Don’t blindly trust everything AI tools say, warns Alphabet boss
The head of Google’s parent company has said people should not “blindly trust” everything artificial intelligence tools tell them.In an interview with the BBC, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Alphabet, said AI models were “prone to errors” and urged people to use them alongside other tools.In the same interview, Pichai warned that no company would be immune if the AI bubble burst.Since May, Google has introduced an “AI Mode” into its search using its Gemini chatbot, which aims to give users the experience of talking to an expert.Google’s consumer AI model, Gemini 3.
0, is expected to launch imminently but the company has yet to name a date,Pichai said that while AI tools were helpful “if you want to creatively write something”, people “have to learn to use these tools for what they’re good at, and not blindly trust everything they say”,He told the BBC: “We take pride in the amount of work we put in to give us as accurate information as possible, but the current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors,”There are concerns in Silicon Valley and beyond of a bubble as the value of AI tech companies has increased recently and companies are spending large amounts on the booming industry,Asked whether Google would be immune to the impact of an AI bubble bursting, Pichai said: “I think no company is going to be immune, including us.
”He added: “We can look back at the internet right now.There was clearly a lot of excess investment, but none of us would question whether the internet was profound.I expect AI to be the same.So I think it’s both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.”Sign up to TechScapeA weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our livesafter newsletter promotionLast month, the head of America’s largest bank said the chance of the US stock market crashing was far greater than many financiers believed.
Jamie Dimon, the chair and chief executive of the Wall Street bank JPMorgan Chase, said he was “far more worried than others” about a serious market correction, which he predicted could come in the next six months to two years.Dimon said there were a “lot of things out there” creating an atmosphere of uncertainty, pointing to risks including the geopolitical environment, fiscal spending and the remilitarisation of the world.
‘It’s cruel’: relatives of residents react to proposal to close Lancashire care homes
Elderly residents of care home left anxious after Reform-led county council started consultation over plans for its closureFor Marjorie Aspden, 95, Woodlands care home in Clayton-le-Moors in Accrington was the perfect place to spend her twilight years. When she looked out from the window of her room, she saw the woods that she played in as a young girl and felt a sense of contentment.Now she and hundreds of other elderly residents are facing uncertainty after the Reform-led Lancashire county council announced it would consult on plans to close care homes in the area.Last month it began a consultation on moving residents out of five local authority care homes and day centres into other premises. The consultation closes in mid-December and the cabinet will make a final decision on the closures in February
Why is social mobility such an obsession? | Letters
In recent discussions about changes in both the curriculum and forms of examination in English secondary education, one ambition has often been named: that of increasing social mobility.Quite why this aim remains unexamined is unfortunate. Nobody would wish any child to be refused access and support for any number of occupations. But we surely have to ask, as successive governments have not, why a focus on this aspiration obscures the much more socially radical and equitable aim of making all occupations viable, rewarded and respected.Surely there is already sufficient cut-throat competition within the English class system without enshrining ideas which focus on diminishing the value of jobs and occupations to be “escaped” from
‘Better and cheaper’: the case for prostate cancer screening among black men
Junior Hemans was having a routine health check in 2014 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, at the age of 51. He knew there was an increased risk of the disease in black men so asked to have a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which was not initially included.“And when I went, they said I had a raised PSA level for my age,” Hemans said. “[The diagnosis] was a shock … because I had no symptoms.”The PSA test, which is used to check for conditions including prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate, is not routinely offered on the NHS at present
Stephen Dawson obituary
My friend Stephen Dawson, who has died of cancer aged 78, had the questionable luck of being a newly minted urologist when Aids first struck in London in the early 1980s.The son of Philip, a nuclear physicist at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, and May, a housewife, Steve was born in London, went to King Alfred’s school, Wantage, and studied medicine at University College Hospital before qualifying as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in the late 70s. The decade that followed was both clinically fascinating and emotionally challenging.Working in genitourinary clinics around London, Steve helped chart the rise of HIV-opportunistic diseases while being able to do little to treat them. It was typical of him that, in 1988, he left Aids medicine in London for the professionally less glamorous Slough, to work as the first consultant in genitourinary medicine in east Berkshire
Two-thirds of nurses in UK work while unwell, says union
Nurses across the UK are working while unwell in understaffed hospitals, with stress as the leading cause of illness, according to research.A survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) of more than 20,000 nursing staff found that 66% had worked when they should have been on sick leave, up from 49% in 2017.Just under two-thirds (65%) of respondents cited stress to be the biggest cause of illness, up from 50% in 2017. Seven out of 10 said they had worked in excess of their contracted hours at least once a week, with about half (52%) doing so unpaid.The NHS has more than 25,000 nursing vacancies across England
‘I’d run down the road thinking I was God’: a day at the cannabis psychosis clinic
Katie hears voices and has been sectioned 50 times. Isiah became paranoid and tried to kill himself. Both link their illness to cannabis – and the drug is getting more and more potent. Is a tiny London clinic showing the way forward?It’s two years since Isiah found himself on the roof of a south London shopping centre, about to jump. “I was very done,” he says of that night in November 2023
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
How Google’s DeepMind tool is ‘more quickly’ forecasting hurricane behavior
Father of teen whose death was linked to social media has ‘lost faith’ in Ofcom
Personal details of Tate galleries job applicants leaked online
AI firm claims it stopped Chinese state-sponsored cyber-attack campaign