‘Kitty karma’? Jessie Buckley tries to claw back approval after enraging cat-lovers
If Jessie Buckley fails to win the Oscar for best actress next week it will be a sign that cat lovers have got their claws out.The Irish actor is the runaway favourite for her performance in Hamnet, but in recent days has stumbled into a controversy over a stated antipathy to cats.She has said she once gave her husband an ultimatum to banish his two cats because they would defecate on pillows, telling a podcast: “I was like, ‘it’s me or the cats.’”Cat-lovers have responded with indignation and condemnation, sparking a wave of headlines and warnings that “kitty karma” could deny Buckley, 36, her first Academy award.She attempted to repair the damage on Jimmy Fallon’s chatshow on Thursday, saying it was a “misconception” that she loathed cats.
“I am a lover of cats.I woke up this morning [thinking]: does the world think that I really don’t love cats? And it’s really weighed on me all day.I felt sick.”Buckley said she had auditioned in vain for the 2019 musical Cats.“I gave the worst audition of my life.
It was so hot.I was sweating.I was like, licking my paws, like trying to leap.I was just like a hoof of an Irish woman leaping across and licking her paws.”Earlier this week, the Grammy-winning rapper Doechii also drew an online backlash after declaring cats to be unfriendly and unlikeable.
Buckley’s performance as Agnes Shakespeare in Hamnet has secured multiple awards, including the Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe, Bafta and the Actor awards, and she is favoured to win an Oscar at Los Angeles on 15 March.However, in the past week the clip from the Happy Sad Confused podcast, recorded last November with her co-star Paul Mescal, resurfaced.Asked if they preferred cats or dogs, both opted for the latter.“Fuck cats, honestly.Fuck them,” said Mescal.
Buckley said that when she was dating her now-husband, one of his two cats was a “pedigree model bitch” who staged a “coup” against her.“I’d come home and there’d just be, like, poo on the pillow.”Buckley prevailed over the pets, she said: “I won.”The exchange went viral, with pet-lovers accusing the actor of being mean and controlling, and failing to understand the lovability of cats.Ireland is rooting for the Kerry actor to win the Oscar but some have warned of “kitty karma”.
Ed Power, a cat-loving columnist in the Irish Times, said he had not seen Hamnet.“But if I had, I’d want to build a time machine and go back and give it a skip.”
Trump says he fired Anthropic ‘like dogs’ as Pentagon formally blacklists AI startup
Donald Trump boasted about severing ties between the US military and Anthropic on Thursday, the same day multiple reports said that negotiations between the Department of Defense and the AI startup had resumed.They’re among the latest developments in the twisting rift between the US government and the AI company.“Well, I fired Anthropic. Anthropic is in trouble because I fired [them] like dogs, because they shouldn’t have done that,” Trump told Politico on Thursday.Hours later, the Pentagon officially designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a move that prevents all government contractors from using the company’s technology
Retailers want ‘delightfully human’ AI to do your shopping, but will the chatbots go rogue?
Major retailers say it won’t be long before sophisticated AI “assistants” plan your meals, organise your parties and do your shopping.But companies, many that are already struggling with their more primitive AI chatbots, will have to balance making the newer, “agentic” bots relatable without them going rogue.AI chatbots were in the news recently when Woolworths reined in its virtual shopping assistant, Olive, after the company’s attempt to have the robot relate to customers on a human level backfired.Customers reported feeling annoyed rather than soothed when Olive told them about its “relatives” over the phone.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailAs one complained on Reddit: “I’m already pissed that I have to call and now I’ve got some robot babbling to me on the phone? Wtf Woolies?”While Woolworths has said it will dial down Olive’s quirky personality, the incident – and further testing by Guardian Australia of a range of retailers’ chatbots – shows the technology still has teething problems
Google Pixel 10a review: cheaper Android is great, but no real advance
The latest smartphone in the lower-cost A-series Pixel line shows what makes Google phones so good, while undercutting the competition on price. The problem is that it differs little from its predecessor, which is still on sale.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more
Sam Altman admits OpenAI can’t control Pentagon’s use of AI
OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, told employees on Tuesday that his company does not control how the Pentagon uses their artificial intelligence products in military operations. Altman’s claims on OpenAI’s lack of input come amid increased scrutiny of how the military uses AI in war and ethics concerns from AI workers over how their technology will be deployed. “You do not get to make operational decisions,” Altman told employees, according to reports by Bloomberg and CNBC.“So maybe you think the Iran strike was good and the Venezuela invasion was bad. You don’t get to weigh in on that,” Altman reportedly said
Elon Musk takes witness stand in trial over Twitter takeover
Elon Musk took the stand on Wednesday in a trial brought by Twitter investors, who allege the billionaire committed securities fraud as he was buying the social media company in 2022. The class-action lawsuit alleges Musk agreed to buy Twitter but then waffled for months, attacking the company with the goal of bringing down the stock price to get a better bargain.After contentious legal wrangling, Musk did eventually buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, his original offer, totalling around $44bn. Musk testified on Wednesday that he didn’t realize his attacks on the company, mostly done via tweet on Twitter itself, would lower the company’s stock price or hurt its investors
Joy of teaching English in the age of AI | Letter
Your long read (Teacher v chatbot: my journey into the classroom in the age of AI, 3 March) provides human insight into both the craft and purpose of English teaching in the era of developing AI expertise in language. There is no doubt that if the article were fed into AI models often enough, the teacher’s words and techniques could, at some level, be replicated by AI online teachers.However, reading and writing, especially that which explores the writer’s thoughts and feelings, are surely uniquely human activities.As the writer comes to recognise, exploring human experiences through the written word is a highly valuable communal experience. Reading literature aloud in the classroom is the gateway to discussing personal responses to the author’s words
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