Rory McIlroy says he ‘didn’t really care’ about making US Open cut at Oakmont
Rory McIlroy admitted he was in two minds over whether he wanted to make the US Open cut, in the latest nod to the Northern Irishman’s psychological struggles since winning the Masters in April.McIlroy made birdie on two of his last four holes on Friday evening to survive for the closing 36 holes at Oakmont.Until that point, he was heading for an early exit.McIlroy returned to the course to post 74 on Saturday, leaving him 10 over for the week, before addressing the media for the first time since Tuesday.McIlroy’s body language suggested he would rather be elsewhere.
“It’s much easier being on the cut line when you don’t really care if you’re here for the weekend or not,” said McIlroy in only half-joking tone.“I was sort of thinking, do I really want two more days here or not? So it makes it easier to play better when you’re in that mindset.Sign up to The RecapThe best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s actionafter newsletter promotion“I alluded to it in my pre-tournament press conference, you don’t really know how it [winning the Masters] is going to affect you.You don’t know how you’re going to react to such a, I wouldn’t say a life-altering occasion, but at least something that I’ve dreamed about for a long time.I have felt a little flat on the golf course afterwards.
”McIlroy called his overall US Open performance “pretty average” before being similarly blunt on his aspirations for day four.“Hopefully a round in under four and a half hours and get out of here,” he said.McIlroy’s relationship with sections of the media has felt frosty since last month’s US PGA Championship.There, news broke that his driver had failed a standard test for a non-conforming face.No other player was named in the initial report, despite the fact that the eventual champion, Scottie Scheffler, encountered the same problem.
McIlroy had avoided post-round press conferences for six major days in a row before Saturday.At Oakmont he referenced “frustration” with the press.“That was a part of it,” said McIlroy, on whether driver-gate had prompted him to step back from media duties.“At Augusta I skipped you guys on Thursday, so it’s not out of the ordinary.I’ve done it before, I’m just doing it a little more often.
I feel like I’ve earned the right to do whatever I want to do.”
AI could lead to more job cuts at BT, says chief executive
The chief executive of BT has said that advances in artificial intelligence could presage deeper jobs cuts at the FTSE 100 telecoms company, which has already outlined plans to shed up to 55,000 workers.Two years ago, the company said that between 40,000 and 55,000 jobs would be axed as it set out to become a “leaner” business by the end of the decade.However, in a weekend interview, its chief executive, Allison Kirkby, said the plan, which includes stripping out £3bn of costs, “did not reflect the full potential of AI”.“Depending on what we learn from AI … there may be an opportunity for BT to be even smaller by the end of the decade,” Kirkby said in an interview with the Financial Times.BT, which is the biggest broadband provider in the country, laid out plans in 2023 to cut the size of its workforce, including contractors, by 2030
Policymakers who think AI can help rescue flagging UK economy should take heed | Heather Stewart
From helping consultants diagnose cancer, to aiding teachers in drawing up lesson plans – and flooding social media with derivative slop – generative artificial intelligence is being adopted across the economy at breakneck speed.Yet a growing number of voices are starting to ask how much of an asset the technology can be to the UK’s sluggish economy. Not least because there is no escaping a persistent flaw: large language models (LLMs) remain prone to casually making things up.It’s a phenomenon known as “hallucination”. In a recent blogpost, the barrister Tahir Khan cited three cases in which lawyers had used large language models to formulate legal filings or arguments – only to find they slipped in fictitious supreme court cases, and made up regulations, or nonexistent laws
UK government rollout of Humphrey AI tool raises fears about reliance on big tech
The government’s artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as Humphrey is based on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, it can be revealed, raising questions about Whitehall’s increasing reliance on big tech.Ministers have staked the future of civil service reform on rolling out AI across the public sector to improve efficiency, with all officials in England and Wales to receive training in the toolkit.However, it is understood the government does not have overarching commercial agreements with the big tech companies on AI and uses a pay-as-you-go model through its existing cloud contracts, allowing it to swap through tools as they improve and become competitive.Critics are concerned about the speed and scale of embedding AI from big tech into the heart of government, especially when there is huge public debate about the technology’s use of copyrighted material.Ministers have been locked in a battle with critics in the House of Lords over whether AI is unfairly being trained on creative material without credit of compensation
Hey AI! Can ChatGPT help you to manage your money?
Artificial intelligence seems to have touched every part of our lives. But can it help us manage our money? We put some common personal finance questions to the free version of ChatGPT, one of the most well-known AI chatbots, and asked for its help.Then we gave the answers to some – human – experts and asked them what they thought.We asked: I am 35 years old and want to ensure I have a comfortable retirement. I earn about £35,000 a year and have a workplace pension, in which I have saved £20,000
Bailey Smith hits the right note at Geelong but he is no showstopper | Jonathan Horn
Bailey Smith could easily have coasted along against Essendon on the weekend. He could have racked up a few dozen disposals for Geelong and saved his hamstrings for the far more onerous challenge of Brisbane this Friday. But that’s not how he’s wired. Everything is at full throttle. There is not a lot of craft or guile to how he plays
Tatjana Maria shocks Amanda Anisimova to win Queen’s Club women’s singles final – as it happened
Righto, that is us. Check back here and on sight for Tumaini Carayol’s match report which’ll be live shortly, but otherwise, thanks for your company – peace out.Maria tells BBC that her daughter liked the look of the trophy so she said “Let’s try to win it”.“Everything is possible if you believe in it,”she says, and that she’s trying to show that to the kids, who she knows are proud of her anyway. She was meant to be going to Nottingham tonight, but these things don’t happen often so they need to celebrate; doubtless her kids will want to “eat some crap with Nutella”
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