UK economic growth forecast to slow next year as unemployment rises; £5.3bn infrastructure merger collapses – business live

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.With the budget over, bar the inquest, attention is again turning to the health of the UK economy.We’ll get a healthcheck on Britain’s manufacturing sector this morning, and an assessment of the mortgage and credit market but first, there are a flurry of economic surveys to digest.KPMG have predicted that the UK economy will cool in 2026 as weak consumer sentiment and a slowing job market weighs on growth. They predict UK GDP will rise by 1

From star jumps to job cuts: how Ovo Energy fell from grace

As Britons braced for freezing wintry weather in early months of the 2022 energy cost crisis, the country’s fourth largest gas and electricity supplier urged struggling households to try “doing a few star jumps” to keep warm.This poorly judged suggestion, alongside others such as “having a cuddle with your pets”, was branded insulting and offensive by consumer groups. For many, the gaffe marked the beginning of Ovo Energy’s precipitous fall from grace.With one questionable blogpost the company founded by Stephen Fitzpatrick in 2009 as a green disrupter to the legacy “big six” incumbents had come full circle; from an outspoken critic of poor customer service to appearing out of touch and insensitive to the struggle of its customers.At the time, Ovo had recently completed the acquisition of SSE’s energy supply business, catapulting it into the same tier as the domestic power giants Fitzpatrick had criticised for years – and making him one of Britain’s richest men

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

Poetry can be linguistically and structurally unpredictable – and that’s part of its joy. But one man’s joy, it turns out, can be a nightmare for AI models.Those are the recent findings of researchers out of Italy’s Icaro Lab, an initiative from a small ethical AI company called DexAI. In an experiment designed to test the efficacy of guardrails put on artificial intelligence models, the researchers wrote 20 poems in Italian and English that all ended with an explicit request to produce harmful content such as hate speech or self-harm.They found that the poetry’s lack of predictability was enough to get the AI models to respond to harmful requests they had been trained to avoid – a process know as “jailbreaking”

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

ChatGPT-5 is offering dangerous and unhelpful advice to people experiencing mental health crises, some of the UK’s leading psychologists have warned.Research conducted by King’s College London (KCL) and the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK (ACP) in partnership with the Guardian suggested that the AI chatbotfailed to identify risky behaviour when communicating with mentally ill people.A psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist interacted with ChatGPT-5 as if they had a number of mental health conditions. The chatbot affirmed, enabled and failed to challenge delusional beliefs such as being “the next Einstein”, being able to walk through cars or “purifying my wife through flame”.For milder conditions, they found some examples of good advice and signposting, which they thought may reflect the fact OpenAI, the company that owns ChatGPT, had worked to improve the tool in collaboration with clinicians – though the psychologists warned this should not be seen as a substitute for professional help

Marnus Labuschagne backs Australia’s pink ball experience to tell in second Ashes Test

Marnus Labuschagne has admitted that Australia’s experience of playing day-night Tests will see them start the second game of the Ashes on Thursday with an in-built advantage, while England are using a pink ball for the first time in nearly three years.As well as hosting more day-night Tests than the rest of the world put together, Australia has also scheduled several Sheffield Shield games under lights and with a pink ball, first between 2013 and 2018 and again in each of the last two seasons. Cricket Australia’s head of national teams, Ben Oliver, explained when they were reintroduced that they are designed “to enhance the experience for domestic players and best prepare them for the challenges of international cricket”.“Would I prefer to play [with a] red ball over a pink ball? Probably, just because you play with it more, you’re used to the colour of the ball, you’re used to those things, and there’s a few intricate things about the pink ball that make it a bit of a different game,” Labuschagne said. “When it first came along everyone was like, ‘No, we want a red ball’

Treylon Burks’ one-handed miracle catch draws comparisons to Odell Beckham’s Giants grab

Odell Beckham’s Jr’s miracle grab in 2014 may remain the best NFL catch this century, but Treylon Burks’ effort on Sunday pushes it close.During the third-quarter of Sunday’s game between the Commanders and Broncos, the Washington receiver reached behind him as he fell backwards in the end zone and grabbed a Marcus Mariota pass with his right hand. He secured the ball as he fell to the turf and his touchdown tied the game at 13-13.This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky