Crypto market sheds more than $1tn in six weeks amid fears of tech bubble

More than $1tn (£760bn) has been wiped off the value of the cryptocurrency market in the past six weeks amid fears of a tech bubble and fading expectations for a US rate cut next month.Tracking more than 18,500 coins, the value of the crypto market has fallen by a quarter since a high in early October, according to the data company CoinGecko.Bitcoin has fallen by 27% over the same period to $91,212, its lowest level since April.Investors around the world are on edge as fears mount over an artificial intelligence bubble in the stock market, with even the boss of Google’s parent company warning that “no company” will be immune if the bubble bursts.The UK’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell 1

‘Fear really drives him’: is Alex Karp of Palantir the world’s scariest CEO?

His company is potentially creating the ultimate state surveillance tool, and Karp has recently been on a striking political and philosophical journey. His biographer reveals what makes him tickIn a recent interview, Alex Karp said that his company Palantir was “the most important software company in America and therefore in the world”. He may well be right. To some, Palantir is also the scariest company in the world, what with its involvement in the Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda. The potential end point of Palantir’s tech is an all-powerful government system amalgamating citizens’ tax records, biometric data and other personal information – the ultimate state surveillance tool

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

UK consumers warned over AI chatbots giving inaccurate financial advice

Artificial intelligence chatbots are giving inaccurate money tips, offering British consumers misleading tax advice and suggesting they buy unnecessary travel insurance, research has revealed.Tests on the most popular chatbots found Microsoft’s Copilot and ChatGPT advised breaking HMRC investment limits on Isas; ChatGPT wrongly said it was mandatory to have travel insurance to visit most EU countries; and Meta’s AI gave incorrect information about how to claim compensation for delayed flights.Google’s Gemini advised withholding money from a builder if a job went wrong, a move that the consumer organisation Which? said risked exposing the consumer to a claim of breach of contract.Which? said its research, conducted by putting 40 questions to the rival AI tools, “uncovered far too many inaccuracies and misleading statements for comfort, especially when leaning on AI for important issues like financial or legal queries”.Meta’s AI received the worst score, followed by ChatGPT; Copilot and Gemini scored slightly higher

Jeff Bezos reportedly launches new AI startup with himself as CEO

After stepping down as Amazon’s CEO four years ago, Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder and former chief executive of the online shopping company, is going to be a CEO again. This time, Bezos has appointed himself co-CEO of an AI startup called Project Prometheus, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources.The startup, which will focus on developing AI for engineering and manufacturing in various fields, has already received $6.2bn in funding – more than many companies are able to raise in their lifetimes. Leading the company alongside Bezos is his co-founder and co-CEO Vik Bajaj, a celebrity tech executive in his own right

White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia

Entries in Elon Musk’s new online encyclopedia variously promote white nationalist talking points, praise neo-Nazis and other far-right figures, promote racist ideologies and white supremacist regimes, and attempt to revive concepts and approaches historically associated with scientific racism, a Guardian analysis has found.The tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally recently launched xAI’s AI-generated Grokipedia with a promise that it would “purge out the propaganda” he claims infests Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that Musk has often attacked but that has long been a key feature of the internet.Grokipedia, now with more than 800,000 entries, is generated and, according to a note on each entry, “factchecked” by Grok, xAI’s large language AI model.The Guardian contacted xAI for comment. Seconds after the request was sent, there was an apparently automated reply that said only: “Legacy Media Lies

AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief

Artificial intelligence companies must be transparent about the risks posed by their products or be in danger of repeating the mistakes of tobacco and opioid firms, according to the chief executive of the AI startup Anthropic.Dario Amodei, who runs the US company behind the Claude chatbot, said he believed AI would become smarter than “most or all humans in most or all ways” and urged his peers to “call it as you see it”.Speaking to CBS News, Amodei said a lack of transparency about the impact of powerful AI would replay the errors of cigarette and opioid firms that failed to raise a red flag over the potential health damage of their own products.“You could end up in the world of, like, the cigarette companies, or the opioid companies, where they knew there were dangers, and they didn’t talk about them, and certainly did not prevent them,” he said.Amodei warned this year that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs – office roles such as accountancy, law and banking – within five years

How Google’s DeepMind tool is ‘more quickly’ forecasting hurricane behavior

When then Tropical Storm Melissa was churning south of Haiti, Philippe Papin, a National Hurricane Center (NHC) meteorologist, had confidence it was about to grow into a monster hurricane.As the lead forecaster on duty, he predicted that in just 24 hours the storm would become a category 4 hurricane and begin a turn towards the coast of Jamaica. No NHC forecaster had ever issued such a bold forecast for rapid strengthening.But Papin had an ace up his sleeve: artificial intelligence in the form of Google’s new DeepMind hurricane model – released for the first time in June. And, as predicted, Melissa did become a storm of astonishing strength that tore through Jamaica

Father of teen whose death was linked to social media has ‘lost faith’ in Ofcom

The father of Molly Russell, a British teenager who killed herself after viewing harmful online content, has called for a change in leadership at the UK’s communications watchdog after losing faith in its ability to make the internet safer for children.Ian Russell, whose 14 year-old daughter took her own life in 2017, said Ofcom had “repeatedly” demonstrated that it does not grasp the urgency of keeping under-18s safe online and was failing to implement new digital laws forcefully.“I’ve lost confidence in the current leadership at Ofcom,” he told the Guardian. “They have repeatedly demonstrated that they don’t grasp the urgency of this task and they have shown that they don’t seem to be willing to use their powers to the extent that is required.”Russell’s comments came in the same week the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, wrote to Ofcom saying she was “deeply concerned” about delays in rolling out parts of the Online Safety Act (OSA), a landmark piece of legislation laying down safety rules for social media, search and video platforms