Whip’s resignation over disability benefit cuts not a sign of major rebellion, Nandy says
Downing Street will not suffer a major rebellion when MPs vote next month on cuts to disability benefits, Lisa Nandy has insisted, despite the resignation of a government whip on Thursday.The culture secretary said Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned from the government saying she could not vote for the controversial measures, was the only frontbench MP she knew of who had been thinking of quitting.Despite 170 Labour MPs having expressed concerns about the bill, which will make it harder for disabled people to claim personal independence payments (Pips), Nandy said the government was not expecting many other Labour MPs to defy the whip.Asked on Friday whether she was detecting signs of a major rebellion, Nandy told BBC Breakfast: “I’m not.It would be wrong to say that, when you bring forward big reforms there aren’t concerns and there aren’t dissenting voices, of course there are.
But Vicky is the only frontbencher that I’ve had a conversation with about resigning.”Asked how many backbench Labour MPs had approached her with worries about the plans, she said: “A handful have expressed concerns about the detail, and I’m really confident that we’ve listened and we’ve put forward a package that is absolutely right.”Foxcroft said on Thursday night she was unable to do her job as a whip because she disagreed with the changes and did not believe that cuts were part of the solution to rising inactivity.The changes, which are at the centre of a £4.8bn welfare reduction programme, will mean even people who are unable to wash half their body or cook a meal will be denied the payments if they have no other impairments.
In a letter to the prime minister, Foxcroft said the benefits system was “in desperate need of reform” but that her pre-election experience as shadow disability minister had shown her the struggles of disabled people were “even tougher than I had imagined”,Nandy said the measures were about helping people back to work rather than making immediate savings to the welfare bill, even though the benefit is paid regardless of employment status,Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionShe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Lots of people want to work and just can’t at the moment, because we’re not helping them to do so,I think we’ve struck the right balance between that and protecting people who will never be able to work,”Ministers have previously said the Pip cuts are being made to make the system more financially sustainable.
Garmin Forerunner 970 review: the new benchmark for running watches
Garmin’s new top running watch, the Forerunner 970, has very big shoes to fill as it attempts to replace one of the best training and race companions available. Can a built-in torch, a software revamp and voice control really make a difference?The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The new top-of-the-line Forerunner takes the body of the outgoing Forerunner 965 and squeezes in a much brighter display, useful new running analytics and more of the advanced tech from Garmin’s flagship adventure watch the Fenix 8
Israel-linked group hacks Iranian cryptocurrency exchange in $90m heist
An Israel-linked hacking group has claimed responsibility for a $90m (£67m) heist on an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange.The group known as Gonjeshke Darande, Farsi for Predatory Sparrow, said on Wednesday it had hacked the Nobitex exchange, a day after claiming it had destroyed data at Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah.Elliptic, a consultancy specialising in crypto-related crime, said it had so far identified more than $90m in cryptocurrency sent from Nobitex crypto wallets to hacker addresses.The hackers appear to have in effect “burned” those funds, rendering them inaccessible by storing them in “vanity addresses” for which they do not have the cryptographic keys, Elliptic said.Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s co-founder, told the Guardian it would take current computer technology “billions of years” to create the cryptographic key pairs that match the vanity addresses
OpenAI boss accuses Meta of trying to poach staff with $100m sign-on bonuses
The boss of OpenAI has claimed that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has tried to poach his top artificial intelligence experts with “crazy” signing bonuses of $100m (£74m), as the scramble for talent in the booming sector intensifies.Sam Altman spoke about the offers in a podcast on Tuesday. They have not been confirmed by Meta. OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, said it had nothing to add beyond its chief executive’s comments.“They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team – $100m signing bonuses, more than that comp [compensation] per year,” Altman told the Uncapped podcast, which is presented by his brother, Jack
‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number
The Meta chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, called it “the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use”. But Barry Smethurst, 41, a record shop worker trying to travel by rail from Saddleworth to Manchester Piccadilly, did not agree.Waiting on the platform for a morning train that was nowhere to be seen, he asked Meta’s WhatsApp AI assistant for a contact number for TransPennine Express. The chatbot confidently sent him a mobile phone number for customer services, but it turned out to be the private number of a completely unconnected WhatsApp user 170 miles away in Oxfordshire.It was the beginning of a bizarre exchange of the kind more and more people are having with AI systems, in which chatbots try to negotiate their way out of trouble, deflect attention from their mistakes and contradict themselves, all in an attempt to continue to appear useful
Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years
The boss of Amazon has told white collar staff at the e-commerce company their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence in the next few years.Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that carry out tasks autonomously – and generative AI systems such as chatbots would require fewer employees in certain areas.“As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” he said in a memo to staff. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce
Up to 70% of streams of AI-generated music on Deezer are fraudulent, says report
Up to seven out of 10 streams of artificial intelligence-generated music on the Deezer platform are fraudulent, according to the French streaming platform.The company said AI-made music accounts for just 0.5% of streams on the music streaming platform but its analysis shows that fraudsters are behind up to 70% of those streams.AI-generated music is a growing problem on streaming platforms. Fraudsters typically generate revenue on platforms such as Deezer by using bots to “listen” to AI-generated songs – and take the subsequent royalty payments, which become sizeable once spread across multiple tracks
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Whip’s resignation over disability benefit cuts not a sign of major rebellion, Nandy says
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