atmospheric throwback sci-fi adventure that’s entirely untroubled by the conventions of modern game design

In a frozen laboratory full of cryogenically suspended experimental life forms, metal boots disturb the frost. A lone bounty hunter in a familiar orange exosuit points her blaster ahead. Making my way towards the facility’s power generator, scanning doors and hunting for secret entrances, broken hatches and hidden keys, I suspect that I know exactly what’s going to happen when this place begins to thaw; every clank and creak sounds as if it could be a long-dormant beast busting out of one of those pods. And yet Samus Aran delves deeper, because she has never been afraid of anything.

This section of Prime 4 is classic Metroid: atmospheric, eerie, lonely, dangerous and cryptic. Samus, Nintendo’s coolest hero, is impeccably awesome, equipped here with new psychic powers that accent her suit with pulsing purple light. (I have taken many screenshots of her looking identically badass all over the game’s planet.) She is controlled with dual sticks, or – much better, much more intuitive – by pointing one of the Switch 2’s remotes at the screen to aim. Or even by using it as a mouse on a table or your knee, though this made my wrist hurt after a while. She transforms into a rolling ball, moves statues into place with her mind, and rides a futuristic shape-shifting motorcycle across lava and sand between this distant planet’s abandoned facilities, unlocking its dead civilisation’s lost knowledge.

Published: December 2, 2025, 3:56 pm

From Gears of War to Uno: the 15 most important Xbox 360 games

As the Xbox 360 turns 20, we celebrate its most influential and memorable games – both exclusives, and those that came to the console first

Originally featured as a minigame in Project Gotham, this 80s-style twin-stick shooter was rebuilt as a standalone digital-only release, attracting a huge new fanbase. Fast, frenetic and super stylish, with lovely vector visuals, it was the game that first showed the potential of Xbox Live Arcade.

Published: December 2, 2025, 10:00 am

The fight to see clearly through big tech’s echo chambers

As Silicon Valley tightens its grip on the narrative, insiders and regulators push back, consumers rethink upgrades, and states experiment with AI in the public sector

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. Today, I’m mulling over whether to upgrade my iPhone 11 Pro. In tech news, there’s a narrative battle afoot in Silicon Valley, tips on avoiding the yearly smartphone upgrade cycle and new devices altogether, and artificial intelligence’s use in government, for better and for worse.

ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology

ChatGPT-5 offers dangerous advice to mentally ill people, psychologists warn

AI’s safety features can be circumvented with poetry, research finds

Published: December 2, 2025, 2:21 pm

Age of the ‘scam state’: how an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry has taken root in south-east Asia

Like the narco-state, a ‘scam state’ refers to countries where an illicit industry has dug its tentacles deep into institutions and transformed the economy

For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.

So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world. Now, it was being levelled piece by piece.

Published: December 2, 2025, 2:02 am

Scientists uncover surprise origin of wispy cirrus clouds

These delicate cloud systems appear to be seeded by massive atmospheric waves thousands of miles away

Cirrus clouds are our highest clouds; their delicate wispy strands are like an artist’s brushstrokes through the sky. During the day they are bright white and at dawn and dusk they can take on the hues of sunrise and sunset. But how are they made? New research reveals that some cirrus clouds are seeded by storms on the other side of the world, many thousands of miles away. This has implications for global heating as storm patterns shift.

Meteorologists have long recognised two types of cirrus cloud: “anvil” cirrus, which spread out from large storm systems, and “in-situ” cirrus, which seem to form on their own. Telling them apart is tricky, but by applying a new computer analysis to cloud satellite data, researchers spotted that in-situ cirrus emerged in response to major storm systems on the other side of the Earth.

Published: December 3, 2025, 6:00 am

Having a dog can boost teenagers’ mental health, say scientists

Researchers find children who own dogs score lower for social problems, aggressive behaviour and delinquency

Having a dog in the home could help boost teenagers’ mental health, research suggests, with scientists adding this could in part be down to the sharing of microbes.

Prof Takefumi Kikusui, of Azabu University in Japan, who led the work, said being with dogs could reduce owners’ stress and stimulate the release of the bonding hormone oxytocin.

Published: December 3, 2025, 4:00 pm

Quality of migraine care dependent on ethnicity, UK survey finds

Ethnic minority people more likely to experience poor treatment and even racism, Migraine Trust research shows

People from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to experience worse migraine care and to fear discrimination because of their condition, a survey by a leading UK charity has found.

Migraines are characterised by a severe headache, alongside other symptoms including dizziness, numbness and vision problems. About one in seven people in the UK are affected by the condition.

Published: December 3, 2025, 12:01 am

The best science and nature books of 2025

From the threat of superintelligent AI to the secrets of a longer life; plus the evolution of language and the restless genius of Francis Crick

This felt like the year that AI really arrived. It is on our phones and laptops; it is creeping into digital and corporate infrastructure; it is changing the way we learn, work and create; and the global economy rests on the stratospheric valuations of the corporate giants vying to control it.

But the unchecked rush to go faster and further could extinguish humanity, according to the surprisingly readable and chillingly plausible If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies (Bodley Head), by computer scientists Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, which argues against creating superintelligent AI able to cognitively outpace Homo sapiens in all departments. “Even an AI that cares about understanding the universe is likely to annihilate humans as a side-effect,” they write, “because humans are not the most efficient method for producing truths … out of all possible ways to arrange matter.” Not exactly cheery Christmas reading but, as the machines literally calculate our demise, you’ll finally grasp all that tech bro lingo about tokens, weights and maximising preferences.

Published: December 3, 2025, 6:00 am

Shells found in Spain could be among oldest known musical instruments

Conch-shell trumpets discovered in Neolithic settlements and mines in Catalonia make tone similar to french horn, says lead researcher

As a child, Miquel López García was fascinated by the conch shell, kept in the bathroom, that his father’s family in the southern Spanish region of Almería had blown to warn their fellow villagers of rising rivers and approaching flood waters.

The hours he spent getting that “characteristically potent sound out of it” paid off last year when the archaeologist, musicologist and professional trumpet player pressed his lips to eight conch-shell trumpets. Their tones, he says, could carry insights into the lives of the people who lived in north-east Spain 6,000 years ago.

Published: December 2, 2025, 5:00 am

Age of the ‘scam state’: how an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry has taken root in south-east Asia

Like the narco-state, a ‘scam state’ refers to countries where an illicit industry has dug its tentacles deep into institutions and transformed the economy

For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.

So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world. Now, it was being levelled piece by piece.

Published: December 2, 2025, 2:02 am

Life Invisible: the fight against superbugs starts in the driest place on Earth

Cristina Dorador is on an urgent mission in the world’s driest desert, the Atacama in Chile. As the rise of drug-resistant superbugs kills millions per year, Cristina has made it her mission to uncover new, life-saving antibiotics in the stunning salt flats she has studied since she was 14. Against the magnificent backdrop of endless plains, microscopic discoveries lead her team of scientists to question how critically lithium mining is damaging the delicate ecosystem and impacting Indigenous communities

Published: December 2, 2025, 10:38 am

FDA drug chief signals possible exit as agency turmoil deepens

Richard Pazdur’s potential retirement weeks into the role adds to upheaval at the FDA amid political pressure

The top drug regulator in the US signaled on Tuesday he may retire weeks after accepting the position, adding to upheaval in the highest ranks of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

If Richard Pazdur retires, finding a replacement would be challenging amid mounting political pressure and internal conflict at the agency, sources say.

Published: December 3, 2025, 2:04 pm

NIH funds new cat experiments despite pledge to phase them out, watchdog reports

White Coat Waste finds $1.7m in NIH grants for cat research months after officials said they were working to end studies

The US National Institutes of Health is continuing to fund new laboratory experiments on cats despite saying that they are “working tirelessly” to “phase out” such projects.

In July this year, Dr Nicole Kleinstreuer, the NIH acting deputy director, announced in a podcast with Dr Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH director, that she did not think the NIH should do research on dogs or cats. On the Director’s Desk: The Future of Animal Models in Research, Dr Kleinstreuer said: “I think it’s unconscionable” and “to phase them out, we are working tirelessly behind the scenes”. However, she added the NIH was constrained under the law to leave existing grants in place.

Published: December 3, 2025, 1:00 pm

Tuesday briefing: What’s next for the resurgent space race?

In today’s newsletter: As suppliers get ready to meet policy makers and space agencies at the industry’s largest gathering, a look at the exploration and exploitation of space

Good morning. This week Glasgow hosts one of the UK’s largest ever gatherings of the space industry at Space-Comm. With representatives of Nasa, the UK and Scottish governments and the UK space agency among 2,000 space leaders gathering there, it is a chance for people in the commercial supply chain of the space exploration industry to meet policy makers and space agencies.

It comes at a crucial moment in the exploration – and exploitation – of space. For almost three decades the International Space Station (ISS) has bound the US and Russia into cooperation and shared interests. That project is nearing its end, and we can expect to see a realignment of missions and goals – which may bring states and scientists into conflict.

Politics | Britain’s budget watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, has said the early leak of its budget documents before Rachel Reeves made her speech last week, was the “worst failure” in its 15-year history, as its chair resigned and it emerged a similar leak had happened earlier this year.

Health | The World Health Organization has urged countries to make weight loss drugs more accessible and pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices, saying jabs including Mounjaro represent a “new chapter” in the fight against obesity.

Ukraine | The coming days may be “pivotal” for talks to end the war in Ukraine, the EU’s top diplomat said, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday and the US envoy Steve Witkoff flew out to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.

Donald Trump | Donald Trump said he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike that the US military reportedly conducted on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack. The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has urged Washington to investigate, saying there was “strong evidence” of “extrajudicial” killings.

Asia-Pacific | Sri Lanka and Indonesia have deployed military personnel to help victims of the torrential floods that have killed 1,100 in four countries in Asia. Heavy cyclones and tropical monsoon rains have hit the region in recent days.

Published: December 2, 2025, 6:40 am

How Trump’s on-again, off-again Nasa appointee emerged from a political black hole

Trump’s renomination of billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman is a tale of politics, ambition and vanity

It used to be that once your star had fallen in Donald Trump’s orbit, it was destined never to rise again. Any number of discarded former allies stretching back to Trump’s first term of office could testify as much.

One who has emerged from a political black hole to return to the president’s firmament is the billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman, who will on Wednesday tell senators – for the second time – why he is the best person to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

Published: December 2, 2025, 11:00 am