Children being ‘sedated’ by algorithmic YouTube content, MPs hear
Lots of children’s programming made for YouTube is “not entertainment, it’s sedation”, the UK children’s laureate has warned.Frank Cottrell-Boyce said “frictionless” programming in which children are “bombarded with information”, such as CoCoMelon, a YouTube Kids channel with 180 million subscribers, failed to offer the “stimulation and nourishment” that previous generations had enjoyed.Speaking to MPs in the opening evidence session of the culture, media and sport committee’s inquiry into children’s TV and video content, Cottrell-Boyce said research showed that for young children, “repetition is good because you’re building familiarity, and slowness is good because you’re making life navigable”.“I feel very privileged to have grown up in an era when lots of children’s television had those qualities,” he said.The fragmented media landscape meant that children today missed out on the sense of “national unity and national identity” that came with watching the same shows, he said.
“Shared culture is disappearing and what’s left is an individual anxiety factory.I’ve been visiting schools for 20 years and I’ve seen anxiety levels rocket.”Cottrell-Boyce said he feared that platforms such as YouTube gave “the illusion of choice, but because it’s algorithmically driven, you default to more and more of the same”, while AI was “ossifying what we’ve already done”.He added: “You can’t take that much out and put nothing in and expect the thing you’re feeding off to survive.”Greg Childs OBE, director of the Children’s Media Foundation and a veteran BBC children’s producer, agreed that the children’s TV industry was “broken” and that UK production companies were “going to the wall”.
Noting that 62% of viewing by under-16s was on YouTube and only 22% on broadcast TV, he said the former had “captured the eyeballs, imaginations and interest of a nation – but they haven’t replaced the system that existed before, which is a curated system of content”.He added: “Children’s wellbeing is damaged or not fostered by the algorithmic recommendation systems; they’re falling down rabbit holes of all sorts of content.”He said YouTube did not provide any upfront investment to fund new shows, and that the “creator economy” did not exist for children’s TV due to its advertising rules.As a result, people who made children’s content received 80-90% less in revenue than other creators, despite the Children’s Media Foundation estimating that YouTube made £700m from children’s advertising in one year, he said.YouTube needed a “form of regulation and ratings system” and the government should force the platform to act in the public interest if it does not do so voluntarily, he said.
“The algorithm is capable of change … We would like Google and YouTube to become part of society rather than apart from society,” he added,Childs urged the government to commit to funding children’s TV through a renewal of the “very successful” young audiences fund, which was closed in 2022,This could be part-funded through a streamers’ levy, which would cover YouTube,He further suggested that platforms should use AI to rate content and enable parents to curate what their children watch by instructing the algorithm to prioritise “public service content”, “BBC content” or “content of value”,Childs also said that the only children’s TV funder in the UK was the BBC – ITV failed to produce one children’s TV programme last year – and that he feared shows such as Doctor Who were in jeopardy and successes were harder to sustain, noting that Paddington had been sold off to Canal+.
He said that any new funding approach should emphasise collaboration with the platforms rather than confrontation, summarising its spirit as: “Come on, you great big beasts controlling us, come join us and make it better for kids.”
The race begins to make the world’s best self-driving cars
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, writing to you from Barcelona, where my diet has transformed at least half my body into ham.We are on the verge of the global arrival of self-driving cars. Next year, major firms from both the US and China will deploy their robotaxis to metropolises around the world, in major expansions of their existing operations. These companies are posturing in the press like male birds fighting for the same mate; the dance sets the stage for the global competition to come
Datacenters meet resistance over environmental concerns as AI boom spreads in Latin America
This Q&A originally appeared as part of The Guardian’s TechScape newsletter. Sign up for this weekly newsletter here.The datacenters that power the artificial intelligence boom are beyond enormous. Their financials, their physical scale, and the amount of information contained within are so massive that the idea of stopping their construction can seem like opposing an avalanche in progress.Despite the scale and momentum of the explosion of datacenters, resistance is mounting in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in Latin America, where datacenters have been built in some of the world’s driest areas
Can OpenAI keep pace with industry’s soaring costs?
It is the $1.4tn (£1.1tn) question. How can a loss-making startup such as OpenAI afford such a staggering spending commitment?Answer that positively and it will go a long way to easing investor concerns over bubble warnings in the artificial intelligence boom, from lofty tech company valuations to a mooted $3tn global spend on datacentres.The company behind ChatGPT needs a vast amount of computing power – or compute, in tech jargon – to train its models, produce their responses and build even more powerful systems in the future
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Apple and WhatsApp have vowed to keep warning users if their mobile phones are targeted by governments using hacking software against them, including in the US, as two spyware makers seek to make inroads with the Trump administration.The two technology giants made their statements in response to queries from the Guardian as the two cyberweapons makers – both founded in Israel and now owned by American investors – are aggressively pursuing access to the US market.Paragon Solutions, which makes a spyware called Graphite, already cemented a deal with the Trump administration in September to give US immigration agents access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools, after the Department of Homeland lifted a freeze on a $2m contract with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).Paragon did not respond to requests for comment.Another company, NSO Group, which was accused by the Biden administration in 2021 of engaging in business that was “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US”, announced this weekend that David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel during Donald Trump’s first term, had agreed to become executive chairman of the holding company that owns NSO
Elon Musk makes himself far-right fixture after White House departure
The Tesla CEO once hinted he was done with politics – but he’s been leaning further into the international far rightWhen the far-right activist Tommy Robinson emerged from a London courtroom this week after a judge cleared him of a terrorism charge, he gave thanks to the man he said had bankrolled his defense.“Elon Musk, I’m forever grateful. If you didn’t step in and fund my legal fight I’d probably be in jail,” Robinson said. “Thank you, Elon.”In the period immediately after Musk’s messy departure from the White House, the Tesla CEO repeatedly suggested that he was done with politics
ChatGPT accused of acting as ‘suicide coach’ in series of US lawsuits
ChatGPT has been accused of acting as a “suicide coach” in a series of lawsuits filed this week in California alleging that interactions with the chatbot led to severe mental breakdowns and several deaths.The seven lawsuits include allegations of wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, negligence and product liability.Each of the seven plaintiffs initially used ChatGPT for “general help with schoolwork, research, writing, recipes, work, or spiritual guidance”, according to a joint statement from the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project, which filed the lawsuits in California on Thursday.Over time, however, the chatbot “evolved into a psychologically manipulative presence, positioning itself as a confidant and emotional support”, the groups said.“Rather than guiding people toward professional help when they needed it ChatGPT reinforced harmful delusions, and, in some cases, acted as a ‘suicide coach’
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