Australia’s eSafety commissioner rejects US Republican’s assertion she is a ‘zealot for global takedowns’

Australia’s online safety regulator has rejected assertions from a key US Republican congressman that she is a “zealot for global takedowns”, as the eSafety commissioner faced questions from the Australian parliament on a Guardian investigation into Roblox.Julie Inman Grant was asked by US Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, Jim Jordan, to speak before the committee last month.The committee produced a report in June arguing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm), which was shut down in August 2024, had colluded with advertisers and foreign regulators. The committee alleged the group colluded to make demands on then-Twitter about what content it should moderate on its platform.The committee had turned its attention to Inman Grant, after emails from her to the organisation showed the commissioner saying Garm was “helping to hold the platforms to account”

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

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.”OpenAI has been rattled by the success of Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 3, and is devoting more internal resources to improving ChatGPT.Last month, Altman told employees that the launch of Gemini 3, which has outperformed rivals on various benchmarks, could create “temporary economic headwinds” for the company. He added: “I expect the vibes out there to be rough for a bit

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

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.The encroachment of technology can feel inevitable

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

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.The move could trigger a beneficial “intelligence explosion” – or be the moment humans end up losing control.In an interview about the intensely competitive race to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) – sometimes called superintelligence – Kaplan urged international governments and society to engage in what he called “the biggest decision”.Anthropic is part of a pack of frontier AI companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, xAI, Meta and Chinese rivals led by DeepSeek, racing for AI dominance

Charlie Kirk tops Wikipedia’s list of most-read articles in 2025

Wikipedia’s article on Charlie Kirk was the most read on the online encyclopedia this year, as users sought out information on the conservative activist.People viewed the entry on Kirk nearly 45m times, many after he was shot at a university campus debate on 10 September.Although Kirk was a well-known figure in the US as co-founder of the Turning Point USA organisation, his death attracted headline coverage around the world. More than 40% of the views for the most-read article on English-language Wikipedia in 2025 came from outside the US, according to data from the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that operates the website.The second-most read is a regular feature in Wikipedia’s annual list: notable deaths of the year

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

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