New: Microsoft has introduced new limits to how much its engineers can spend on AI tools at work and told employees that maximizing AI use internally is not the company’s goal, according to an internal Microsoft email obtained by 440 Media. www.404media.co/microsoft-te...

Microsoft Tells Engineers ‘Tokenmaxxing Is Not What We Are Optimizing For’

Microsoft is introducing budget limits for AI use but says it still wants to be an ‘AI-first’ company.

404media.co

The most terrifying enshittification I've discovered has been learning that Microsoft Word documents no longer auto-save if you are not saving them to one of their own proprietary cloud services. I'm slapping control-S like it's 1999.

By me at this.weekinsecurity.com: A major online ads company that claims to serve 1.5 billion ads a day was hacked and began serving malware designed to steal a person's crypto. This is the latest perfect example why you should use an ad-blocker.

Online advertising giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are necessary

The hacked digital advertiser was caught serving malicious ads that allowed hackers to steal a victim's cryptocurrency.

this.weekinsecurity.com

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

If there's one thing I've learned from publishing this story is that there is a very, very, very wide chasm between what the law says about all this... and what people *think* the law says and/or *should* say.

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker.com · 2d ago

After Anthropic and OpenAI both admitted to their AI models hacking other companies, @lorenzofb.bsky.social and I wanted to find out: Who is legally to blame when an autonomous AI agent hacks something? Lawyers say it's really complicated! Bypass for ad-blockers: web.archive.org/web/20260803...

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds

The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.

theconversation.com

When we said men should get hobbies we didn't mean this btw... www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Vampire-obsessed man detained after dumping animal corpses outside churches in New Forest

Benjamin Lewis, who believed drinking blood would prolong life, will be kept in hospital for treatment

theguardian.com

Terrible morning to wake up to the news that the data centre plan was approved and will be built on the cultural and historial Truman Brewery in Bricklane in East London 😭😫 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Controversial Brick Lane data centre and office plans approved

The proposals include a data centre, offices and 44 homes of which six would be available for social rent.

bbc.co.uk

Parts of the GDPR are cited and interpreted by thousands of pieces of case law and guidance, but there's no easy and free way to find out what. We've made a tool which makes it super easy, for 13,000 citing documents, all in one place. More regulations to come! homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucqnmve/law...

keep thinking about the evil of this. It's not just destroying the physical books, bad as that is. They are trying to remove the underpinnings of knowledge, destroy all the accumulated wisdom - and silliness, and creativity, and whatever else humans have thought worthy of writing down.

Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele@drdragases.bsky.social · last wk.

No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.

It's not fair that we cannot create nudes of kids and women without their consent so we are going to sue you...

Lora Kolodny@lorak.bsky.social · last wk.

SpaceX-owned xAI, the developer of Grok, sued Minnesota AG to challenge a law coming into effect in the state that will ban "nudify" apps, use of these AI image generators to make non-consenting intimate images, aka AI deepfake porn of real people including minors. www.cnbc.com/2026/07/28/s...

We literally have a hosepipe ban across the country but data centers can continue wasting all the drinking water...

Dr. Elinor Carmi@elinorcarmi.bsky.social · last wk.

So good that they approved all those data centers then ha.... 🙄 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

So good that they approved all those data centers then ha.... 🙄 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Half of England officially in ‘exceptionally serious’ drought

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water

theguardian.com

I've confirmed that the UK's new Sovereign AI Fund does no due diligence on whether AI companies use copyrighted work without permission before investing in them. It took me 3 Freedom of Information requests to find this out: 🧵 1/10

Oh look it's the 4th heatwave in 2 months....

Crash Out Smile Crying

Alt: Crash Out Smile Crying

static.klipy.com

Another day, another tech ceo needs to share his prediction about the future with us which is actually a really bad PR for their products. It's written so badly but with the confidence of a tech ceo douche, as usual. But let me just share 2 ridiculous paragraphs -> www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

Opinion | The AI Future Is for Everyone

The history of democracy and economics has proved that centralized power stifles human potential.

wsj.com

"The share option within Claude tells a user that 'anyone with the link' may view the contents of that link, but does not explicitly state that the link may end up in Google and search results." Internet scholars have been saying for years that ToS are flawed -> www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Some people's chats with Claude AI found publicly available online

Hundreds of conversations with Anthropic’s chatbot were discovered as being publicly accessible.

bbc.co.uk

NEW: A glimpse at how AI image generators are used. Researchers set up a fake image editor on Hugging Face and within a week received 1,000 prompts. 73% of them were sexual and 83% of those were asking for people (women) to be “undressed”. Around 6% of the sexual requests also targeted minors

Hugging Face Has a Deepfake Nudes Problem

Researchers tested top image editing models on Hugging Face and found they could easily create explicit deepfakes—and 1,000 image editing prompts show how people use the software.

wired.com

ChatGPT requests are starting to turn up as evidence in criminal trials and these ones are going to be hard to beat

This is such an amazing op-ed about the Paramount-Warner Brothers merger, but I would expect the union, Equity, to run this as a campaign. This merger is dangerous on multiple fronts, it will also affect journalism so I hope we will see more campaigns again it. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A TV and cinema calamity could be disastrous for what you watch and what you know. Act now to stop that | Alan Cumming, Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedict Wong

The Paramount-Warner Bros merger is being fought on both sides of the Atlantic. Britain’s knows the risks and can intervene. She should, say actors led by Alan Cumming, Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedi...

theguardian.com

Watching the interview of Elon Musk with the Economist shows that no amount of coke or ketamin can make you sound smarter. And also, that there is a BIG difference b/w tweeting to your followers slogans and making a coherent argument. So pathetic to see this is the richest man in the world.

"OpenAI said records shared with ChatGPT will not be used to train its models or target ads". Always trust the company that has a pathological liar as its CEO. www.cbsnews.com/news/chatgpt...

ChatGPT now has a space for sharing medical records. Should you?

OpenAI announced a dedicated space in ChatGPT for sharing medical records, Health in ChatGPT. Health and AI experts lay out the pros and cons.

cbsnews.com

When your friends send you pictures from Comic-con San Diego...

Pedro Pascal Laughing and Crying

ALT: Pedro Pascal Laughing and Crying

static.klipy.com

A reminder that UC _faculty_ and Faculty Associations — not the universities themselves nor their administrators — are waging this battle in court, demonstrating great bravery and moral clarity.

White House admits it used keywords to kill billions worth of California research grants

Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COV...

apnews.com

maybe stop destroying UK universities, then...

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 2w ago

Good piece from @allymcgovern.bsky.social showing how R&D, innovation and universities as regional economic anchors have to be key to achieving the new Govt’s economic and social goals www.ft.com/content/7916...

Want access to expensive subscription archives of academic papers and other paywalled online material? People often ask me as an academic to share access with them, but there's a better way: active @wikipedia.org editors can get The Wikipedia Library for free! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

New: the highly controversial AI music generator Suno was hacked. The hacker sent us Suno source code; it shows the company scraped YouTube Music, Deezer, and Genius. In all, Suno scraped *decades* worth of music from the internet. Obviously didn't pay artists www.404media.co/hack-reveals...

🤩 Excited to share that on 23rd September I'll be keynoting the @hcid.city conference. This year's theme is ‘Rage Against the Machine!’, as they describe it "now we feel it’s time to take a more active role in instigating positive change". -> hcidconference.co.uk

What an incredible Social Media & Society #SMSociety 2026 conference! My highlights were: 1. Essi Holopainen talk about challenging the notion of 'passive' use of social media by young people and the many practices they do to support each other's mental health. ->

What are the odds that OpenAI, a company whose whole business model is to steal from everyone and who has journalists write articles/books on how Sam Altman is a serial liar, would then steal company secrets from the company it's in partnership with? Ask Apple 😉 techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/a...

Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft | TechCrunch

Apple alleges the misconduct was directed by OpenAI's senior leadership, including a longtime former employee.

techcrunch.com