Gout Gout says he is ‘ready to rumble’ ahead of World Athletics Championships debut
Australian teenage sprint phenomenon Gout Gout has declared his legs are “ready to rumble” ahead of his major international debut on Wednesday at the World Athletics Championships.The 17-year-old participated in a panel session with international press on Monday, his only pre-meet media opportunity, as he prepares to contest the 200m in Tokyo.Gout was asked what his legs would tell him if they could talk.“They’ll be ready to go, like in F1 when the cars are warming up the tyres,” he said, making a swerving gesture with his hands.“They’ll be just … ready to rumble, that’s what they’d say.
”The confident teenager admitted he does have some nerves ahead of his major international debut.“[I have] a few butterflies [in my stomach], but I’ve done the work to be here, so it’s just going out there and executing the race plan,” he said.“It’s going out there, having a little bit of fun and just focusing the best I can and just going out there and enjoying my first experience.”He said he has been starstruck at times when he comes across the world’s top athletic talent around him in Tokyo.“I’m seeing these athletes I’ve seen on TV my whole life.
I’m like, this is crazy,” he said.“But when I think about it, I kind of deserve this place and I have run the times, so I was meant to be here for sure.”He explained his main goal was to improve on his personal best time of 20.02sec.“Hopefully if I can make it to the semis, that’s even greater, and then if I make it into the final that’s a big success,” he said.
The year 12 student said he was considering studying psychology at university, perhaps after a gap year, and was most interested in its application to sport.He revealed he has been working on his mindset to ensure he performs to his ability in Tokyo.Sign up to Australia SportGet a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports deskafter newsletter promotion“Just telling myself that I deserve to be here, I’m in the same boat as everyone else,” he said.“Not trying to put too much pressure on myself, but putting enough pressure where I can go out there and just run very fast and just really have fun with it.”The Australian said he has appreciated learning from Noah Lyles, the American sprinter who shares the same sponsor.
“The advice Noah gave me is ‘learn how to say no’ because obviously you can’t say yes all the time, so learning how to say no,” he said.“It might make you feel uncomfortable, [but] you don’t have to explain yourself as well, because being an athlete you’re going through different stages in life, and you’ve got to say no because you’ve got to have your own personal time.”
UK workers wary of AI despite Starmer’s push to increase uptake, survey finds
It is the work shortcut that dare not speak its name. A third of people do not tell their bosses about their use of AI tools amid fears their ability will be questioned if they do.Research for the Guardian has revealed that only 13% of UK adults openly discuss their use of AI with senior staff at work and close to half think of it as a tool to help people who are not very good at their jobs to get by.Amid widespread predictions that many workers face a fight for their jobs with AI, polling by Ipsos found that among more than 1,500 British workers aged 16 to 75, 33% said they did not discuss their use of AI to help them at work with bosses or other more senior colleagues. They were less coy with people at the same level, but a quarter of people believe “co-workers will question my ability to perform my role if I share how I use AI”
AI content needs to be labelled to protect us | Letters
Marcus Beard’s article on artificial intelligence slopaganda (No, that wasn’t Angela Rayner dancing and rapping: you’ll need to understand AI slopaganda, 9 September) highlights a growing problem – what happens when we no longer know what is true? What will the erosion of trust do to our society?The rise of deepfakes is increasing at an ever faster rate due to the ease at which anyone can create realistic images, audio and even video. Generative AI models have now become so sophisticated that a recent survey showed that less than 1% of respondents could correctly identify the best deepfake images and videos.This content is being used to manipulate, defraud, abuse and mislead people. Fraud using AI cost the US $12.3bn in 2023 and Deloitte predicts that could reach $40bn by 2027
ChatGPT may start alerting authorities about youngsters considering suicide, says CEO
The company behind ChatGPT could start calling the authorities when young users talk seriously about suicide, its co-founder has said.Sam Altman raised fears that as many as 1,500 people a week could be discussing taking their own lives with the chatbot before doing so.The chief executive of San Francisco-based OpenAI, which operates the chatbot with an estimated 700 million global users, said the decision to train the system so the authorities were alerted in such emergencies was not yet final. But he said it was “very reasonable for us to say in cases of, young people talking about suicide, seriously, where we cannot get in touch with the parents, we do call authorities”.Altman highlighted the possible change in an interview with the podcaster Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, which came after OpenAI and Altman were sued by the family of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old from California who killed himself after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”
Larry Ellison briefly overtakes Elon Musk as world’s richest person
US tech billionaire Larry Ellison is neck-and-neck with Elon Musk in the contest to be the world’s richest person after briefly overtaking the Tesla chief executive on WednesdayEllison’s wealth surged after Oracle, the business software company in which he owns a stake of 41%, reported better than expected financial results.Oracle shares rose by more than 40% in early trading, at one point valuing the business software company at approximately $960bn (£707bn) and Ellison’s stake at $393bn, just ahead of Musk’s fortune of $384bn, according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index. However, Ellison’s lead was short-lived as the stock closed at $328, a rise of 36% valuing Ellison’s shareholding at $378bn and putting Musk back ahead.The pair sit comfortably ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.Ellison, 81, also has other sources of wealth, including a stake in electric carmaker Tesla, where Musk is chief executive, a sailing team, the Indian Wells Open tennis tournament, and an island in Hawaii, according to Bloomberg
Snapchat allows drug dealers to operate openly on platform, finds Danish study
Snapchat has been accused by a Danish research organisation of leaving an “overwhelming number” of drug dealers to openly operate on Snapchat, making it easy for children to buy substances including cocaine, opioids and MDMA.The social media platform has said it proactively uses technology to filter out profiles selling drugs. However, research by Digitalt Ansvar (Digital Accountability), a Danish research organisation that promotes responsible digital development, has found evidence of a failure to moderate drug-related language in usernames. It also accused Snapchat of failing to respond adequately to reports of profiles openly selling drugs.Researchers used profiles of 13-year-olds and found a multitude of people selling drugs on Snapchat under usernames featuring keywords such as “coke”, “weed” and “molly”
Skip Apple’s new iPhone – five tips to make your old phone feel new again
On Tuesday, Apple announced the iPhone 17 series with the usual spate of new features, including a thinner design, improved displays and a camera with 4x optical zoom. If you’ve been getting frustrated with your old phone, or just tired of it, the lithe new model may look exactly like the device you need to launch your budding photographic career, reconnect with long-lost friends and maybe even save your life in an emergency.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more
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UK politics: Scale of ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march shows free speech ‘alive and well’ in UK, says minister – as it happened