How Elon Musk became Donald Trump’s shadow vice-president

As Donald Trump watched election results roll in from a party at his Mar-a-Lago compound, Elon Musk sat arm’s length away, basking in the impending victory he had helped secure. In less than five months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had gone from not endorsing a candidate to becoming a fixture of the president-elect’s inner circle.“The future is gonna be so 🔥 🇺🇸🇺🇸,” Musk posted to his social media platform, X, just after midnight, along with a photo of himself leaning over to talk with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago dinner.Musk’s place at the head table was the result of months of political efforts by the world’s richest man, and an injection of at least $130m of his own money. Musk campaigned for Trump both online and offline, funded advertising and get-out-the-vote operations for a campaign at a severe financial disadvantage to its opponent

Ofcom warns tech firms after chatbots imitate Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell

Ofcom has warned tech firms that content from chatbots impersonating real and fictional people could fall foul of the UK’s new digital laws.The communications regulator issued the guidance after it emerged that users on the Character.AI platform had created avatars mimicking the deceased British teenagers Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell.Under pressure from digital safety campaigners to clarify the situation, Ofcom underlined that content created by user-made chatbots would come under the scope of the Online Safety Act.Without naming the US-based artificial intelligence firm Character

Elon Musk reportedly makes surprise appearance on Trump-Zelenskyy call

Elon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive’s role as the most influential civilian in the country come January.Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call. Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly. On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to AFP. Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said

What a second Trump presidency means for big US tech firms

When the US election result pushed shares in the artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia to a record high and did the same to the price of bitcoin cryptocurrency, the market gave its verdict on what Trump redux means for at least parts of the technology world: a boom.Stock in the electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla surged by nearly 15%, which must have cheered its boss, Elon Musk, whom Trump called a “super genius” on Wednesday.But what about the people who do not own stock in Silicon Valley firms but do use their products? Tens of millions of users of Musk’s social media platform, X, will now have to decide if they are willing to post in a place owned by a figure who looks likely to be a central part of Trump’s administration.Musk could be tasked with “making recommendations for drastic reforms” aimed at the efficiency and performance of “the entire federal government”, Trump has said. This could grant Musk huge power over the agencies that regulate his and other tech companies

Apple MacBook Pro M4 review: faster, better and cheaper

Apple’s upgraded MacBook Pro for 2024 gets a significant power boost with the M4 chip, double the memory as standard, even longer battery life and a price cut, ending the year on a high.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The longstanding laptop line now starts at £1,599 (€1,899/$1,599/A$2,499), making it £100 or so cheaper than last year’s M3 models

AI may displace 3m jobs but long-term losses ‘relatively modest’, says Tony Blair’s thinktank

Artificial intelligence could displace between 1m and 3m private sector jobs in the UK, though the ultimate rise in unemployment will be in the low hundreds of thousands as growth in the technology also creates new roles, according to Tony Blair’s thinktank.Between 60,000 and 275,000 jobs will be displaced every year over a couple of decades at the peak of the disruption, estimates from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) suggest.It described the figure as “relatively modest” given the average number of job losses in the UK has run at about 450,000 a year over the past decade. More than 33 million people are employed in the UK.AI, a technology that can be loosely defined as computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, has shot up the political agenda after the emergence of the ChatGPT chatbot and other breakthroughs in the field