Divide between Silicon Valley and ordinary people grows ever larger

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. This week in tech, we discuss a moment of divergence between Silicon Valley and everyday people; deep cuts at Meta to maximize spending on AI; writers caught using AI; and the frightening, fiery crashes of the Tesla Cybertruck.Nvidia hosted a conference last week where it emphasized AI agents – semi-autonomous chatbots that can perform digital tasks for you – as the next frontier in tech. The company announced a toolkit for agents, including NemoClaw, an AI agent software suite for businesses

Amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online surged in 2025

The amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online rose by 14% last year, with the majority of videos showing the most extreme type of content, according to a safety watchdog.The Internet Watch Foundation said it identified 8,029 AI-made images and videos of realistic child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in 2025. It added that there had been a more than 260-fold increase in videos.The IWF said 65% of the 3,443 videos were classified as category A, the term for the most severe material under UK law. The corresponding figure for non-AI videos was 43%, said the watchdog, showing that the technology was being used to create more violent content

MPs urge UK government to halt contract giving Palantir FCA data access

MPs have urged the government to halt its latest contract with Palantir after the Guardian revealed that the US spy-tech company is to gain access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data.The Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog for thousands of financial bodies from banks to hedge funds, has hired Palantir to apply its AI systems to two years’ worth of internal intelligence data to help it tackle financial crime.But the Liberal Democrats on Monday called for a government investigation into the contract, which the party said could be “a huge error of judgment”, while the Green party said it should be blocked over Palantir’s links to Donald Trump.Questioned on whether the UK was becoming “dangerously overreliant” on US tech companies including Palantir, Keir Starmer told parliament he would prefer to have more domestic capability but added: “I don’t think we’re overreliant.”Palantir was founded by the Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel and it supports the US and Israeli militaries and the ICE immigration crackdown

AI boom risks widening wealth divide, says BlackRock’s Larry Fink

The boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has said.The boss of the $14tn (£10.4tn) asset manager used his annual letter to investors on Monday to highlight potential hazards around the exponential growth in AI, which has attracted rapid investment and become, he said, “central to strategic competition” between global powers such as the US and China.“The massive wealth created over the past several generations flowed mostly to people who already owned financial assets,” Fink said. “And now AI threatens to repeat that pattern at an even larger scale

Leonid Radvinsky, owner of OnlyFans, dies aged 43

Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, has died of cancer at the age of 43, the company announced on Monday.“We are deeply saddened ​to announce the death of Leo ​Radvinsky. Leo passed away peacefully after a ⁠long battle with cancer,” said a spokesperson for the company, best known for subscriptions to pornographic content creators. “His family have requested privacy at ​this difficult time.”Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American billionaire with a net worth of about $3

‘Kids say they take a quick look at TikTok’: a new kind of distracted driving is on the rise

As watching videos, using touchscreens, and even livestreaming behind the wheel become more common, experts warn of increased risk of crashes Jackie was on her way to a doctor’s appointment last fall when she realized her Uber driver’s eyes were not fully on the road. “He had a video playing on his phone and was intermittently looking at it,” she said. Jackie, who is 32 and lives in New Jersey, could not tell exactly what the driver was watching, but she remembers seeing shots of people talking – she guessed it was a video podcast. “I was definitely feeling a lot of dread and distress.”As they continued on their 40-minute drive down the New Jersey Turnpike – a hectic highway that is not easy driving – Jackie considered saying something